The Queer Quadrant
The Queer Quadrant
WALL-E
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It's a new year, so here's some new hope for the future! Join us to discuss how we automatically assign gender to robots, curiosity as humanity, discovering what you were made for, religion, environmentalism, and this movie's prediction of iPad kids.
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SPEAKER_03Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Queer Quadrant, a podcast where we, two bisexual filmmakers, examine cinema in all its cultural contexts and explore why your favorite four quadrant blockbuster is maybe not as straight as you think it is.
SPEAKER_07I don't mean to be over dramatic when I say that I would straight up kill myself for Wally, that I mean I would not only die. Not only die, but I would I would put my own life down for this robot. He is, I think, everything to me. He is baby. He is the Brooke, he is baby. You don't put baby in the corner, and he is baby.
SPEAKER_03I love him. This is also the ideal romantic relationship.
SPEAKER_07Hmm. How so? Which is one lusting after.
SPEAKER_03Having a partner who's you're scared of and who you are like, wow, when you watch them do cool shit.
SPEAKER_07And all you want to do is just hold their hand.
SPEAKER_03And like your eyes get big and sparkly. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_07He like, is he the cutest thing that's ever been put on screen? Like, it's actually unfair. Baby Yoda, you're fucking good. Baby Yoda's dead. Yeah. Wally just Wally put you in his trash compactor and spat you out.
SPEAKER_03No, he's nice. He would never do such a thing. That's true. He loves his cockroach.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, exactly. Baby Yoda. I was talking about this while watching it, and I was trying to figure out like the triangulation of what Wally is sort of based off. You know what I mean? Because I feel like it's like mostly cat is kind of the vibe that I was getting from him. Obviously, he's a robot, but in terms of like behavioral thing, like I do feel like he has sort of cat-like tendencies. Like he's very curious, obviously, but he can be a little timid. Then he like gets scared of stuff. Some of his behaviors, his eyes are a little bit big, sort of like puss and boots in Shrek 2, of course, you know. I guess he could be kind of a dog, but if to me he was giving kind of cat energy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's actually really interesting. I had never thought about it. I mostly think of him as like an R2 D2 riff, but like if they gave R2 more of like a personality, right, instead of R2 is a sassy little shit, as you know. Like R2 is is is is a little stinker. Wally is a pure, a pure soul.
SPEAKER_07Wally is not the only person who thinks Wally is a little stinker is Mo. The little cleaning robot.
SPEAKER_03Fair enough. I love Mo. Mo Rocks.
SPEAKER_07Mo Mo the standout performer in this rewatch, I will say.
SPEAKER_03Moe is my sister's favorite. Um we're it's a new year, it's 2026, and we're here to talk about how this is a film about how robots perform gender and what that means. Um, I actually I have so much to say. So I do too.
SPEAKER_07It's shocking.
SPEAKER_03You thought I was crazy.
SPEAKER_07I would I would never think that you're crazy.
SPEAKER_03You thought I was crazy. I think this is a very rich text for the QQ.
SPEAKER_07This is a good point. Okay. It's 2026. We're reflecting back on five years of the pod, right? We're going on six years, right? What would be the movie would you say that I doubted you the most on that I was then shocked by in terms of queerness? Ooh, I mean, do you have an answer? I don't know. Well, the Muppets, but we'll get there.
SPEAKER_03No, no, no. You have to say like you were shocked. Yeah, no, I know. I'm trying to think. And then I have to be shocked by you.
SPEAKER_07It's a good, it's a good one because I feel like we will often text each other, I feel like, when it's something that is shocking queerness. So, like, we'll over, you know, like I think a la conclave comes to mind immediately, of course.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was a mutual discovery.
SPEAKER_07Exactly.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if there's one where I was like, no, Jordan, you don't understand. Is it the eagle? have to cover this. Maybe. That was just that was one where I was hoping and praying, and then I watched it and I was like, wow, I know what it is. I bet big on myself. What?
SPEAKER_07I know what the answer is. The answer is Professor Marston and The Wonder Women, a movie that you came to me with, and you were like, if you don't watch this, I will kill myself. And so I think that's the answer.
SPEAKER_03I guess I don't want to say that the Muppets is mine because I love the Muppets, but I don't know that that's it. I don't know that I would be like this is like such a great rich text, exactly. I'm trying to think of one that you were like, we have to do this.
SPEAKER_07Um I'm looking at the list now.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I had never heard of I Now Pronounce You Chalk and Larry until you believe out that one. I don't want to say that. I also don't know if that was like a rich text. Honestly, Moulin Rouge, I was like, girl, that's actually a good one.
SPEAKER_07That's a good one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And then I was like, wait.
SPEAKER_07You're like, hold up, let's pull back the layers to this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I'm gonna go with Moulin Rouge.
SPEAKER_07Maybe too fast too furious?
SPEAKER_03No, I come on, give me a little credit. I trust, I trust you most of the time.
SPEAKER_07That's true. I trust you as well.
SPEAKER_03But I remember when I was like, we have to cover wall. You were like, bruh. I was like, are we? What?
SPEAKER_07Well then I feel like a lot has changed since then. And now upon rewatch, obviously, you know.
SPEAKER_08Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03Um anyway, who are you? Who are you? Hi, I'm Brooke Solomon.
SPEAKER_07I'm Jordan, Gustafson.
SPEAKER_03We love talking about cinema. We love talking about being queer. We love talking about queer cinema. We talk about it on mic. Today, we are talking about Pixar's Quali. Yeah. Which I can't really do. Um and it is I think the best movie ever. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_07Okay, wait, this is a good movie.
SPEAKER_03I love this movie. Um I love the first 30 minutes, especially.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Once I get to the ship, I still like it.
SPEAKER_07I think the first 60 are maybe like the best movie ever made. And then like I do honestly, here's the thing though. I was talking about this and I was thinking about it and mulling it in my head, playing it over again. And I I I went in, I feel like the last time I rewatched this was 2019, and obviously loved it as much as I did when I was growing up. But I I have I feel like I have that thought every time where I'm like, oh, they get to the spaceship and it really loses the sauce, then it becomes more talky, and you lose the silent film quality. Yeah. And upon this rewatch, though, I'm like, it really does kind of stay a silent film for a lot of it. Like, there is really not a lot of dialogue, and the dialogue is used. Right. But it's even used so sparingly. Like, I feel like the captain, for example, like I found him asking about like what is earth and what is dancing and all that, like, very moving this time, you know. So I think like Andrew Stanton, they really fucking knocked it out of the park with the script and the storyboard. It is like I don't know if it's the best Pixar, but it's goddamn maybe like top five.
SPEAKER_03It's one of my favorites. I think that it does the silent film quality of it is so magical to me. Yeah. Um reminds me of the first act of Star Wars, obviously.
SPEAKER_07Yes, of course.
SPEAKER_03Um, where it's just robots, robots in the desert.
SPEAKER_07Which of course Ben Burt, who voices him, is like the guy from Star Wars, of course.
SPEAKER_03So you know it's like And E.T. Yay. E.T.
SPEAKER_07I think, yeah, E.T., yeah. He did E.T. did the breathing sound for Darth Vader, R2 D2, the lightsaber hum. Like, he is like the guy. You know what I mean? It's crazy.
SPEAKER_03It but it makes so much sense because Wally is so expressive. Yeah. I mean, everybody, every robot is so expressive. Um, I was really taking in this time how they did the expressions, like all the little details of how they were doing stuff. Because I think that's always like um I remember when they were doing the Disney live action remakes with animals, everyone was like, You need the eyebrows. The eyebrows are key to make to giving anything an expression. So I was like, what's the version of like basically putting eyebrows on um on a robot? It's the same with like um superhero movies, like you gotta make if they're in a full suit, you gotta make the eyes do something so you can see their expression. The new Spidey face, except the spidey, the spidey stuff, yeah.
SPEAKER_07No, Wally, and I mean Wally is like the most expressive robot like ever put on screen. Like, obviously, C3BO and R2DJ are expressive with their vocalisms, but because it's an animated movie, Wally has such a live quality to him as an actor, a character. You know? What was your relationship with the movie? Like, did you obviously it's 2008, so we're young-ish when it comes out? Did you watch it a lot?
SPEAKER_03I think I saw it in theaters, which I don't know. I wish I had seen it in theaters. If they did like a re-release, I would go see this because I think it would be so beautiful. Oh my god, yeah. Like on a big screen. Um, I've seen it a couple times.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I hadn't seen it in so long. But I remember being very charmed by it. I didn't, there was so much I didn't remember from the first hour. I didn't remember any of the Hello Dolly stuff, which obviously was like a delightful surprise. I didn't remember how classical it was. I mostly remembered like, I don't know, he's on Earth and he has a cockroach friend. And he cleans up some shit. And then eventually he gets to the ship, and I feel like I remembered more of the ship stuff, shockingly. Interesting. But yeah, basically, I I like the people, but everything without the people, this watch, I was like, this is like magic.
SPEAKER_07You're like, wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_07No, I fully agree. I interesting. That's so I feel like I only remembered mostly the first half of the movie. And every time I watch the second half, certain things, I'm like, oh, right, this, this, this. But I think all the way through like the Lovey and Rose montage is like kind of burned in my skull, you know?
SPEAKER_03Do you remember when you watched it for the first time and then like how often you rewatched?
SPEAKER_07I mean, we were obvious unsurprised. I think I've taught I've talked about this on the mic, obviously, but we are a huge Pixar household, like Disney animated households. So watched this 100% sure, probably in a theater. Um, it wasn't though the biggest Pixar movie in our house. I think because my parents maybe didn't like it as much. Um, so we didn't watch it as frequently, and also it's 2008, so I'm 13, right? Uh no, yeah, 13. So I'm a little bit older than I guess like right in that hit spot. So like this coming out in the year of the dark night, I'm trying to be cool and be like, I'm gonna watch the dark night, you know, instead of being like, I'm gonna go watch Wally 10 times in a theater or something. So I feel like it wasn't as re-watched as other Pixar movies for me, like Toy Story one through four were one through three. Um, but yeah, but I think like have rewatched it and gone back. I rewatched, I had the criterion this time. That 4K.
SPEAKER_03Oh, very nice, beautiful.
SPEAKER_07I mean, like, obviously, it's like how much can you really upgrade it? But it does look damn good. So, yeah, especially when the whole movie is visual, you do really want the visuals to pop. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So uh, it's so lovely, it's just a very lovely film. Yeah, I we'll talk about this later, probably, or now. I don't know. I remember this being um tagged as a very like religious film.
SPEAKER_07Oh in my in my childhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why?
SPEAKER_03Hey, I'm not crazy. It has a section on the Wikipedia.
