Little Robot, Big Implications

We fall to our mechanized overlords. Their mighty fists smite all of mankind and the ashes left of behind will be nothing more than desperate, animalistic humans. These people must scrounge for food. They live in total anarchy. They endure the resentment of their creations, of their Frankenstein's monster.

We live in luxury, overlords of the mechanized. Our mighty fists command them to do as we ask and abide by our laws. They bring us margaritas at the golf course. They abide by a stone-tablet code of ethics. They endure the lifestyles of their creators, their Dr. Morbius.

Throughout the history of science fiction, robots either act as our unblinking comrades or our worst foes. Depictions of the cybernetic future show two, starkly different prophecies: the dystopia and the utopia. The Good and the bad. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) is the ugly. Its robots are not loyal servants, but rather reliant on their own freewill. The world is, indeed, a dystopia. But the robots return us to normalcy, restoring Earth to its old form. WALL-E asks us to consider the consequence of technology, and humanity's aversion to use it for good. When compared to movies like Forbidden Planet (Fred Wilcox, 1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrik, 1968), or Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), WALL-E's message is a step forward in sophistication. WALL-E shows technology as neither good or evil, but distinguishes humanity's use of it as flawed and selfish.

WALL-E opens with an image of Earth. Its oceans dried into nothingness, the whole planet is brown. The Buy and Large corporation took over, selling everything from gasoline to subway tickets. The company generated so much excess that, after years of planetary degradation, the Earth grew unfit for ...

... middle of paper ...

...s commandments. WALL-E states that we misuse science and implies better, higher purposes for it. It says that we must rise above the allure of using technology at the destruction of the planet. We must be thoughtful creators, not ambivalent users. We must only keep one ear to the heavens and leave the other pointed to the ground. This way, the calling of the dirt is just as loud as the ringtone on our Iphones.

Works Cited

Dinello, Daniel. Technophobia!: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology. Austin:

University of Texas, 2005. Print.

Ellison, Harlan. "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream." If Mar. 1967. Print.

Jung, C. G., and R. F. C. Hull. Answer to Job. [Princeton, N.J.]: Princeton UP, 1973. Print.

Plato. The Republic. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Print.

Reiss, Spencer. "Inconvinient Truths." Wired 19 Apr. 2008. Web. 3 Mar. 2010.

.