[reapersaurus]

Interview with Angus MacLane:
Angus MacLane of Pixar: The Den of Geek interview - Den of Geek

There were clearly some very strong decisions made at the start there, in terms of the vision of the project?

I think it was always going to be a sci-fi opera set in space, a tribute to the 60s and 70s sci-fi films that we all were interested in. Andrew was like well we’re going to make a robot movie that’s about robots, but it’s a 60s or 70s sci-fi film.

The film opened to huge numbers in the States. Yet this was perhaps the project viewed by outsiders as the riskier Pixar project. How would you encapsulate the secret of the success?

So as long as we keep making movies that we believe in, and push ourselves to tell the best stories that we can, even when it’s not financially convenient to do so, then I think that we’ll hopefully find an audience.

I’m happy that people are seeing the movie, and I’m very proud of this film. When I watch it I have to admit I guess it is pretty risky. It’s like wow, it’s amazing this movie got made, because you could see a bunch of aspects about it that a lesser studio would say ‘I don’t think we’re going to invest money in this’. It’s totally weird in the best possible way. And that’s why I’m proud to have worked on it.

Originally Posted by reapersaurus

What Wall-E has over every other (PIXAR) film (including Toy Story I, which was all new ground) is the experimental nature of it -

What amazed/shocked me about Wall-E is that PIXAR somehow got this 21st century, jaded society to somehow buy into a 60's-70's era scifi storyline.
The solo man-out-of-time/space that encounters a different being and proceeds to be thrust into another society and affects change thru his unique perspective is almost hippy-like and AFAIK a staple of early/mid sci-fi themes.

Looks like I nailed it in my review.