Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation is a 2009 American science fiction film, the fourth installment in the Terminator series,

directed by McG, and starring Christian Bale as future Resistance leader John Connor and Sam Worthington as

cyborg Marcus Wright. The film also introduces a young Kyle Reese from the original 1984 film, played by Anton

Yelchin, as well as depicting the origin of the T-800 Model 101 Terminator.
Terminator Salvation, set in 2018, focuses on the war between humanity and Skynet — a departure from the

previous installments, which were set between 1984 and 2004 and used time travel as a key plot element.
After a troubled pre-production, with The Halcyon Company acquiring the rights for the franchise from Andrew G.

Vajna and Mario Kassar and several writers working on the screenplay, filming began in May 2008 in New Mexico

and ran for 77 days. The film is currently the most expensive independent production in history, with a budget of

$200 million. Terminator Salvation was released on May 21, 2009 in the United States and Canada, followed by

early June releases in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The film was met with mostly

negative critical reviews, and failed to meet initial financial expectations, grossing just under $43 million in its

opening weekend. Its final worldwide gross is $372 million.

Contents

• 1 Plot
• 2 Cast
• 3 Production
o 3.1 Development
o 3.2 Writing
o 3.3 Filming
o 3.4 Design and special effects
o 3.5 Music
o 3.6 Lawsuit
• 4 Release
o 4.1 Critical reception
o 4.2 Box office
o 4.3 Home media
o 4.4 Tie-ins

[edit] Plot
In 2003, Doctor Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter) of Cyberdyne Systems convinces death row inmate Marcus

Wright (Sam Worthington) to sign his body over for medical research following his execution by lethal injection. One

year later, the Skynet system is activated, perceives humans as a threat to its own existence, and eradicates much

of humanity in the event known as Judgment Day (see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). In 2018, John

Connor (Christian Bale) leads an attack by the Resistance on a Skynet base. John discovers human prisoners and

plans for the development of a new type of Terminator incorporating living tissue, but is the only apparent survivor

of the attack after the base is destroyed in a nuclear explosion. However, Marcus emerges from the wreckage of

the base and proceeds on foot to Los Angeles.
John returns to Resistance headquarters located aboard a nuclear submarine and tells General Ashdown (Michael

Ironside), the current leader, of his discovery. Meanwhile, the Resistance has discovered a radio frequency believed

to be capable of shutting down Skynet machines. They plan to launch an offensive against the Skynet base in San

Francisco in four days, in response to an intercepted "kill list" indicating that Skynet plans to kill the Resistance's

command staff in four days' time. John learns that his own name is second on the list, following Kyle Reese. The

Resistance leaders are unaware of Kyle's importance to Skynet, but John knows that it is because Kyle will later

become his father (see The Terminator). John meets with his officer Barnes (Common) and wife Kate (Bryce

Dallas Howard) and sends radio broadcasts to Resistance members and surviving civilians around the world.
Arriving in the ruins of Los Angeles, Marcus is saved from a T-600 Terminator by Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin)

and his mute companion Star (Jadagrace Berry). Kyle relates to Marcus the events of Judgment Day and the

ensuing war between humans and machines. Hearing John's radio broadcast, the three leave Los Angeles in search

of the Resistance. They survive an attack by machines, but Kyle, Star, and several other humans are taken

prisoner, while a pair of Resistance A-10s are shot down. Marcus locates downed pilot Blair Williams (Moon

Bloodgood) and they make their way to John's base, but Marcus is wounded by a magnetic land mine. Attempting

to save his life, the Resistance fighters discover that he is in fact a cyborg with human organs, a mechanical

endoskeleton, circuitry, and a partially artificial cerebral cortex. Marcus believes himself to be human, demanding to

be released so that he can save Kyle from Skynet, but John believes that Marcus has come to kill him and orders

his destruction. However, Blair releases him and helps him to escape from the base. During the resulting pursuit

Marcus saves John's life from Skynet hydrobots, and the two form an alliance—Marcus will enter Skynet's

headquarters and attempt to disable its defenses so that John can rescue Kyle.
John demands that Ashdown delay the attack so that he can rescue Kyle and the other prisoners, but Ashdown

refuses and relieves John of his command. However, John's soldiers remain loyal to him and obey his command not

to attack the Skynet base. Meanwhile, Marcus enters the base and interfaces with the computer, disabling the

perimeter defenses and allowing John to infiltrate the cell block and release the human prisoners. The Resistance's

disabling signal is revealed to be a ruse, and the command submarine with the Resistance leaders aboard is

destroyed.
Marcus discovers that he was created by Skynet and has unwittingly fulfilled his programmed mission to lure John

into the base to be killed. He tears out the hardware linking him to Skynet and assists John in battling a T-800

model 101 Terminator. John is mortally wounded during the fight, but succeeds in destroying the Skynet base by

rigging several Terminator hydrogen fuel cells to an explosive, detonating them as he, Marcus, Kyle, and Star are

airlifted out. Kate attempts to save John's life, but his heart is too damaged. Marcus offers his own heart for

transplant, sacrificing himself to save John. Recovering, John radios to the other Resistance fighters that though this

battle has been won, the war is far from over.
Cast
• Christian Bale as John Connor: A soldier in the Resistance waging war against Skynet after it destroyed

much of humanity in a nuclear holocaust, who is destined to become humanity's leader. Director McG deemed Bale

"the most credible action star in the world" during development.[2] McG wanted Bale for Marcus, but the actor —

even though he "can't really remember why" — wanted to play John, and that led to the character's role getting

expanded in rewrites of the script.[3] Bale was the first person to be cast and signed on for the role in November

2007. McG talked extensively with Bale in the UK about the role while the latter was filming The Dark Knight, and

they both agreed to proceed.[4] Although a fan of the Terminator series, he was at first uninterested, until McG

convinced him the story would be character-based and not rely on special effects.[2] They kept working on the

story every day, along with Worthington.[5] McG said Bale broke his hand punching a Terminator prop during

filming.[6] Bale also spent six to eight hours each day with McG in the editing room to advise the finished

product.[7]
• Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright: A mysterious man on death row for murder who donated his body to

Cyberdyne Systems for experimentation.[8] His last memory is of being on death row, and John is at first unsure

of whether Wright is trustworthy.[9] Terminator creator James Cameron personally recommended Worthington (whom

he directed in Avatar) to McG.[10] Russell Crowe also recommended him to McG. The director decided Worthington

looked tougher than the "great many of today's [waify] young male actors".[8] Worthington recalled Cameron told

him "the Terminator to make is the one with the war".[11] Worthington tore his intercostal muscles during the first

weeks of filming, but he nevertheless insisted on performing his own stunts.[8][12] McG had originally asked

Christian Bale to play the role, but the latter insisted on portraying John instead, and to expand the character's

role.[13] The former once expressed interest in casting Daniel Day-Lewis or Josh Brolin in the part as well.[14][15]

Brolin did talk to Bale and read a draft of the screenplay, which he found "interesting and dark, [but] ultimately,

though, I didn't think it felt right".[16]
Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese: A teenage refugee and admirer of John Connor and the Resistance. As

portrayed by Michael Biehn in The Terminator, he was sent back in time to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor to

ensure the survival of the human race, and fathered John with her. Yelchin said he wanted to portray Kyle as

Biehn did and not make him appear weaker because it was a younger version of the character. The difference in

his portrayal lies in showing Kyle as intense, but not concentrated until he joins the resistance proper. Yelchin tried

to convey Kyle's intensity by focusing on how fast Biehn appeared when running in the original film.[17]
• Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor: John's wife, who is seven months pregnant. Charlotte Gainsbourg

was originally set to play the part, but left due to scheduling conflicts with another film.[18] As portrayed by Claire

Danes in the third film, Kate was a veterinarian; but in this film, she is now a physician. Howard suggested, as

part of the character's backstory, that Kate studied medical books and interviewed many surviving doctors after the

events of Judgment Day. The film's subject matter reminded her of developing countries, devastated by war and

lacking basic supplies such as clean water, which "reflects things that are going on currently in this privileged world

that we are living in where there hasn't been an apocalypse and robots haven't taken over the world. I think that's

something definitely for us to reinvestigate and that we continue to make choices for our own future to take that

into consideration".[19] Howard also focused on Kate "being accustomed to fear and loss" because the character

was a military brat.[20]
Moon Bloodgood as Blair Williams: Suffering from survivor's guilt, Blair is a "no-nonsense and

battle-hardened" pilot of the Resistance and the romantic interest for Marcus as well.[21][22] McG characterizes her

as continuing the feminine strength that has been prominent throughout the franchise.[23]
• Common as Barnes: A resistance soldier and John's right-hand man.[24][25]
• Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Serena Kogan: Before Judgment Day, Serena was an ex-Cyberdyne scientist

with terminal cancer working on advanced technology, convincing Marcus to donate his body to Project Angel for her

"research", which will fall into the hands of Skynet.[26] Her face was later used by the Skynet computer in order

to communicate with Marcus. Tilda Swinton was originally considered for the part, but Bonham Carter replaced her

before filming. She accepted the part because her partner, Tim Burton, is a Terminator fan. Her role was a "small

but pivotal" one and would only require ten days of shooting.[27] On July 20, 2008, Bonham Carter delayed

filming by a day,[28] and was given an indefinite leave due to the death of four of her family members in a

minibus accident in South Africa.[29]
• Roland Kickinger as the T-800 Model 101: The first Terminator covered in living human tissue built as

Skynet's newest weapon for the extermination of humankind. Arnold Schwarzenegger's facial likeness was utilized via

CGI, with a mold of his face made in 1984 scanned to create the digital makeup.[30] Fellow Austrian bodybuilder

and actor Kickinger, who previously portrayed Schwarzenegger in the 2005 biographical film See Arnold Run, was

his physical double on set. When asked about his role, Kickinger said it's "Arnold's character in the first Terminator.

That's basically my role, but 20 years before, so it establishes how the Terminator came about."[31] Polish

strongman athlete Mariusz Pudzianowski was also considered for doubling Schwarzenegger.[32] If Schwarzenegger

had decided not to lend his appearance to the film, then John would have shot the T-800's face off before the

audience got a good look at him.[33]
Jadagrace Berry as Star: A nine-year-old girl in Kyle's care.[20] Born after Judgment Day, Star is mute

due to the trauma of the post-apocalyptic world. However, this has given her the unnatural ability to sense when a

Skynet machine is approaching.[23]
• Michael Ironside as General Ashdown: As a former commander from the United States Armed Forces,

Ashdown serves as the leader of the Resistance, who views John Connor as a nuisance yet also sees him as an

asset because of his extensive knowledge of the Skynet machines.
• Linda Hamilton as the uncredited voice of Sarah Connor: Hamilton is heard from tapes Sarah recorded

before her death prior to the film's events to warn John of the future war.[34]
[edit] Production
[edit] Development
In 1999, two years after C2 Pictures purchased the rights to the franchise, two Terminator films' premises were

mapped out and were supposed to be developed simultaneously. Tedi Sarafian was hired to write Terminator 3: Rise

of the Machines, which he eventually received shared story credit for, while David C. Wilson was to write Terminator

4. Before any revisions were done, T3 initially took place in 2001 and revolved around the first attacks between

Skynet and humans. T4 would follow immediately afterwards and centered primarily on the war seen in the first two

movies.[35] Warner Bros. gave the film the codename "Project Angel".
Following the release of Terminator 3 in 2003, producers Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar contracted Nick Stahl

and Claire Danes to return as John Connor and Kate Brewster in another film.[36] Director Jonathan Mostow

helped develop the script, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, and was set to begin production in 2005

after completing another film. It was known by then Arnold Schwarzenegger's role would be limited, as he had

assumed office as Governor of California. The producers sought to have Warner Bros. finance the picture as they

did for Terminator 3.[37] In 2005, Stahl said John and Kate would be recast as the story jumped forward in

time.[38] By 2006, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, distributor of the original film The Terminator, was set to distribute the

fourth film as part of the new CEO Harry Sloan's scheme to make the studio a viable Hollywood player.[39]
On May 9, 2007, it was announced that production rights to the Terminator series had passed from the feuding

