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The Hidden Lore of WALL-E

Toonshi シ

421,549 views

WALL-E is one of Pixar's greatest achievements, and it is absolutely filled to the brim with interesting hidden lore and a ton of terrifying implications. From an in-universe website accessible through archives, to a short-lived series of prequel comics, there's a lot to chew on.

Chapters:

0:00 - Intro
3:09 - The History of BNL
12:18 - Prequel Comics
25:09 - The Axiom and the Cannibalism Theory
31:57 - That One Deleted Scene Just For Fun
35:07 - Conclusion

Credit to McDowell for his video on the WALL-E prequel comics (and for featuring the only version of Issue 7 I could find) - The Story of the Forgotten WALL-E Prequel

Credit to Tyefe "Tallarico" Marke for the better thumbnail because I'm a chud and can't make thumbnails.

Twitter - https://x.com/cartoonshi
Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/cartoonshi.b...
Letterboxd - https://letterboxd.com/cartoonshi/
Backloggd - https://backloggd.com/u/Cartoonshi/

Tracks in order of appearance (Repeats not counted):

Donkey Kong Bananza OST - Stickerbrush Symphony
Portal OST - Subject Name Here
Donkey Kong Country OST - Aquatic Ambience
Donkey Kong Bananza OST - Lagoon Layer
Persona 4 OST - Specialist
Portal OST - Android Hell
Deltarune OST - Field of Hopes and Dreams
Portal OST - Taste of Blood
Portal OST - Self Esteem Fund
Super Mario 3D World OST - Switch Scramble Circus
Mario Kart World OST - Staff Credits (Mario Kart DS)
Portal 2 OST - There She Is
Mario Kart World OST - Dire Dire Docks (Super Mario 64)
Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon OST - Second Wind

Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

20 Comments

@SamiTheFrog 5 months ago

the deleted scenes "I wanna live" would have paralleled nicely with the captain's "I don't want to survive, I wanna live" - rant to auto. Imagine you're a 700 year old wheel shaped autopilot robot and you get hit by dejavu to a dying ceo's last words

@Kei-maki 6 months ago

Jeez I forgot how much Wall-E is really just baby’s first dystopia. Imagine this written entirely with the tone of that deleted scene

@anormalguy9320 6 months ago

The deleted A113 scene is dark af, but would have made AUTO's side more understandable

@crystalpokedude4329 6 months ago

I do think the deleted scene gives the Captain shouting "I want to Live" at Otto in the climax more weight.

@Goldsbro 6 months ago (edited)

I think the idea that the greenhouse potential is a movie plothole isn't really a plothole.

The significance of the plant in the movie was that life could grow on Earth again.

@haniapro9294 6 months ago

So BnL is basically Nestlé

@pat3ntedthe2nd73 6 months ago

BULL-E is just a Banjo-Kazooie character, those eyes say it all

@elizahamilton5599 6 months ago

That scene with Shelby gave me chills too and honestly made me cry. Him realizing how badly they fucked up the planet not just for him but for all of humanity is heartbreaking. He stayed behind to fix what he created but ended up being killed by it. “I wanna live!” Are some of the saddest last words anyone could have. Seeing his face as he dies is scary as hell! He wanted to fix what he made but just couldn’t

@Firestarse-s1l 6 months ago

34:04 it‘s probably because of the way the nose is illustrated with the glitchy effects. Normally it would be a perfectly acceptable sketch of the underside of a nose, but the effects hide a few lines making it look like the nose hole of a skull. With the added context of the earths toxic air, your brain quickly connects the dots subconsciously; it looks like the air is so toxic his nose had been rotted away as the man screams „I want to live!“ as if he had been screwed over by other members of the company taking his places in the cruisers
What a fun thing to theorize about

@Godhathleftus 6 months ago

Its amazing how it takes until the storyboarding to rough animation for them to realize “hmm, maybe we shouldn’t traumatize millions of kids”

@HBstudios2005 6 months ago

33:51 for me what freaks me out about the close up is how the screen glitching makes it look almost like he has real eyes and it's just such a desperate expression like you can see him begging for help

@Assassin245 6 months ago

I choose to believe that Cartoonshi somehow knew I needed something to watch while I eat at this exact moment

@peskyface 6 months ago

as a kid i was so obsessed with wall-e but what i noticed continually through every watch was that, in the beginning, BnL shows multiple Axiom ships taking off. By the end, the one Axiom lands in a sea of Axiom landing ports. That always bothered me as a kid because I always wanted the rest of the ships to come home, but now looking back on it, people could really make a lot of space horror material from it and all the scenarios that could’ve happened to those other Axiom ships

@awesomeocelot7475 6 months ago (edited)

Actually plant life existing in the Axoim wouldn’t be a plot-hole since the plant needed to return to earth has to specifically come FROM earth and that’s why the sprout was so important.

@teddyobrien4801 6 months ago

I would absolutely kill for a series of prequel shorts about how Wall-E gained sentience

@Minimumwage_Sonic 6 months ago

When I first saw the deleted A113 scene as a kid, my first thought wasn't "Geez that was horrifying" it was "We could've had more M.O in the movie!?"

Priorities.

@XenoXocoG 6 months ago

so BnL is basically amazon

@jesterfairy3845 6 months ago

What makes that one drawing of Shelby so unnerving might just be the uncanny valley. You can tell by looking at it that they had likely traced this on top of a real life reference just to add drama. Besides that, the fact the camera is so close to his face and the way his eyes are LOCKED ON to the viewer absolutely adds to that visual element that activates our fight-or-flight response.