WALL-E: A DVD Review

WALL-E



DVD- 4 Stars

I already posted a review for WALL-E. You can read that here. This review is about the DVD itself.

First off, the standard bonus feature for DVD's... Deleted scenes. For me, when it comes to deleted scenes, I like ones that may have been cut for time, or were interesting, but didn't make sense, something that makes them worth watching. And while the two provided are in fact alternate takes on existing scenes, and Andrew Stanton's director's commentary on the scenes themselves explains why they were taken out (story changes), they don't really provide enough entertainment to keep one interested.

Speaking of Andrew Stanton's commentary, his running commentary throughout the entire film is worth listening to. He provides some valuable production insights into the developement of not only the character of Wall-E, but how the film and it's story came to be. This was a passion project for Stanton, and by all accounts, it shouldn't have worked. Basically a silent animated film about a robot who falls in love. That's the driving force behind the movie. But he talks about all the planning that went into it to make it work. And he does make it work.

As with all Pixar films, the short film that accompanied the theatrical release is included on the DVD, as well as an additional short exploring a minor character named BURN-E, that plotwise, takes place at the same time as the main feature. Just as good as the film.

The real gem of the DVD is the "Building Worlds with Sound" feature, because not only does it do an intensive study on how they did the sound effects for WALL-E, which is an SFX heavy film, but also the history of SFX at Disney, exploring the career of legendary sound man Ben Burtt, who also supplied the voice of WALL-E.

For the movie alone this one is worth the rent, but the SFX documentary, animated shorts and director's commentary make it one to own.