Wall-E is a Great Organizer

Last night we saw the new Pixar movie, Wall-E. He is a waste management robot, alone on Earth still cleaning up our mess years after we've abandoned the planet. He is enamored with particularly interesting remnants of our culture and cherry-picks them out of the trash during his daily work, bringing them back to his home and treasuring them. (photo here from official Wall-E website)

There are so many important messages in this movie about our over-consumption and our "disposable" culture. In this imagined future, we've ruined the Earth with our rabid consumerism and have had to leave, and we're all enormously obese because we no longer even walk around...everything is done for us.

I watched this with fascination given my profession, and aside from the obvious message that we need to stop over-consuming, I wanted to point out several things that Wall-E does right with his collection (more thoughts on collections in this previous post, "Collecting for a Living").

• He has a system. Wall-E has a really cool system, actually, of rotating bins.
• He keeps like things together.
• He is choosy about what he adds to the collection. After handling tons of waste a day, he brings home only a few items that fit in his "lunch box."
• He takes care of his collection and enjoys it. He does not just throw it in a pile or in a closet.
• He can retrieve items quickly. When needed he can easily find what he wants, such as a new "eye" to fix himself.

Have you seen the movie? What did you think? There are SO many messages to discuss, even about fashion ("Try Blue! It's the new Red!"), pollution, advertising, and mega-shopping stores. I thought it was a great movie and was clearly a risk for Pixar that will pay off.

Comments

[Scott Roewer]

I saw Wall-E this evening and totally agree with the fact he was organized. Quite the expansive collection. So much that I have to ask, was that organized hoarding?

I had to laugh out loud when he didn't have a place to contain his spork. Didn't match the spoons stored in a cup, and didn't match the forks stored in cup. So - he sat it down in the middle and Wall-E had the birth of a pile!

Great film by Disney.

[amber]

I absolutely loved this movie and the messages it focused on are painfully important!

A response to Scott's above comment; I don't consider Wall-E a hoarder. He only keeps what he loves or uses, and can find it all in just a few moments.

[Stephanie LH Calahan (@StephCalahan)]

Lorie -
I had not considered watching this one at the movies, but after reading the comments that you and Scott have made, I'll have to go!

You make excellent points about being more selective on the items that we keep. It can be so hard for people to make decisions, yet that is one of the most important aspects of de-cluttering.

[Vikram Kumar]

Check out my blog at http://blog.pixily.com/blog/2008/06/30/wall-e-is-not-alone-when-he-values-things-he-has-picked-up/ . It is interesting that you and I identified the same behavior but interpreted it differently. I think Wall-E is more of a collector than organizer. Check out Pixily and how we tackle the document/information organization solution differently.

[Lorie Marrero]

Vikram,

I love that someone else picked up on Wall-E's storage system to write about! In your blog you are referring to his behavior as hoarding. I do not agree that Wall-E is a hoarder. I have seen hoarders and Wall-E is not near like that...at least that we can see in the movie. I think he is a collector and he is very good at organizing his collection. Evidently your company does organizing of documents and information, and you're right--Wall-E is probably successful at retrieval because he has computer memory to rely upon.

Thanks for the great discussion on your blog!

- Lorie

[sadalit]

Your post inspired me to write about Wall-E as knowledge manager. What a great movie - I'm so glad they took the risk and went down some dark roads. You can see my post here: http://amatterofdegree.typepad.com/a_matter_of_degree/

[Alex]

I loved Wall-E too! I certainly saw the parallels in the movie with de-cluttering and was so happy to see it during this period where I'm de-cluttering my own home. Wall-E really is full of messages you can discuss for hours and hours, but I particularly liked the environmental side of the movie, because it's something I've grown passionate about lately.

I agree with Amber about how Wall-E only uses what he loves - even the Rubik's cube is apparently used with guests. :)