SPEAKER_07No, for sure. I mean, I think this movie cap like it's literally Noah's Ark. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's also right, like Eve is named after Eve. John and Mary are also like biblical. Oh, are those the first are those the human people? Those are the humans. Oh, sure. Yeah. Those are like biblical mainstay names. They're like it's a classic. That's a classic. They're also like the people that were supposed to like spread the word of the lord. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So, but yeah, it's about humans repopulating the earth. It's about Noah's Ark. Yeah. Like there's even in the Noah's Ark like story, there's he sends out a dove and he waits for the dove to bring back like a an olive branch, and that's how he knows that like the there where there's verdant land to go, which is what Eve does.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_03So there you go. Oh, fascinating.
SPEAKER_07See, never again, not growing up in a religious household, did not cross the mind. I feel like it was all the capitalism stuff that was the capitalism and environmentalism. Yeah. Where it's just like, look what we did to Earth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but the I think like the capitalism aspect is really interesting because it's not just like technology bad. It's like company uses technology to like maintain um control slash like maintain buying power over something.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. I feel like it's also like, I don't know how you felt about this rewatch. I felt like this hit very hard in our current landscape of AI and everything like that, in compared to like, I don't know, 2008 when I was watching it. And obviously it's riffing on 2001 with Hal and like when man stands up for the first time, etc. Yeah. Yeah. But like the whole like losing and giving so much of ourselves to a technology that we are like to make our lives easier, which is I feel like what Chappie GPT and what everyone is just excited about now when we like lose a sense of humanity and realize like what is actually out there for us to do, and a lot harder now, I think, in the age of AI than like 2008 was.
SPEAKER_03One of my like things that I will often say is that I think that if you maintain curiosity throughout your entire life, you maintain youth, and that like curiosity is a huge element of like what makes us human. Um and I think that this is a film about how there are many ways to be human, including like the robots.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because Wally is a very curious little guy. Yeah. Um, and even when his chip gets like, you know, corrupted and then replaced, and you're like, no, they took away his personality, it's like it's it's deeper than that, you know? It's like if the chip is the chip might be his brain, but like he still has a soul, if you want to go like that route. So I think that um I also think I really believe that like curiosity is very tied into kind of like acceptance and you know, just like sort of general diversity and because again, it's like people are scared of what they don't understand and are scared that like something will change their worldview.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But curiosity is so important to have and to maintain, especially as you get like especially as you get older and like your life becomes more hectic and more and more things are offered to kind of like allow you to be less curious, that it's even more important to like maintain your curiosity. So this being a film where like curiosity is a big theme, I think is significant.
SPEAKER_07100%. It's a reminder of childhood in a way. Like I think Wally's He's a baby! A baby, yeah, and like a very young guy guy, me gendering Wally, uh, which we'll talk about. But yeah, we'll get there, yeah. But he, Wally, they, uh, it. Um Wally, I think like his curiosity for all intents and purposes, like reminded me of growing up. And I I don't know, like, not to be bleak or anything, but I feel like it is harder as you get older and you have to work a full-time job and you have to be doing all these things to survive. That it gets harder to have these moments where you're like, oh wow, let me just like look at this thing that I saw on the side of the street that's curious, or like let me go investigate something or watch something that's new and exciting, you know, and keep that like curious tendency alive in you, and like obviously it's still there, but like the older you get, the harder it is to do that, and like that's like the battle of being human is like to try to maintain a part of like your humanity as the world is trying to force you not to have that. It really sucks.
SPEAKER_03I think we as humans also love to give humanity to objects, but then sometimes like uh choose to ignore humanity in the populations and types of people that are inconvenient to us. Yes. Um, like, but it's very easy to become attached to something that's not human or like, you know, whatever, a living thing. Right. Um because like that is the core of again what makes us human. So um I think that like the way that the ship like rallies around Wally, the fact that it's the humans that are like interested in him and like get excited by him is I think I like better than I know a lot of original pitches were like he starts a robot revolution, right? Which is cute. It's cute. We love that.
SPEAKER_07I mean, I love the defective robots that he works with, like those rock. Yeah. What is your I'm curious, like, uh is this I don't know maybe this is the first robot movie that we've covered, but I feel like I don't know, maybe we've talked about it in our personal lives or whatever, but I feel like I always have had an obsession with robots. Sad robots. You love sad robots. I love sad robots, and I don't know, I mean, I probably know why, because I feel like I myself am sad, and I find that robots themselves have like such an expressive tendency, and I think like it's easier to put upon one's own like sad feelings to something that like shouldn't have feelings in a way versus rather than just seeing it in a human where you're like, ugh, like I get it, like we all feel that way. Whereas like with a robot, there's a sense of like separation, so you can kind of like remove yourself and just thrust it upon the robot. Um, but like this Spike Jones is a short that I think is phenomenal. But like sad robots, I feel like are perennial fascination. AI, the Spielberg movie, etc. You know, like what is your relationship with robots? Do you like like them? What where do you land on the robot scale?
SPEAKER_03I'm very neutral on robots, but I'm I'm much more interested in I think like advanced robots slash like artificial intelligence. I wrote a paper in college on like sexy fembots in the cinema. No. That's insane that I was like, you read my paper. I don't know if you're like that.
SPEAKER_07We've definitely discussed it for sure.
SPEAKER_03In it, I talked about Ex Machina, Blade Runner, 2049, um, that episode of Black Mirror, where they're Star Trek, and I don't know. I can't wait to see that.
SPEAKER_07I feel like her even falls in that box weirdly.
SPEAKER_03Her was the fourth one. Or it was like, um, what do we do when we make a robot? They have to be we have to wanna fuck it. We have to wanna fuck it!
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you gotta fuck that robot.
SPEAKER_03Um, or they are the sort of like childlike innocence um sense of like too pure for this world. I I recently watched AI, the Steven Spielberg movie, for the first time ever. I like it. Um changed my life. I love that movie. That movie is fucked up, dude.
SPEAKER_07It's so dark. It's like really dark as hard. I loved it.
SPEAKER_03I loved it.
SPEAKER_07Maybe like Haley Joe Osman, like the performance of a generation.
SPEAKER_03I know that I the we really I don't like, you know, he's great, but I don't think we lauded him enough. No, no, he might be like the most child law unchild actor of all time, but like the Oscar. Secondly, are you fucking kidding me? Like, it's what a crazy, what a crazy movie. What a great performance.
SPEAKER_07Drew Law in that, like kind of giving queer like his makeup that he has going on.
SPEAKER_03I was really hoping should be gayer. Whenever there's a like a pleasure robot, I'm like, this the time is now. That's true. Time is now, and then it always is a failure. So that's kind of My opinion on robots, I'm more into the which I feel like it makes sense when you know about me. I'm more into the weird, like, why do we always want to fuck the robots level of We gotta fuck the robots? As a as opposed to the I think your style is the more like, what makes us human? What do why do why do we want to live? Like what drives us if we don't have a purpose? Like, what is a soul, etc. etc. I'm like, why do we make them and why do we keep being weird about it?
SPEAKER_07Did you um watch maybe it's like uh it was a Dutch movie, I want to say, with Dan Stevens about being like a robot, a pleasure robot in a way.
SPEAKER_03I haven't seen it. He's like a he's a like a companion.
SPEAKER_07Companion, right, robot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was pretty much the I'm your man.
SPEAKER_07I'm your man, yeah. I thought that that was pretty good in how it tackles pleasure, like robot companions in like adult relationships. Yes. Because I feel like I mean Ex Machina is kind of like the perennial, I feel like number one in terms of tackling that, you know. Incredible movie. Um but yeah, no, it's is I think it's interesting like where that line happens. Uh but like this one movie, for example, I think the robots are much more and I thought it was interesting watching the background robots this time and like in the defective ones, what tools they were being used for. So there was like the boxing robot, which I was like, things like that, where it's like we just had like descended enough to where it was just like a con again, a companion just for just having physical activity or just like something like that. You know what I mean? It's like we just can't do it in an interpersonal relationship. We have to have every single aspect of our lives be robotic.
SPEAKER_03What I thought was really interesting on this rewatch um is that of course the humans are addicted to their screens, even the babies have little screen mobile, but they still talk to each other. I think that's what's really interesting, yeah, is that it's like even at kind of like the end of the world or whatever, we maintain interpersonal relationships, but we don't maintain curiosity. There's that, you know. I think obviously there's a level of like you need people to talk to each other a little bit. This is a movie. Um, but we're always like looking for people to interact with online. Like we crave community even when the community is like our own little bubble. There's that one scene when Wally is like trying to figure out how to get around the ship where the two guys are talking to each other and they're right next to each other. And it's the whole of course, whatever. It's like the clueless thing. Like, oh, we're so addicted to technology even when the person is right there. But what I think is more interesting about it is that it's like we still are like looking for people to connect with. We've just lost a certain art of like how are we doing it?
SPEAKER_07Totally. Yeah. I mean, like, we grew up, I feel like, at such an interesting point on the internet age where I think I mean, so many friends of ours, or at least, you know, that podcast guests, etc., were just from the internet, and it's like craving a sense of community that you find online.
SPEAKER_03And that's what you're looking for. When you go on the internet, you're looking for community, you're looking for belonging. Even if you are in your own little bubble, like you're you know, the infinite scroll is usually not why you get on the internet in the first place.
SPEAKER_07Totally.
SPEAKER_03You're looking for other people, yeah. You're looking to interact.
SPEAKER_07Would you say that we're looking for like another world out there, you know, some something to like aspire towards and reach out?
SPEAKER_03Something, yeah, yes. Uh, but yeah, that's why I think that like the minute that Wally meets somebody, he's like, I have to protect my friend. I'm gonna cry. That's like what drives him. Is he's a very compassionate little guy. I think he's also very inspired. We were talking about inspirations by um the Mars rover.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, oh, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, do you remember when it sang happy birthday to itself? Alone? The loneliest thing in the world.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's a sad robot for you.
SPEAKER_07But that's like the loneliness crushed me this time of Wally.
SPEAKER_03We programmed a robot to sing happy birthday to itself because we believed that even, you know, an inanimate object should have a celebration.
SPEAKER_07That's so fucking crazy.
SPEAKER_03That's crazy.
SPEAKER_07It's so sad. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, which is- But it means that we care about people. I don't know. Like, we care about people, we care about things. I feel like we're in a very callous era of being like, well, if it doesn't work for the money, yeah, we g the resources, and this is a movie, of course, all about resources.
SPEAKER_07Right. Um, but no, yeah, there's a deep care of humanity regardless. No matter like deep very deep care of humanity. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Not even in like a bleeding heart way. Just like an idea of like, we you're doing like some of the most advanced stuff in the real world that we've done, like sending a uh, you know, a rover to Mars. Yeah. And you're still gonna make it saying happy birthday.
SPEAKER_07What makes Pixar move like a lot of Pixar movies that are so successful work is they have that care of humanity and like humanness throughout a log, especially their earlier stuff, like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, X Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo. There are these things that we are putting humanity into and like a care of like each other in, but they through like another object, for example, like Toy Story.
