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Steve Yun illuminates the PIXAR panel and the WALL-E footage he saw there!
Hey folks, Harry here with a report from Steve Yun on Pixar's Comic Con panel - Sounds fantastic. Meanwhile... Did you see something that wasn't covered on AICN's coverage thus far, by all means - send your report in to our address so we can let the rest of the world know, asap! Here ya go...
Hi there Harry, this is Steve Yun I noticed that you guys don't have a report for the Disney/Pixar panel at San Diego Comic-Con. I was there yesterday for the two hour panel. The first half was about Prince Caspian, the second half was about WALL-E. I'll tell you about WALL-E for this report. The lights dim, and we get a short intro movie: The Pixar logo comes on screen, and Luxo the lamp jumps on the I in Pixar. When Luxo stomps on it, his own lightbulb breaks. Wally wheels in from the right side of the screen, takes out the broken lightbulb in Luxo, puts in a new lightbulb, and Luxo's face is shining again. Wally rolls off screen but accidentally knocks over the R in Pixar on the way out. He tries to fix it, but can't, so he contorts himself into the shape of an R. Lights out. Shown next is an infomercial about Buy N Large's new product, the WALL-E. It's a flashy commercial kind of like a car or videogame commercial. W is for World. Female voice recites some spiel on a world theme. Allocation, blah blah blah. Load, blah blah blah. Lifter, blah blah blah. Earth. This is the Earth model of WALL robots. At the end of the informercial is a wordy legal disclaimer about how Buy N Large is not responsible for any of the claims made in the informercial. Director Andrew Stanton talks about the general premise of the movie; Earth is polluted, humans move into space condos, Buy N Large is contracted to clean Earth up. Because of several malfunctions and red tape, the job takes 700 years and is still incomplete, but nobody seems to care; everyone's become complacent. All the robots have broken down except for Wally, who has been toiling away for hundreds of years cleaning up garbage. A probe robot named Eve comes to Earth, and Wally falls in love with her and follows her into outer space, ditching his job. This is the first third of the movie. If Ratatouille's technical advances were about convincing lighting effects, Incredibles was about human skin and Monsters Inc was about realistic hair, WALL-E is going to be all about sound design. Most of the movie is without dialogue, and Stanton wants to let the characters communicate through 1) body language and 2) sound effects. Stanton acknowledged that this is something of a gamble for Pixar, making a movie with almost no dialogue. To give the characters their "voices," he hired the guy who voiced RD-D2, Ben Burtt. Ben came out with a fancy sound board and did some nice demonstrations where he introduced characters and played some of their sounds. Wally has beeps and whines like RD-D2, motor noises, tread noises and other weird gargling noises when he's in a hurry. Eve is a probe robot that Wally falls in love with. Her body is an iPod white upright oval with two oval arms, with a face and head like HERBIE from the Fantastic Four cartoon (blue eyes and no mouth). She has lots of OLED lights on her body. I'm not sure how to describe her sounds, it's very robotic and computerized and surprisingly not feminine. MO is a Microbe Obliterator. He constantly says "unsanitary" and waves around a vacuum roller. Then there's the ship captain, a tentacle eyeball thingy that looks like Jabba's doorman in Return of the Jedi. He has a very deep voice, and makes lots of bell and whistle noises reminiscent of ship bells and whistles. The captain has lots of prehensile finger digits that orbit around its eye. Next, we got some animation test and pre-visualisations of humans. All humans have turned into couch potatoes after living in luxurious space condos for hundreds of years, and all humans have a levitating recliner chair that they use to move around. The video clip showed a big plaza where dozens of these couch potato humans were moving about in their hoverchairs. The next clip showed one human attempting to roll out of his chair and falling on the ground. Humans are big and fat, but not quite blobs or mutants. Just fat humans. Then, we got an awesome 10 minute clip from the beginning of the movie. Andrew Stanton stressed that it was unfinished. Still, it looks amazing. *****SPOILERS BELOW***** We see Wally, asleep as a little compact cube. We hear the Mac startup chime. The entire audience laughs. Wally wakes up, attaches an empty ice chest to his back, and then rolls out of his garage. He accidentally rolls over a cockroach. He reverses and attempts to revive the cockroach, which wakes up and runs around again. Wally motions to the cockroach to move somewhere safe. Wally makes his commute to a huge garbage dump in an abandoned metropolitan city. Wally collects lots of trash, compacts