WALL-E: How Easily We Forget

He’s saved not only the world, but all the humans who had deserted it. He’s battered, bruised, has lost an eye, and his computer chip is fried.
This is WALL-E, the now-famous little robot, during the last few minutes of his movie. His love, EVE, rushes him back to his abode, where she proceeds to fix him. She frantically installs a new eye and a new computer chip. She rushes him to the sun to recharge his solar-charging batteries.

After a breathless moment, he turns on with a familiar chime…and that’s all. Nothing else. He doesn’t say her name, doesn’t even recognize her. He simply turns and begins to ingest trash and spit it out in his trademark cubes. She follows him, desperate, and presses the “Play” button on his tape recorder. His favorite song, a love song now connected to EVE, is expected. But there’s only static.

EVE follows him, trying her utmost to remind him of who he was, of how she remembers him, of how much he loved her, and of how much she loves him now. But there is no response. He doesn’t even recognize her enough to push her away. He just turns, with something akin to confusion, and spits out another trash cube. This is all he knows. This is all that he can be. This is all he ever will be. It is enough to break your heart, and it certainly begins to break EVE’s.

We are WALL-E. We have been found half-dead, battered and bruised, by our Lover. And He has gently restored us, because He knows us better than we know ourselves. Because He loves us.

Then, once He has restored us, He challenges us to open our eyes. We do, and promptly turn in the other direction. Though He follows us desperately, we ignore Him without even knowing it. The greatest love we can imagine is right behind us, pleading for us to remember.

The only thing we can remember is what we are supposed to do. We remember our duty: our day-to-day grind. That’s all we know, all we remember, and, as far as we can tell, all we’re good for.

But the Lover won’t give up.

In one last, desperate attempt at a connection, EVE weaves her fingers through WALL-E’s claw. This is how he knows love. But there is still no response.

She begins to relinquish his claw in despair. Her fingers become stuck, and she looks at WALL-E with renewed hope in her eyes. Realization begins to dawn in his own, and he gives her something like a smile. Then he weaves his claw between her fingers.

And everyone lives happily ever after.