Film Theory: Is Wall-E Satan?

in 2008 pixar made a film that would get the world to fall in love with a plucky little trash compactor his name [Laughter] satan hello internet welcome to film theory a show that reminds you to put on your sunday clothes when you feel down and out no feels just like yesterday when i was talking about the 2008 pixar classic wall-e oh wait it was just yesterday yeah a few weeks ago while i was writing a theory further proving how everyone on board the axiom spacecraft is unwittingly participating in cannibalism i learned that apparently i'm not the only person to see a sinister underbelly to this heartwarming story of robot love in space back in 2017 a reddit user by the name vexellius had a wild idea what if wally the robot was satan and the whole space opera was a retelling of the biblical story of humanity's downfall in the garden of eden now i know what you're thinking that sounds insane right i've been doing this a long time and i have a general sense of what makes a plausible theory from a uh bat guano crazy one most of the time at least like seriously where would anyone even begin to get an idea like this well consider the following the biblical story of the garden of eden basically boils down to a woman named eve getting tricked by satan to deliver the apple of enlightenment to man this results in humanity unlocking godlike knowledge like some sort of dlc patch god gets mad that suddenly everyone's embarrassed by their fig leaf attire and throws him out of paradise dooming mankind to a lifetime of misery and hard labor quote from genesis 3 18 cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken for dust you are and two dust you will return yeah real feel-good story that one but now let's look at the story of wall-e which boils down to a robot named eve receiving a seedling from wall-e a seedling that unlocks knowledge in humanity these are called farms humans will put seeds in the ground and they grow food like pizza computer define dancing that knowledge causes the humans to give up their carefree trip through the cosmos with unlimited cupcake and a cup refills in order to return to earth where they're not only forced to get out of their hover chairs and use their legs for literally the first time ever in their lives but they're surprised by the fact that this planet is a bit of a fixer-upper farming you kids are gonna grow all kinds of plants vegetable plants pizza plants once again humanity's given up paradise for hard labor farming out of the harsh wastelands of the earth and it all starts with actions of one little robot named wally filling the satan role by giving eve the seedling of enlightenment and all of this is without even mentioning wally's love of musicals his favorite hello dolly just saying wake up here sheeple long story short in 529 words vexellius outlines his magnum opus a theory that received widespread coverage across the internet but does the theory hold up today we're getting biblical and psychological to answer the age-old question is wall-e satan what is paradise was humanity lured out of the spaceship of eden by a little yellow robot in love all of that and more in today's episode as we see whether vexellius has a point ladies and gentlemen i think you all know what this means it's morty time leave your theories in the comments below i'll pick my favorites in the next episode of morty now when you break this theory down there are just some evidence points that can't be denied wally the movie has a character named eve the story of creation also has a character named eve they both bring back a plant that unlocks knowledge and humanity getting us to question our place in the world and ultimately leave a seemingly idyllic life in paradise whether that's the garden of eden or onboard the axiom i mean doesn't get much more clear cut than that so theory confirmed then well almost you see to me the maker or breaker of this theory boils down to one main question is the axiom really a stand-in for paradise sure a lot of the small stuff around the edges of this theory line up real nicely but the central question is whether humanity is ever really in paradise in the first place and what i mean by that is whether the axiom as a cruise line or spaceship is able to fulfill all of humanity's needs in the same way that the garden of eden is said to be paradise in the biblical retelling so that then seems to be our best place to start the garden of eden was introduced in the book of genesis the first book of the hebrew bible and the christian old testament there are certainly plenty of passing mentions of it elsewhere and obviously tons of artwork along the way but in general we're going to try to stick to the original source materials description which uh shockingly doesn't give you a whole lot to work with there are only 10 short verses actually describing the garden itself four of them are dedicated to its rivers and a solid zero of them talk about what day to day life in the garden was actually like or even meant to be like i mean here let me just show you this is pretty much all you have to go on quote and out of the ground the lord god made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil blah blah blah here's all that boring river stuff and uh here's the rest the lord god took the man and put him in the garden of eden to work it and keep it yada yada don't eat the apple stupid oh yeah and then there's the last verse where they run around naked final quote and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed that's it that's what you got not a lot to go off of so we're gonna have to read between the lines here basically what we can infer is what you'd expect from years of seeing this story retold a bunch of times eden is a beautiful garden where there is no shame endless food and pure innocence god's big issue with the apple of enlightenment is that suddenly humanity is granted knowledge of good and evil implying that paradise is a place of blissful ignorance to the bad in the world so does the axiom fit the bill well yeah the people don't seem to need jobs they get unlimited beverage refills and they're carted around by neat hover chairs that prevent them from ever having to walk around the temperature is always 72 degrees they have no knowledge of whether it's actually day or night and robots take care of their children just like god springing up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food we have robots and screens able to deliver whatever we want to watch and eat assuming of course that it's not ground up human flesh like i've guessed in previous theories essentially it's a world where your biggest decision on a day-to-day basis is whether you should go to the virtual golf course or order another hot dog nobody has to worry about putting ikea furniture together and they can chat with their best buds while getting their hair done by polite robots who are very complimentary this does seem to be living the dream as presumably there's no poverty no war no stressful work schedules no dangerous weather conditions to interrupt your game of virtual tennis according to the commentary on the wall-e dvd director andrew