Vajna and Kassar to the Halcyon Company. The producers hoped to start a new trilogy based on the franchise.[40]

The purchase was financed with a loan by Pacificor, a hedge fund from Santa Monica.[41] By July 19, the project

was in legal limbo due to a lawsuit between MGM and Halcyon subsidiary T Asset. MGM had an exclusive window

of 30 days to negotiate for distribution of the Terminator films. When negotiating for Terminator 4, Halcyon rejected

their initial proposal, and MGM suspended negotiations. After the 30 days were over, MGM claimed that the period

during which negotiations were suspended did not count and their exclusive period was still open. Halcyon asked a

court for an injunction allowing them to approach other distributors.[42] Later, the lawsuit was settled and MGM got

a 30-day right of first refusal to finance and distribute the fifth Terminator film.[43]
Finally, Warner Bros paid $60 million to acquire the United States distribution rights of Terminator Salvation; Sony

Pictures also paid just over $100 million to acquire this film's distribution rights in most international territories.[44]
[edit] Writing
McG signed on to direct as the first two films were among his favorites, and he had even cast Robert Patrick

(who played the T-1000) in his films.[45] Though he was initially unsure about "flogging a dead horse,"[2] he

felt the post-apocalyptic setting allowed the film to be different enough so as not to be just an inferior sequel. The

idea that events in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines altered the future also

allowed them to be flexible with their presentation of the futuristic world.[46] McG met with the series' co-creator

James Cameron, and, although he neither blessed nor cursed the project, Cameron told the new director he had

faced a similar challenge when following Ridley Scott's Alien with Aliens.[2] He maintained two elements of the

previous films; that John is an outsider to the authorities, and someone of future importance is being protected, and

in this film it is Kyle Reese.[47]
The first full screenplay for the film was written by Terminator 3 writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris, who

received full screenplay credit. Paul Haggis rewrote Brancato and Ferris's script,[48] and Shawn Ryan made another

revision three weeks before filming.[49] Jonathan Nolan also wrote on set, which led to McG characterizing his work

on the script as the most important;[46] he chose to contribute to the film after Bale signed on and created

Connor's arc of becoming a leader.[50] Anthony E. Zuiker contributed to the script as well.[51] So extensive were

the rewrites that Alan Dean Foster decided to rewrite the entire novelization after submitting it to his publisher,

because the compiled shooting script was very different from the one he was given beforehand.[52]
"You survived the nuclear holocaust and you crawl out of the hole after three-to-five years and say, 'Well, I know

what's going on — I'm the one!' Some SAS guy isn't going to say, 'Where do I go, boss?' He'd say, 'Shut the

fuck up and get in line.'"
— McG on John's struggles to become the leader.[53]In the early script drafts, John was a secondary character.

Producer James Middleton explained "Ben-Hur was influenced by Jesus Christ, but it was his story. Much in that

way, this [new main] character will be influenced by John Connor."[54] The original ending was to have John

killed, and his image kept alive by the resistance by grafting his skin onto Marcus' cybernetic body.[55][56]

However, after the Internet leak, Warner Bros. decided to completely change the entire third act of the film.[57]

McG and Nolan did continue the Christ element of John's character though, in which he has some followers who

believe what he knows about Skynet, and others who do not.[58]
McG described the film's theme as "where you draw the line between machines and humans".[2] The friendship

between Marcus — who was executed (for murder) when humanity still ruled the world — and Kyle Reese

illustrates how war and suffering can bring out the best in people, such as when they worked together to survive

during the Blitz.[53] The title was derived from this second chance given to humanity and to Marcus, in addition to

John's efforts to save humanity from the machines.[59] The film's original title was Terminator Salvation: The Future

Begins, but this was dropped during filming.[53]
Throughout writing, the cast and crew would watch scenes from the three films to pick moments to reference or

tribute, including "I'll be back", which is uttered by John in this film. McG found himself having to decide which

ideas for references would be included and which would not.[60] An opening scene has John fighting a Terminator

on a crashed helicopter, which was storyboarded as a homage to the climax of the original film, where his mother

Sarah, having broken her leg, is chased by a crippled Terminator. McG did this to reflect the skills John learned

from her.[8]
Filming
Terminator Salvation had a $200 million budget, placing it as the most expensive independent production in

history.[61] Shooting of the film started on May 5, 2008 in New Mexico.[62] Filming also took place at Kirtland Air

Force Base in the state,[63] after the United States Air Force agreed to provide the crew guidance and

aircraft.[64] The filmmakers had originally intended to begin filming on April 15 in Budapest,[65] but a twenty-five

percent tax rebate and absence of an interest rate cap and floor made the filmmakers seek the cheaper New

Mexico, because of their elevated budget.[66] To avoid delays caused by a possible 2008 Screen Actors Guild

strike in July, all exterior scenes were completed by then, so production could restart easily.[67][68] The shoot

ended on July 20, 2008,[28] though some pick-ups took place in January 2009.[69]
In addition to Bale breaking his hand and Worthington hurting his back, special effects technician Mike Menardis

almost lost his leg filming an explosion. The sequence required a manhole cover being blown into the air, which hit

Menardis and partially severed his leg. McG noted it was testament to the gritty style of the film. "I say with

respect, I didn't want that Star Wars experience of everything's a blue screen, tennis balls, and go for it. I had

Stan Winston build all the machines. We built all the sets, the explosive power, the explosive power so you feel

that wind and that percussion and that heat blowing your eyebrows off. And with that you get a couple bumps and

bruises on the way, but you get it in an integrity and a realism that hopefully echoes Apocalypse Now. You couldn't

say, 'Let's just shoot Apocalypse Now in Burbank, I think it's going to feel just as good.'"[59]
The film used Technicolor's Oz process during post-production. This is a partial silver retention on the interpositive,

similar to bleach bypass, which will be used to lend to the sense of detachment from the modern world McG was

looking for.[5] Industrial Light & Magic developed shader programs to make the desaturated lighting of the CGI

realistic and well-integrated to the on-set footage.[70] The filmmakers consulted with many scientists about the

effects of an abandoned world and nuclear winter.[45] McG cited Mad Max 2, the original Star Wars trilogy and

Children of Men, as well as the novel The Road, as his visual influences.[2][45] He instructed his cast to read

the latter as well as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?[28][46] Like Children of Men, McG would storyboard

scenes so that it would be edited together to resemble a seamless, continuous shot.[71] It took two weeks to film

a two-minute shot of Connor getting caught up in a bombing on the Skynet base where he discovers plans for the

T-800.[72]
During filming, Bale became angry at director of photography Shane Hurlbut, swearing at him and threatening to

leave the film.[73][74] Bale apologized publicly and said he resolved his differences with Hurlbut, and that when

the incident took place they continued to film for a few hours.[75]
[edit] Design and special effects
McG expressed a desire on putting as many "on-camera" elements as possible, to make the film more

realistic.[76] So many settings were built for real, with an entire gas station being constructed for the scene the

Harvester attacks, and the Terminator factory being built on an abandoned factory,[64] with the design crew

consulting robot manufacturer companies for a more realistic depiction.[76] A 20 foot-tall model was built and

detonated by Kerner Optical was used for the explosion of Skynet's 30-story San Francisco-based lab.[53]
The majority of the machines were designed by Martin Laing, a crew member on Cameron's Titanic and Ghosts of

the Abyss.[77] McG described many of the machines as having an H. R. Giger influence.[45] McG's intent was to

create a gritty, tactile 2018 on screen, and Laing concurred the robots would have to be black and degraded as

none of them are new. Laing devised Aerostats, which are smaller versions of the Aerial Hunter Killers from the

previous films. The Aerostats send a signal to the 60-foot-tall humanoid Harvesters. They are very big and slow,

so they use Mototerminators to capture humans, and the Harvesters place them in Transporters. Laing was unsure

of how to design the Transporters until he saw a cattle transport while driving through Albuquerque. Completing

Skynet's domination of air, land and sea is the Hydrobot, which Laing modeled on eels,[53] and was built by the

animatronics crew with its exterior made of metal-looking rubber so it could be used in the aquatic scenes.[64] The

film features the rubber-skinned T-600s and T-700s. McG interpreted Kyle Reese's description in the original film of

the T-600 as being easy to spot by making them tall and bulky.[2] For scenes of humans fighting with

Terminators, the actors interacted with stuntmen wearing motion capture suits, later replaced by digital robots.[76]

For the Mototerminators, Ducati designers were hired to create the robots, and the on-screen robot was a

combination of stuntmen driving actual Ducatis and a Mototerminator mock-up, as well as a digital

Mototerminator.[78] Visual effects studio Imaginary Forces created the Terminator point-of-view sequences, and tried

to depict a simple interface, with just what a machine would need, and with more software bugs and anomalies

since the robots of Salvation were not as advanced as the Terminators from the previous movies.[79]
The majority of the special effects were done by Industrial Light & Magic. Other contributors included Asylum Visual

Effects, which created digital plates, Marcus' endoskeleton and a digital T-600; and Rising Sun Pictures, which did

the digital correction of day for night scenes, the destruction of the submarine and Marcus' robot hand.[80]

Salvation was one of the last films that Stan Winston, the visual effects supervisor on the first three films, worked

on. He died on June 15, 2008 from multiple myeloma,[81] and McG dedicated the film to him, in the end

credits.[7] John Rosengrant and Charlie Gibson replaced Winston,[77] and McG commented that they are "trying to

achieve something that's never been done before"[82] and will "push the envelope".[83]
Music
Terminator Salvation

Film score by Danny ElfmanReleased May 19, 2009
Label
RepriseProfessional reviews
• Allmusic [84]Danny Elfman chronologyWanted
(2008) Terminator Salvation
(2009)

Danny Elfman began composing the score in January 2009. Beforehand, McG had the idea to hire Gustavo

Santaolalla, who he got to speak with, to work on the human themes, while having either Thom Yorke or Jonny

Greenwood for Skynet's themes.[34][50] He also wanted to discuss scoring the film with Hans Zimmer, but he was

unable to arrange a meeting. However, he managed to meet with The Terminator and Terminator 2 composer Brad

Fiedel. McG was not interested in repeating the sounds Fiedel achieved in his films but still wanted Elfman to use

those themes and ambient sounds, and give them a "Wagnerian quality".[47]
Reprise Records released the soundtrack on May 19, 2009, which includes fifteen tracks. While Common had

expressed interest in writing a song for the soundtrack,[85] Alice in Chains' "Rooster" is the only featured

song.[86] Although not included in the soundtrack, "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses, which was featured in

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, can be heard briefly in a scene of the film as well.[87] Nine Inch Nails' "The Day

