I’m a big fan of Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, the writer/director behind Finding Nemo and WALL-E; I have tremendous respect for his creative gifts and approach (which he discussed in a fascinating interview last June), and I think he tells great stories well. My lovely wife disagrees with me, but I think WALL-E‘s the better of the two; that’s no putdown to Nemo by any means, it’s just that WALL-E works on so many levels and really connects the intimate story of the two main characters to the epic background story of the human race and the fate of the planet Earth.
Down to Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLICp30BJgA
Did you think that your feet had been bound
By what gravity brings to the ground?
Did you feel you were tricked
By the future you picked?
Well, come on down.
All those rules don’t apply
When you’re high in the sky,
So, come on down . . . come on down.
Chorus:
We’re coming down to the ground—
There’s no better place to go;
We’ve got snow up on the mountains,
We’ve got rivers down below.
We’re coming down to the ground;
We hear the birds sing in the trees,
And the land will be looked after,
We’ll send the seeds out in the breeze.
Did you think you’d escaped from routine
By changing the script and the scene?
Despite all you made of it,
You’re always afraid of the change.
You’ve got a lot on your chest;
Well, you can come as my guest,
So come on down . . . come on down.
Chorus
Like the fish in the ocean,
We felt at home in the sea;
We learned to live off the good land,
Learned to climb up a tree.
Then we got up on two legs,
But we wanted to fly;
When we messed up our homeland,
We set sail for the sky.
Chorus
We’re coming down (down)
Coming down to Earth (down)
Like babies at birth (down)
Coming down to Earth (down to Earth)
We’re gonna find new priorities (down)
These are extraordinary qualities (down)
(Down, down to Earth)
Chorus
Words: Peter Gabriel; music: Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman
©2008 Pixar Music/Wonderland Music Company Inc.
From the movie WALL-E