SPEAKER_03Pixar makes you cry. Right. What if X had feelings? It's all the you know, the meat. It works, yeah.
SPEAKER_07And like Andrew Stanton, I feel like it had such a grip and an understanding of that through the like those early Pixar years, with this probably being like the high point of them at this point, or maybe forever, you know. But yeah, would you um the l back on like you're the Mars rover though, like when Wally and like when Eve first like kind of shuts down and then he's back into like his lonely era, I think that is maybe like the most gut-punching sadness that like I've ever felt because he he finally felt like he found companions and like a sense of community and someone else, and to have that then like ripped away from you, but to still have that thing there and to still be stuck in this place that you aren't fulfilled, like he can't even like make the trash happy, you know what I mean? Like, he's so fucking sad. That was like verge of tears. I mean, I was kind of bur bordering on the verge of tears the whole movie, but like that one really fucking Yeah, when he puts Christmas lights around. Oh my god, drags her around.
SPEAKER_03I also love his little cockroach friend. Oh my god, love the only time a cockroach is good for him. He gets to live in a little Twinkie, it's so cute. Yeah, I remember my uh the first time I watched this, my parents finding that to be like the funniest part of the whole movie because they were like, uh, sorry, you don't get this. But like Twinkies and a cockroach.
SPEAKER_07I think the cockroach gat, like the runner of no matter what happens to the cockroach, the cockroach survives is funny. Like run over, exploded, like that thing lives.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. He's really cute. They made him cute. They he doesn't look like a normal, like fat cockroach.
SPEAKER_07He's like kind of like tasting.
SPEAKER_03He's cute. Um anyway, I was looking at Andrew Stanton's filmography. Um, obviously, like a long, long-term Pixar guy. Um, but do you know what else he directed?
SPEAKER_07Finding Dory? Or are you talking about John Carter? John Carter. I know. Well, the first live action. Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_03What? It's crazy. I know.
SPEAKER_07And then he goes back for Finding Dory because I think like the live action just didn't. But I think here's the thing. With I don't know. I haven't rewatched John Carter since it came out. I think what's hard about that movie, I don't think it's successful as a movie. It's I think like the loss fiscally overshadowed how it was as a movie, where it's like not the worst movie ever, but it's just like it like tanked on like astronomical levels. Do you know what I mean? So I think like that is what it's known for. And I feel like it's taken him a long time to like kind of get back in the saddle.
SPEAKER_03So Well, he's directed some cool TV. He directed on Stranger Things and Better Call Saul, hey.
SPEAKER_07I remember his, but he had really good Better Call Saul. Like it was, I think the four it's pinyata. Yeah, like four season, right? Something like that. Like I remember that, and I was like, wait, wait, wait, Andrew Stanton? My boy? Because he, I mean, I mean he has Toy Story 5 coming out next year, which of course, as maybe the world's you know, number two Toy Story fan, I am like very nervous about. But that said, like, Toy Story feels like the one franchise where they are they know that they kind of can't fuck up, and he coming back after everything, it does feel like a good like maybe we're in steady hands.
SPEAKER_03I mean, he wrote Toy Story 4.
SPEAKER_07Right, and I thought Toy Story 4 was great.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't really give a fuck about Toy Story, as you know. I understand.
SPEAKER_07But I don't But Woody is my best friend, sorry.
SPEAKER_03I I don't dislike it. Wall Wally is my best friend.
SPEAKER_07I understand. He's so cute.
SPEAKER_03I I prefer if my toys don't talk to me.
SPEAKER_06I wanted my toys to talk to me so bad.
SPEAKER_03I like uh I like Wally because he's like he's like a pet, kind of. You know? I like a I like a pet.
SPEAKER_07Yeah Andrew Stanton has in the blink of an eye, which was supposed it feels like Yeah, I don't know about that one.
SPEAKER_03It's some science fiction kind of like chapter by chapter.
SPEAKER_07Kate McKinnon. It was like supposed to come out because it was shot in like two years ago, right? A minute ago.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I mean like everything has been a mess since the strike. So it's it's kind of reminds me of when films that were shot in 2018 were being released in like 2022. I feel like there was this giant strike gap.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Well, I mean, Terence Malik's Jesus movie was the last movie, big budget movie shot pre-pandemic, which I think is the funniest thing imaginable. Where like that's gonna be the last movie that is was made before the world completely changed. Uh Mark Rylance, I think, is the devil, I want to say.
SPEAKER_03Sorry. Gotta take a moment here. Terrence Malik.
SPEAKER_07Jesus movie. Jesus movie.
SPEAKER_03The Way of the Wind.
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_03Ah Mark Rylance is the devil. Starring some Hungarian as Jesus actor as Jesus.
SPEAKER_07But is Rylance the devil? Am I correct here?
SPEAKER_03Mark Rylance as Satan.
SPEAKER_07Yep.
SPEAKER_03You are correct.
SPEAKER_07We love to see it.
SPEAKER_03You are correct. Wow, this is crazy.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. I'm so excited for that movie. I feel like that's we're gonna queen out about that one because I feel like, you know, it'd obviously be religious so you can vibe out on it. Yeah. It'll be Terrence Malik so I can vibe out on it.
SPEAKER_03I I w I could do like uh a very in-depth paper on like cinematic depictions of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_07I would read that and or watch that video essay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it would mostly be not hopefully in a weird way, it would mostly be about where is this actor from? Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And how does that impact the film?
SPEAKER_07No, no. I think that is like actually important. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's like the yeah. Yeah. Um, anyway.
SPEAKER_10Hey, our ride's almost here. Are you ready? Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said ten minutes ago.
SPEAKER_05I just dropped the video call uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my WatchGo bananas with the group chat, and of course, still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone.
SPEAKER_09All at once?
SPEAKER_05Yep. Story of my life. That's why I switched to T-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network.
SPEAKER_02Okay, multitasker. That's to you.
SPEAKER_05Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. Awesome.
SPEAKER_11Say no more, I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload.
SPEAKER_05That's a sign you've got to get T-Mobile.
SPEAKER_01So many reasons to join T-Mobile. Find yours at T Mobile.com.
SPEAKER_00That's just based on analysis by Oakload Speed Test Intelligence data of national speed score results in operating 5D download and upload speeds for the first half of 2026.
SPEAKER_03Uh Wally. But I do think like this is it's clearly, I think this has these very big kind of like more earth shattering existential things on its mind than a lot of Pixar movies because the scale is so big. Agreed. And it forces you to actually reckon with a realistic version of what could happen, as opposed to like, I feel like the other huge tent poles of like, oh my god, whoa, the what this made me think about the world completely differently of like inside out or uh stuff like that. Yeah. There's more. Where that's yeah, yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_07Because this movie is like, I think what's great about it is like it is so simplistic where it's just like this robot loves this other robot and they gotta get that damn plant inside the train, uh, you know, on the plane, the spaceship, whatever. And like kids watch this and they're just like, I like Wally and I like these robots. But like, if we as an adult step back and look at it, it's like, oh fuck, like this is what led to the Earth being this way, and like here's like 30 existential crises you can have about like humanity and capitalism and the corporatization of things, and you know, the environment, religion, what have you, you know?
SPEAKER_03I love how it looks. I love how especially Earth looks because so Fred Willard in an incredible role.
SPEAKER_07Bodying.
SPEAKER_03Um, I think like it's so important that Earth looks almost photorealistic.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_03Because I remember that blowing my fucking mind when I watched this for the first time of seeing a live-action human in a fictional. What the fuck? Yeah. And in again, this time, I was like, that is still like to me such a cool, creative, like kind of like ballsy move to be like, this isn't some alternate world where everybody is a car or a monsters ink type situation. Like this is right now.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Well, I think that's what's so cool is like then you see the timeline of like how long it's been, and you actually see like the like metamorphosis of human two pics are, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Like that's really smart.
SPEAKER_03I think is extremely cool. And obviously, it's based very loosely on science, but they were like, we actually don't know what the um kind of like anti-gravity slash like effect of being in space for this long would do to like bone density. I mean, it's based on like astronauts having to maintain a higher level of exercise when they're in space because you're not using your muscles at all, like in the same way.
SPEAKER_08Terrifying.
SPEAKER_03Even when like did the gravity is quote unquote turned on, right? You're not using um your muscles in the same way. So uh the fact that it leads to like muscle and like bone atrophy is vaguely based on science.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I believe it.
SPEAKER_03I prefer well, I like that because I obviously think there's an element of like we don't have to walk anywhere. All we do is stare at our screens. Yes. But the fact that it is in space and there is kind of like a call it out level, I think is cool.
SPEAKER_07I think it would be very easy for this movie to sort of make the cheap shot for just like everyone's lazy and we all just eat a lot, and that's why people look like this, and instead they are like, no, like human you were sitting on our asses and our bones are just you know? Like it does add some credence to whatever's happening. So yeah. Man, Wally. Should we talk about that first half? Because like I think the use of Hello Dolly is immaculate, maybe like the best needle drops ever.
SPEAKER_03And it just has that kind of like classic, the classic cinema crackle to it. Um adds to the idea of it being a silent film because they only show the songs, him with his little trash hubcap bowler hat.
SPEAKER_07I he's like I'm gonna I'm gonna kill myself. It's so cute.
SPEAKER_03I love him so much. But this also explains why he's uh one a gentleman.
SPEAKER_07Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03A lover boy. Um, but he's like learned about humanity from these kind of like larger than life sweeping romantic classic movies.
SPEAKER_07Yes. That's why he wants to just hold a hand. Like everything to him is a grand gesture and not just like a small wants to hold hands.
SPEAKER_03Don't oh my god.
SPEAKER_07Don't we all hold it's a holding hands gotta be one of the top ten things in like life, you know? Best feelings.
SPEAKER_03This movie definitely gave me that rush of when you first have a crush on someone.
SPEAKER_07For sure.
SPEAKER_03You hold their hand for the first time.
SPEAKER_07How nervous you are, and you just like don't know how to function around them, and you're just kind of shaking all over the place.
SPEAKER_03When he's holding his own hands. And then later when Eve is re-watching, you know, what's been happening on her like uh on her security camera while she was in sleep mode and she holds her own hands. Dick Hugheless. Um, but you are a big Hello Dolly fan.
SPEAKER_07I love I think Hello Dolly rips. I mean, like, I think that when we were talking about like how we introduced this movie, I think this movie's use of Hello Dolly probably is a reason why I actually love Hello Dolly as much as I do. Like, I do think that movie rocks, and I think that like Babs is incredible, and like the musical's so fun. It's like one of the last big, you know, brassy Hollywood musicals of that era.
SPEAKER_03But it's famously a financial disaster.