The World Went Away" is played on the film's theatrical trailer, but is not included in the film or soundtrack.
Soundtrack[86]
1. "Opening" – 6:01
2. "All Is Lost" – 2:45
3. "Broadcast" – 3:19
4. "The Harvester Returns" – 2:45
5. "Fireside" – 1:31
6. "No Plan" – 1:43
7. "Reveal / The Escape" – 7:44
8. "Hydrobot Attack" – 1:49
9. "Farewell" – 1:40
10. "Marcus Enters Skynet" – 3:23
11. "A Solution" – 1:44
12. "Serena" – 2:28
13. "Final Confrontation" – 4:14
14. "Salvation" – 3:07
15. "Rooster" (Alice in Chains) – 6:14
[edit] Lawsuit
In March 2009, producer Moritz Borman filed a lawsuit against the Halcyon Company, seeking $160 million. Borman,

who had arranged the transfer of the Terminator rights to Halcyon in May 2007, stated the company's two

managers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek had "hijacked" the production and refused to give him his $2.5 million

share of the production. Borman alleged budget overruns were the reasons Anderson and Kubicek did not pay him

and that they had $1 million in debt.[88] Nevertheless, an "amicable" resolution was reached a month later.[89]
Further complications occurred on May 20, 2009, when executive producer Peter D. Graves, who informed Anderson

and Kubicek about the Terminator rights, filed a breach-of-contract claim for arbitration, alleging that they owe him

$750,000.[44]
[edit] Release
The film was released in North America on May 21, 2009 with Warner Bros. setting the American premiere on May

14, 2009 at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.[90] Elsewhere, Sony Pictures Entertainment released the

film in most overseas territories on different dates in June. One exception is Mexico, however, because of the swine

flu outbreak in the country, which forced Sony to push the release date to July 31, 2009.[91]
It is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action, and

language," unlike the previous R-rated films.[92] The decision to release the film with a PG-13 rating has met with

much criticism from fans,[93] and the media.[94] The decision was made to rate the film PG-13 after agreeing to

cut out a shot of Marcus stabbing a thug with a screwdriver, as McG felt disallowing the young audience due to

that one shot was unfair. He also deleted a topless scene for Moon Bloodgood because "It was a soft moment

between a man and a woman that was designed to echo the Kelly McGillis/Harrison Ford moment in Witness [but]

in the end, it felt more like a gratuitous moment of a girl taking her top off in an action picture, and I didn't want

that to convolute the story or the characters."[95] The producers had expected the rating because of the modern

leniency towards violence in PG-13 films, such as Live Free or Die Hard.[48]
Critical reception
Based on 246 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, critical reaction for Terminator Salvation tended toward

negativity with an overall 33% approval rating.[96] Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular

and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs,[97] the film holds a similar

overall approval rating of 32%.[98] By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to

reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51, based on 34 reviews.[99] In all

three cases the film ranks lowest in the series.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 2 out of 4 stars, saying that "After scrutinizing the film, I

offer you my summary of the story: Guy dies, finds himself resurrected, meets others, fights. That lasts for almost

two hours."[100] Michael Rechtshaffen of the Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film isn't the same without Arnold

Schwarzenegger and that it misses its dramatic element.[101] Likewise, Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film a

2/4 and called it "predictable" with the "dramatic elements flat-lin[ing]." She noted that Christian Bale's performance

was "one-dimensional," but Sam Worthington's and Anton Yelchin's were better.[102]
Total Film's review gave the movie 4/5 with its verdict: "The Terminator story recharges with a post-apocalyptic jolt

of energy. Frantic and full of welcome ties to the past, it also ploughs new ground with purpose. Fingers crossed

McG will follow Cameron’s lead and serve up a worthy sequel..."[103] Devin Faraci of Empire magazine, too, gave

a positive rating of four out of five stars, saying: "McG has sparked a moribund franchise back to life, giving fans

the post-apocalyptic action they’ve been craving since they first saw a metal foot crush a human skull two decades

ago."[104] However, on CHUD, the latter said "Bale's desire to star as John Connor was probably the most fatal

blow to the film; it completely distorted the shape of the story as it existed." Furthermore, he expresses that the

third act was when the film began falling apart, saying how "McG and Nolan muddied the end of the picture,

delivering action generics (yet another Terminator fight in a factory) while never finding their own hook that would

give this movie more of an impact than you would get from an expanded universe novel."[105] James Berardinelli

instead considered the ending the best part of the film, feeling that the first two-thirds were "rambling and

disjointed", and that the lack of a central villain was only fixed when the T-800 appeared.[106]
Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times stated that "[Bale's] strengths do not serve him, or the movie, as well

here" and that "when the story starts to crumble around Bale, Worthington is there to pick up the pieces."[107]

A.O. Scott of the New York Times said the film has "a brute integrity lacking in some of the other seasonal

franchise movies" and "efficient, reasonably swift storytelling."[108] Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz gave the film a

"See It" and "Skip It," respectively, on their show At the Movies with the latter mentioning that it "is the worst big

budget summer release I’ve seen in some time."[109]
Arnold Schwarzenegger, star of the preceding three films in the series, remarked that Terminator Salvation was "a

great film, I was very excited."[110] James Cameron, creator of the series, considered it an "interesting film" that

he "didn't hate as much as I thought I was going to", and praised Sam Worthington's performance.[111] Linda

Hamilton, who portrayed Sarah Connor in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day and lent her voice to

Terminator Salvation, wished the film "all the best" but expressed her opinion that the series "was perfect with two

films. It was a complete circle, and it was enough in itself. But there will always be those who will try [to] milk the

cow."[112]
[edit] Box office
The film's first nationwide US screenings were at 12 A.M. on Thursday, May 21, 2009, making $3 million from

midnight screenings and earning $13.3 million in its first day.[113] The movie grossed an additional $42,558,390 on

its 4-day Memorial Day opening weekend,[114] and debuted at #2 behind Night at the Museum: Battle of the

Smithsonian, giving it a lower first weekend take than its predecessor and becoming the first film in the series not

to open at #1.[115] Terminator Salvation was more successful in its international release, opening at #1 in 66 of

70 territories through the first week of June,[116] and continuing to be the highest-grossing film in the following

week.[117] The film's total domestic gross is at $125,322,469, and along with $246,723,586 from overseas

territories, for a worldwide gross of $372,046,055.[1] As of December 2009, the film ranks fourteenth for the year

internationally and twenty third domestically (U.S. and Canada), which ranks it last in the series and puts it below

initial expectations in terms of domestic gross and first weekend, as well as overall global take.[118][119][120]
[edit] Home media
The DVD and Blu-ray Disc of the film was released on December 1, 2009. The former contains the theatrical cut

of the film with a featurette on the Mototerminators. The Blu-ray features both the theatrical cut and the R-rated

Director's cut, which is three minutes longer (118 minutes), with bonus material including Maximum Movie Mode, a

video commentary in which director McG talks about the film while it plays, featurettes, a video archive, and a

digital comic of the first issue of the official movie prequel comic. Both versions include a digital copy of the

theatrical cut for portable media players.[121] Target Stores will be the only retailer to carry the Director's Cut on

DVD.[122] On its first week of retail, Terminator Salvation debuted at the top spot of the Blu-Ray charts, and on

second in the DVD charts, behind Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.[123]
[edit] Tie-ins


Rubens Barrichello driving his Brawn GP car Brawn BGP 001 with Terminator Salvation sponsorship at the Spanish

GP.
In addition to the novelization by Alan Dean Foster, a prequel novel titled From the Ashes by Timothy Zahn was

released.[124][125] IDW Publishing released a four-issue prequel comic, as well as an adaptation.[126] It follows

Connor rallying together the resistance in 2017, as well as examining normal people overcoming their intolerances to

defeat Skynet.[127] Playmates Toys, Sideshow Collectibles, Hot Toys, Character Options, and DC Unlimited produced

merchandise,[128][129] while Chrysler, Sony, Pizza Hut, and 7-Eleven are among the product placement

partners.[130][131] On May 23, 2009, a roller coaster named after the film opened at Six Flags Magic

Mountain.[132]
A third-person shooter video game of the same name was released on the same week of the release of the

film.[133] Christian Bale declined to lend his voice, so Gideon Emery voiced the character of John Connor. The

game, however, features the voices of Common and Moon Bloodgood as Barnes and Blair Williams,

respectively.[134] Despite not appearing in the film, Rose McGowan voiced the character of Angie Salter, an

ex-high school teacher.[135] The game is set in 2016, after the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and

before the events of Terminator Salvation.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 American fantasy-drama film directed by David Fincher.

The screenplay by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord is loosely based on the 1922 short story of the same name by F.

Scott Fitzgerald. The film stars Brad Pitt as a man who ages in reverse and Cate Blanchett as the love interest

throughout his life. The film was released in the United States on December 25, 2008.
The film received thirteen Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Pitt, and

Best Supporting Actress for Taraji P. Henson. It won Oscars for Art Direction, Makeup, and Visual Effects.
Contents

• 1 Plot
• 2 Cast
• 3 Production
o 3.1 Development
o 3.2 Adaptation
o 3.3 Casting
o 3.4 Filming
o 3.5 Music
• 4 Reception
o 4.1 Box office performance
o 4.2 Critical reception
o 4.3 Top ten lists
o 4.4 Plagiarism claim
• 5 Home media
• 6 Awards and honors
Plot
This article's plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing

unnecessary details and making it more concise. (December 2009)
Daisy (Cate Blanchett), an elderly woman, is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina

approaches. Daisy tells her daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), the story of a blind clockmaker named Gateau who

was commissioned to create a clock to hang in the New Orleans train station. After receiving news of his only son's

death in World War I, he continued work on his clock, but intentionally designed it to run backward, in the hope

that it would bring back those who died in the war. After her story, Daisy asks Caroline to read aloud from a diary

containing photographs and postcards written by Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt).
On November 11, 1918, just as the people of New Orleans are celebrating the end of the Great War, a baby boy

is born with the appearance and physical maladies of a very elderly man. The baby's mother dies shortly after

giving birth, and the father, Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng), abandons the infant on the porch of a nursing

home. Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) and Mr. "Tizzy" Weathers (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a couple who work at the

nursing home, find the baby. Queenie, who is unable to conceive, decides to take the baby in as her own and

names the baby Benjamin.
Queenie takes Benjamin to a Christian faith healing service where Benjamin rises from his wheelchair and walks for

the first time. In 1930, while still appearing to be seventy-three, Benjamin meets six-year-old Daisy (Elle Fanning),

whose grandmother lives in the nursing home. The children play together and listen to Daisy's grandmother read

from a storybook. As Benjamin gets older, he accepts work at on the docks of New Orleans for Captain Mike

(Jared Harris). Benjamin also meets Thomas Button, who does not reveal that he is Benjamin's father. In 1936,

Benjamin leaves New Orleans with the tugboat crew for a long-term work engagement. While in the Russian port

city of Murmansk, he begins an affair with the older, married Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton).
While in Russia, the tugboat crew hear of the Pearl Harbor attack. Captain Mike tells his crew that his tugboat has

been commissioned into the United States Navy. They work through the war hauling crippled ships until one night,

when they come upon an allied transport that had been torpedoed and sunk by a U-boat. They are able to ram

and sink the U-boat when it surfaces, but the ship is critically damaged. Benjamin is the sole survivor.
In 1945, Benjamin returns to New Orleans, and learns that the twenty-one-year-old Daisy has become a successful

ballet dancer in New York City, and that Tizzy just died. Benjamin crosses paths with Thomas Button again.

