Wall — E and Consumerism : A deeper plot within the Pixar Multiverse
“Out there
There’s a world outside of Yonkers
Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby
There’s a slick town, Barnaby
Out there
Full of shine and full of sparkle
Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby…
Listen, Barnaby”
As the lyrics of the 1969 classic ‘Hello Dolly’ slowly fades, we glimpse through a post apocalyptic landscape full of heaps and heaps of garbage mountains, frequent sandstorms and torrential rain all hinting at the words that best define the plot of WALL — E i.e
“Over — excessive Consumerism”
We then focus on little WALL-E a.k.a the Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class Bot (the last of his kind) ,
rummaging through the piles , maybe looking for useful waste, while arranging the rest into square blocks , which act as the building blocks of these ‘mountains’
We go on following the path taken by our little friend as he zooms past ‘Buy n Large’ Ultra stores, Gas stations, Banks etc and as he rolls over a discarded ‘Buy n Large Times’ Newspaper with the headlines
“Too much garbage in your face ?
There’s plenty of space out in space!
: BnL CEO declares global emergency”
And with that we get the first hint of what may have happened in this deserted planet with no signs of life except Wall — e and his best buddy Mr Cockroach (Not surprising at all, for they say that roaches made it through even nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki!)
The year is 2805, its been way past 700 years since humans last left earth overboard the jewel of the BnL fleet ‘The Axiom’ in an attempt to get away from all the mess that’s been of left on earth and with the hope of returning and re-colonizing the earth again after 5 years, once it was capable of sustaining life again. This dystopian future projected is not impossible to imagine in real life too with SpaceX launching the First Commercially built flight from US to Space on 30 May, 2020
We head back to the year 2105, the mega conglomerate BnL has just taken control of the planet’s entire economy and led people into a state of Mass — consumption aboard the Axiom Fleet. Every need of the voyagers are taken care of from 24/7 service by fully automated bots , fine dining-in-a-cup , all seated on hover chairs which looks very similar to the Segway — Ninebot’s new S-Pod , an autopilot bot which programmed to steer the Axiom Star liner towards ‘ non — stop entertainment’.
And that is just the beginning of a dystopian future marked with problems of overpopulation, resource depletion, and breakdown of the social structure, but that’s not all. The biggest constraint I feel that led to the planet’s destruction is not perhaps “Mass — Consumption”, but rather the ‘Monopoly’ of a single multifaceted conglomerate called “Buy n Large (BnL) which had assumed control of earth’s entire economy in the Wall — E universe. Even though BnL has marked its presence in the Pixar multi-verse on multiple occasions such as: Being the sole manufacturer of toys and batteries in the pixar movie ‘Toy Story 3’, The construction company which tried to take down Carl Fredericksen’s house in the ‘Up’, and also being the speedway that hosted the races of the 2016 Piston Cup season in ‘Cars 3’.
Now, we know that a monopoly is when a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. If we go by the definition, a monopoly is characterized by an absence of competition, which often results in higher prices and inferior products. This was the very basis on which slowly but steadily this “Machiavellian” conglomerate built its empire. Buy n Large started out as a maker of frozen yogurt, a small business which later acquired a men’s suit company called Large Industries and further expanded into an internet marketing Service Corporation. And throughout this process, their strategy has remained somewhat similar to that of selling less efficient products at a high price , because of lack of competition and an assurance of continued demand owing to lack of substitutes.
For the purpose of regulation, monopolies exist when a single firm controls 25% or more of a particular market.
Usually anti monopoly regulation policies protect free markets from being dominated by a single entity.
But here in Wall-E’s world , BnL’s monopolies have been ascertained without any restraints due to its dominance even over the governmental bodies.
It is estimated that in the Pixar multiverse that by the year 2057 , the company became a worldwide leader in the fields of Aerospace , Agriculture , Construction , Consumer goods , Corporate Grooming , Earth transport , Electronics , Energy , Engineering , Finance , Food services , Fusion research , Government , Hydro-power , Infrastructures , Inventions , Media , Medical science , Mortgage loans , Pet care, Pharmaceuticals , Psychotherapies , Ports and harbours , Real Estate , Repairs , Retail , Robotics, Space , Storage , Super grids , Travel services , Utilities and even watermills !
What is even more surprising is that even after acquiring every possible resource on earth, one would least expect BnL to capitalise on the only entity it doesn’t own i.e. Res Communis Humanitatis or The Global Commons. The Earth’s atmosphere, Outer Space etc are entities which are outside the sovereign jurisdiction of any one state or nation. And hence, to capitalize on these entities the BnL indirectly makes the earth inhabitable and then proposes an alternative plan to the captive audience that amounts somewhat equal to their life savings to take them aboard the BnL’s Axiom Star liner. A situation which American ecologist Garrett Hardin rightly termed as ‘Tragedy of the commons’ highlighting the conflict between individual and collective rationality when it came to using a shared resource.
Now , we zoom forward in time to the year 2805 Day 255,642 onboard the BnL axiom , It is 72˚C and Sunny marking the 700th anniversary of their 5 year cruise , the voyagers are all busy in their hover chairs , The kids are in the nursery learning their alphabets as they recite “ A for Axiom , B for Buy n Large , your best friend ! ” , meanwhile Captain B. McCrea has taken it upon himself to defend planet earth by first defending his people from Auto the autopilot robot , while Wall — e and Eva are seen guarding the life sustaining Plant which is the only tool to reinitiate Operation Re-colonize and take them back to earth. After innumerable attempts, the captain is flung out of his hover chair. We watch with bated breath. And then as the saying goes Captain McCrea takes one step and a huge leap for Mankind (More accurately , he rolls his way to the plant) . And lo behold , Humanity has been restored from the clutches of mass consumerism and gluttony !
