WALL•E (4k UHD Blu-ray) review

[David Vaughn]

Studio: Criterion Collection
Release Date: November 22, 2022
Rating: PG
Film: 4.5/5

Plot
A high-water mark of digital animation, this prescient vision of a dystopian future is packaged within a dazzling pop-science-fiction love story, making for an urgent fable for our troubled millennium. It’s the twenty-ninth century, and humans have long since fled Earth for outer space, leaving WALL•E, the last functioning trash-compacting robot, to go about the work of cleaning up a pollution-choked planet, one piece of garbage at a time. When he meets EVE, a fellow automaton sent to detect plant life, the pair are launched on an intergalactic quest to return humanity to Earth. Transporting us simultaneously back to cinema’s silent origins and forward light-years into the future, WALL•E is a soaring ode to the power of love and art to heal a dying world.

 My Thoughts
Pixar creates such fantastic films, even their titles that don’t merit a Top 10 slot are still considered great movies. This is where WALL•E ranks for me. While it doesn’t meet up with the best tiles such as Toy Story 1-3 or The Incredibles, it definitely falls into the Top 15 of their films. Pixar definitely is a quality over quantity type studio and hopefully Marvel can adapt this mantra, but I’m not holding my breath.

What makes this film work so well is how they bring WALL•E to live and give him a soul. Maybe it’s because Ben Burtt, the man who humanized R2-D2, was involved in the project. The film has aged extremely well—maybe because it’s set in the future? —but I haven’t watched it in years and had forgotten many aspects of the story. Maybe that was a good thing because it was like watching it again for the first time.

This is the first collaboration between Disney and Criterion and hopefully not the last. The director-approved transfer is the same you’ll find in the already released Disney 4K combo pack, which is a good thing since there was nothing wrong with the previous release from a technical point of view. The upgrade here is a HDR10+ and Dolby Vision enhancement for those displays that support those formats (my projector doesn’t).

The Dolby Atmos track is just as impressive as the video score and there are no complaints here. These older Pixar tracks have a lot more activity in the soundstage versus their newer “mouse mixes,” and I wish the studio would go back to how they did things in the early years. 

Video 10/10

Audio 10/10 (Dolby Atmos)

Special Features:

4K Disc

• Audio Commentary with writer/director Andrew Stanton
• Audio Commentary with Bill Wise, Lindsey Collins, Dereck Thompson, and Angus MacLane

Blu-Ray Disc One (Movie)

• Audio Commentary with writer/director Andrew Stanton
• Audio Commentary with Bill Wise, Lindsey Collins, Dereck Thompson, and Angus MacLane
• Where It Began: The Origins of WALL•E (New)
• Anatomy of a Scene: The Plant (New)
• Tour of the Pixar Living Archive (New)
• The Pixar Story
• Trailers

Blu-ray Disc Two

• Ralph-E: The Art of the Color Script (New)
• Directing Animation: Twelve Scenes (New)
• The Imperfect Lens
• Building Worlds From the Sound Up
• Trash Planet
• WALL•E’s Truck Tour
• WALL•E and Eve
• Captain’s Log: The Evolution of Humans
• Go Live
• Notes on a Score
• Life of a Shot
• Robo-Everything
• Deleted Scenes
• Geek-O-Rama
• “WALL•E” A to Z (New)
• BNL
• Make the Bots
• WALL•E’s Treasure and Trickets
• “Lost of Bots” Read-Along Storybook
• A Story short story (New)
• Burn-E short story

Conclusion
I’m so happy that Criterion decided to take shot at releasing a Pixar/Disney film and that the studio agreed to it. While I couldn’t take advantage of the new HDR10+/Dolby Vision upgrade, I did get to revisit an immensely entertaining film and reacquaint myself with the robot brought to life by the amazing talents of Ben Burtt. Throw in the seven new supplements and upgraded cover art and it makes this one easy to recommend. It’s absolutely fantastic!

Reference Review System:
JVC DLA-RS2000 4K Ultra High-Definition Front Projector
(Calibrated with Portrait Displays CalMAN color calibration software & C6-HDR Meter from Portrait Displays)
Stewart Filmscreen - Firehawk 88” 16x9 Fixed Screen
Trinnov Altitude 16 Audio/Video Processor
ATI AT527NC Powering Bed Channels
ATI AT524NC Powering Atmos Speakers
Panasonic DP-UB820 Ultra HD Blu-ray Player
System Controller: URC MX-990
M&K S-150 THX Ultra (R-C-L Speakers)
M&K SS-150 x4 (Surround Speakers)
Atlantic Technology IC6-OBA x 4 Overhead Speakers
SVS PC-Ultra Cylinder Subwoofer
HSU VTF-15H MK2 Subwoofer
M&K Sound X15+ Subwoofer
Dual JL Audio F-110 (stacked and treated as one sub)
Mini DSP HD controlling all subwoofers
Audioquest and Monoprice - Audio/Video/Speaker Cabling
PureAV PF60 Power Conditioner

[bmoney]

The was the first blu ray I ever owned lol. Great movie.