Thomas, who is dying, reveals he is his father. Thomas wills Benjamin his house, his button factory and other

possessions before he dies.
Benjamin later travels to New York to meet Daisy at a performance, and finds Daisy has fallen in love with a fellow

dancer. Daisy's dance career is ended in 1957 by an accident in Paris when she is hit by a taxi cab that breaks

her leg. When Benjamin goes to see her, Daisy is amazed at his youthful appearance, but frustrated at her own

injuries; she turns him away by telling Benjamin to stay out of her life. In 1962, Daisy returns to New Orleans and

reunites with Benjamin. Now the same physical age, they fall in love and get an apartment together.
Queenie dies and Daisy becomes pregnant. Daisy gives birth to a girl, Caroline. Benjamin, believing he cannot be a

father figure to his daughter due to his reverse aging, sells his belongings, and leaves the proceeds to Daisy and

Caroline. He travels to India.
Benjamin returns to Daisy in 1980. Daisy is now re-married. Daisy introduces Benjamin to her husband, and

Caroline as a long-time family friend. Daisy and Benjamin then meet privately in Benjamin's hotel where they share

their passion for each other, but decide to remain apart. Benjamin departs again.
In 1991, Daisy receives a phone call from social workers. They inform her that they found Benjamin — now a

young twelve year old — living in a condemned building. The social workers believe that he has dementia as he

cannot remember much of his past. Daisy moves into the nursing home where Benjamin grew up and takes care of

him as he becomes increasingly younger.
In 2002, Mr. Gateau's old clock is removed from the train station. Shortly afterward, Benjamin, who is now

physically an infant, dies in Daisy's arms.
Cast
• Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button – apparent adult
• Spencer Daniels as Benjamin Button – apparent age 12
• Shiloh Jolie-Pitt as Benjamin Button – apparent baby
• Cate Blanchett as Daisy Fuller – adult
• Elle Fanning as Daisy Fuller – age 6
• Madisen Beaty as Daisy Fuller – age 11
• Taraji P. Henson as Queenie
• Julia Ormond as Caroline Fuller
• Jason Flemyng as Thomas Button
• Mahershalalhashbaz Ali as Tizzy Weathers
• Jared Harris as Captain Mike
• Elias Koteas as Monsieur Gateau
• Ed Metzger as Theodore Roosevelt
• Phyllis Somerville as Grandma Fuller
• Josh Stewart as Pleasant Curtis
• Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth Abbott
• Bianca Chiminello as Daisy's Friend
• Rampai Mohadi as Ngunda Oti
• Edith Ivey as Mrs. Maple
• Tim Harvey as Soda Jerk
• Vanessa Bell-Gentles as Anacalir Fuller
Production
[edit] Development
Producer Ray Stark bought the film rights to do The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in the mid-1980's, and it

was optioned by Universal Pictures. The first choice to direct it was Frank Oz, with Martin Short attached for the

title role, but Oz couldn't work out how to make the story work. The film was optioned in 1991 by Steven

Spielberg, with Tom Cruise attached for the lead role. But, Spielberg left the project to direct Jurassic Park and

Schindler's List. Other director's attached were Patrick Read Johnson and Agnieszka Holland. Stark eventually sold

the rights to producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who took the film to Paramount Pictures, with

Universal Pictures still on as a co-production partner. By summer 1994, Maryland Film Office chief Jack Gerbes was

approached with the possibility of making the film in Baltimore.[3] In October 1998, screenwriter Robin Swicord wrote

for director Ron Howard an adapted screenplay of the short story, a project which would potentially star actor John

Travolta.[4] In May 2000, Paramount Pictures hired screenwriter Jim Taylor to adapt a screenplay from the short

story. The studio also attached director Spike Jonze to helm the project.[5] Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman had also

written a draft of the adapted screenplay at one point.[6] In June 2003, director Gary Ross entered final

negotiations to helm the project based on a new draft penned by screenwriter Eric Roth.[7] In May 2004, Warner

Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures joined to co-finance the project, with Paramount Pictures marketing the film in

foreign territories and Warner Bros. handling domestic distribution (those were eventually switched).[citation needed]

In the same month, director David Fincher entered negotiations to replace Ross in directing the film.[8] In July

2005, Fincher negotiated a deal with the studios to direct Benjamin Button and Zodiac back-to-back, with Zodiac

being produced first.
[edit] Adaptation
The completed screenplay differs from Fitzgerald's short story in numerous ways. The short story is set in Baltimore,

not New Orleans. In the short story, the baby is born speaking like an adult and with a long white beard. He is

born in a hospital, not at home, and is 70 years old, not 85. In addition, he is not deserted by his father at a

home for the elderly, but is cared for by Mr. Button and encouraged to go to college. He also mentally ages

backward, not forward.
[edit] Casting
In May 2005, actors Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett entered negotiations to star in the film as Benjamin Button and

Daisy, respectively.[9] In September 2006, actors Tilda Swinton, Jason Flemyng, and Taraji P. Henson entered

negotiations to be cast into the film.[10] The following October, with production yet to begin, actress Julia Ormond

was cast as Daisy's daughter, to whom Blanchett's character tells the story of her love affair with Benjamin

Button.[11]
Filming


Some filming was conducted in the Garden District of New Orleans, including this home at 2707 Coliseum St.


Parisian scenes shooting in Old Montreal
For Benjamin Button, New Orleans, Louisiana and the surrounding area was chosen as the filming location for the

story to take advantage of the state's production incentives, and shooting was slated to begin in October 2006.[12]

Filming of Benjamin Button began on November 6, 2006 in New Orleans. In January 2007, Blanchett joined the

shoot.[13] Fincher praised the ease of accessibility to rural and urban sets in New Orleans and said that the

recovery from Hurricane Katrina did not serve as an atypical hindrance to production.[14] In March 2007, production

moved to Los Angeles for two more months of filming.[3] Principal photography was targeted to last a total of 150

days. Additional time was needed in post-production to create the visual effects for the metamorphosis of Brad Pitt's

character to the infant stage.[15] The director used a camera system called Contour, developed by Steve Perlman,

to capture facial deformation data from live-action performances.[16] Overall production was finished in September

2007.[17] The movie props were donated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

Some of the scenes were shot in Montreal as well.
[edit] Music
The score to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was written by French composer Alexandre Desplat, who

recorded his score with an 87-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage.[18]

The film's first trailer featured the "Aquarium" movement of Camille Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals. The

choir singing in the trailer is Libera, a group of boys from South London. The international trailer contains the song

"A Moment of Greatness" by Immediate Music. One of the TV spots contains the song "My Body is a Cage" by

Arcade Fire. Some TV spots use the song "The Return", which is part of APM Music's Liquid Cinema Collection

"Cinematic Emotions & Drama". There are also songs in the film shared with O Brother, Where Art Thou?,

including "Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby" and "I'll Fly Away", from a different recording. The piano piece that

Benjamin learns and which is reprised at the end of the film is Bethena: A Concert Waltz by Scott Joplin.
Benjamin and Daisy watch The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show singing "Twist and Shout".
Reception
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was originally slated for theatrical release in May 2008,[19] but it was

pushed back to November 26, 2008.[20] The release date was moved again to December 25 in the United

States, January 16, 2009 in Mexico, February 6 in the United Kingdom, February 13 in Italy[21][22] and February

27 in South Africa.
[edit] Box office performance
On its opening day, the film opened in the number two position behind Marley & Me, in North America with

$11,871,831 in 2,988 theaters with a $3,973 average.[2] However, during its opening weekend, the film dropped to

the third position behind Marley & Me and Bedtime Stories with $26,853,816 in 2,988 theaters with an $8,987

average. The film has come to gross $127.5 million domestically and $206.4 million in foreign markets, with a total

gross of $333.9 million.[2]
[edit] Critical reception
The film has received mostly positive reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 71% of critics

gave the film positive reviews based on 221 reviews, with 79% of selected "Top Critics" giving the film positive

reviews, based on 33 reviews.[23][24] According to Metacritic, the film received an average score of 70 out of

100, based on 37 reviews.[25] Yahoo! Movies reported the film received a B+ average score from critical

consensus, based on 12 reviews.[26]
Todd McCarthy of Variety gave the film a positive review, calling it a "richly satisfying serving of deep-dish

Hollywood storytelling."[27] Peter Howell of The Toronto Star says: "It's been said that the unexamined life is not

worth living. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button suggests an addendum: a life lived backwards can be far more

enriching..." and describes the film as "a magical and moving account of a man living his life resoundingly in

reverse" and "moviemaking at its best."[28] Rod Yates of Empire awarded it five out of a possible five stars.[29]

Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter felt the film was "superbly made and winningly acted by Brad Pitt in his

most impressive outing to date." Honeycutt praised Fincher's directing of the film and noted that the "cinematography

wonderfully marries a palette of subdued earthern colors with the necessary CGI and other visual effects that place

one in a magical past." Honeycutt states the bottom line about Benjamin Button is that it is "an intimate epic about

love and loss that is pure cinema."[30]

A.O. Scott of The New York Times states, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, more than two and a half hours

long, sighs with longing and simmers with intrigue while investigating the philosophical conundrums and emotional

paradoxes of its protagonist’s condition in a spirit that owes more to Jorge Luis Borges than to Fitzgerald." Scott

praised director David Fincher and writes "Building on the advances of pioneers like Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson

and Robert Zemeckis...Mr. Fincher has added a dimension of delicacy and grace to digital filmmaking" and further

states, "While it stands on the shoulders of breakthroughs like Minority Report, The Lord of the Rings and Forrest

Gump, Benjamin Button may be the most dazzling such hybrid yet, precisely because it is the subtlest." He also

stated: "At the same time, like any other love--like any movie--it is shadowed by disappointment and fated to

end."[31]
On the other hand, Anne Hornaday of The Washington Post states, "There's no denying the sheer ambition and

technical prowess of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. What's less clear is whether it entirely earns its own

inflated sense of self-importance..." and further says, "It plays too safe when it should be letting its freak flag

fly."[32] Kimberley Jones of the Austin Chronicle panned the film and states, "Fincher's selling us beautifully

cheekboned movie stars frolicking in bedsheets and calling it a great love. I didn't buy it for a second."[33]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying that it is "a

splendidly made film based on a profoundly mistaken premise." He goes on to elaborate that "The movie's premise

devalues any relationship, makes futile any friendship or romance, and spits, not into the face of destiny, but

backward into the maw of time."[34]
Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian called it "166 minutes of twee tedium", giving it one star out of a possible

five.[35]
Ashley Scrace from the Sheffield Star noted: "It is a good film, but one of contradictions, some of which are far

beyond the story of young versus old. It is surprising yet clichéd; sad yet hollow; visually impressive yet ordinary."

He goes on to add, "I just hope this year’s Oscars do not follow a tired formula: biggest budget, plus biggest

stars, equals biggest awards." The film was rated at three stars out of a possible five.[36]
Cosmo Landesman of the Sunday Times wrote: "The film’s premise serves no purpose. It’s a gimmick that goes on

for nearly three hours," concluding "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an anodyne Hollywood film that offers

a safe and sanitised view of life and death. It's Forrest Gump goes backwards," while awarding the film two out of

five stars.[37] James Christopher in The Times called it "a tedious marathon of smoke and mirrors. In terms of the

basic requirements of three-reel drama the film lacks substance, credibility, a decent script and characters you might

actually care for"[38] while Derek Malcolm of London's Evening Standard notes that "never at any point do you feel

that there’s anything more to it than a very strange story traversed by a film-maker who knows what he is doing

but not always why he is doing it."[39]

The screenplay also came under criticism for its perceived unoriginality. Many have noted extensive similarities

between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Forrest Gump, both written by Eric Roth, prompting accusations

of "self-plagiarism."[40][41][42][43]
[edit] Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.[44] According to Movie City News, the

film has appeared on 79 different top ten lists out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the 6th most mentioned on

a top ten list of the films released in 2008.[45] According to CriticsTop10, the film appeared on over 136 film

critics top ten lists, with 12 number one mentions, and was also ranked 6th of the year in terms of appearances

on critics' top ten lists.[46]
• 1st - Rex Reed, The New York Observer
• 1st - Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun[44]
• 1st - Ben Lyons, At the Movies
• 3rd - Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal[44]
• 3rd - Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter[44]
• 5th - Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter[44]
• 5th - Lou Lumenick, New York Post[44]
• 6th - James Berardinelli, ReelViews[44]
• 6th - Kyle Smith, New York Post[44]
• 6th - Richard Corliss, TIME magazine[44]
• 8th - Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter[44]
• 9th - Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald[44][edit] Plagiarism claim
In January 2009, an Italian writer named Adriana Pichini filed legal papers contending that the film appeared to

have been based on a story that she wrote in 1994, entitled "Il ritorno di Arthur all'innocenza" ("Arthur's Return to

