Narrative
Wall-E (2008) is a Disney Pixar (produced by Pixar and released by Disney) animated film, set in the far future on earth, where nothing is left but waste. Although this sounds distressing, the story follows a loveable robot named Wall-E who is built and designed to happily sort out the abandoned waste left on Earth. By setting the film in the far future, featuring robots and the thought of an abandoned world it already follows the conventions of a sci-fi genre. The location around Wall-E is clearly communicated that he is isolated. This creates tension within the audience as they are left wondering where all the humans are. The film opening establishes that the film will be sci-fi as the first shot is of outer space and there are no main character established straight away.
Mise en Scene
The mise en scene of the opening is conventionally sci-fi due to many factors such as the atmosphere of space and the sans serif, wide font of the opening titles which stereotypically looks like an out-of-space font. We are introduced to the main character of Wall-E, who is a robot. Robots are conventionally used within sci-fi films, as this signifies the development of technology in the advanced future.
What really stands out and sets the scene is the lighting of the animation and how they have cleverly made the atmosphere surrounding the earth look murky and polluted. Within this shot, North America is clearly visible - what the audience knows shows up as having green land with some slight brown land on satellite images of the earth. However, what is significantly different and noticeable within this shot is that North America is completely brown/murky-yellow. These colours connote pollution and dirt, suggesting that this may be what our Earth will look like in the far future, therefore, introducing the notion that this is when the film is set.
This shot is very clever, all due to the carefully thought out mise en scene. In the foreground is a pile of what appears to be rubbish, rubble, and waste - much like you'd expect to see at a landfill site, which as the audience knows, are not environmentally friendly. What's ironic is the wind energy turbines amongst all this. Wind turbines are a method of reducing the burning and use of fossil fuels - a key contributor to pollution and global warming, as the audience knows. Therefore, the waste piles juxtapose the wind turbines. This whole shot communicates to the audience that the humans on earth had tried with their petty attempts to reduce global warming and pollution on earth - which sends a powerful thought out to the audience of 'Are we trying hard enough to stop pollution now?'. In the background, it's so foggy that there isn't even a visible horizon due to the emissions. The isolation of the shot gives an eerie sense of abandonment via the neglected wind turbines, intriguing the audience. Followed by this shot, is one of abandoned nuclear power stations - again, another huge impact on global warming and harmful gas emissions.
Throughout the intro, the lighting is fairly low key whilst panning through all of the misty piles of waste, however when we are introduced to Wall-E the tone becomes lighter. Despite the brighter lighting, the colours used are very dull and murky. Within the shot below, it is clearly communicated that the Earth has been neglected and all the humans are gone, due to the windows on the building being dusty and broken and all the rubbish on the side of the dusty path.
At 1:47, this close up shot of Wall-E the robot is the first time the audience have been able to identify his name and who it actually is. The material that he is made from is rusty and the logo of his name is beginning to wear away. This communicates to the audience that if he is a robot from the future, and even he is looking old, then this film must be set in the very far future. It also indicates that perhaps Wall-E has been alone on Earth for a long time.
Sound
The intro to Wall-E combines an image of the Earth in the far future with old vocals from the 50's/60's era of "Hello Dolly" the musical. This combination is interesting as the sound is contrapuntal as to what is actually being displayed within the shots, as the music is happy and cheerful, however the images in the shots are dim and slightly depressing due to the abandonment of the Earth, which is a serious matter. At the beginning of the intro, this music is non-diegetic because it acts as the background intro music, then at 1:22, it becomes apparent that the music is actually diegetic. This is communicated when the music begins to fade out at 1:10 and then start playing again when Wall-E drives into the shot (at 1:22). The music fades in and out as Wall-E enters and exits the shots, suggesting that he is playing it outloud. I think this use of music is very interesting as it is not conventionally a style of sci-fi genre sound/music. However, this film is also a children's animation film, so the happy music could be a convention of that. When Wall-E is creating cubes of waste, there is diegetic sound of his mechanics working and also, when he drives along the ground, we can diegetically hear his engine running as a high pitched whurring. These types of sounds are more stereotypically used within sci-fi genre films, especially when associated with robots.
Editing
During the first 30 seconds of the introduction to Wall-E, there are a few establishing shots of space scenes, such as the Milky Way, Galaxy and Planets. These shots are all edited together via the use of jump cuts and continuity editing. This builds up the tension, as the quick, immediate cuts represent how the setting is in the vastness of space. However, after these first 30 seconds, most of the other shots are edited together with fading transitions, almost like a slideshow of all the shots which communicate the neglect of the Earth.
Opening credits
There are very few opening credits within the introduction to Wall-E. These screenshots are the only credits featured. The font of it is conventional to the genre of a sci-fi film as it appears very futuristic and compliments the background imagery of space and planets. Within these first few seconds, just the simple font of these two credits suggests to the audience that this film will be set in outer space and in the far future.
I like this opening scene to Wall-E as it covers many things such as loneliness, air pollution, potential results of increased climate change, space, and just one of the perspectives of the future in that robots will become used more frequently for every day things, just like Wall-E is.
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