Snarcasm is an editorial column I do when I read something so upsetting, I have to publish something snarky and sarcastic about it. Thanks for indulging, and definitely take everything you’re about to read incredibly seriously.
Hi. Fan theories are both the best and the worst. Kind of like people! But you can’t say the same about Pixar’s WALL-E, a triumph of animated cinema about the reckless, capitalist dangers of mankind passively wreaking havoc on the environ—
“Sinister WALL-E fan theory will change the way you watch the sweet Pixar film forever”
Oh, OK. I forgot we were watching this “sweet Pixar film” all wrong. How, exactly, was WALL-E some sort of overtly nice and go-lucky tale, considering all the dystopian apocalyptic subject matter?
Anyway, this article comes to us from Mirror, but the theory itself belongs to none other than MatPat, the Film Theorist YouTuber who plagiarizes other YouTubers. And after reading this new theory, I can sort of see why he needs to do that. Imagine having to write something this bad all by yourself!
When it comes to your favourite movie, nine times out of ten there is someone there, waiting in the wings to create a theory about it which shreds it to pieces. They’ll transform heroes into villains and dissect every little plot point until the magic of the movie turns sour.
This is the truest statement in the article. I can almost hear the writer leaving a code message for us that screams, “Sorry, my editor made me do this.” Other indicators of this subliminal messaging may come to bear with “our minds are blown,” which is code for, “I’m so sorry, send help.”
And be warned, this latest fan theory will make the sweet little animated movie about a robot that cleans up trash seem a heck of a lot more sinister than you ever thought possible.
Again, how was it already not extremely disturbing on its own? The whole point of WALL-E is joy and routine juxtaposed with disaster, I mean it’s right there.
In a video posted on YouTube by The Film Theorists, a man who goes by the name MatPat, shares his in-depth theory about WALL-E and it’s world covered in rubbish.
“A man who goes by the name” is a way cooler intro for this dude than he deserves. MatPat isn’t sliding into Wild West shootouts, he’s producing terrible videos about really good cartoons, let’s call it what it is.
He starts by telling viewers the most important lesson he’s learned from years of watching movies and TV shows: “you can’t believe everything you’re told at face value”.
Meta.
He adds: “When you actually stop and question the events of the movie you start to realise something sinister is afoot.
Spoiler alert: MatPat doesn’t question anything of value in this movie. He just adds stuff that isn’t there and ignores all the logic and evidence that tears his “theory” apart. Which is fine, go nuts and have some fun, but at this point, we’re talking about fan fiction, and definitely not the good kind.
“…I’m going to prove that everything we’ve been led to believe about WALL-E and it’s trash filled cities is complete and total garbage.”
Narrator: He doesn’t.
Seriously, even on his own terms, even if you believe what he says is true (as we’re about to get into), it changes absolutely nothing about the movie except your threshold of patience while watching it because you have to remember something this opportunistically brainless exists, but then you remember it’s on YouTube which makes it sort of fine.
The crux of his theory is that the planet in the film was not inadvertently destroyed by human greed as viewers are led to believe, but instead purposefully ruined by the company which is meant to save it – Buy n Large.
Yeah, so this isn’t controversial on the surface. It’s sort of nuanced to assume that mankind’s descent into a world of garbage was spurred on by the symbiotic relationship between man and corporation, as visually and thematically demonstrated through the scenes aboard the Axiom.
The problem is that you have to watch the movie and pay attention to catch all this.
“We see abandoned buildings, light poles, street signs and other indicators that this was once a thriving metropolis. This indicates the breakdown of one of the most basic things for a modern city to function – a waste management system that transports waste out of the city towards landfills.”
Someone needs to tell Matty that landfills, ahem, fill up.
“If, in WALL-E humanity can afford to create rockets that transport everyone off the planet, then it can absolutely, have trucks to deliver trash to landfills as long as there is space anywhere in the world we’re not gonna have the problem that’s depicted in WALL-E.”
So, Matty’s reasoning here is that we could have avoided having too much garbage all over the planet if we had just…moved it. This is less intelligent than Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants suggesting they “move” Bikini Bottom and put it somewhere else.
“Which means that for the situation to have gotten this bad the world must have run out of space for landfills.”
Oh, so you recognize what you said before was nonsense—
However, he doesn’t think that’s the case.
Why is this happening?
He continues to explain how trash is a problem people have been studying for a long time, and that one scientist has suggested a landfill the size of Delaware could contain all of America’s waste for the next 100 years.