Innocence"). The case will be examined by an Italian judge to see whether or not the situation merits further

inquiry.[47]
[edit] Home media
The film was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on May 5, 2009 by Paramount. The Criterion release includes

over three hours of special features, and a documentary about the making of the film.[48] Benjamin Button has

something of an unusual distribution arrangement for the Blu-ray release world wide. The US Criterion release does

not appear to be available in other countries and it is unknown whether Warner struck a different transfer for other

markets or used the same master outside of US. For releases in countries such as UK and Australia, the Blu-ray

is distributed by Warner Brothers with no reference to Criterion on the packaging. The Criterion edition has received

outstanding reviews for audio and video presentation. The main audio track is consistent across all editions (DTS

HD Master Audio) and the special features appear to be consistent across both editions also. The Australian edition

of the Blu-ray includes a license to download a digital copy of the movie to portable devices. This license key is

valid for 1 year from release date of the Blu-ray. There is no media in the set containing the portable digital

edition of the movie. As of November 1, 2009 the DVD has sold 2,515,722 DVD copies and has generated

$41,196,515 in sales revenue.[49]
[edit] Awards and honors
Award Category Recipient Result
81st Academy Awards
Best Picture Kathleen Kennedy
Frank Marshall
Ceán Chaffin
Nominated
Best Director David Fincher
Nominated
Best Actor Brad Pitt
Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Taraji P. Henson
Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Eric Roth
Nominated
Best Film Editing Kirk Baxter
Angus Wall
Nominated
Best Cinematography Claudio Miranda
Nominated
Best Art Direction Donald Graham Burt
Victor J. Zolfo Won
Best Costume Design Jacqueline West
Nominated
Best Makeup Won
Best Original Score Alexandre Desplat
Nominated
Best Sound Mixing Nominated
Best Visual Effects Won
American Society of Cinematographers[50]
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases
Claudio Miranda Nominated
Austin Film Critics Association[51]
Best Supporting Actress
Taraji P. Henson Won
British Academy Film Awards
Best Film Kathleen Kennedy
Frank Marshall
Ceán Chaffin Nominated
Best Makeup & Hair Won
Best Director David Fincher Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Eric Roth Nominated
Best Leading Actor Brad Pitt Nominated
Best Costume Design Nominated
Best Music Alexandre Desplat Nominated
Best Cinematography Claudio Miranda Nominated
Best Editing Nominated
Best Production Design Won
Best Visual Effects Won
Broadcast Film Critics[52]
Best Film
Nominated
Best Actor
Brad Pitt Nominated
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett
Nominated
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Director
David Fincher Nominated
Best Supporting Actress
Taraji P. Henson Nominated
Best Cast
Nominated
Best Writer
Eric Roth Nominated
Best Composer
Alexandre Desplat Nominated
Central Ohio Film Critics Association Awards
Best Score Alexandre Desplat Won
Top 10 Films of the Year 9th
Chicago Film Critics Association
Best Picture
Nominated
Best Director
David Fincher Nominated
Best Screenplay, Adapted
Eric Roth Nominated
Best Cinematography Claudio Miranda Nominated
Best Original Score
Alexandre Desplat Nominated
Directors Guild of America Awards
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures
David Fincher Nominated
Golden Globe Awards
Best Motion Picture Drama
Nominated
Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Brad Pitt Nominated
Best Director - Motion Picture
David Fincher Nominated
Best Screenplay
Eric Roth Nominated
Best Original Score
Alexandre Desplat Nominated
Houston Film Critics Society Awards
Best Picture Won
Best Cinematography Claudio Miranda Won
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
Best Art Direction
Won
Best Cinematography
Claudio Miranda Won
Best Costume Design Jacqueline West Won
London Film Critics' Circle
Film of the Year
Nominated
Director of the Year
David Fincher Won
British Supporting Actress of the Year Tilda Swinton
Won
Screenwriter of the Year Eric Roth Nominated
MTV Movie Awards
Best Female Performance
Taraji P. Henson Nominated
National Board of Review[52][53]
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films

Best Director
David Fincher Won
Best Adapted Screenplay
Eric Roth Won
Satellite Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay
Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
Nominated
Best Art Direction and Production Design
Donald Graham Burt and Tom Reta Nominated
Best Cinematography
Claudio Miranda Nominated
Best Costume Design
Jacqueline West Nominated
Saturn Award
Best Fantasy Film
Won
Best Actor
Brad Pitt Nominated
Best Actress
Cate Blatchett Nominated
Best Supporting Actress
Tilda Swinton
Won
Best Director
David Fincher Nominated
Best Writing
Eric Roth Nominated
Best Music
Alexandre Desplat Nominated
Best Make-Up
Won
Best Visual Effects
Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Brad Pitt Nominated
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Taraji P. Henson Nominated
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Mahershalalhashbaz Ali
Cate Blanchett
Jason Flemyng
Jared Harris
Taraji P. Henson
Elias Koteas
Julia Ormond
Brad Pitt
Phyllis Somerville
Tilda Swinton Nominated
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards[54]
Best Film
Won
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards[55]
Best Director
David Fincher Won
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association
Best Art Direction
Won
Writers Guild of America Awards
Best Original Screenplay
Eric Roth
Robin Swicord Nominated

Wall-E

WALL-E, promoted with an interpunct as WALL•E, is a 2008 computer-animated science-fiction film

produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named WALL-E,

who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future. He eventually falls in love with another robot

named EVE, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and

humanity.
After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was

willing to direct a film largely set in space. Most of the characters do not have actual human voices, but instead

communicate with body language and robotic sounds, designed by Ben Burtt, that resemble voices. In addition, it is

the first animated feature by Pixar to have segments featuring live-action characters.
Walt Disney Pictures released it in the United States and Canada on June 27, 2008. The film grossed US$23.1

million on its opening day, and $63 million during its opening weekend in 3,992 theaters, ranking #1 at the box

office. This ranks as the fourth highest-grossing opening weekend for a Pixar film as of May 31, 2009. Following

Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film, Presto, for its theatrical release. WALL-E has been met with

overwhelmingly positive reviews among critics, scoring an approval rating of 96% on the review aggregator Rotten

Tomatoes. It grossed $534 million worldwide, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film,

the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form,[3] the Academy Award for Best Animated

Feature as well as being nominated for five other Academy Awards at the 81st Academy Awards.
Contents

• 1 Plot
• 2 Cast and characters
• 3 Production
o 3.1 Writing
o 3.2 Design
o 3.3 Animation
o 3.4 Sound
o 3.5 Music
• 4 Themes
• 5 Reception
o 5.1 Release
o 5.2 Reviews
o 5.3 Awards

[edit] Plot
Throughout the 21st century, Earth was governed by the Buy n Large megacorporation (BnL), causing mass

consumerism and covering the planet in trash by 2105. In an attempt to resolve the situation, Earth's population

was evacuated on fully automated luxury BnL starliners for five years while an army of trash compactor robots called

WALL-E's were left behind to clean up the planet. The plan largely failed, however, forcing humanity to remain in

space indefinitely. Seven hundred years later, in 2805, only one WALL-E unit functions, having survived by

salvaging parts for himself from other defunct WALL-E units. This unit has developed sentience and a sense of

emotion, particularly curiosity, as shown by his quirky habits of collecting knickknacks from the mountains of trash.
One day, WALL-E finds a seedling plant growing among the trash and returns it to his home inside an old

transport truck. Later, a spaceship lands and deploys an advanced probe robot named EVE. WALL-E is instantly

mesmerized by EVE as she carries out her directive of searching for signs of plant life. Initially aloof and hostile,

EVE begins to warm up to WALL-E and takes a liking to him. During a dust storm, WALL-E takes EVE to his

truck and shows her the plant, causing her automated systems to store the plant inside her, activate a homing

beacon, and deactivate her. WALL-E goes to great lengths to try to revive and take care of her, even going on a

date with the inactive robot. When her ship returns to collect her, WALL-E desperately clings to the hull of the ship

as it returns to the Axiom, the flagship of the BnL fleet.
Upon docking, WALL-E follows EVE as she is taken to the bridge of the ship. As he progresses through the Axiom

it becomes apparent that after centuries of living in microgravity and relying on the ship's automated systems, the

human passengers have suffered severe bone loss and become obese. The Captain himself does little, leaving

control of the ship to the autopilot, Auto. When EVE is brought to the bridge, the Captain learns that by placing

her plant sample inside the ship's holo-detector as a sign of Earth being habitable again, the Axiom will enter

hyperspace and return to Earth to allow its passengers to repopulate the planet. However, when EVE is opened, the

plant is missing. EVE is considered defective and taken to the robot repair ward along with WALL-E, though the

Captain's curiosity is piqued and he begins researching Earth history.
At the repair ward, WALL-E causes chaos and accidentally releases a horde of malfunctioning robots to roam the

ship, resulting in the ship's security designating him and EVE as "rogue robots." Annoyed with WALL-E's disruptive

influence, EVE attempts to send him back to Earth on an escape pod. However, they see Auto's assistant GO-4

deposit the missing plant into the escape pod and set it to self-destruct. WALL-E manages to save the plant, and

EVE gratefully gives him a "kiss" in the form of an electric spark. The two robots celebrate on a spacewalk around

the Axiom before returning the plant to the Captain. The Captain reviews EVE's visual records of the devastated

Earth, and vows to return there to restore the planet. EVE, meanwhile, sees WALL-E's commitment to her

well-being while she was inactive and falls in love with him. However, Auto reveals that he was given a final

directive to keep humanity in space, as Earth had been deemed uninhabitable at the time he was given the

directive. The Captain argues the plant is proof that life is once again sustainable on Earth, but Auto stages a

mutiny, locking the Captain in his quarters, electrocuting WALL-E and sending him down a trash chute with EVE

and the plant.
With WALL-E severely damaged, EVE realizes the only parts to repair him are on Earth, which they can reach

quickly if they can activate the hyperjump. With the help of M-O, the other rogue robots and the human

passengers, WALL-E and EVE attempt to place the plant in the holo-detector, but Auto's control of the ship

prevents them from doing so, and WALL-E is further damaged in the process. The Captain breaks free of his

quarters and deactivates Auto, allowing the holo-detector to activate, sending the ship back to Earth. EVE quickly

takes WALL-E back to his truck and attempts to repair him, but his memory and personality appear to have been

erased as he reverts to his original trash-compacting duties. Heartbroken, EVE gives him a farewell "kiss", which

causes another spark that inadvertently restores WALL-E to his unique personality, happily reuniting the two robots.