stanton said that the people aboard the axiom after hundreds of years of being immobile have regressed into big babies with shrinking arms and legs and ears that aren't fully formed again if paradise is truly defined to be a state of perpetual innocence while being supervised by an all-powerful being then yeah being able to return to the state of a baby in your hover chair while the ai cares for you is the literal definition of paradise as if all of these parallels weren't enough eating the apple is the event that introduces the idea of death into the creation myth in genesis 2 17 god warns adam and eve quote but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat you shall die likewise on board the axiom people live long lives when we first meet captain mccree we scan past a wall of portraits five people who served as captain long before him each with an average tenure of around 133 years implying that people on board the ship live a long long time adding up the captain's terms for these five people and you get yourself a whopping 666 years 666. wait hold on let me do that math again 248 minus 2774 minus adding this and carry the one and you get six six six it's the sign of the beast the devil's numbers i mean that is super weird i i don't even know what to say about that but it's right there it's right there on the wall and it feels really intentional like you don't just randomly stumble on that number captain mccree's tenure could have started whenever the odds of it landing 666 years after the axiom's voyage started is just uh it's uncanny maybe the animators put that in as a joke or maybe as a sign that this theory is actually right on the money 666 years after the voyage starts mccree becomes captain and it's on his watch that wall-e comes to cause the fall of humanity back to earth or maybe just maybe it means the exact opposite the axiom isn't paradise it's actually h-e-double hockey stix for as much of a carefree life as the axiom seems to offer on the surface if you look a bit closer you start to see some cracks in its civilization we hear passengers say look i'm tired of having the same argument over and over well another mutters something about jealousy and let's not forget that when we first meet our main human mary she's talking to her friend about this we get hints that there's jealousy arguments bad dates on the ship which means that problems still exist here also the passengers aboard the axiom have been so engrossed in social media advertisements and consumerism that they've completely forgotten about the joys of face-to-face interactions and touch the people aboard the ship don't create anything they don't appreciate what they have their dependence on technology has made them impatient and angry across all psychological research there are three things that time and time again are proven to make people happy close personal relationships a challenging job or hobby and helping others through pro-social behavior that's it that's the secret to raising your overall happiness meter and those are three things that are decidedly lacking from the axiom and research has shown that the things the axiom does offer like more stuff doesn't move the needle at all except for very short temporary spikes and happiness you'll notice that in all the shots of people on board there are never shots of people smiling of them laughing there is no emotion on board except being numb in short the axiom is in paradise it's hell tearing people away from their loved ones forcing them into a constant cycle of consumption anesthetizing them with a constant onslaught of screens so there are no hobbies or challenging activities immersing them in a self-centered wasteland even the garden of eden knew the dangers of being completely complacent in genesis 2 verse 15 we learned that god placed adam and eden so he could take care of the gardens and trees it means that adam was forced to do actual work like pruning and cultivating the land while he was in paradise sure the axiom might have trappings of paradise limitless food perpetually sunny skies being weighted on hand and foot a carefree lifestyle but even if you strip away the consumerist dystopia that it is that's not what humanity actually wants it's not what we need that's not what science has shown psychologically makes us happy we thrive on being challenged by having agency in our lives by learning by overcoming and by doing that for the community of people around us so what does all of this mean for the walius satan theory well i think it's great the parallels are all absolutely there even down to the devilish 666 hidden in the captain's quarters which gotta admit still really creepy pixar come to think of it has anyone noticed that detail before sure someone must have it someone didn't come up in my research it was just as i was writing this theory i'm like wait 666 oh that's weird man and if you define paradise how the garden of eden did which is being innocent and naive to the cares of the world then the axiom yeah comes pretty darn close so on that front i'd say theory confirmed wall-e is the unintentional serpent that brings about the fall of humanity but thing is paradise is more than just innocents and cupcake slushies paradise comes with an assumption of happiness of agency and the people on board the axiom aren't happy they're placated they're numb they're distracted they're in an endless stasis that is not paradise in fact it's pretty much the exact opposite looking at it from that perspective wall-e is the one that saves us from h-e-double hockey sticks so that would make wall-e uh what noah moses jesus yeah it's probably that one isn't it wall-e is jesus overturning merchant card tables with his little hydraulic arms don't know how people feel about that one anyway here's the long and short of this morty it's a great theory that for as absurd as it sounds absolutely holds up sure i can nitpick here and there about perspectives and what does or doesn't qualify as paradise but in my book it's about as close as some of the strongest theories get so consider the wall-e is satan theory theorist approved vexela's theory finishes by saying quote it wouldn't be surprising if generations later the people in wally's universe start telling tales of a time when they lived in a place of eternal bliss until a tempter gave a woman named eve a plant which led to humanity's downfall honestly i could see that happening too but uh they'll probably skip over the part where they had to suck down the bodies of dead ship-goers as their main source of protein but hey that's just a theory a film theory and cut [Music] you

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 2,383,396

Rating: 4.8852916 out of 5

Keywords: wall-e, wall e, pixar, disney, pixar theory, disney theory, wall-e satan, is wall-e satan, wall e satan, wall-e is satan, dark disney, dark disney theory, another brick in the wall-e, wall-e full movie, wall-e trailer, trailer, bnl, bnl wall-e, pixar bnl, bnl pixar, wall-e ending, wall-e movie, film theorists, film theory, matpat, film theory wall e, film theory wall-e

Id: oB_zo9p07ok

Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021