What's up with Wall-E?

I was looking forward to watching Wall-E, particularly given the high ratings it has received from critics. Such was not to be.

Before I go on, let me warn you that what is about to follow may contain some spoilers.

On one level, Wall-E is a charming love story. It is a fairytale, where love is predicated on mutual companionship and friendship that can never be consummated, and is not based on physical attraction. It is a modern rendition of the type of fairytale that was the hallmark of Disney movies in Walt Disney's lifetime.

Wall-E has invited the ire of many conservatives for its vision of a bleak world, where consumerism has reduced human beings to bloated fat beings confined to their couches, so engrossed in their catered world of pleasure on demand that they are not even aware of the environment around them. Earth has been reduced to a massive abandoned garbage dump. Not sure why any of this is anti-conservative, ... they doth protest too much.

On the other hand, there are some holes in the story.

Let's start with the more technical. In one scene, Wall-E is blasted off to space stuck on the outside of a massive rocket. Very cute scene, except that it is very unlikely that this would be possible. Wouldn't Wall-E, a garbage disposal robot, be incinerated in the intense heat generated when travelling at the incredible speeds of escape velocity?

In another scene, Wall-E is blasted into space with a small plant. He holds the plant out in the vacuum of space, and the plant survives the experience. But, given how long the plant was in a vacuum of space, is that likely?

More distressing were the fat human slobs, who are unable to get themselves upright in the micro-gravity of the outer space spaceship without assistance from external props, yet, at the end of the movie have no problem standing on Earth, where gravity would surely be many many times more than the simulated gravity of space. How did they suddenly convert their atrophied muscles to such strength in such a short time?

However, we can probably come up with perfectly reasonable explanations to all these. After all, that these weren't explained in the movie doesn't mean that we can't invent ways to explain them.

What I had more trouble with, was one of the fundamental premises of the movie - that consumerism would lead to mindless sloth and obesity. Some of us may have been misled by the increasing girths of Americans and have started to believe that this bleak future is likely. Unfortunately, this view fails to recognize a key aspect of human nature - sexual desire.

While some Americans have become fatter, it is also clear that our definition of beauty has become more exacting. Years ago, Marilyn Monroe was considered a svelte lithesome beauty. Today, she'd be considered fat. Sixty-year-olds now aim to reverse aging and look in their mid-30s, and many succeed. Skin must appear unblemished and unmarked. Hair must be perfect. And, being slim is no longer enough, it must be accompanied by pronounced abs.

All this is not surprising. In fact, as we have more means and more leisure, we try to indulge our more basic emotions such as lust and sexual competition by using those means and that leisure to make ourselves prettier. How then, does Wall-E, expect us to believe that consumerism and corporate sales pitches could replace the basic sexual desire. If we all had some much leisure and so much free time, wouldn't some, if not all of us be busy indulging our sexual fantasies by become the models of beauty that we dream of?

Wall-E is a fantasy in more ways than one. It was enjoyable ... just don't over think it.