WALL-E and EVE rejoin the humans and robots as they begin working together to restore Earth, taking care to

plant the seedling that brought them back home.
[edit] Cast and characters
• Ben Burtt produced the voice of WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class), the titular character

and protagonist of the film. WALL-E is a sentient, 700 year old solar-powered mobile trash compactor robot, and

is presumably the only functional robot on Earth. He is designed as a small compactor box with all-terrain treads,

three-fingered shovel hands, and binocular eyes. He is equipped with a cutting laser between his eyes and a

recording device which he uses to record and play his Hello Dolly music. He is very curious, lonely and endearing,

and always puts others, namely EVE, before himself on his journey to earn her love. He also collects objects that

have been left on Earth, like a Rubik's cube for example, has a pet cockroach named Hal, and is very interested

in music. The truck is his only home.
Burtt also created the voice of M-O (Microbe Obliterator), as well as most other robots in the film. M-O

is a tiny, obsessive compulsive maintenance robot who cleans the ship and inspects incoming shipments for foreign

contaminants. Meeting WALL-E turns his life upside-down, however, when he sees not only how much filth is on

his body, but how much he leaves behind. M-O spends a portion of the film following and cleaning WALL-E's

tracks throughout the Axiom, leading him to the garbage depot where he unintentionally saves WALL-E and EVE

from being jettisoned into the vacuum of space through the airlock and befriends them.
• Elissa Knight as EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek, state-of-the-art robotic probe whose

main function is to locate vegetation on Earth to verify its habitability. She is designed with a white, egg-shaped

body with levitating pivot points (fingers, arms, and head) and blue LED eyes. EVE moves around by a form of

antigravity technology, and is equipped with scanners, a specimen storage compartment with a tractor beam, and a

plasma cannon in her right arm (which she is quick to use, and harshly, at even the slightest provocation). She is

initially a cold and hostile robot who is only concerned with her mission but does display basic emotions. However,

when she opens up to WALL-E she learns to convey her emotions and eventually to understand his deep feelings

for her, becoming more humane and considerate and finally reciprocating WALL-E's love.
Jeff Garlin as Captain B. McCrea, the sole commander of the Axiom. Throughout his duties as Captain, he

is bogged down by daily routines and boredom. Meeting WALL-E, however, has sparked his interest in Earth, and

he becomes enthusiastically engrossed in researching the home he never knew before, ultimately paving the way for

a more dynamic leadership role. His name is never mentioned in dialogue, but is shown on a holographic

commemoration in his cabin along with his predecessors.
• Fred Willard as Shelby Forthright, historical CEO of the Buy n Large Corporation. Known for his seemingly

unending optimism, Forthright proposed the plans to evacuate, clean up and recolonize the planet. However, he gave

up hope after realizing he underestimated just how toxic the planet had become. Fred Willard is the only cast

member in this film who plays a live-action character with a speaking role, and the first to do so in any Pixar film.
• MacInTalk, the text-to-speech program for the Apple Macintosh, was used as the voice of Auto (short for

Autopilot), the Axiom's intelligent autopilot built into the ship's robotic helm. Auto serves as the antagonist of the

film, following the BnL CEO's final directive A113 to keep the human ships in space, thus to maintain the status

quo. The characteristic qualities of this voice are retained even in other languages.
• John Ratzenberger and Kathy Najimy as John and Mary, respectively. John and Mary are both humans

who live on the Axiom and have been largely unaware of their surroundings for most of their lives (not even

realizing that the ship they had been living on all their lives had a pool), constantly talking to their friends on

computer screens in front of them. However, they are brought out of their trances after chance encounters with

WALL-E, eventually meeting face-to-face for the first time and falling in love.
• Sigourney Weaver as the Axiom's computer.
Production
[edit] Writing
BACK ON M-O AND WALLY [sic]
M-O just finishes cleaning the floor.
Wally is fascinated.
Impishly makes another mark.
M-O compulsively cleans it. Can’t resist.
M-O (bleeps): [Look, it stays clean. You got that?]
Wally wipes the bottom of his tread on M-O’s face.
M-O loses it.
Scrubs his own face.
—Stanton wrote the screenplay to focus on the visuals
and as a guide to what the sound effects needed to convey[4]Andrew Stanton conceived WALL-E during a lunch

with fellow writers John Lasseter, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft in 1994. Toy Story was nearing completion and the

writers brainstormed ideas for their next projects – A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo – at this lunch.

Stanton asked, "What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn off the last robot?"[5] Having

struggled for many years with making the characters in Toy Story appealing, Stanton found his simple Robinson

Crusoe-esque idea of a lonely robot on a deserted planet very strong.[6][7] Stanton made WALL-E a waste

collector as the idea was instantly understandable, and because it was a low-status menial job that made him

sympathetic.[8] Stanton also liked the imagery of stacked cubes of garbage.[9] He did not find the idea dark

because having a planet covered in garbage was for him a childish imagining of disaster.[10]
Stanton and Pete Docter developed the film under the title of Trash Planet for two months in 1995, but they did

not know how to develop the story and Docter chose to direct Monsters, Inc. instead.[11][12] Stanton came up with

the idea of WALL-E finding a plant, because his life as the sole inhabitant on a deserted world reminded Stanton

of a plant growing among pavements.[13] Before they turned their attention to other projects, Stanton and Lasseter

thought about having WALL-E fall in love, as it was the necessary progression away from loneliness.[10] Stanton

started writing WALL-E again in 2002 while completing Finding Nemo.[14] Stanton formatted his script in a manner

reminiscent of Dan O'Bannon's Alien. O'Bannon wrote his script in a manner Stanton found reminded him of haiku,

where visual descriptions were done in continuous lines of a few words. Stanton wrote his robot dialogue

conventionally, but placed them in brackets.[7] In late 2003, Stanton and a few others created a story reel of the

first twenty minutes of the film. Lasseter and Steve Jobs were impressed and officially began development,[15]

though Jobs stated he did not like the title, originally spelled "W.A.L.-E."[16]
While the first act of WALL-E "fell out of the sky" for Stanton,[10] he had originally wanted aliens to plant EVE to

explore Earth and the rest of the film was very different. When WALL-E comes to the Axiom, he incites a

Spartacus-style rebellion by the robots against the remnants of the human race, which were cruel alien Gels

(completely devolved, gelantinous, boneless, legless, see-through, green creatures that resemble Jell-O). James

Hicks, a physiologist, mentioned to Stanton the concept of atrophy and the effects prolonged weightlessness would

have on humans living in space for an inordinately extended time period.[5][17][18] Therefore, this was the

inspiration of the humans degenerating into the alien Gels,[19] and their ancestry would have been revealed in a

Planet of the Apes-style ending.[20] The Gels also spoke a made-up gibberish language, but Stanton scrapped this

idea because he thought it would be too complicated for the audience to understand and they could easily be

driven off from the storyline. [21] The Gels had a royal family, who host a dance in a castle on a lake in the

back of the ship, and the Axiom curled up into a ball when returning to Earth in this incarnation of the story.[21]

Stanton decided this was too bizarre and unengaging, and conceived humanity as "big babies" (an idea Peter

Gabriel compared to neoteny).[20] Stanton developed the metaphorical theme of the humans learning to stand

again and "grow[ing] up",[20] wanting WALL-E and EVE's relationship to inspire humanity because he felt very few

films explore how utopian societies come to exist.[22] The process of depicting the descendants of humanity as the

way they appear in the movie was very slow. Stanton first decided to put a nose and ears on the Gels so the

audience could recognize them. Eventually, fingers, legs, clothes, and other characteristics were added until they

arrived at the concept of being fetus-like to allow the audience to see themselves in the characters.[21]
In a later version of the film, Auto comes to the docking bay to retrieve EVE's plant. The film would have its first

cutaway to the Captain, but Stanton moved that as he found it too early to begin moving away from WALL-E's

point-of-view. As a homage to Get Smart,[23] Auto takes the plant and goes into the bowels of the ship into a

room resembling a brain where he watches videos of Buy n Large's scheme to clean-up the Earth falling apart

through the years. Stanton removed this to keep some mystery as to why the plant is taken from EVE. The Captain

appears to be unintelligent, but Stanton wanted him to just be unchallenged, otherwise he would have been

unempathetic.[19] One example of how unintelligent the Captain was depicted initially is that he was seen to wear

his hat upside-down. In the finished film, he merely wears it casually atop his head, tightening it when he assumes

real command of the Axiom.[21]
Originally, EVE would have been electrocuted by Auto, and then be quickly saved from ejection at the hands of the

WALL-A robots by WALL-E. He would have then revived her by replacing her power unit with a cigarette lighter he

brought from Earth. Stanton reversed this following a 2007 test screening, as he wanted to show EVE replacing her

directive of bringing the plant to the Captain with repairing WALL-E, and it made WALL-E even more heroic if he

held the holo-detector open despite being badly hurt. Stanton also moved the moment where WALL-E reveals his

plant (which he has snatched from the self-destructing escape pod) from producing it from a closet, to immediately

after his escape, as it made EVE happier and gave them stronger motivation to dance around the ship.[19] Stanton

felt half the audience at the screening believed the humans would be unable to cope with living on Earth and died

out after the film's end. Jim Capobianco, director of the short film Your Friend the Rat, created an end credits

animation that continued the story – and stylized in different artistic movements throughout history – to clarify an

optimistic tone.[24]
[edit] Design
WALL-E was the most complex Pixar production since Monsters, Inc. because of the world and the history that had

to be conveyed.[6] Whereas most Pixar films have up to 75,000 storyboards, WALL-E required 125,000.[25]

Production designer Ralph Eggleston wanted the lighting of the first act on Earth to be romantic, while the second

act on the Axiom to be cold and sterile. During the third act, the romantic lighting is slowly introduced into the

Axiom environment.[5] Pixar studied Chernobyl and the city of Sofia to create the ruined world; art director Anthony

Christov was from Bulgaria and recalled Sofia used to have problems storing its garbage.[26][27] Eggleston

bleached out the whites on Earth to make WALL-E feel vulnerable, as if he requires sunglasses to survive the

harsh sunlight. The overexposed light makes the location look more vast. Because of the haziness, the cubes

making up the towers of garbage had to be very large, otherwise they would have lost shape (in turn, this helped

save rendering time). The dull tans of Earth subtly become soft pinks and blues when EVE arrives. When WALL-E

shows EVE all his collected items inside the truck he lives in, all the lights he has collected light up to give an

inviting atmosphere, like a Christmas tree. Eggleston tried to avoid the colors yellow and green so WALL-E – who

was made yellow to emulate a tractor – would not blend into the deserted Earth, and to make the plant more

prominent.[28]
WALL-E finds a bra. Roger Deakins and Dennis Muren were consulted on realistic lighting including backgrounds that

are less focused than foregrounds.
Stanton also wanted the lighting to look realistic and evoke the science fiction films of his youth. He felt Pixar had

captured the physics of being underwater with Finding Nemo, so for WALL-E he wanted to push that for air. It was

while rewatching some of his favorite science fiction films he realized Pixar's films lacked the look of 70 mm film

and its barrel distortion, lens flare and racking focus.[6] Producer Jim Morris invited Roger Deakins and Dennis

Muren to advise on lighting and atmosphere. Muren spent several months with Pixar, while Deakins hosted one talk

and was requested to stay on for another two weeks. Stanton said Muren's experience came from integrating

computer animation into live-action settings, while Deakins helped them understand not to overly complicate their

camerawork and lighting.[22] 1970s Panavision cameras were used to help the animators understand and replicate

handheld imperfections like unfocused backgrounds in digital environments.[5] The first lighting test consisted of

building a three-dimensional replica of WALL-E, filming it with a 70 mm camera, and then trying to replicate that in

the computer.[29] Stanton cited the shallow lens work of Gus Van Sant's films as an influence, as it created

intimacy in each close-up. Stanton chose angles for the virtual cameras that a live-action filmmaker would choose if

filming on a set.[10]
Stanton wanted the Axiom's interior to resemble Shanghai and Dubai.[6] Eggleston studied 1950s and '60s NASA

paintings and the original concept art for Tomorrowland for the Axiom, to reflect that era's sense of optimism.[5]

Stanton remarked "We are all probably very similar in our backgrounds here [at Pixar] in that we all miss the

Tomorrowland that was promised us from the heyday of Disneyland," and wanted a "jet pack" feel.[6] Pixar also

studied the Disney Cruise Line and visited Las Vegas, which was helpful in understanding artificial lighting.[5]