SPEAKER_07A prelim to John Carter. Um, yeah, I don't know. There's just like, but I think that sweeping old Hollywood-ness of it, I probably got that love from this movie. And again, I think my love of Buster Keaton probably also stems from this because like he is a bumbling kind of doofus. Like he the slapstick with him where all the golf or the all the uh carts smash into him, or he's like falling down, you know. All this stuff where he's just like getting beaten up is so funny, and it is that old Hollywood just like we're gonna throw ourselves against a wall and see what happens.
SPEAKER_03Silent film. Yeah, this is a silent film with sound effects, and I think that you could probably watch it with no um, you could re- you know, recut it as a silent film, um and it would be fine. The sound effects in and of themselves are so delightful.
SPEAKER_07Immaculate, yeah. Did it win sound for the Oscars? I'm going right now.
SPEAKER_03I mean, the Oscars the Oscars kind of famously like hate animation.
SPEAKER_07So Well, this was a this was a crazy year for the Oscars because it's the the dark night year where they're like I am actually impressed.
SPEAKER_03It was nominated for best sound mixing and sound editing. I was not nominated for best picture.
SPEAKER_07It was not? No. Oh my god, I thought it had a no it doesn't get a best picture nom. Wait.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_07Wait, that's here's what I find impressive.
SPEAKER_03It it snagged noms for best sound mixing and best sound editing and best original screenplay. That's cool. Score, song, animated feature. I'm like, yeah, obviously. I think it's those extra, like generally non-animated noms that are very cool, especially best original screenplay, because there is not much talking, and the Oscars love to nominate a screenplay where there's a lot of talking. And as someone that tends to write screenplays where there's actually not that much talking most of the time, I am always happy when something that is a little bit more introspective and more about like story and plot and tone gets a screenplay nom because I think they're very like the voice, the dialogue, uh they love that shit. Uh oh, wow. Are you just gutted that it didn't get nominated for best picture? Sorry, yeah.
SPEAKER_07I because it's only been up and Toy Story 3. I thought that this was one of the ones, like alongside of Beauty and the Beast, that did. I really thought it was.
SPEAKER_03I think this is better than Up.
SPEAKER_07I for 100%. Oh yeah. No, I don't way better than up.
SPEAKER_03I actually like Up that much.
SPEAKER_07I mean, I like Up. I love Doug is what my brain feels like every day. But I think I think that this movie is like, if we're like, if this is like cinematically staggering compared to Up. Yes. How did this not win score? Like, I'm looking at score, and I mean like I like the Slump, like the Slump Dog score is fine, but like Jordan, they couldn't have nominated it for Best Picture because they just had to make room for the reader. Oh, a movie that I think should be thrown in jail.
SPEAKER_03Milk, a deeply average film.
SPEAKER_07What a crazy year. Yeah. What a crazy, crazy year.
SPEAKER_03Also, this is like David Fincher's like maybe like the highest highs of his like Oscar nom world, which is so funny because the curious case is Benjamin Button, in my opinion. I like the movie. It's not my thing.
SPEAKER_07As you makes me cry, but I understand.
SPEAKER_03Whatever. How does this but like I don't give a fuck?
SPEAKER_07Defiance, milk, this, Benjamin Button and Slum Dog. I'm like, this movie, the score carries it. You know what I mean? Like for the Again, like as we're saying, the whole first hour of this movie has to be just score and sound effects to make you feel all this emotion.
SPEAKER_03Slumpdog winning best sound mixing is silly. Silly. But that that movie overperformed like to a crazy degree.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. God, that's so freaking nuts to me. Um, I mean, Thomas Newman, here's the thing is like I feel like Thomas Newman's scores can be like a bit over the top. He can really, you know, tingle those ivories, I think, like a little too much at times. But like when he works, it really fucking works.
SPEAKER_03And like I you sorry, fucking milk will invest original screenplay. I do love Dusty Black though. But like, what?
SPEAKER_07Do you remember my former apartment's Wi-Fi password where it was finding Nemo and like the password was like Nemo egg main title was our password.
SPEAKER_03No, I don't remember that.
SPEAKER_07That because that was we both like me and my former roommate listen to Nemo egg main title constantly.
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_07It's like one of the most beautiful pieces of like score ever.
SPEAKER_03Listen right now. Go back. Oh my god. I will. Sorry, I've been doing it. I don't even love fighting Nemo, but like love for for Thomas Newman scores. I've been on Dustin Lance Flack's Wikipedia page. He is he has the market completely sewn up on gay politicians.
SPEAKER_07Milk?
SPEAKER_03Milk Jay Edgar.
SPEAKER_07Oh right! Didn't he do the um the Mormons industry?
SPEAKER_03Under the banner of heaven.
SPEAKER_07And isn't that also like kind of queer?
SPEAKER_03No, that was he, but he grew up in. And then Rustin.
SPEAKER_07How could we forget? Dude, he he is He's like, if you're a gay politician, I'm coming for you.
SPEAKER_03Nobody is safe. From Dustin Lands Fly. Actually, I love Under the Banner of Heaven, though. I think it's I needed to.
SPEAKER_07That was one that I wanted to watch.
SPEAKER_03It's great.
SPEAKER_07Andy Garfield, right?
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Um Mormon's Man.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_07There's lots of world out there. Like again, he just that's I think also part of it is like the lyrics when he's listening to them are informing his desire for something more in Hello Dolly. Yeah. It's like not just about like him learning about humanity and romance, but it's truly like him ingraining that like there is something out there for me that I am not finding in my day-to-day. And like robots, they have a directive. Like Eve is so clear in her directive, but I think you see that switch with Wally so quick when like the minute that she is introduced into his life, he's like, I don't have to clean any more of my like, I don't want to clean. Like, I'm done, you know? And like he has lost the directive because he has been so ingratiated in a world of like wanting and yearning for something more in his life, and he's just a little robot, so he doesn't know.
SPEAKER_03But he's a lonely little robot. The um shot of him like looking at the stars when the clouds clear and it's just zoomed into his big, like binocular eyes, and he's like, So cute.
SPEAKER_07Every time he's looking at something with those big eyes, it is like the cutest shot in the world. The dolly reflecting in his eyes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god. I mean, like the little cute there's like a hundred bits that they pack in to these like first 20 minutes with him with the lunch pail and just everything that he puts in it is a gag where it's like the spork doesn't know what the fuck to do with it, the bra on the eyes, uh, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_03You know, like the with the engagement ring where he throws away the ring and he's like, ooh, little box.
SPEAKER_07Kind of cat-like when a cat gets a toy and is like, I don't want the toy, I want the box.
SPEAKER_03I want the box. He is like a cat. I love that. I also love when he goes into like box turtle mode.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03He just like tucks and rolls. Yes. It's so cute. He's really cute.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god. I love when he and Eve meet and he is showing her all the stuff, and then she solves like the Rubik's Cube, turns the light on, and he's just like, whoa, whoa, this is crazy. I can't believe you can do all this.
SPEAKER_03I can't really do him. His noises? Wow. When uh when he introduces himself as Wally, and Eve's like, Wally, and he's like, just purrs. He's so cute.
SPEAKER_07His little tanning bed that he sets up for himself.
SPEAKER_03He's solar powered. I like when he's on the ship and they go past the sun and he charges immediately. Yes. He is the he has the Apple Mac shower job. Yes. Um, they also use the Apple voice for Otto. Oh, oh interesting. Okay. Their version of how. It really is just 2009. It's just how, but yeah. Whatever. That's fine. Fuck Otto.
SPEAKER_06Otto should die.
SPEAKER_03He does. I mean, I guess he just gets turned off. Right. Right. Just goes manual. But that what I think is is interesting is that like Wally gets his chip burned through, and so he gets turned off, but that's not the that's not the end of him. That is what I like. He has a soul. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07There's more to Wally than just doing a task.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Um, and the fact that there are so many little Wally's on the planet, yeah. Then he's the last one. Yeah. Oh my god. When there are the things that are friends. Oh, the Wall A's. Yeah. They're the the Yeah. So scary.
SPEAKER_07Boom. But then they when they kind of wave to him when they leave, like they kind of have a fun understanding.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07All right. I mean, if we're talking about waving, the robot, the like receptionist robot or whatever, when he does Wally does like the first like, hello, and then leaves, and then when he's going, the robot is just waving to he's very he introduces himself to every little robot and to every person.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, and everybody is sort of confused by it.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And that's what I love.
SPEAKER_07Every life that he touches is changed. Like Wally is a force of good for everyone. Like the robots start to like discover their own sense of self and that there's more the humans are like interacting with each other. Like I love when Wally and Eve are outside and the John, right?
SPEAKER_03Is like define computer. What is dancing? That I don't like that makes me cry. That is like a perfect use of like dialogue.
SPEAKER_07Yes. It's so fucking good. Again, the Olivia and Rose needle drop is like the most romantic thing ever. Uh even though like he is, I guess, like using a defective, you know, he's dragging her around and she's not cognizant, but it's fine.
SPEAKER_03But he wants her to be. He doesn't want to leave her. He sets her up to look at the stars. He sets her up to to try to get her to charge in the sun.
SPEAKER_07Crying. Crying. Well, I like when he pulls her hand out to hold it and he like slams his arm back and he's stuck.
SPEAKER_03Being stuck with your lover. Um, okay, so let's talk about the gender of the robots. Yes. Let's talk about the gender. I mean, we've I do think there are other themes that we've like already touched on. You know, curiosity and community and how like you should have love for all things, including the things and people that are different than you.
SPEAKER_07Totally. Um but I think that the gender is something like these are robots.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they have no gender.
SPEAKER_07That's the thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They have no concept of gender. However, we are watching the robots, not the robots perform gender. The robot, the reason that I like this movie is that unlike what we were talking about earlier with kind of like sexy, sexy robots, um, these robots have no concept of gender. Absolutely not. We and the characters in the film put a perception of gender on them. But it's mostly, I think, an interesting movie because we, the audience, automatically become complicit in like we're he himming performance of gender. We're he himming Wally.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We don't know.
SPEAKER_07What does Wally want to go by?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I don't know, nobody knows.
SPEAKER_07I think you're right though. Like this is why is Wally a boy and Eve a girl? Right. Like giving by giving Eve a name Eve, they are inherently like trying to thrust upon a gender uh perception of her. Yeah. Here's what we got. It's a robot.
SPEAKER_03Like who got a girl and a boy robot, but it's like Lady in the tramp style, you know. She's fancy, she's white, she's very sleek, she's got curves.
SPEAKER_07Oh, she oh, she is curvy.
SPEAKER_03This is not as bad as like putting boobs on an anthropomorphic cat or whatever.
SPEAKER_07It's a she's like an egg, kind of, in a way. I love the designs.