Yes, for a planet with 7 billion people, and this is according to one person. But if you watched the movie or actually did research into the world building, you’d know that “Operation Cleanup” (when humans left Earth) happened in 2105, so 100 years into the future, and it’s clearly stated that the population at that point was 200 billion.
That’s a lot more Delawares. But go on, Matt, continue to tell us all about this movie you definitely know a ton of info about.
So he says the prospect of the planet running out of space for trash any time soon isn’t realistic, and it’s certainly not realistic for WALL-E which is set 700 years in the future – as we’ll probably have invented a new way to dispose of rubbish by then.
I think he’s just trolling us at this point. The introductory scene of WALL-E shows us that Operation Cleanup WAS an effort to dispose of trash in a new way, by incinerating it with those machines we see in the landscape, which made the air toxic.
Again, you just have to watch the movie at least once to catch any of this.
“There is no way a city like this could fill up with rubbish so quickly,” he proclaims. Unless that’s intentionally what you were trying to do…”
I don’t think I have the patience for this. OK, let me just give you the crux:
“Who would intentionally want to fill up a planet with garbage?” he asks. The answer? BnL Starliners. The company responsible for the WALL-E programme that’s supposed to clean up the trash problem was the one that intentionally created the problem to begin with. By getting the earth’s population onto Buy n Large Starliners like the Axiom, Buy n Large has what marketers refer to as a captive audience – people who have no choice but to consume your products and your adverts.”
So the corporation (BnL) that runs the entire planet, controls all of our governments and has absolute power and money decided to ruin the entire planet for…more…power?
Ha, nope, it gets even dumber than that.
He then takes a look at the way the Starliners are advertised in the film – like a vacation.
Right, because of public relations. BnL’s goal was to keep people calm about evacuating the planet, hence the “nothing to worry about” attitude.
Seriously though, it gets worse.
The theorist believes the Starliners were desgined as a luxury space cruise, but the company couldn’t convince people to go on their holidays – so they had to find a way to force people onto the ships.
Remember, Matty has no evidence for this. None. No indication whatsoever that BnL cared so much about shilling some cruise lines, they invented a problem. Remember, this is an all-powerful world government corporation with endless resources WORRIED ABOUT THEIR CRUISES NOT GETTING ENOUGH HOLIDAY CASH.
Now, this doesn’t really undercut the plot of the film, but it does attempt to rob WALL-E of its message by adding a pointless, fruitless conspiracy to the background. This is a fan theory that not only adds absolutely nothing to the film, it tries to subtract and snuff the interesting material right out of the subtext.
“Not only did they have the motive, they have the means to do it,” he argues. “They’re the largest seller of goods in the Pixar forest, they could create less efficient products then they would throttle the sanitation supply.
Sorry, so their motive to make money off of a cruise line was in the works decades before they needed it to work? Cruise lines? In space? They were worried about that venture not taking off? I’m losing brain cells at this point.
“You see it in Up, Buy n Large controls construction companies so chances are they could also control waste disposal companies too.”
OK, OK, so Up happens about a century before they send the Axiom and other Starliners into space. Your “question everything” theory is that someone at BnL said in 2009:
“Hey in 100 years I want to make some serious cash off of ships that take people to space, but no one would ever want to go to space on a luxury vacation! But I’ve already thought of the perfect plan, we make our waste disposal companies less efficient, then we create a pollution crisis so dire we have to evacuate the whole planet!”
“Wait, so are they paying to go on these ships?”
“No! We’re evacuating them for free. Also, we have all the money in the world and control everything already!”
In case you were curious, this video currently has over 3 million views.
He rounds off the video by stating that corporate greed turned Buy n Large into the most sinister Pixar villain of all time – Syndrome may have killed a few people in The Incredibles, but BnL killed an entire planet.
Syndrome geneocided supers, but fine, yes, BnL was super terrible, that’s definitely some startling new information. We done yet?
Our mind’s are officially blown!
There it is.
Thank you for existing.
Nice work. Mirror did you a favor because the video is even worse.
I need that laugh, Jon, “mindblowing” writeup. That last line had me dying.
MattPat again? Christ.
I was laughing until I got to the part where the video was watched over 3 million times. WTactualF.
I think MatPat has this mentality that any theory involving a Pixar film is supposed to “change the way you look at it… forever!!!”
OMG Thnksssss
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