Re: Wall-e...Fresh!

There was an interesting article in yesterday's San Francisco "Chronicle" about the inspiration for "WALL-E."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/25/DDEN11CQ3M.DTL&hw=WALL&sn=002&sc=707

In the article, the Pixar folks admit they were inspired by any number of things to create their movie. They say the robot itself is partly patterned after the ones in the movies you've already referenced, as well as on a pair on binoculars the director was using at a baseball game a few years earlier. The city WALL-E cleans up looks vaguely like San Francisco, the big dept. store is a shopping mall near the Pixar studios in Emeryville (across the Bay from San Francisco and very near Berkeley), the windmills are probably patterned after ones on the Altamont Pass (just south-east of the Bay Area), although the Pixar people were a little vague on that, etc.

It's always fun to watch a Pixar film and wonder from what part of Northern California they drew their inspiration (the inside of the kitchen in "Ratatouille" they modeled on a restaurant called the French Laundry in the Napa Valley).

John

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It's always fun to watch a Pixar film and wonder from what part of Northern California they drew their inspiration (the inside of the kitchen in "Ratatouille" they modeled on a restaurant called the French Laundry in the Napa Valley).

Well, you have to admit "Cars" was all about Arizona, my neck of the woods.

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Well, you have to admit "Cars" was all about Arizona, my neck of the woods

Dammit! If Tim's from AZ, there is no way I can EVER move there. The state ain't big enough for the two of us!

Jason,

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Dammit! If Tim's from AZ, there is no way I can EVER move there. The state ain't big enough for the two of us!

Awe, come on! It's a BIG state with plenty of jobs to go around -- Phoenix being one of the fastest growning cities over the past ten-years. And overly hot summers? Forgetaboutit! You run from one air-conditioned place to the next, you'll never notice the 110dg. outside. The BIG bonus is you'll never have to experience wearing five layers of clothing ever again or scraping ice off your windshild.

Tim, point me in the direction of a job I want and I'll be there by Labor Day. (Gots to give the current boss some notice, ya know...) Mesa, Phoenix, Tucson, I don't care where really.

It's the job part that's always the kicker, tho.

Jason, houseboy?

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It's the job part that's always the kicker, tho.

Yes it is, but what's your profession?

Have you ever heard of http://www.indeed.com ? Best job search engine on the web. It's much like dogpile.com where it combines all the job sites, and their results, into one big search engine.

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[Post edited by Tim Raynor on Jun 26, 2008]

So now are we going to start listing all the movies that have characters or settings or anything else inspired in other movies or other work of art??

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So now are we going to start listing all the movies that have characters or settings or anything else inspired in other movies or other work of art??

I think people tend to bring it out in the open when it's so obvious. Kind of like "Maroon 5" sounds a lot like old songs "The Police" used to do. Nevertheless, there is the flip side to that coin and that is when certain elements are opposite to what they are inspired from. Take "Godzilla" (American version) for example, the American Godzilla looks nothing like the Japanese version and there literally were people all pissy about it. It's a double edge sword nomatter how you sum it up.

I really thought Cloverfield was a new spin on Godzilla. I was totally waiting for some other monster to show up and beat his you know what. :p

Ok...so who wins...Godzilla or King Kong? THINK ABOUT IT. I say Godzilla just cause he's WAY bigger but you never know.

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[Post edited by Falcon01 on Jun 26, 2008]

So we're going to see WALL-E tomorrow evening and fight the crowds (grrrr), but the wife and kids want to see the opening. So I'll post my impressions after I see it. It's now got a 97% fresh rating, so it can't be all bad.