WALL·E
Directed by Andrew Stanton
TheoScope Rating
Worldview · content · moral framework
Plot
In a distant, but not so unrealistic, future where mankind has abandoned earth because it has become covered with trash from products sold by the powerful multi-national Buy N Large corporation, WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot has been left to clean up the mess. Mesmerized with trinkets of Earth's history and show tunes, WALL-E is alone on Earth except for a sprightly pet cockroach. One day, EVE, a sleek (and dangerous) reconnaissance robot, is sent to Earth to find proof that life is once again sustainable. WALL-E falls in love with EVE. WALL-E rescues EVE from a dust storm and shows her a living plant he found amongst the rubble. Consistent with her "directive", EVE takes the plant and automatically enters a deactivated state except for a blinking green beacon. WALL-E, doesn't understand what has happened to his new friend, but, true to his love, he protects her from wind, rain, and lightning, even as she is unresponsive. One day a massive ship comes to reclaim EVE, but WALL-E, out of love or loneliness, hitches a ride on the outside of the ship to rescue EVE. The ship arrives back at a large space cruise ship, which is carrying all of the humans who evacuated Earth 700 years earlier. The people of Earth ride around this space resort on hovering chairs which give them a constant feed of TV and video chatting. They drink all of their meals through a straw out of laziness and/or bone loss, and are all so fat that they can barely move. When the auto-pilot computer, acting on hastily-given instructions sent many centuries before, tries to prevent the people of Earth from returning by stealing the plant, WALL-E, EVE, the portly captain, and a band of broken robots stage a mutiny.
Discern Score Breakdown
30%
30%
25%
15%
Audience Suitability
Kids
Under 10
Teens
10–17
Adults
18+
Family
Mixed ages
Content Flags
WALL·E is one of the most morally and aesthetically serious animated films produced by a major studio, smuggling genuine warnings about consumerism, technological dependency, and environmental neglect into an almost wordless love story. It lands as broadly family-friendly with no significant content concerns, and its thematic richness makes it one of the better secular films for sparking conversation about stewardship, sacrifice, and what it means to be fully human. It is not a Christian film, but it is a film a Christian family can watch with profit.
Pastoral Take
WALL·E is a genuinely excellent film that parents can watch with children of almost any age without meaningful content concerns — the peril is mild, the love story is innocent, and there is nothing objectionable in language, sexuality, or graphic violence. Parents should be ready for the film's fairly pointed critique of consumerism and comfort-seeking, which is worth engaging rather than deflecting, since it opens natural conversations about stewardship, idolatry of convenience, and what we are made for. The film's near-wordless first act and patient pacing may challenge very young viewers, but for families willing to sit with it, WALL·E rewards attention and provides some of the richest discussion material available in mainstream animated film.
Discussion Points
- 1WALL·E keeps faithfully watching over EVE even when she's completely unresponsive and can't acknowledge him at all — he shields her from rain, lightning, and danger for what seems like a very long time. Why do you think he kept doing that? Can you think of a time in the Bible when someone kept loving or protecting a person who couldn't respond or didn't deserve it?
- 2The humans on the Axiom have everything they could want — food, entertainment, comfort — but they seem completely empty and lonely, even surrounded by thousands of people. What do you think the movie is saying about what people actually need to be happy? Does that match up with anything Jesus said about what the 'good life' really looks like?
- 3When the captain finally decides to go back to Earth, he says 'I don't want to survive — I want to live.' He chooses something hard and uncertain over something easy and comfortable. Can you think of moments in your own life, or in the Bible, where doing the right thing meant choosing the harder path? What gave people the courage to do that?
- 4The movie shows Earth completely buried in trash because humans kept consuming without caring for what they'd been given. Genesis says God put people in the garden to 'tend and keep it' — to be stewards. Do you think the people in the film forgot that responsibility? What does being a good steward of the things God gives us actually look like day to day?
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Cast
Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin
Community Reviews
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