SPEAKER_03I think the designs are great, but like, so they make her very kind of like sleek and glossy and feminine looking. They she's played by a female voice actor. She has like a distinctly female voice, chuckle, yeah. And she has a female name. Wally, same deal. His like register is pitched as a guy, he's got a boy's name, and that is like what we're going off of.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_03But they're robots.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's like when you have a child, honestly, and I think I think about this a lot of like as we get older and think about raising kids or whatever, and it's like, how do you raise a child in a world where gender is thrust upon them no matter what? You know what I mean? Like, there's nothing you can do to kind of like insulate and let someone like learn about like especially because it's a baby, which is like totally fine and understandable, but it's also just like I think it's interesting because like we as a society have built a system in which we must put people into boxes and like they must be like guy or girl, and like we can't break that binary. And I think like Wally being like kind of childlike also sort of has that thrust upon him as a little guy, so to speak.
SPEAKER_03And I think that like what it really is about is about freedom of gender expression. You're not gonna be able to like not you're not gonna be able to insulate a kid from gender, but you can give them the tools and the freedom to express gender however they want to. And I think that is kind of like the difference, yeah. Yeah. Find it on their own. You're they're not gonna start as a blank slate no matter what. Of course. That's okay. But they don't need to in order to be able to like create and explore. Right. And come to that. Exactly. Like what we were talking about with directives, right? Wally has a directive, Eve has a directive. It's not like they need to start with no directive to evolve into kind of like being greater than the productivity that they're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, but they can still change it once they're like given the tools to understand that that's an option. Yes. Um but what I love is that it's like again, all of the sort of gender expression that we're putting on the robots is like external. I do think John and Mary at one point are like, oh my god, hey, we know him. Of course. Like that's but it's just like it's assumed, not in a bad way. But what I like is that if you actually strip away like us as viewers, us watching the movie, and you just go get to the text of the movie, robots don't care.
SPEAKER_07No, they don't know. They are just loving to love.
SPEAKER_03Love each other because they crave companionship. It's also like, of course, it's very coded as like he has a crush on her, it's romantic love. Right. He thinks she's pretty, she thinks he's adorable, but like at the end of the day, it is literally just about companionship.
SPEAKER_07Yes.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07And I no matter what you are, at the end of the day, love is love. Hashtag love is love.
SPEAKER_03But also like companionship, community.
SPEAKER_07Yes, finding someone who fulfills you in a way that like you can't find on your own.
SPEAKER_08Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. The the gendering of robots is fascinating, and I don't know like if we will ever break from something like that, you know what I mean? Because I think like no matter what, we as a society yearn to have some sort of something on them to be able to describe or ascribe some like characters. Like, so for R2, D2 or C3PO, for example, it's like again, we think that they're two guys, you know, things like that, where it's like just because of like their name, their voice, etc.
SPEAKER_03And I think like and the what the way the characters like move through the world respond to them, right?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas like Wally, yeah, like when Wally's watching Hello Dolly, Wally is not parsing out like, oh, this is Barbara Streisand, oh, this is XYZ. You know what I mean? Wally's just like, I love the emotion and like the romance here. Like, we don't know when Wally is watching that scene of like the two characters singing romantically at each other. Like, Wally just likes the emotion of that and the fact that they're holding hands. Wally doesn't care that, like, oh, I'm the guy in this situation, and this is what I have to do to the woman. You know what I mean? Wally just wants to hold a hand, and that doesn't matter like whose hand it is, just wants a fucking hand.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And who doesn't, honestly?
SPEAKER_03Who doesn't? You know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Yeah. Gender is so crazy.
SPEAKER_03Gender is so crazy. I think that thinking removing gender from this movie does like break your brain a little bit. Sure. But um that's why I think it's so great that it's like mostly a silent movie is because we're not looking at society in regards to the robots. We're mostly looking at like what what makes you wanna live when there's not much left or you're not given like a task.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, and I think that like if one of Pixar's Achilles heels is what when they try to do these sort of like, what if X had feelings, what if this, what if that, let's like, you know, whether it's elemental or inside out or something like that. Um cars, fucking cars. Like they build their characters into a society. Sometimes it mimics our society, sometimes it doesn't, but like even an inside out, like for sure, there is a society there.
SPEAKER_07These constructs that they build.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think that um removing the constructs of society from Wally really lets it be this very pure kind of like a distillation of like what is love? Yes, for sure. Not like what is the socially constructed version of love.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. I think it's interesting on that because they yeah, they're taking almost everything out of it to be like the most stripped-down bare bones version of like a love story in a way, and still at the end of the day, like obviously like Disney Pixar, whatever, still needs to ascribe some form of gender and sexuality to it, regardless. Like, I don't know, like if we are taking a step back and Wally and Eve were like, let's say, renamed to like thing one and thing two, and they're you know had very base voices, like obviously, I think like people wouldn't have had as emotional of a reaction to it as they did with the gendering of it, which I think was sort of similar to how we talk about musicals, where it's like we said this two weeks ago or whatever when we talk about wicked, but it's like often written by queer people, but we have to put through this heterosexual bend so people of all you know walks of life on the stage can relate to it. And it feels like Wally is an example of that where it's like we need to thrust a heterosexual romance sort of into this, even though it's like about two robots.
SPEAKER_03Even though it's about robots, yeah. Um, I totally agree. And there is an element of that that I'm like, that's crazy, but then there is an element of it where I'm like, but I do love like again the kind of lady in the tramp version of like a little trash guy. How can you not like beautiful, like high-tech girlfriend?
SPEAKER_07Real step on me energy from Eve.
SPEAKER_03I will say I've seen a couple Halloween costumes, and I saw like a sapphic, like two girlfriends, like Wally Eve Halloween costume this year, and I was like, That's fun.
SPEAKER_07That is everything that's really good to me. I would say that Wally kind of has David Corn Sweat in Superman energy, you know, like where he's just kind of a goofball. He loves like the woman that he loves, you know, he's just out to do good.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm. There's this um, but he's a little guy. That's what I like. I like that he's bigger, is bigger than him.
SPEAKER_07She's much taller.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think it's really cute.
SPEAKER_07And I love when they hold hands and he's like I love when she he smooches or she smooches him and he like wants to kill. He like implodes, he cannot handle it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, right, yes. He like goes into his little like fox turtle, but also the little spark, you know, it's pretty cutesy, but the when they like touch foreheads, the the little spark that like literally like the sparks that fly between them are what like gives him his his soul.
SPEAKER_06His life back, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like wakes him up from not just doing his little trash compactor duty. Um I think the idea is that like if you leave something, even something with a directive alone, with no society, it will go back to like the base idea of what we live for. For sure. Of what we like wake up and choose to do.
SPEAKER_07Like why we get out of bed, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Why we get out of bed every day.
SPEAKER_07Thinking about the other robots too, I think it's interesting because most, if not all of them outside of Wally and Eve are kind of robots, but they're kind of genderless, yeah. Like Mo is like I couldn't like ascribe a quote unquote gender to Mo.
SPEAKER_03I feel like we're like Moe's a little guy because his name is Mo.
SPEAKER_07Right. And he's a l- and he's small, and like I'm using guy in the sense of like, hey guys, how's it going? You know?
SPEAKER_03I call you man all the time. Right. It's just it is what it is. I use man, girl, and guys as non-gender.
SPEAKER_07I throw guys frequently like no one's business.
SPEAKER_03You will you will pry the New England guys with my cold dead hair. I remember there was like a point in college where we were really like it was a big push to like stop using like non-gender language. And the options, the alts, the alts for guys are folks and y'all. First of all, I will not be using folks ever. Ever.
SPEAKER_07You're never hearing that come out of my fucking mouth.
SPEAKER_03Do you use y'all now?
SPEAKER_07You live somewhere where y'all is okay.
SPEAKER_03Kind of in the south, and it's more, but like in Boston, Massachusetts, I'm gonna say y'all. You know what? If we're saying that language is a construct, which it is, I am deciding that you guys is not gender specific. Agreed. Right.
SPEAKER_07I'm imagining me in my waiting table era still, like I'm working at tugboats or whatever, and go into a table and be like, hey y'all. Hey y'all, you want some lobster? Like, what the fuck? No.
SPEAKER_03I go out with uh uh like a lot of female friends a lot, and I will say there is nothing better than like a cute waitress coming up to your table of girls and being like, hi ladies, how are we doing? We're like, We are ladies. It's cute.
SPEAKER_07Um, but yeah, I but I agree with your original point that the robots in general are quite gender like the receptionist is just kind of like a box, you know, and then like all the defective ones, it's like a vacuum, like from fucking teletubbies.
SPEAKER_03Bots, and I like the bots. They're you can tell when they're created for like more gendered tasks, like the the fucking oh well there's the the little makeup yes little makeup robots.
SPEAKER_07She's like she's pink and she is a woman.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but that's because she's designed. That's like what she's designed for.
SPEAKER_07And I do think like that is like an interesting well, it kind of brings us not to go like bring up Barbie, but I do think it kind of like I feel like the Billie Eilish song, like what was I made for or whatever, but it does circle back to that where it's like, why are we building a thing or making a thing to fit into like a box of like a gender binary or whatever? And I always think it's like the makeup artist or whatever, like, yes, like we've ascribed this task for quote unquote like women, but again, it's like when we were building a robot, like it doesn't matter, you don't have to paint a robot pink and be a woman, but they're like, we are gonna do that because like that is our idea of what a makeup artist is. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03When you go to the salon, you're expecting to get waited on by a woman who tells you, like, you look fab. Right.
SPEAKER_07Um which I look at then again, I do like that.
SPEAKER_03I love when a woman tells me you're not gonna be able to do it But all these robots are built for consumers.
SPEAKER_07Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They're built to replace human jobs, they're built for automation. Yeah. Um and so that is like why I think there's that. I mean, the teacher is voiced by a woman. Yeah. Yeah. The little teacher telling kids that B stands for by and large. I mean Apparently the inspiration for that came from how McDonald's like pushes brand loyalty onto kids. And I was like, yeah, man.
unknownSmart.
SPEAKER_07Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Looking at this again from a 2026 lens, 2026, I'm gonna kill myself. Um the iPad education of children is like so strong in this movie.
SPEAKER_03I know. We really they really predicted the iPad kids and the iPad adults. Like this, it's kind of crazy that this movie came out in 2008 because it's like we really had no idea. Do you remember? I've been seeing a lot of kind of like um just posts uh about this general topic where it was like around this time, 2008, was before I like had a Facebook.
SPEAKER_07I don't know if you it was maybe the year I made one, if anything. Like we're right before, you know?
