The Role Of Consumerism In Andrew Stanton's Wall-E

Andrew Stanton’s science fiction animation Wall-E (2008) tells the story of a robotic creature named Wall-E, who, along with other robots had been charged with cleaning up Earth after the human’s consumerism and greed destroyed the natural balance of the planet, turning it into an uninhabitable mess of garbage and waste. In this dystopian future humans have abandoned earth to live on a spaceship (The Axiom). The fact that the humans have abandoned Earth is very apparent in the setting of it, which is very dystopian and barren, with only piles of rubbish and ruins of previous buildings remaining on the planet. This is a direct contrast to the spaceship, which is very clean, tidy and futuristic. Stanton uses many techniques like costume, setting, music, and cinematography to establish the main themes of the consequences of consumerism and greed, romance, more specifically the importance of love, and nostalgia.

In Wall-E, the consequences of the human’s consumerism
and greed, are shown to the audience via stylistic conventions of colour, and cinematography. The destruction and damage done to Earth by humans appears throughout the film, and is first introduced to the audience via extreme long shots, from a bird’s eye view which depict the landscape to show the audience the damage that the humans have done to the planet, and to also give different shots and views of the planet to let the audience see even more of the ruined Earth. Another technique that further establishes this theme, is the use of bland colours like brown, orange, grey on the Earth’s landscape. These colours were used to illustrate how bland, dystopian and barren the Earth had turned due to the human’s consumerism and greed wrecking the natural balance of the planet. Stanton conveyed this idea through his use of colour and cinematography in Wall-E.

Stanton also explores romance, and the importance of love, which was done by utilising stylistic conventions like music, cinematography, and background. Those assisted in the depiction of the theme when the romance theme was first established in the film, especially when it was crucial to the story as the conventions used by Stanton helps the audience get connected to the extremely important parts of the movie. This theme was used to illustrate how powerful love could be, as their love eventually powered the two robots to get the Axiom to earth and to repopulate Earth. In the movie many stylistic conventions were employed by Stanton to convey this theme further to the audience, like cinematography in the form of various different shots to give the audience a different perspective on the scene involving Wall-E and EVE, background and the use of sound effects and music. However the major technique used to establish the romance further was the music in the film. As Stanton used more than one type of music in it, it gave the two’s relationship a sometimes comical, sometimes serious and sometimes emotional feel, and really helped the audience of the film to be more emotionally attached to the duo. When Wall-E and EVA got in space, outside the Axiom and started dancing and flying around outside, the music was in the background of this scene, it helped make it very romantic, and memorable. This is a good example of how effectively using stylistic conventions can really help convey main themes, which is what Stanton did in the film with the use of sound effects, background, and cinematography. Another main theme in Wall-E is nostalgia, which was used in the film to reflect on what the Earth used to be like before the consumerism and greed of the humans ruined and destroyed.
It is used in the film through stylistic conventions such as contrast and setting, and first appears in the second half of the film. The main technique used by Stanton to present this theme to the audience was setting, which was used to show the contrast between the Earth before and after the waste pollution that the mass consumption caused. This technique showed when the captain of the Axiom was looking at pictures of Earth pre-pollution, and then looked at Earth pictures post pollution. Contrast is also used in other places of the film to show how different things from the past are compared to current things (for example the contrast between Wall-E and EVE), and it all helps to express the nostalgic theme to the audience, which makes it more memorable to the audience as stark contrasts often are remembered by the
audience.

Andrew Stanton uses many stylistic conventions like different camera shots and bland colours covering the Earth’s surface to show how polluted and ruined the earth was, due to consumerism, use of music to establish the romance theme, and the use of contrast and setting, to show how different the Earth was before being polluted to convey the main themes of Wall-E, which were the consequences of consumerism and greed, romance and the importance of love, and nostalgia. The conventions used to convey these themes were used well in the film as it was used in a way which aided the audience in understanding the main themes and points of Wall-E, while also bolstering the entertainment value of the film.