The Daily Stream: Soothe Your Robot Uprising Fears With WALL-E

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "WALL-E"

Where You Can Stream It: Disney+

The Pitch: The debate about the dangers of artificial intelligence rages on, with bots that become racist and sexist on social media and the Boston Dynamics videos that scare the crap out of most of us. From "The Matrix" to "The Terminator," we're all preparing ourselves for the inevitable singularity when robots take over the world. We don't treat them well, and it wouldn't be surprising if, down the line, we get a Disney+ show about the "Star Wars" droids getting sick of being treated like crap by everyone but a few people in a galaxy far, far away and revolt. It's terrifying, and it's probably going to happen sooner or later. 

Still, I hold out some hope. Naive, yes, but I have a good reason. I recently rewatched the Disney and Pixar film "WALL-E," and it allowed me to escape to a mental place where robots are kind, watch musicals, and fall in love. There are many messages one can take from this 2008 film, directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton, from overreliance on technology to disregarding the health of our planet. Still, I'm choosing to take away the idea of a future where a tiny little metal guy, his robot girlfriend, and his teensy cockroach buddy make the universe a better place. 

If you haven't watched it, the world of WALL-E is very lonely. The earth got so full of garbage in the 22nd century that humans had to leave on giant starliners. Little trash compacting robots like the Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class or WALL-E (voiced by Ben Burtt) are left behind to clean everything up. Seven centuries later, our hero is mainly alone, still smashing waste into cubes, then returning home to an abandoned truck to watch a DVD of "Hello Dolly!" and arrange his collection of treasures that he's come across over the years. He's got a little cockroach friend (I swear, you will love him, even if bugs freak you out) who spends time with him, but WALL-E is a sweet guy who really needs love in his life.

A sleek floating robot named EVE, which stands for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, shows up, looking for plant life. The two of them begin to fall in love until WALL-E shows her an actual live plant he discovered, triggering EVE's ship to come to get her, with WALL-E stowing away. They reach the Axiom, a starliner full of humans who have lost the ability to walk or really do anything for themselves. There is a bit of fat shaming going on here, and as I said, it would be done differently now, but I look at it as forgetting life skills. You know, like the apocalyptic people who get all upset that we don't know how to build anything or the idea that if, say, we lose all our power from a spun spot or something, we're all screwed. 

I don't want to give any more away, but it's a hopeful story that makes me think humanity isn't ultimately doomed. I mean while I'm watching, anyway. It makes me believe in love and reminds me that there is still hope in the world, no matter how dark things get.

The brilliance of this film is that there is so little dialogue and that a being made of metal can show so many emotions. I mean, WALL-E is so good at physical comedy that he rivals Charlie Chaplin. I remember doing the press junket for this film when it came out, and there was an actual moving WALL-E robot in one of the rooms. You cannot imagine the desire I had to hug this metal creature. It makes me want to be nicer to my toaster. Don't laugh. How many times have you yelled at your computer today? I mean, I'm 99 percent kidding but doesn't that last 1 percent make you want to stop yelling at your FitBit for losing the GPS signal ... just in case?

On a more serious note, it is truly a feat to have created a character like this who can show so much with almost no words. The emotion that comes from just the movement of his eyes will bring you to tears. Give it a watch or a rewatch, and maybe the next time your phone battery dies, you won't throw it across the room.

"WALL-E" is currently streaming on Disney+.