director Andrew Stanton later recalled
At a meeting during Pixar's early days, the studio's core team brainstormed ideas, in the process coming up with a unlikely robot hero who had been left behind on Earth. ("I just thought that was the saddest character I had ever heard of," director Andrew Stanton later recalled, "and I just loved that.") Thus set in motion one of the company's most ambitious films: An almost-silent first act — in which the lovable, dependable droid encounters the all-business probe robot EVE — gives way to a journey into outer space, where we'll learn what happened to humanity after generations of relying on technology. Pro-environment and anti-consumerism, WALL-E is, first and foremost, a poignant love story about two mismatched misfits. Can anyone hear "It Only Takes a Moment" now without getting misty-eyed? TG