It’s Romance Week at MovieJawn! All week long we’re getting all mushy about love in the movies!

by Jaime Davis, Staff Writer, The Fixer

I honestly do not remember where I was or what I was doing the first time I saw WALL-E. Was it in the theater? Maybe. Or was I by myself, watching at home? Or with friends? Coulda been. I don’t remember at all because watching WALL-E for the first time was such a beautiful experience, it’s almost as if I wasn’t really anywhere at all, like I floated out of my body and entered WALL-E’s world, toiling with him daily on Earth, scrounging for artifacts to add to his lovingly-curated collection of left-behind trash, watching him fall madly for EVE, a fellow robot brought down to Earth from the Axiom to check for evidence of self-sustaining life. I floated through space as WALL-E and EVE playfully glided back to the Axiom after a misguided attempt by the ship’s autopilot to send WALL-E and the first evidence of self-sustaining life on our wasted planet back to Earth.

Even now, watching the two robots joyfully playing amidst the wonder of space feels like the first time all over again – it’s one of the most blissfully sweet moments of film I’ve ever seen, and I’ve never viewed it without crying like the little Cancer I am. The relationship between these two robots, to me, is so magnificent–watching WALL-E go after EVE time and time again, and then EVE doing everything she can to save WALL-E–I love to see it with each and every watch. The fact that WALL-E would go to the ends of the galaxy for his robot mate reminds me that love is always worth fighting for, and we should show up for the ones we love as much as we can every single day. 

Besides the connection between WALL-E and EVE, I appreciate the film for the way in which it depicts how massive consumerism, capitalist statehood, and toxic levels of pollution can eventually lead to the Earth’s demise. While 2006’s Idiocracy has a similar message, albeit a sillier one, when WALL-E was released in 2008, it served as serious warning to all of us that we were buying too much, that companies were being swallowed up too much, and Earth was burning and raging too much as a result of pollution, trash, and climate change. The message at the end of the film–that we are intelligent, resourceful beings capable of making things better is forever hopeful. Things haven’t necessarily improved on Earth since 2008, and while the world may not feel so beautiful every day, at least we have WALL-E to help us remember that it is. 

So in honor of WALL-E and Valentine’s Day, I’ve made you a few WALL-E inspired Valentine’s. Feel free to share them with your WALL-E or EVE.