Wall E Not So Eco-Friendly

By Summer on July 2nd, 2008

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Every one has taken their kids to see Wall.E already it seems. And I admit, I was whining a bit to Dearest about taking Evan to go see it. Come one! Cute little robots, outer space, and Pixar’s famous graphics. Not to mention that everyone keeps talking about the great message Wall.E sneaks about trash and the environment. Sounds great!

Well, maybe not. Califmom pointed out over the weekend that despite the message we’re still dealing with a Disney movie. Which means commercialization on a massive scale. Case in point, Monday night we went grocery shopping and decided to stop in the local Hastings to see what used goodies they had. In the center of the children’s section was this.

Wall.E

That would be the giant, cardboard display box full of Wall.E books. And not just story books, there would coloring books and paint books as well. What do you think they, and millions of other stores, plan to do with the cardboard boxes when they are done? What do you think will happen to the books when the excitement wears off?

The picture doesn’t even show that off to the side there were Wall.E toys and games. Wind-up plastic Wall.E robots, plastic scene viewers with images from the movie, Nintendo DS games tied into the movie. I’m sure in the near future we’ll be seeing Wall.E clothes sold at Wal-Mart, then Wall.E figures in kid’s meals, and as with everything else we’ll be burnt out as his cute, robotic face is plastered on everything from pencil cases to Quinceanera invitations. Not exactly the message of “don’t trash the earth” I had been lead to believe it was. Maybe I’m just naive expecting them to walk the walk if they’re gonna talk the talk. All the eco-friendly messages in the world won’t help if they’re being presented next to “Buy More!” in big shiny letters.

By the way, no we didn’t buy any of the Wall.E stuff despite protests from Evan that it was “cool”. I did happen to find Mini Greek Myths for Young Children (Mini Usborne Classics) for $1.50 which I thought was much cooler.

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Posted under books, environment | Tags: , , ,

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    6 Comments
  • Andrea says:
    July 2, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    Well, I thought that was kinda the point of the *Pixar* employees who wrote the story - that even though they were owned by Disney, who are the guys pushing the commericalism, they were still going to thumb their noses.

    kinda like saying “Steal this album” (whoever did that one…)

    I feel that for the guys at Pixar, getting into bed with Disney was the only way that stories like this could be told.

    And no, I’m not gonna buy a ton of Wall-E stuff either, except for the DVD when it comes out. :)

    (the movies was AWESOME. Just fyi ;) )

  • Summer says:
    July 2, 2008 at 2:07 pm

    Steal This Album would be System of A Down.

    That’s a good point that getting into bed with Disney was the only way that a movie like this could be made. However, it seems that almost everyone who has been reviewing this movie has been praising the message while forgetting about the mountain of plastic crap being sold for it.

  • ang says:
    July 2, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    great point, summer…i haven’t run across any of the wall-e themed merchandise yet, but i might go to target this weekend, so i’m sure i’ll be bombarded with it. :( too bad that disney couldn’t stick with the theme of the movie & do away with all of that, but disney would never miss the chance to make a buck. ::irked:: it’s horrific what people will do just to make insane amounts of money. it makes me want to cry. :\

  • califmom says:
    July 9, 2008 at 3:56 am

    Hi Summer! Thanks for the link. An anonymous commenter on my post led me to this article: http://snurl.com/2vey0, which is the only review I’ve seen that echos our impression.

    califmom’s last blog post..Near…And Far

  • patrick says:
    July 17, 2008 at 6:23 pm

    Wall-E totally looks like the robot from “Short Circuit”… minus the cheesy 80’s style of course

  • Pays to live green says:
    July 27, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    I would love for companies like Disney to move away from all the commercialization of there movies, but that would be hard for them. They make tons of money in selling products like these to kids. Hopefully companies like these can start to think up different ways to make there products and displays from that are more friendly to the environment.

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