Is Disney’s latest feature a modern day Christian parable?

When I saw the preview screening for WALL•E, the latest offering from Disney/Pixar who brought us hits such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, I certainly didn’t notice any of the Christian themes that the film’s director and professing Christian, Andrew Stanton, says are present.

Too cut a long (well, 98 minute) story short, WALL•E is set 800 years in the future when plant Earth is no longer inhabited by humans. Instead, a now fat, lazy and immobile human race live on board the luxury spaceship Axiom which is circling the Earth until the planet becomes capable of once again sustaining life.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, a determined robot named WALL•E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) who has spent hundreds of years doing what he was built for discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).

EVE comes to realize that WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet’s future, a little green shoot – the first sign of life on Earth in centuries – and races back to space to report her findings to the humans who have been waiting for this news. WALL•E chases EVE across the galaxy setting into motion a love story set in the context of a battle for the fate of humanity.

WALL•E had appeared to me to be nothing more than an adventure film with a few laughs along the way and a strong environmental message about humanity being good stewards of the planet. Of course, caring for the environment is something Christians ought to embrace. It’s a task that is on God’s heart according to Genesis 2:15 when he puts man to work in the garden. However, environmentalism is not in and of itself uniquely Christian.

Upon reflection, WALL•E does contain a few intertextual references to biblical stories.

EVE’s name alludes to Genesis 2 and the Garden of Eden. Just as God gave Eve to Adam because it was not good for man to be alone, EVE accompanies a lonely WALL•E as the only two ‘beings’ on the otherwise lifeless planet.

Noah’s Ark is another. Though more obscurely presented. The humans in WALL•E float in a large ship above a planet Earth made uninhabitable by their sinfulness and it is only after EVE and WALL•E arrive at the ship with plant life in tow, much like the dove that brought the olive branch to Noah, that the humans can be reassured that Earth is once again liveable.

However, it was only after reading interviews with director Andrew Stanton that I understood this wasn’t mere pastiche, but that he intended to teach something of spiritual depth in WALL•E.

In an interview with World Magazine, a publication whose tagline is ‘Today’s news, Christian views’, Stanton says of WALL•E’s premise, “what really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people”.

Stanton goes on to talk about the ‘irrational love’ that God shows for us through sending Christ.

“The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that’s not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say—that irrational love defeats the world’s programming. You’ve got these two robots that are trying to go above their basest directives, literally their programming, to experience love. With the human characters I wanted to show that our programming is the routines and habits that distract us to the point that we’re not really making connections to the people next to us. We’re not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living—relationship with God and relationship with other people,” Stanton told World Magazine.

I’m not convinced that the ‘irrational love’ Stanton mentions is clearly portrayed in WALL•E. So that leaves me with three options. 1. I really was slow at picking up the gospel clues. 2.  Stanton was not clear in communicating the Christian message. 3. Stanton has flawed understanding of Christ’s ‘irrational love’.

The irrational love that Christ shows humanity is best expressed by Paul in Romans 5:7-8: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

It is interesting that in WALL•E it takes two robots to show humans how to be more human. It is only after encountering WALL•E and discovering the amazing life that a healthy planet Earth would offer that the Axiom’s bloated captain verbalises the realisation, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live!”. Similarly it took one of a different nature to us – one who was in very nature God – to become a servant and incarnate as a man to show humanity what the perfect human looks like. And only Christ’s ‘irrational’ sacrifice for us that restores our relationship with God makes us realise that there is something more to live for. As Christians we should not be content with merely surviving. We must want to live. We ought to live for God and make it worthwhile, doing so without fear, because for the Christian “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).