Catholic moments in WALL-E. Contains spoilers – Don’t read if you haven’t seen the movie yet!
In his review on Catholic Exchange, Rod Bennett calls WALL-E a ‘Catholic Masterpiece’. I couldn’t agree more! Here are a number of Catholic moments in WALL-E that I could come up with; send me your thoughts, and I will add them to the article.
1. Genesis 1,27: “God created man in his image”
WALL-E is like a new Adam: for a while, he is the only rational being on the planet. Just as mankind is created in the image and likeness of God, with the ability to love, WALL-E is created in the likeness of man: he has the ability to love and is not complete without it.
2. Genesis 2,18: “The LORD God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.”
WALL-E is not complete. He tries to fill his life with all sorts of little things he collects, but ultimately, what he really longs for is a counterpart: his Eve.
3. WALL-E shows that our dignity lies first of all in being, not in doing. wALL-E goes beyond his functionality. His prime directive is to transform the world by ‘doing’: by transforming the endless piles of stray rubbish into square packages and pile them up until they form huge skyscraper-like towers. However, WALL-E is special not because of what he does, but because of what he *is*: a loving, selfless being, ready to give his life away.
4. “Beauty will save the world” (Dostoyevsky, quoted by Pope John Paul II in his 1999 letter to the artists). WALL-E seems to be able to discern beauty in the midst of pollution: he collects special objects and adorns his ‘home’ with colored lights and other ornaments. He wakes up humanity to beauty again: a man and a woman push away their computer screen and marvel at the space dance of WALL-E and EVE.
5. WALL-E is profoundly pro-life: his care and protection for life, small and vulnerable, is touching.
6. WALL-E is pro-family: thanks to him, a couple literally embraces a number of kids – the first human family after centuries of artificial, de-humanized child-care (and probably artificial procreation).
7. John 15, 13: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”
WALL-E shows EVE that obedience to their mission, and the sacrifice that it requires, is more important than their personal love. At one point, EVE throws away the plant to be with Wall-E, but he convinces her that their mission should go first.
8. Many times, Wall-E seems to be ready to sacrifice his life to save others.
9. Wall-E displays many christian virtues: patience, selflessness, sacrifice, modesty, humility, etc.
10. 1 Corinthians 1, 27: “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong”
Even though he is small, unassuming and ugly compared to all the other robots in the movie, WALL-E saves the day and shows that true beauty lies within.
Why do you think that WALL-E is a great Catholic movie?
Kevin Cummings: Because it is a film about hope and we are called to be a people of hope…even at the bleakest of times.
I totally agree! It was also very enjoyable and very well done.
And you forgot to mention the importance of the plant in the movie, other creation of our lord that everybody give lost and was the key to return home. “The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good” Gen. 1:12
Fr. Roderick -
I didn’t read the blog entry because I haven’t seen the movie yet, so forgive me if this is already mentioned.
As an Apple fan, I thought you might like to know that Jonathan Ive, the renowned industrial designer at Apple Inc., was approached by Pixar to help brainstorm the design of “Eve,” the female charater from Wall-E. He’s the man responsible for the design of the iMac, iPod and iPhone, and you can see the clean, simple design that Apple’s known for reflected in the design of that animated character. It’s my understanding that he spent a day with the Pixar animators sketching and tossing around ideas.