Eggleston also based his Axiom designs on the futuristic yet comforting architecture of Santiago Calatrava. Eggleston

divided the inside of the ship into three sections; the rear's economy class has a basic gray concrete texture with

graphics keeping to the red, blue and white of the BnL logo. The coach class with living/shopping spaces has 'S'

shapes as people are always looking for "what's around the corner". Stanton intended to have many colorful signs,

but he realized this would overwhelm the audience and went with Eggleston's original idea of a small number of

larger signs. The front, premier class is a large Zen-like spa with colors limited to turquoise, cream and tan, and

leads on to the captain's warm carpeted and wooded quarters and the sleek dark bridge.[28] In keeping with the

artificial Axiom, camera movements were modeled after those of the steadicam.[30]
Having chosen to show live-action footage from Hello, Dolly!, Stanton continued the precedent of showing historical,

normal humans in live action footage, while creating their bloated descendants in the rest of the film with

animation.[20] The use of live action was a stepping stone for Pixar, as Stanton was planning to make John Carter

of Mars his next project.[6] Storyboarder Derek Thompson noted introducing live action meant they had to make the

rest of the film look even more realistic.[31] Eggleston added that if the historical humans had been animated and

slightly caricaturized, then the audience would not have recognized how serious their devolution was.[28] Stanton

cast Fred Willard as the historical Buy n Large CEO because "He's the most friendly and insincere car salesman I

could think of."[20] The CEO says "stay the course," which Stanton used because he thought it was funny.[32]

Industrial Light & Magic did the visual effects for these shots.[5]
Animation
WALL-E went undeveloped during the 1990s partly because Stanton and Pixar were not confident enough yet to

have a feature length film with a main character that behaved like Luxo Jr. or R2-D2.[7] Stanton explained there

are two types of robots in cinema: "human[s] with metal skin", like the Tin Man, or "machine[s] with function" like

Luxo and R2. He found the latter idea "powerful" because it allowed the audience to project personalities onto the

characters, as they do with babies and pets: "You're compelled ... you almost can't stop yourself from finishing the

sentence 'Oh, I think it likes me! I think it's hungry! I think it wants to go for a walk!'"[33] He added, "We

wanted the audience to believe they were witnessing a machine that has come to life."[5] The animators visited

recycling stations to study machinery, and also met robot designers, visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to

study robots, watched a recording of a Mars rover,[14] and borrowed a bomb detecting robot from the San

Francisco Police Department. Simplicity was preferred in their performances as giving them too many movements

would make them feel human.[5]
Stanton wanted WALL-E to be a box and EVE to be like an egg.[34] WALL-E's eyes were inspired by a pair of

binoculars Stanton was given when watching the Oakland Athletics play against the Boston Red Sox. He "missed the

entire inning" because he was distracted by them.[35] The director was reminded of Buster Keaton and decided the

robot would not need a nose or mouth.[36] Stanton added a zoom lens to make WALL-E more sympathetic.[36]

Ralph Eggleston noted this feature gave the animators more to work with and gave the robot a child-like

quality.[28] Pixar's studies of trash compactors during their visits to recycling stations inspired his body.[5] His tank

treads were inspired by a wheelchair someone had developed that used treads instead of wheels.[34] The animators

wanted him to have elbows, but realized this was unrealistic because he is only designed to pull garbage into his

body.[5] His arms also looked very flimsy when they did a test of him waving.[34] Animation director Angus

MacLane suggested they attach his arms to a track on the sides of his body to move them around, based on the

inkjet printers his father designed. This arm design contributed to creating the character's posture, so if they wanted

him to be nervous, they would lower them.[37] Stanton was unaware of the similarities between WALL-E and

Johnny 5 from Short Circuit until others pointed it out to him.[7]


Auto, the Captain and EVE
Stanton wanted EVE to be at the higher end of technology, and asked iPod designer Jonathan Ive to inspect her

design. He was very impressed.[6] Her eyes are modelled on Lite-Brite toys,[36] but Pixar chose to not make

them overly expressive as it would be too easy to have her eyes turn into hearts to express love or something

similar.[34] Her limited design meant the animators had to treat her like a drawing, relying on posing her body to

express emotion.[5] They also found her similar to a manatee or a narwhal because her floating body resembled

an underwater creature.[34] Auto was a conscious homage to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the

usage of Also sprach Zarathustra for the showdown between the Captain and Auto furthers that.[7] The manner in

which he hangs from a wall gives him a threatening feel, like a spider.[38] Originally, Auto was designed entirely

differently, resembling EVE, but masculine and authoritative; the Steward robots were also more aggressive

Patrol-bots.[19] The majority of the robot cast were formed with the Build-a-bot program, where different heads,

arms and treads were combined together in over a hundred variations.[5] The humans were modelled on sea lions

due to their blubbery bodies,[28] as well as babies. The filmmakers noticed baby fat is a lot tighter than adult fat

and copied that texture for the film's humans.[39]
To animate their robots, Pixar watched a Keaton and a Chaplin film every day for almost a year,[36] and

occasionally a Harold Lloyd picture.[7] Afterwards, the filmmakers knew all emotions could be conveyed silently.

Stanton cited Keaton's "great stone face" as giving them perseverance in animating a character with an unchanging

expression.[36] As he rewatched these, Stanton felt that filmmakers – since the advent of sound – relied on

dialogue too much to convey exposition.[7] The filmmakers dubbed the cockroach WALL-E keeps as a pet "Hal", in

reference to silent film producer Hal Roach (as well as being an additional reference to HAL 9000).[5] They also

watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf, films that had sound but were not reliant

on dialogue.[31] Stanton acknowledged Silent Running as an influence because its silent robots were a forerunner to

the likes of R2-D2,[22] and that the "hopeless romantic" Woody Allen also inspired WALL-E.[11]
[edit] Sound
Producer Jim Morris recommended Ben Burtt as sound designer for WALL-E because Stanton kept using R2-D2 as

the benchmark for the robots.[23] Burtt had completed Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and told his wife

he would no longer work on films with robots, but found WALL-E and its substitution of voices with sound "fresh

and exciting".[5] He recorded 2500 sounds for the film, which was twice the average amount for a Star Wars

film,[14] and a record in his career.[5] Burtt began work in 2005,[40] and experimented with filtering his voice for

two years.[41] Burtt described the robot voices as "like a toddler [...] universal language of intonation. 'Oh', 'Hm?',

'Huh!', you know?"[42]
During production Burtt had the opportunity to look at the items used by Jimmy MacDonald, Disney's in-house sound

designer for many of their classic films. Burtt used many of MacDonald's items on WALL-E. Because Burtt was not

simply adding sound effects in post-production, the animators were always evaluating his new creations and ideas,

which Burtt found an unusual experience.[43] He worked in sync with the animators, returning their animation after

adding the sounds to give them more ideas.[5] Burtt would choose scientifically-accurate sounds for each character,

but if he could not find one that worked, he would choose a dramatic if unrealistic noise.[43] Burtt would find

hundreds of sounds by looking at concept art of characters, before he and Stanton pared it down to a distinct few

for each robot.[6]
Burtt saw a hand-cranked electrical generator while watching Island in the Sky, and bought an identical, unpacked

device from 1950 on eBay to use for WALL-E moving around.[44] Burtt also used an automobile self starter for

when WALL-E goes fast,[43] and the sound of cars being wrecked at a demolition derby provided for WALL-E's

compressing trash in his body.[45] The Macintosh computer chime was used to signify when WALL-E has fully

recharged his battery. For EVE, Burtt wanted her humming to have a musical quality.[43] Burtt was only able to

provide neutral or masculine voices, so Pixar employee Elissa Knight was asked to provide her voice for Burtt to

electronically modify. Stanton deemed the sound effect good enough to properly cast her in the role.[32] Burtt

recorded a flying ten-feet long radio-controlled jet plane for EVE's flying,[5] and for her plasma cannon, Burtt hit a

slinky hung from a ladder with a timpani stick. He described it as a "cousin" to the blaster noise from Star

Wars.[46]
MacInTalk was used because Stanton "wanted Auto to be the epitome of a robot, cold, zeros & ones, calculating,

and soulless [and] Stephen Hawking's kind of voice I thought was perfect."[22] Additional sounds for the character

were meant to give him a clockwork feel, to show he is always thinking and calculating.[43] Sigourney Weaver was

cast as the Axiom's computer voice as a nod to the Alien films.[5]
Burtt had visited Niagara Falls in 1987 and used his recordings from his trip for the sounds of wind.[45] He ran

around a hall with a canvas bag up to record the sandstorm though.[5] For the scene where WALL-E runs from

falling shopping carts, Burtt and his daughter went to a supermarket and placed a recorder in their cart. They

crashed it around the parking lot and then let it tumble down a hill.[47] To create Hal (WALL-E's pet

cockroach)'s skittering, he recorded the clicking caused by taking apart and reassembling handcuffs.[5]
Music
See also: WALL-E (soundtrack)
Thomas Newman recollaborated with Stanton on WALL-E since the two got along well on Nemo, which gave

Newman the Annie Award for Best Music in an Animated Feature. He began writing the score in 2005, in the hope

that starting this task early would make him more involved with the finished film. But, Newman remarked that

animation is so dependent on scheduling he should have begun work earlier on when Stanton and Reardon were

writing the script. EVE's theme was arranged for the first time in October 2007. Her theme when played as she

first flies around Earth originally used more orchestral elements, and Newman was encouraged to make it sound

more feminine.[48] Newman said Stanton had thought up of many ideas for how he wanted the music to sound,

and he generally followed them as he found scoring a partially silent film difficult. Stanton wanted the whole score to

be orchestral, but Newman felt limited by this idea especially in scenes aboard the Axiom, and used electronics

too.[49]


A live-action clip of the song "It Only Takes a Moment" from Hello, Dolly!, which inspires WALL-E to hold hands

with EVE
Stanton originally wanted to juxtapose the opening shots of space with 1930s French swing music, but he saw The

Triplets of Belleville (2003) and did not want to appear as if he were copying it. Stanton then thought about the

song "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello, Dolly!, since he had portrayed the sidekick Barnaby Tucker in a

1980 high school production.[50] Stanton found that the song was about two naive young men looking for love,

which was similar to WALL-E's own hope for companionship. Jim Reardon suggested WALL-E find the film on

video, and Stanton included "It Only Takes a Moment" and the clip of the actors holding hands, because he

wanted a visual way to show how WALL-E understands love and conveys it to EVE. Hello Dolly! composer Jerry

Herman allowed the songs to be used without knowing what for; when he saw the film, he found its incorporation

into the story "genius".[51] Coincidentally, Newman's uncle Lionel worked on Hello, Dolly![5]
Newman travelled to London to compose the end credits song "Down to Earth" with Peter Gabriel, who was one of

Stanton's favorite musicians. Afterwards, Newman rescored some of the film to include the song's composition, so it

would not sound intrusive when played.[5] Louis Armstrong's rendition of "La Vie en rose" was used for a montage

where WALL-E does not get EVE's attention on Earth. The script also specified using Bing Crosby's "Stardust" for

when the two robots dance around the Axiom,[4] but Newman asked if he could score the scene himself. A similar

switch occurred for the sequence in which WALL-E attempts to wake EVE up through various means; originally, the

montage would play with the instrumental version of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", but Newman wanted to

challenge himself and scored an original piece for the sequence.[52]

Themes
Stanton felt the moral of the film was "Irrational love defeats life's programming." He continued "That's a perfect

metaphor for real life. We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously to avoid

living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people, of dealing with the

person next to us. That's why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another."[20]

Stanton noted many commentators placed emphasis on the environmental aspect of humanity's complacency in the

film, because "that disconnection is going to be the cause, indirectly, of anything that happens in life that's bad for

humanity of the planet".[53]
Stanton said that by taking away effort to work, the robots also take away humanity's need to put effort into

relationships.[38] Christian journalist Rod Dreher saw technology as the complicated villain of the film. The humans'

artificial lifestyle on the Axiom has separated them from nature, making them "slaves of both technology and their

own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human". Dreher contrasted the hardworking, dirt covered