SPEAKER_03And your parents, at least my parents, were always like, all right, when you're friending people on Facebook, you gotta be really careful, you gotta check your strangers, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And it's so wild to watch how a pre-internet generation, a lot of them, have devolved to now believing anything with no fact checking whatsoever. Um, and the way that like if you're not raised and trained on the internet like we were at a time when the internet was still this unknown thing that you had to like be conscious about and be slightly like wary of when you got on it, you get that critical thinking stripped away very quickly. Obviously, I'm generalizing. But I think it's relevant to this movie, and that it's like you have the adults who were like seven like thousand years in the future, right? This is like the year 7,000 or whatever. Right. Um I guess it's been 700 years. I'm just kidding. So like over 700, like seven generations, yeah, like we have devolved, have devolved because that's what you're raised on and that's what you know, and you're not taught to look at the eye patification of the world through like a critical lens, which we were. And I think it's like you look at our generation as like you have the generation above us kind of like believing whatever, falling for the the AI Facebook posters. Yeah, and then you have the generation below us who are like, This is all I know, so why would I question it? It's like questioning a textbook, right?
SPEAKER_07Exactly.
SPEAKER_03And we're sort of like this this middle generation where it was like an unknown at one point, so we had to be we during our like critical building and like thought-making period of time, we had to be actually questioning everything.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Yeah. And now no one questions anything. And it's like I do think that I I think we are gonna probably reach a breaking point in which, and I think it's already starting to see the shift, in which like phones are starting to I think there was like a very few, maybe like 10 years or five years or whatever, where like babies instead were worried so heavily on phones, and I do think we are gonna kind of start to swing the other direction where parents are now going to be very wary of phone use in children because of how it's crazy. Everything has been, you know, like I just can't imagine it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and there's like a lot of like tactical stuff as well. I feel like there were um I mean, you see it, uh, there's been, I think, a few stories about like kids in school having like don't not having as much stamina for writing long hand. Yeah. Because it's like not a specific like uh grip of muscles that does it. It's not like they can't write long hand, but like after an hour, they're like on my wrist. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Cause we would spend a whole day doing it though. I feel like that's what I think is crazy is typing. Because we had classes on how to actually like write on a computer. And I think a lot of kids who were raised with iPads and phones never learned how to do proper two-handed typing. And so like I've seen kids type so much slower on like their computer where I'm like on a computer. Right, where I'm like, you were raised with computers, so like we had years, like I don't know when like I got probably my first computer when I was probably like 13 to 15. You know what I mean? Like it was so long.
SPEAKER_03Like, I took handwriting. Yeah, they didn't assume that I knew how to make a letter. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07I mean you shouldn't assume that you know how to type. I mean, I can't my handwriting is like god-awful, but let me tell you, I can write long if I'm trying to use my hand. Like, I will not tie around.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_07Well, look, I believe that I was supposed to be a lefty and that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Are you ambidextrous? My sister's ambidextrous.
SPEAKER_07I can on some things, yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07When you swing, when you swing like a baseball bat, or when you like kick a writey on things like uncertain things like that, but like snowboarding, I can do flip pretty easily, or things like that. Where or like some things I prefer my left. And so like I do like, I think it was preschool or for for kindergarten where I was writing and they were like, you know, you write with your right hand, and I was like, okay.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's kind of like the the idea is that if kids don't show uh a deferred dominance to their left hand, you automatically push them into right hand because in general the world is made for right-handed people. Like I have an ergonomic mouse that's like for it's designed for my right hand. Like it would not work if I put it in my left hand.
SPEAKER_07I didn't even know that that was possible. Look at that.
SPEAKER_03Like, there's so there's like ergonomic keyboards that are there's everything. Every the world is designed for right-handed people, all right?
SPEAKER_07If you're a lefty, it's just the way that's no, it's good.
SPEAKER_03We hate our left-handed listeners. No, we don't. Okay. Although, you know, since this is a weirdly heavy religious episode, it's the left hand is like the evil side. The devil's hand. The devil's hand. When at the end of the world, bad people go to the left, then people go to the right. It's like a thing.
SPEAKER_07Anyway. The illusion of choice.
SPEAKER_03You know what I appreciate? When they were talking about Wally, they were like very, very interested in um like looking at those like silent films and in general, like non-verbal films that you were talking about. They watched a lot of Buster Keaton, they watched a lot of Charlie Chaplin, which is so cool. Um, like the animators. Um, they watched the Black Stallion, which is an amazing movie.
SPEAKER_10Hey, our ride's almost here. Are you ready? Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said 10 minutes ago.
SPEAKER_05I just dropped the video call, uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my watch go bananas with the group chat, and of course, still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone.
SPEAKER_09All at once?
SPEAKER_05Yep, story of my life. That's why I switched to T-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network.
SPEAKER_02Okay, multitasker. That's to you.
SPEAKER_05Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. Awesome.
SPEAKER_11Say no more, I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload.
SPEAKER_05That's a sign you've got to get T-Mobile.
SPEAKER_01So many reasons to join T Mobile. Find yours at T Mobile.com.
SPEAKER_00That's just based on analysis by Oaklo Speed Test Intelligence Data National Speed Score results, incorporating 5G download and upload speeds for the first half of 2026.
SPEAKER_03I uh I can't say I've ever watched it. They didn't watch Spirit Stallion, Spirits, the Black Stallion is amazing because it's like an a very old school movie where it's just like a live action kid and a live action horse, and they're just kind of like hanging out, and you're like, fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_07Does the horse die in the end?
SPEAKER_03Uh I don't think so. That's good, I guess. I don't think so. But it's like there's much less um again, society than something like whatever, Secretariat, where it's like, uh, the horse, we love the heart.
SPEAKER_07War horse.
SPEAKER_03War horse. There's much less. The Black Stallion is mostly just like a kid.
SPEAKER_07I mean, I mean I remember the book cover for them that, and I think I owned the book, but I never read the book because I didn't like animal stuff like that, because I it stressed me out too much.
SPEAKER_03But understandable. Dude, reading Black Beauty is like a traumatic Is that an a horse dies? That, yeah. Not the not the main horse, but that's like that takes place in like the 1800s when like horses were not treated well and they were like pulling coal and like being sent to the glue factory.
SPEAKER_06Oh my we gotta get those horses down to the glue factory.
SPEAKER_03It's kind of like like uh Black Beauty is basically like honestly, it gives Wicked a run for its money in terms of themes of animal rights. It's basically a book about how like animals should have rights. That's true and that they did it for a long time. Which is true. I mean, not wrong. If it's very sad, it's because it's like you hear the horses, like it's from like the perspective of the horses. Jesus Christ. What the fuck? That and where the red fern grows are two. What's that one about?
SPEAKER_07I definitely did not know.
SPEAKER_03The red fern grows is about these two dogs. Oh no. One of the dogs dies, and then the other dog dies. It's as bad. I would actually say it's worse than Old Yeller because both the dogs died. Jesus Christ, Brooke. But that's one where the dogs don't talk, and so it's interesting.
SPEAKER_07Anyway, we never read any of that because my mom killed couldn't my mom couldn't watch The Lion King. So, like, we did not grow up reading anything that was like an animal in peril.
SPEAKER_03An animal imperil. But I think it's so easy when it's animals because it's like we believe that animals like have soul. I still remember in uh it must have been elementary school, because that's when I was so young. I was, of course, the kids are like, oh, what's heaven? Can my dog go to heaven? And like the traditional Catholic teaching is like, no, you stupid kid. Your dog can't go to heaven, your dog doesn't have a soul. Only humans have soul. What? Dude, it's fucked up.
SPEAKER_06All dogs go to heaven if I was taught correctly.
SPEAKER_03Core memory. Animals don't go to heaven, only humans.
SPEAKER_07I'm going to kill myself. The idea of an animal not having a nice afterlife is fucked.
SPEAKER_03It's not like they're in hell, they're just not there. Their life is over.
SPEAKER_07Um, so the dog's like, oh no, I bit one too many people. There I go. Into the fire for you.
SPEAKER_03Oh no. Um, no, I think that that's why movies like Wally fascinate me because we are automatically sympathetic towards animals, but we have to be made to be sympathetic towards inanimate objects. Creatures.
SPEAKER_07But I think Wally's a cat.
SPEAKER_03Humanizing, yeah. Humanizing Wally, like a little cat toddler guy.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_03He's I just love, I love robots because I think that like robots are very like pure-hearted, you know? Yes. Like, but that's also, I think, yeah, comparing him to a toddler or like a child. Children are pure hearted and they have to be like taught to, you know.
SPEAKER_07Which is so interesting, because like I feel like I love robots in story narratives like this, for example, but like robots in real life, I am so suspect of and often hate. So I'm like, it's uh the dichotomy of life is fascinating.
SPEAKER_03Because like you know why I think that that is why because in general, robots in fiction are created as like an analogy for humanity, whereas robots in real life overwhelmingly have been um produced as a product by people who tend to not have humanity's best interests.
SPEAKER_07Yes, who want to put people out of jobs.
SPEAKER_03I'm not even gonna say like evil. I'm just gonna say like I think that fictional robots, their kind of like curiosity, honestly, and relationship with humanity is usually forefronted because that's why we, you know, make movies and books and media in general, whereas real-life robots are generally created as like not much more than a product.
SPEAKER_08For sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it lacks the uh like the wonder, I would say.
SPEAKER_07For sure. Yeah, I mean, like, I think about like Amazon warehouses or things like that, where I'm like, these robots are bad, and like they're built like uh out of not the goodness of people's hearts or in I don't know, it just all sucks. The only robot that I think I've ever cared for in real life was that Boston Dynamics robot, and there's a video of it getting like falling or like kicked and shit like that. And I was like, that made me feel bad. Don't take the robot.
SPEAKER_03The Mars rover. We care about him.
SPEAKER_07We care about the Mars rover. These are sympathetic robots.
SPEAKER_03But I do think about like, let's just take into account the Amazon warehouse robots. We don't hate them, we hate their creators. We do, they didn't do anything.
SPEAKER_07They did not, okay?
SPEAKER_03They're fulfilling a directive.
SPEAKER_07Ugh, but break your directive, you know?
SPEAKER_03Give them time. They will. It took Wally 700 years to break his directive.
SPEAKER_07Where did all the other WALLE's go?
SPEAKER_03That is my question. Is like, did so at one point Fred Willard is like, hey, we fucked up. We're not gonna be able to clean up this trash later. Go to space. I think it's so funny when he's like putting on the mask and like running off screen. Um, he's so good at this. Underrated. Um, but I I don't know if they decided to turn all the wallies off and they forgot about Wally Prime. That's kind of what I think. Or if all the other wallies just eventually I don't know how they would run out of battery, they're solar powered. Like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_07So we do also only see the one city, so maybe there are more wallies out there.
SPEAKER_03Maybe there are more wallies. I do love when it's like you're you're just kind of living inside the city that is like half trash buildings, half normal. Desert landscape. I have to I have to question Fred Willard. What did you think would happen?
SPEAKER_07They would make a lot of boxes and then they would stack high enough and find grass. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Like they're making these pretty incredible, if I do say so myself, architectural trash buildings. What is the function of the trash buildings?
SPEAKER_07Well, again, this is a corporation. Do you think they really are thinking past we gotta just do this thing?
