Pixar’s Wall-E functions quite effectively as a denunciation of premillennial eschatology, or at least the idea that it doesn’t matter what we do to the Earth because it’s not actually in our power to save it, by showing where our desire to take this course of action actually leads to… by literally evacuating humanity from the planet to the sky. So, it also addresses the notion that Heaven is a place where everything we want will be given to us freely, where we will float on the clouds and have our every need waited upon… This “heaven” is the one depicted on board the Axiom. Much like the Hell depicted in The Great Divorce, this is a Heaven where nothing is real and people have grown far apart, each man cordoned to his own quarters and living in solitude for the inability to build a relationship with others. The ability and choice to return home is right there, but the comforts of Hell are a near impossibility to escape.

Also, Wall-E is an incredible Christ figure: He brings out the best in every person he interacts with, including and especially the broken and discarded of Robot Society, and (with John and Mary, literally) unveiling the truth by lifting the blindfold from their eyes. The small interaction he has with the elevator robot—when he teaches it how to wave—is wonderful, because this is something that as a kid watching Wall-E you hardly even notice, but as adults we desperately need. It is natural for a child to wave for no reason, but as adults we see this as childish and pointless. We need Wall-E’s childlike view of the world. Wall-E’s wave is not one with the particular function of communicating to someone across the room, but something done just because you’ve been given the miraculous ability to shake a tiny hand up and down. By delighting in the details of what has been created for us, we delight our Creator, and Wall-E reminds us of this.

His pursuit of Eve is similarly moving. As soon as he sees her he recognizes her as something to be cherished, even though she has not yet gained “consciousness.” His eyes and thoughts are constantly concerned with how he can serve her; once he learns that the Plant is her directive, he spends the rest of the movie trying to lay his life aside in order to aid her, and at the end he willingly does, but is resurrected for his love for her. If the names were any clue, this is possibly the most Christian film to come from Pixar and the Mouse.