WALL-E with the sleek clean robots on the ship. However, it is the humans and not the robots who make

themselves redundant, and during the end credits humans and robots are shown working alongside to renew the

Earth. "WALL-E is not a Luddite film," he said. "It doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is

properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature – that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and

help move that along."[54]


EVE and the Axiom have been compared to Noah's Ark and the dove in that story.
Stanton, who is Christian,[8] named EVE after the Biblical character because WALL-E's loneliness reminded him of

Adam, before God created his wife.[55] Dreher noted EVE's biblical namesake and saw her directive as an

inversion of that story; EVE uses the plant to tell humanity to return to Earth and move away from the "false god"

of BnL and the lazy lifestyle it offers. Dreher also noted this departure from classical Christian viewpoints, where

Adam is cursed to labor, in that WALL-E argues hard work is what makes humans human. Dreher emphasized the

false god parallels to BnL in a scene where a robot teaches infants "B is for Buy n Large, your very best friend",

which he compared to modern corporations such as McDonald's creating brand loyalty in children.[54] Megan

Basham of World magazine felt the film criticizes the pursuit of leisure, whereas WALL-E in his stewardship learns

to truly appreciate God's creation.[8]
During writing, a Pixar employee noted to Jim Reardon that EVE was reminiscent of the dove with the olive branch

from the story of Noah's Ark, and the story was reworked with EVE finding a plant to return humanity from its

voyage.[56] WALL-E himself has been compared to Prometheus,[23] Sisyphus,[54] and Butades: in an essay

discussing WALL-E as representative of the artistic strive of Pixar itself, Hrag Vartanian compared WALL-E to

Butades in a scene where the robot expresses his love for EVE by making a sculpture of her from spare parts.

"The Ancient Greek tradition associates the birth of art with a Corinthian maiden who longing to preserve her lover’s

shadow traces it on the wall before he departed for war. The myth reminds us that art was born out of longing

and often means more for the creator than the muse. In the same way Stanton and his Pixar team have told us a

deeply personal story about their love of cinema and their vision for animation through the prism of all types of

relationships."[57]
[edit] Reception
[edit] Release
Continuing a Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film for its theatrical release: the attached film was

Presto. The film was dedicated to Justin Wright (1981–2008), a Pixar animator who had worked on Ratatouille and

unfortunately died of a heart attack before WALL-E's release.[5]
The film premiered at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on June 23, 2008,[58] and opened in 3,992 theaters in

the United States and Canada on June 27. It grossed $63 million in its first weekend, ranking number one at the

box office.[59] It was the third-best opening weekend for a Pixar film.[60] The movie crossed the $200 million

mark in its sixth week with a total gross of more than $204 million on the first weekend in August 2008.[61] In

total, the film grossed $223,808,164 domestically with a worldwide overall of $521,268,237, making it the ninth

highest grossing film of 2008.[2]
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 18, 2008. The various editions included Presto, a

new short film BURN-E, the Leslie Iwerks documentary film The Pixar Story, shorts about the history of Buy n

Large, the behind-the-scenes special features and a Digital Copy of the film that can be played through iTunes or

Windows Media and compatible devices.[62]
Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) built animatronic WALL-Es to promote the picture, which made appearances at

Disneyland Resort;[63] the Franklin Institute; the Miami Science Museum; the Seattle Center; and the Tokyo

International Film Festival.[64] Due to safety concerns, the 700 lb robots were always strictly controlled and WDI

always needed to know exactly what they were required to interact with. For this reason, they generally refused to

have their puppets meet and greet children at the theme parks in case a WALL-E trod on a child's foot. Those

who wanted to take a photograph with the character had to make do with a cardboard cutout.[65]
Very small quantities of merchandise were sold for WALL-E, as Cars items were still popular, and many

manufacturers were more interested in Speed Racer, which was a successful line despite the film's failure at the box

office. Thinkway, which created the WALL-E toys, had previously made Toy Story dolls when other toy producers

showed disinterest.[64] Among Thinkway's items were a WALL-E that danced when connected to a music player, a

toy that could be taken apart and reassembled, and a groundbreaking remote control toy of him and EVE that had

motion sensors that allowed them to interact with players.[66] There were even soft toys.[67] The "Ultimate

WALL-E" figures were not in stores until the film's home release in November 2008,[64] at a retail price of almost

$200, leading The Patriot-News to deem it an item for "hard-core fans and collectors only".[66]
[edit] Reviews
WALL-E has received nearly unanimous acclaim by film critics since its release.[68] Rotten Tomatoes reported that

96% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 200 reviews, with an average rating of

8.4/10.[69] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film

has received an average score of 93, based on 39 reviews.[68] indieWire named WALL-E the 3rd best film of the

year, based on their annual survey of 100 film critics,[70] while Movie City News shows that WALL-E appeared in

162 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the most mentions on a top ten list of any film

released in 2008.[71]
Richard Corliss of Time named WALL-E as his favorite film of 2008, noting the film succeeded in "connect[ing]

with a huge audience" despite the main characters' lack of speech and "emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows,

shoulders [and] elbows". It "evoke[d] the splendor of the movie past" and he also compared WALL-E and EVE's

relationship to the chemistry of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.[72] Other critics who named WALL-E as

their favorite film of 2008 included Tom Charity of CNN,[73] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, Lisa

Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, A. O. Scott of The New York Times, Christopher Orr of The New Republic,

Ty Burr and Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe, Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal, and Anthony Lane of

The New Yorker.[74]
Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film "Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder", saying it was imaginative yet

straightforward. He said it pushed the boundaries of animation by balancing esoteric ideas with more immediately

accessible ones, and that the main difference between the film and other science fiction projects rooted in an

apocalypse was its optimism.[75] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter declared that WALL-E surpassed the

achievements of Pixar's previous eight features and probably their most original film to date. He said it had the

"heart, soul, spirit and romance" of the best silent films. Honeycutt said the film's definitive stroke of brilliance was

in using a mix of archive film footage and computer graphics to trigger WALL-E's romantic leanings. He praised

Burtt's sound design, saying "If there is such a thing as an aural sleight of hand, this is it."[76]
Roger Ebert writing in the Chicago Sun-Times found WALL-E "an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment,

and a decent science-fiction story". Ebert said the scarcity of dialogue would allow it to "cross language barriers" in

a manner appropriate to the global theme, and noted it would appeal to adults and children. He praised the

animation, saying the color palette was "bright and cheerful [...] and a little bit realistic", and that Pixar managed

to generate a "curious" regard for the WALL-E, comparing his "rusty and hard-working and plucky" design favorably

to more obvious attempts at creating "lovable" lead characters. He said WALL-E was concerned with ideas rather

than spectacle, saying it would trigger stimulating "little thought"s for the younger viewers.[77] He named it as one

of his twenty favorite films of 2008 and argued it was "the best science-fiction movie in years".[78]
The film was interpreted as tackling a topical, ecologically-minded agenda,[69] though McCarthy said it did so with

a lightness of touch that granted the viewer the ability to accept or ignore the message.[75] Kyle Smith of the New

York Post, wrote that by depicting future humans as "a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to

walk", WALL-E was darker and more cynical than any major Disney feature film he could recall. He compared the

humans to the patrons of Disney's Parks and Resorts, adding, "I'm also not sure I've ever seen a major corporation

spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers."[79] Maura Judkis of U.S. News & World Report

questioned whether this depiction of "frighteningly obese humans" would resonate with children and make them prefer

to "play outside rather than in front of the computer, to avoid a similar fate".[80] The interpretation led to criticism

of the film by conservative commentators such as Fox News' Glenn Beck, and contributors to National Review Online

including Shannen W. Coffin and Jonah Goldberg (although he admitted it was a "fascinating" and occasionally

"brilliant" production).[81]
Some notable critics have argued that the film is vastly overrated,[82] claiming it failed to "live up to such blinding,

high-wattage enthusiasm",[83] and that there were "chasms of boredom watching it", in particular "the second and

third acts spiraled into the expected".[84] Other labels include "unimaginative", "surprisingly trite",[85][unreliable

source?] "preachy"[82] and "too long".[83]
Child reviews sent into CBBC were mixed, some citing boredom and an inadequate storyline.[86]
Patrick J. Ford of The American Conservative said WALL-E's conservative critics missed lessons in the film that he

felt appealed to traditional conservatism. He argued that the mass consumerism in the film was not shown to be a

product of big business, but of too close a tie between big business and big government: "The government

unilaterally provided its citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth's downfall."

Responding to Coffin's claim that the film points out the "evils of mankind", Ford argued the only evils depicted

were those that resulted from "losing touch with our own humanity" and that fundamental conservative

representations such as the farm, the family unit, and "wholesome" entertainment were in the end held aloft by the

human characters. He concluded, "By steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are

doing their readers a great disservice."[87]
[edit] Awards
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by WALL-E
WALL-E won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best

Original Score, Best Original Song, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing at the 81st Academy Awards.[88] Walt Disney

Pictures also pushed for an Academy Award for Best Picture nomination,[89] but it was not nominated, provoking

controversy as to whether the Academy deliberately restricted WALL-E to the Best Animated Feature category,[90]

Peter Travers commented that "If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for

best picture it's Wall-E."[91] Only one animated film, 1991's Beauty and the Beast, has ever been nominated for

the Academy Award for Best Picture, after which the category of Best Animated Feature was created. A reflective

Stanton stated he was not disappointed the film was restricted to the Best Animated Film nomination because he

was overwhelmed by the film's positive reception, and eventually "The line [between live-action and animation] is

just getting so blurry that I think with each proceeding year, it's going to be tougher and tougher to say what's an

animated movie and what's not an animated movie."[13]
WALL-E made a healthy appearance at the various 2008 end-of-the-year awards circles, particularly in the Best

Picture category, where animated films are often overlooked. It has won the award, or the equivalent of it, from the

Boston Society of Film Critics (tied with Slumdog Millionaire),[92] the Chicago Film Critics Association,[93] the

Central Ohio Film Critics awards,[94] the Online Film Critics Society,[95] and most notably the Los Angeles Film

Critics Association, where it became the first animated feature to win the prestigious award.[96] It was named as

one of 2008's ten best films by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review of Motion

Pictures.[97][98]
It won Best Animated Feature Film at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, 81st Academy Awards and the Broadcast Film

Critics Association Awards 2008.[99][100] It was nominated for several awards at the 2009 Annie Awards, including

Best Feature Film, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Direction, Production design, Storyboarding and Voice acting

(for Ben Burtt);[101] but was beaten out by Kung Fu Panda in every category.[102] It won Best Animated Feature

at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards, and was also nominated there for Best Music and Sound.[103] Thomas

Newman and Peter Gabriel won two Grammy Awards for "Down to Earth" and "Define Dancing".[104] It won all

three awards it was nominated for by the Visual Effects Society: Best Animation, Best Character Animation (for

WALL-E and EVE in the truck) and Best Effects in the Animated Motion Picture categories.[105] It became the first

animated film to win Best Editing for a Comedy or Musical from the American Cinema Editors.[106] In 2009,

Stanton, Reardon and Docter won Nebula Award, beating The Dark Knight and the Stargate Atlantis episode "The

Shrine".[107][108] It was nominated for Best Animated Film and Best Director at the Saturn Awards.[109]
At the British National Movie Awards, which is voted for by the public, it won Best Family Film.[110] It was also

voted Best Feature Film at the British Academy Children's Awards.[111] WALL-E was listed at #63 on Empire's

online poll of the 100 greatest movie characters, conducted in 2008.[112]