them in his belly, and spits out little cubes that he stacks. Wally finds a bunch of keys and plays with them. Off in the distance, you hear a car alarm. He finds a bra, stretches it out, plays with it a little and covers both of his eyes with it. He puts it in his ice chest. Wally compacts some more garbage. He finds a diamond ring in a velvet box. He opens it, throws out the diamond ring and saves the velvet box in his ice chest because it looks interesting to him. Wally compacts more garbage. He opens a refrigerator using a laser between his eyes. Inside, he finds a little mound of dirt and a small bean plant growing out of it. It was such a tender, touching moment that I got choked up. Here was an entire planet covered in garbage and you immediately understood that a single simple plant like this was something rare and wonderful. Wally picks up the plant with a clump of dirt and puts it in the velvet box in his ice chest. On the ground, a red dot appears, something like a laser pointer. Wally attempts to pick it up and it moves. Wally tries to touch it again and it moves away. Wally starts chasing the laser dot the same way a cat does. Off in the distance, you see an entire line of laser dots flowing over the skyscrapers. Wally continues to chase this one single dot into a dirt field. As the line of laser dots approach, you realize that it's actually a giant circle of laser dots encircling Wally and closing in. Wally finally catches up to the single dot and grabs it. Out of the sky, huge columns of fire shoot down, and Wally is enclosed in smoke. Rocket thrusters are firing down, and Wally digs into the ground to hide. A giant rocket lands right above Wally, looking sort of like the rockets in Looney Tunes cartoons that are shaped like an upright football with three fins for legs. Wally pokes his head out from underground, his head trembling the way a scared dog or cat does. He pops out of the ground and approaches a ramp that has come down from the rocket. The ramp has a robotic arm that drops down a pod which opens up and reveals EVE. *****END SPOILERS***** At this point, the film started falling out of alignment, froze and started melting like the trailer for Grindhouse. It was the end of the clip. Steve Yun Harmony Gold
Readers Talkback
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This film will be the best Pixar film yet, end of story.
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Pixar + robots = sweet...
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this sounds phenomenal. of course, i think ratatouille was the best movie of the year..... and my talkback name is from a pixar movie... but anywho... can't wait
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I thought Wall-E stole the show. Everything was awesome. Ben Burtt doing live sound demonstrations was a treat, and of course the clip was incredible. I love seeing Pixar breaking new ground like this. Wall-E really seems like the first Pixar film without "cartoonish" elements, and that alone is worthy of celebration.
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I'll get the link...
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Haven't seen it yet, want to try and see a Pixar classic without any idea what to expect (though that first teaser jazzed me) http://tinyurl.com/2uepjc
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http://tinyurl.com/2uepjc
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though im a bit apprehensive about the "silent film" aspect and how itll last through an entire movie, even though theyve worked great in short film form just like in the short before Ratatouillee, "Lifted".
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None of his links are what he says they are. He's been using these talkbacks as free advertising for his site all day.
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Its simply AMAZING!! This will be the best Pixar movie yet...or a close 2nd.Wall-E is such a great character and even though theres no Dialog it doesnt matter,theres so much stuff going on and seeing it on the big screen in Digital..its GEORGIOUS!! Eve is really cute,the space ship with the fat humans is designed very well also.It looks very 2001/Logans run-ish. I had to see Ratatouille to love it,this i already loved from the trailer and now that ive seen 10mins of footage im aching for summer 2008 to be here like NOW.
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I know its wierd to think of a film with little dialog but trust me..or no trust Pixar they know what there doing.Theres plenty of sound effects going on to give it emotion you just half to see it to believe it.Remember when ben kenobi got killed and princess leai put the blanket onluke and R2-D2 Hummed in the first star wars,just think that. Ben Burtt did say there was dialog,eve speaks,Wall-E says his name and the other robots speak too.Plus im sure you'll be hearing the humans talk,this film is gonna be AMAZING so dont doubt.
