Wall-E is
the 9th film in the Pixar library, and back in the director’s helm
is Andrew Stanton, who had directed Finding Nemo as well as co-written the Toy
Story films and A Bug’s Life (though we won’t hold that against him) he was
also came up with the plot with Pete Docter, and wrote the screenplay with Jim
Reardon, who worked on the Simpsons as well as Tiny Toon adventures.
This film
presented a unique challenge, as the main characters had a bare minimum of
dialogue and they’d have to other ways to convey the information through the
visuals, as a result, this film was their most complex since Monsters Inc,
requiring 50,000 more storyboards than the usual 75,000 for a Pixar film.
The
animators used silent films as a reference for getting their characters to
emote without words, but their job was made even harder given what they were
animating and the limitations that came with it. R2-D2 was apparently
influential in that regard.
The budget
for this film was $180m, another increase and more akin to the norm as the Disney
era continues, the film made $533m at the box office, less than Ratatouille did
but enough to be successful, this film was applauded by critics and audiences
with ratings of 95% and 90% respectively. But where does it rank on my list?
Let’s take a look.