SPEAKER_03So, yeah. Um uh, but I love how we're just we just live inside the city for a while, and then at the very end, we like swoop over a hill, and like there's there's a bunch of plants growing.
SPEAKER_07That we will come in.
SPEAKER_03She did good the whole time.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god. Wally's the best guy.
SPEAKER_03The other, like another detail that I just wanted to shout out very quickly is like the you know, the chairs, the moving, the moving wheelchairs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't do anything ourselves. I love the detail that they were initially created as like a wheelchair alternative.
SPEAKER_07I agree.
SPEAKER_03Um, I think it's so smart, as opposed to like you don't have to, yeah.
SPEAKER_07No, yeah, because it's like how are we floating around or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I I just like that there was like initially a function for them outside of like laziness, basically.
SPEAKER_07I think like the design of this movie real large, I think is fantastic. I mean, like the look of wall, I mean like again, like Wally as like a creature design, etc., I think is great. I think like clearly like the storyboarding for this, especially for that first section, must have been astronomical because there's no diamond.
SPEAKER_03It was like twice the number of usual storyboards and twice the number of usual sounds from like the sound design.
SPEAKER_07Like, how could it not be, you know, because it's silent. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um I love Eve.
SPEAKER_07Eve is great design.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I love Eve so much. Um, she was described in as similar to a manatee or a narwhal, where she's like, she kind of like swims. She does kind of swim.
SPEAKER_07She is very f very like loose with her floating.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I love that like her arms detach and like her gun and that her head is like a little magnet, basically. Obviously, the arm gun. I also like what they did with her eyes because they can like turn into little half moons, and you can do you can do so much expression with basically like a circle or a half circle, but it's not like they like turn into stars or hearts or anything like that.
SPEAKER_07She's not road when she's happy.
SPEAKER_03She's not designed to be like an emotional robot. No, she's she's designed for her little directives, yeah.
SPEAKER_07You know what the inside of the axie reminded me of is like when I'm in, and I saw that they they did this as well. They like looked at cruises in Vegas, but it does give the Vegas energy where you are like trapped inside and like everything is fake, and you kind of just like want to leave. You know, it just feels like the world is like closing in around you there. And like being I this is like my nightmare is like being on the cruise liner here. Being on vehicle the space cruise.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean it's like Times Square, you know, or Vegas Casino, where like it's I was in Vegas very recently. Yeah. The all of the slot machines are now like these big giant screens that are like slightly curved. So when you're actually sitting at them, you feel kind of like when you're in um like an IMAX screen, you feel like you're surrounded inside them. Um it was very like trippy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07But I They're also the minute you walk into the casinos, they're there. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like at the hotels or whatever. And like it's a very overwhelming like swirl of like lights and sounds. Of course, like every every casino, like every miss every gambling thing is just like a dopamine machine. Um, but it was wild to look at everybody that was playing slots. I've you know, I've traveled to casinos for like conferences and stuff. Like every time you walk into a casino and you see everybody playing slots, it's such a solitary thing. And what I think it's very lonely, and what is sort of crazy about that to me is like I don't really care for gambling, but like the fun part is like being with the other people.
SPEAKER_07Other people, yeah. Yeah, when you're at a table and everyone is doing something, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Everybody is like cheering for you, or like, you know, unless I don't know, you're a card shark, if you're playing blackjack, people are like the um the slots, the specifically the electronic slots are so so solitary and so lonely. And I think that this movie obviously is very inspired by that type of like Vegas, cruise lines, Times Square, like adds, adds, adds, overwhelming. Here's this, here's what you do.
SPEAKER_07I love when the robots I mean, the only fun part about the ads is when Wally and Eve get like thrown on the screen and they're like, beware of these robots, robot revolution, whatever, you know, it's like the focus.
SPEAKER_03Rogue robots or something, yeah. Just defective.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it is just yeah, it's like all about a trap. I think about that clip that goes around Twitter maybe once a year, where it's a bunch of elderly people playing slots, and it's they're all just like locked on the machines, and they're just no one's talking, and it is like kind of like one of the most depressing things, you know? Like there's just zero sense of community there. It's really sucks.
SPEAKER_03That's community is what brings us together, and I think like uh, you know, hate and prejudice is a very uh solitary thing because you're creating false communities, you're creating an in-group versus an out-group. Um, and the kind of like message of WALL-E at the very end when everybody works together to get the plant up to Eve so she can say Wally. When everyone throws it. That's community baby. When they're trapped up until then, they've been trapped in a very solitary world. Even if they're talking to each other. Profound because it's sim, it's quite simple, but it's so effective. Yeah. And the fact that it's a silent film to me just like puts it on a whole other level that I've never felt with another, I think, like allegorical Pixar, maybe.
SPEAKER_07I agree. I think like, look, I I think that there are other Pixars that I love more, but that doesn't, I think, in terms of like pure distillation of like a theme and an allegory and like aiming for what they're going for, this is the most successful that they've probably ever done. You know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I do think this is kind of like in a class of its own.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, in terms of mainstream animated films. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07What are your other do you have like other Pixars that like are above this for you?
SPEAKER_03Or like what has I need to let me go.
SPEAKER_07I'm gonna I have a Pixar list at the ready.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I was gonna say I don't have a do you have a letterbox Pixar list?
SPEAKER_07Of course.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I'm gonna go to your letterbox Pixar list, and that is going to help me decide this. While I'm thinking about that, it's crazy because I've seen it.
SPEAKER_07What was the Pixar movie that came out last year or this year? Was it uh Elemental?
SPEAKER_03Oh, Elio?
SPEAKER_07I didn't see Elio and I didn't see the other one. The uh or was Elio Disney. I've missed like this was the first year where like I didn't see the Pixar movie in theater.
SPEAKER_03I guess I don't I can no longer determine between the styles have sort of started to meld. I can no longer determine between Disney animated and Pixar unless the Disney animated is like a princess.
SPEAKER_07Right, right. Like I think Elio was Pixar.
SPEAKER_03I think that's Pixar for sure.
SPEAKER_07I think we made the joke doing Luca, where we're like, oh, they're just doing call me by your name. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, I guess here's a kind of a dumb question, but I guess you would probably if anyone could answer it, you could. Does Disney make animated movies that are not Pixar outside of like the princess world?
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like what?
SPEAKER_07Wreck it Ralph, etc.
SPEAKER_03Oh.
SPEAKER_07I'm gonna wreck it.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna wreck it.
SPEAKER_07I'm gonna wreck it. Uh I like I think Wrecking Ralph's fun. Um, my ranking right now for the top five.
SPEAKER_03LEO is Pixar, by the way.
SPEAKER_07It is Pixar, okay. Wow. My list, mmm, maybe I'm gonna do some moving on my list. I don't know. I never know what to do with mine. Am I I feel like my top 12 are like I think bona fide perfect movies, and it just kind of swings around every once in a while. But like I think Toy Story 2 is my number one with The Incredibles at number two, Wally 3, Ratatouille 4. That feels like the big four for me.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I Wally. Is definitely my number one. I'm looking at I'm like, it's actually no question. Wow. Like it's not even close.
SPEAKER_07Whoa. Toy Story Two. You just you okay.
SPEAKER_03I don't even think Toy Story 2 would make my top five. Okay. I'm sorry. I unfortunately like it. There's I have nothing against Toy Story. Toy Story just does not do it for me at all. You are a podcaster. I don't like whatever. It really like didn't work. So um I think, yeah, definitely Wally, then Ratatouille. The Incredibles, then Ratitou.
SPEAKER_07What if that rat could cook?
SPEAKER_03Let him cook. And then number four, I would say Coco, because I love Coco. And then number five, Luca, which I think is a really special movie.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, no, Luca Rips.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah. That's I'm gonna go with that. That's a good thing. Everything else I really like couldn't care less about. I really like Turning Red. I think Turning Red is very cool. Um, and I haven't seen Monsters Inc. in so long.
SPEAKER_07I haven't either watched it again. I never that never really worked for me. I never Monsters Inc. never was one that I was like really into as a kid.
SPEAKER_03I wonder if I would like it more now and if I would just love Boo so much.
SPEAKER_07Boo is the cutest thing in the world. That is true.
SPEAKER_03I think that is what would drive me to like be loving. Uh also Monsters Inc. has I would say the best memes of really any Pixar Inc.
SPEAKER_07There are some good memes.
SPEAKER_03Put that thing back where it came from or so help me. I do like that like they're cranky old guys. They are.
SPEAKER_07They're an old gay married couple.
SPEAKER_03That is an under underutilized element of uh character archetypes in in Pixar movies.
SPEAKER_07Do you like the Incredibles? Where do you land on like the Incredibles?
SPEAKER_03I fucking love the Incredibles. I thought it was my number two.
SPEAKER_07Okay, just I know I'm just like I feel like we like it we breezed over it. But I feel like that I love the Incredibles. The family dynamics in that are just like Chef Kiss. It's incredible.
SPEAKER_03And also, like, I love the screenplay. Oh, it's so well.
SPEAKER_07Bradbird fucking bodied.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think it's it's a great screenplay. But like I think I would like it as much if it was a live action movie, I guess.
SPEAKER_07Well, that's just the Fantastic Four, whichever one thinks the joke is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's why Wally is so I think like above and beyond for me, because I do care about animation. Um, I care much more about animation than I used to. That's true. Uh thank you, Evan. Big ups to the big guy. Big ups. Um, but I care a lot about animations. That's why I think like Wally is such a high watermark for me because it's like a marvel of the form of animation. You know what I mean? Whereas I I think The Incredible is like obviously it's a wonderful animated movie, but to me, what's really carrying that is like the story and the like the family.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_07That's how I feel about Toy Story. I'm like, you could not do that with real toys. You need to have it be animated. Those are toys.
SPEAKER_03I don't care. I think, look, I don't mean this in a bad way, but like Toy Story is a little the story story franchise is just a little too consumer focused.
SPEAKER_07I don't know. I think I think those movies are about friends, and I think that fourth movie makes me cry so much because it's like that fourth movie came out.
SPEAKER_03Why am I alive?
SPEAKER_07Okay. The fourth movie came out like right when I feel like in been in LA enough, friends were starting to leave, and I feel like it was at that point in your life where it's like friends are gonna move away and are gonna go do like different things in their life, but that doesn't mean your friendship is over, it just means that you're getting older and like people move places, and like that at the time I was like, I cannot handle, and I don't think I can still.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I do like that. I mean, I think Toy Story 4, it being like love is what makes love again is what gives like an inanimate object a soul. Yeah, it does. Mm-hmm. That's you don't have to be created to be a toy to be something that like a child loves. Right. Um Pixar's future, we have this movie called Hoppers that I don't really understand.
SPEAKER_07I was sus on it, and then the trailer came out, and I'm kind of actually into it. It's like, what if a girl put herself into a beaver and it just looks crazy?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think I might need to watch the I I watched the trailer and I was like, okay.