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Ah yeah that reminds me back at a Robotech BBQ in 2004 Mr. Yun showed everybody a downloaded copy of The Incredibles while it was still in the theaters. A true Pixar fan he is, can't wait to see WALL-E Mr. Yun.
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This actually sounds really interesting. I had sort of tuned out of Pixar from the fish flick through to the cooking rat flick. They seemed to have been pushing bloating and generic product onto people with mediocre taste, and doing well at it, so I hadn't paid any attention to any news on Wall-E. But this does sound really cool.
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of Belleville? Or Lynche's Baron Harkonen? Sounds like it. And are they cg or live? I thought this movie was supposed to have live-action in it (no I'm not confusing it with John Carter). <p> From the trailer, Wall-e sounds a bit like an electronic Donald Duck to me.
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Remember Dinosaur? I think the movie would have been far superior if the charecters hadn't "talked"
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Go check the official website for Wall-E (or more like the official website of the company in the film !) at www.buynlarge.com (and laugh)
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Too right, Yeti - it should have been more National Geographic and less Standard Disney Outsider Plot # 15.<br><br>Hope Pixar stays brave and keeps it largely voiceless. So far it sounds great.
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Its one of Pixars best a great film. Too bad you didn't see it.
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Who isn't sick of mandatory Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy voice roles at this point?
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somebody worked very hard on that. incredible. and, yes, funny
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I realize they are only producing one film every 12 to 18 months, but why can't the rest of the industry follow their lead of quality and innovation? It's not like they are unsuccesful. I love their mantra that they want to make money so they can make more movies as opposed to the studios who have it backwards: they want to make movies so they can make money.
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Hey guys ... here's some great footage from WALL-E that I have yet to see anywhere yet: http://therecshow.com/?p=143 Enjoy!! This movie looks GREAT!
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next summer will be great!!!
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Which makes sense, as Pixar followed his business model. Ironically in the last few decades, Disney didn't.
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Pixar's is - Story, story, story.
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That footage has been around for a few weeks. But yes it's cool. Can anyone find the stuff from the con with the rocket? It keeps being taken down wherever it pops up.
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The short film "Lifted" at the beginning of Ratatouille had zero dialog, and it succeeded on every level. Good proving grounds that a good story can supercede any need for dialog with talent like Pixar at the helm!
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Gotta love the way Pixar always floors you. I didn't know what to make of the first few rumors about the robot, but I knew Pixar would make it plenty clever and original. This storyline sounds like something that Kurt Vonnegut or Phillip K. Dick would be impressed by.
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The saddest thing to me about Disney lately is how they feel they must squeeze every possible dime out of every property they have. I was driving past the Staples Center here in LA a few weeks ago and the marquee stated that High School Musical on ice was going to be there. It's just sad.
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I saw the same presentation. I loved how the director noted that he missed the way space was portrayed in the 70's (2001, Star Wars, Close Encounters). You can tell from the concept art and the clips that there's a love for the sci-fi genre going on. Also, the robot designs and animation were amazing-tons of little appendages and little lights. Quickest thing that it reminded me of was Chris Cunningham's Bjork video. The way the robots were animated is going to drive animation and sci-fi fan nuts. I also love the blend of dirty technology (Star Wars) and super clean spaceport chic (2001). I wonder what they meant when they said the film would use actual, non-CGI footage at one point.
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have you guys gone on the website... even disney is in on the fact that this is what our world will end up like... it's seriously time for a wake up call.. and no one will ever understand the message and pixar won't make alot of money with this movie like ratatoulie
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At least one live actor: Fred Willard plays the CEO of BuyNLarge. Plus WALL*E happens across a "historical" film--the actual live-action footage, not a CG recreation.
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Is pure genius! Check out the section that discusses giving children credit lines at birth! ROFL!!
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That fake movie ad is priceless. If it's a slam at all of the other "family" movies that are being put out by everyone save Pixar, it's a pretty astute on-the-nose slam.
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"We use the information we collect to provide the services you request. We use your information to inform you of other products or services offered by Buy n Large and its affiliates, and to send you relevant survey invitations to Buy n Large services. We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties because there aren't any. In order to help provide our services, we occasionally provide information to ourselves on our own behalf."
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The extended DVD of Dinosaurs included the original version of the movie without dialog, and it was 1000 times BETTER!
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