Down to Earth

I saw this as part of the new Disney movie "Wall-E". I won't critique the movie here, though I liked it - it was very thought provoking, it raises all kinds of questions and ideas about humanity and society... I definitely recommend seeing it. Okay, a little critique. I guess my main problem is how it glorifies and romanticizes technology as being capable of solving all of the problems of humanity. Robot heroes.

The story goes like this: after destroying the Earth, humans leave in a space ship, where they live for 700 years while they wait for the atmosphere on Earth to return to a hospitable state. A robot returns to Earth and finds a plant - a sign of life. She develops a love interest, and all the qualities of a human, with a 700 year old trash compacter named "Wall-E". They live happily ever after. Despite what is, in my opinion, a flawed and romanticized portrayal of technology as the savior of humanity, it actually has some good moral messages (of course the moral grounding just makes the main, subversive, thrust - promoting the idea of robots as benign artificially intelligent beings - more potent.)

I am looking forward to picking up a copy of the album or single for this song, "Down to the Earth" by Peter Gabriel.

bert