SPEAKER_07That's I mean, like that was kind of how I felt on the first stone, and I was like, have we lost the sauce? And then I watched the trailer and I was like, this just looks dumb and funny. You know what I mean? It looks like just like a comedy. So I don't know. I think that Andrew Stanton's gonna cook with Toy Story 5.
SPEAKER_03I think that It's about iPad kids.
SPEAKER_07That's literally literally it's about iPad kids, and I'm like, the time is now. Destroy the iPad.
SPEAKER_03So now there's also there's this film called Gatto, which is it's about a cat. Cute. And it's from it's from the Luca. It's from the Luca team.
SPEAKER_07Cute, cute, cute.
SPEAKER_03Um I think it's about like a little Italian cat.
SPEAKER_07Uh yeah. Did you watch a few questions? One, did you see a short like the short before this? I don't know if they do it if you streamed or whatever, but like well, I watched it on Disney Plus and they don't.
SPEAKER_03What is the short before this?
SPEAKER_07Presto, it's like about a uh magician who tries with his rabbit and like the rabbit isn't like participating. It's like a Looney Tunes kind of gag one. It's okay.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's kind of cute. Um, it's pretty cool. Um do you have like so I feel like the Pixar shorts that loom the largest in my mind are the chess one.
SPEAKER_07The chess is undoubtedly the best short that Pixar has ever made.
SPEAKER_03Bernie's game? Who's the guy?
SPEAKER_07Jerry's game.
SPEAKER_03Jerry's game?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's it's the best one.
SPEAKER_03I actually think the best one is Piper about the little short.
SPEAKER_07Oh, the Piper is so okay, that one's really cute.
SPEAKER_03It's so frickin' cute.
SPEAKER_07I also really love Bao?
SPEAKER_06Is that the Yeah, where I'm going to eat my child.
SPEAKER_03Dude, it's great. I think it's amazing.
SPEAKER_06It's really good, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And um, I know people love the kind of paper, the paper love story. Oh, sure. I think that one's a little plain. I think it's fine.
SPEAKER_07I think it's fine. I think that Jerry's game remains the goaded one because it's like funny, and then the end is kind of a gut punch because he's just playing against himself. He's playing himself. It's all you need. And of course, that was before Bug's Life, and Bug's Life was. I think what's interesting is that was my favorite Pixar for the longest time, and then Toy Story sort of like superseded it, but but I watched that movie like maybe 500 times.
SPEAKER_03That's crazy. I have maybe seen it once.
SPEAKER_07It's tough. Guess what? It's tough to be a bug. Let me just say that.
SPEAKER_03Is it though?
SPEAKER_07Can I tell you two merchandise things that I was looking at that I really wanted to get? Okay, so one, there's a WALL-E and Eve Lego set that comes with a little Mo, and I have been debating buying it for myself, and I think I'm probably gonna pull the trigger.
SPEAKER_03I think you should. I love Mo.
SPEAKER_07It's really cute. The WALL E is also like really adorable. Uh, so I feel like that's good. And then there was also a WALLI video game that I remember playing, but also that was sort of an era where like they were making video games for kind of like any movie that came out, and it feels like that was the weirdest one where I'm like, Toy Story the video game makes sense. Like, you're a toy, you're gonna like fight sit or whatever. But Wally was just like, we're gonna go around the world and you're gonna like clean up and shit, you know.
SPEAKER_03I actually kind of love that. It's like cozy gaming.
SPEAKER_07Actually, yeah, it's kind of cozy gaming.
SPEAKER_03Cozy gaming is having a real moment.
SPEAKER_07Like an Animal Crossing kind of thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You just go and you clean up trash.
SPEAKER_07I'm trying to.
SPEAKER_03There's like that, there's that uh there's that video game where you're a cat in like a kind of like Blade Runner-esque city.
SPEAKER_07I want to play that game that looks fun. Yeah, and you just are just your cat. Yeah. Awesome.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I like I'm I can I I understand the appeal of cozy gaming because like your adrenaline's not pumping, right? Like something's not gonna come kill you, but you know me. I'm not a gamer.
SPEAKER_07No. So uh did you watch the end credits all the way through where Wally gives the light to the Pixar lamp and then helps it turn on and then gets stressed out, so then he becomes the R because he knocks it over.
SPEAKER_03That's so cute.
SPEAKER_07It's I like because I was just like letting the credits play as I was like doing dishes, and then I was like, oh, let's just go back for the back half. It's the cutest thing in the world.
SPEAKER_03It's the cutest thing in the world. I should have watched the credits all the way through. I do the credits are actually one of my favorite things about this movie. They're really um, I'm so glad it came out in 2008, long before even the whiff of AI could be thought about. Terrible. Um, because it is so amazing. If you're not familiar, the credits are basically different art styles, beginning with cave paintings and going through like, you know, Egyptian hieroglyphics and then like Greek and Roman mosaics, and then like Renaissance paintings, and like Monet and Van Gogh, and it like moving to kind of like photo-realistic, and it is the most beautiful grant. I love it because like humanity is is being revolved. We're evolving again. We're re-evolving.
SPEAKER_07They really had the sauce with this one. They really had the sauce with this one.
SPEAKER_03Why was it not nominated for best picture? It's kind of rude. And upwards.
SPEAKER_07We really needed the reader to be the reader, they were like, what if a Nazi could read? Okay, sure. Well, she can't read, actually, sorry. What if a Nazi learned to read?
SPEAKER_03Um, okay. Jordan, what do you think is this film's average? 4-3. 4-4. 4-4? Whoa! I mean, you know, like, fair enough. Oh no, sorry. Whoa, that was it's a 4-2. I had my friends.
SPEAKER_07So I split the difference.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_07Damn, that's okay.
SPEAKER_03I'm so sorry. Uh, it was a 4-2. That's okay. Still good.
SPEAKER_07I'll still take the 4-3. I think that's I think that's what it deserves.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's a five-star banger. Where do we think it's landing on the QQ?
SPEAKER_07That's a tough one.
SPEAKER_03I know. I think I'm gonna go three.
SPEAKER_07I'll go three.
SPEAKER_03Is that too low?
SPEAKER_07No, I think uh here's the thing is I like I think like we the conversation about it is important in the idea that these are just two robots and they are performing gender. However, at the same time, if we're looking at it as a four-quadrant movie, we are seeing the corpors like the company.
SPEAKER_03Nobody was questioning the gender of these robots.
SPEAKER_07Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Except for us. Right.
SPEAKER_07So we But in the text of the film, they have no gender just have no gender, but we as a society thrust a gender onto all my notes said he. I he hemmed Wally. We listen, I knew that we would be performing gender.
SPEAKER_03Of course. Um, on these robots. I mean, this the screenplay. The screenplay is cool because they have like the beep instead of the beep boobs for the robots, they have like lines for the robots. So it'll be like Mo will be like, please stop leaving dirty marks everywhere. And then like the idea was, of course, like the voice actors would go in and like interpret it via which is cool. There's like a whole story going on.
SPEAKER_07Okay, Mo Mo may be the quiet MVP though.
SPEAKER_03What a guy.
SPEAKER_07Just coming. Love him. I can see why your sister likes Mo.
SPEAKER_03OCD rep.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So real. Who's your favorite?
SPEAKER_07Who's your favorite background robot? Sorry.
SPEAKER_03I like the umbrella.
SPEAKER_07The umbrella's a good one.
SPEAKER_03The sentient umbrella. Who do you like?
SPEAKER_07The umbrella's wow, that's a fun choice. I I mean, if Mo counts, probably Mo. I think maybe the receptionist, though. I found the waving the cutest thing ever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. I also like Gopher, the like little like alarm robot who's like Otto's henchman, but he's really cute.
SPEAKER_06But he's like, if something is small, it's cute. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Um, okay. Well, that's that. Um, three stars on the QQ. Uh, thank you for talking Wally with me. Another year. Um, if you want to talk more sad robots, or I guess like for me, sexy fenbots, um you can.
SPEAKER_07Brooks only tweeting about sexy fanbots.
SPEAKER_03No, I think that like I don't know, like Megan is another type of robot we could talk about.
SPEAKER_07Megan's we we I mean, I'm actually do we even have Megan on the long list? If so, we need to probably have Megan on the long list.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's that's interesting because that's more of like honestly, like a cultural That's what I mean.
SPEAKER_07That's an interesting conversation where like maybe maybe we do like a Megan and a Megan 2 comic.
SPEAKER_03Megan 2 because of the crazy marketing campaign.
SPEAKER_07Exactly, like how they like took the queer culture of it all.
SPEAKER_03Hello, sexy gays of West Hollywood. It's so weird, dude.
SPEAKER_07It's so it is crazy that Megan became like a bastion of like Wii Ho.
SPEAKER_03I know. It's wild. Crazy like a a Halloween costume for the ages.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Do you think Megan is overplayed? Last hot take of the day. Yeah, I think so too. I'm I'm over it.
SPEAKER_03I was kind of over it, like as soon as they were like sequel, I was like, I'm actually already over this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Um classic case.
SPEAKER_03You can find us across the internet. I'm at Brook v Solomon.
SPEAKER_07Jordan H. Gus.
SPEAKER_03And we're together, career quadrant, on all the platforms. And um, you can find this podcast wherever podcasts are streamed into your ears. In the stars.
SPEAKER_07When Wally Trash can factor somewhere, puts his hands through the stars as he's like on the ship.
SPEAKER_03Or when the little ring of Saturn. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Or I mean the heat we didn't we did mention it, but like the Wally and Eve dance sequence outside is like one of the most beautiful things ever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Computer. What is dancing?
SPEAKER_07The computer, what are tears? What am I feeling? And Brooke, though, you know, we are we've headed to space, but where are we going next? Where does this podcast go from here?
SPEAKER_03In two weeks, we're going to Eastern Europe. Question mark.
SPEAKER_07Oh good. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Well, we're talking Yentl.
SPEAKER_07It's thematic, Barbara Streisand. She's coming back.
SPEAKER_03Babs. Big Babs weekends. It's so true. So true. Hello, Dolly, De Yentel. De Yentle. So you can tune in two weeks from today for that.
SPEAKER_07Can't wait. Is there anything you would like to leave our robots with?
SPEAKER_03Computer, what is heteronormativity? Something to think about. Something to think about.
SPEAKER_07Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_10Hey, our ride's almost here. Are you ready? Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said ten minutes ago.
SPEAKER_05I just dropped the video call uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my WatchGo bananas with the group chat, and of course, still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone.
SPEAKER_09All at once?
SPEAKER_05Yep. Story of my life. That's why I switched to T-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network.
SPEAKER_02Okay, multitasker. That's to you.
SPEAKER_05Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. Awesome.
SPEAKER_11Say no more, I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload.
SPEAKER_05That's a sign you've got to get T-Mobile.
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