essay on WALL-E for school

 

this essay is about religious symbolism i have found in the movie WALL-E. hope you like it ^_^

The movie WALL-E is, on the surface, a cute movie about a robot (WALL-E) that is left on earth after humanity evacuated it when they polluted the earth, and left much waste behind. It is WALL-E's job to clean up the mess. However, after 700 years of this job, it has started to make him eccentric. He collects artifacts from earth, and places them in his house. One day a scout drone comes to earth from one of humanities spaceships. This robot is named EVE. It is on a mission to find life on earth. WALL-E falls in love with EVE. Soon eve finds a plant that WALL-E had stored in his home. EVE then returns to the spaceship, with WALL-E following her. Hijinks ensure, and humanity is eventually led back to earth with the help of WALL-E. they then begin to repopulate earth. However, if you look underneath the 'cute' layer, you will find many references to religious stories. The two I am going to discuss are the tower of Babel and Noah's arc.

To begin with, I will note the similarities with the 'Noah's arc' story. I am sure you will be familiar with the story, so here is an outline. God tells Noah that the world will flood for 40 days and nights, and that he should build a large boat and round up two of every animal to survive the flood. Noah does so, and then after he is finished, the world floods, from a lot of rain. After 40 days, the rain stops. So Noah send out a dove, which is called 'eve' in some stories, to retrieve a twig from dry land. After it returns, Noah determines that the earth is livable again, and begins to repopulate earth.

The movie WALL-E has many similarities with this story. First of all is 'god', being the company 'buy n large', telling humanity to leave on massive ships, to survive while the earth is cleaned up from the massive pollution caused by humanity. After 700 years exactly (255,500 days), a probe they sent out comes back positive. This probe is a robot named 'EVE', and was sent to earth to find life there, to determine if it is livable again. After this discovery, humanity returns to earth. And they have also been storing many animals in the ship. They then begin to repopulate earth.

The second comparison I want to make is with the story of 'the tower of Babel'. In this story, a civilization know as Babel, the last one left after 'the great flood', begin to build a tower that can reach god and then brag about their great creation. This tower is almost completed, when god decides to punish them, by destroying the tower, and separating all of the people of Babel to everywhere in the world, and giving them all different languages so they cannot communicate. The 'great flood' in this story can come to mean the flood from 'Noah's arc'.

In the movie 'WALL-E', the robot WALL-E, is the last 'life form' left on earth after the 'great flood' of pollution. WALL-E is left to clean up the rubbish left by humanity. With this rubbish, he builds massive towers into the sky, in hope of reaching humanity in space. When humanity returns from space, he finds he cannot communicate with them, for he was not built with speech capabilities.

These two examples show that this movie is not simply a fun kids movie. It is also entertaining for people who can uncover the references to other stories. This is what makes a great movie.

 

Rigo, out!

rigo reviews the creature stage of spore!

This review of spore is two of 6, each detailing the individual levels of spore, and then an overall score.

SPORE : CREATURE STAGE REVIEW!

Hello and welcome back to rigo's spore review! This time I will be going into detail about the creature stage, the most action packed level. This is the second stage. You advance to it after eating enough food in the creature stage to 'evolve' onto land. To begin with you are made to choose some legs for your creature. However you can choose to not give your creature legs, and to make him crawl around. But that is very slow, and not very practical. After the addition of legs, you are also able to add many new parts, with varying abilities. These include combat, social and movement abilities, all with I believe 5 levels. Each increase in level of the skill increase the strength of it. However you dont level up the parts, you just buy better ones..

First of all, the movement parts allow you to move, run, glide, jump and sneak. These all do what they say on the tin. The combat abilities include swipe, bite, charge, and scratch. Thses also do what they say. These are used to damage other creatures. Finally you have social abilities. These are dance, sing, pose, and charm. These are used to interact with other creatures in a little minigame. In the minigame you use the same social ability that the creature you are trying to impress uses. The higher your level of the skill, the more a little bar fills up. If you reach the middle of the bar first, you increase that particular creatures liking towards you. There is also the factor of how many creatures are present. Sometimes another creature from the same nest will join in the socialising, making it harder to fill your side of the bar up. However you can also have friendly creatures in your party sing/dance along with you improving your score too. Which brings me onto my next point. When you befriend another nest, you can ask one of the creatures to join your party, which can hold up to 3 friendlies. You get more spaces as you get more DNA points.

DNA points are the currency of the creature stage too, just like to cell stage. Both befriending other creatures and socializing with them increase your DNA points. More DNA points means more and better parts when you mate. Mating is similar to the cell stage, in that you sing and then find a mate. However all of your mates are in the same spot, your home nest. This nest is also where you are born when you edit your creature, and you can heal there. An interesting thing is that you will migrate to new nests during the creature stage, atleast 2 times. This just involves following a little line on your mini-map to the new nest.

I think these are the basic concepts of the creature stage, now about my comments. My biggest complaint about the creature stage is the length of time spent on it, and the depth. Sure the first time you play you will want to explore and try new things, but successive plays will be very tiresome and you just want to get it over and done with. I believe I can get it done in about 10 minutes if I set my mind to it. Also for the high amount of parts in the creature stage, there is not much variety in the abilities. However this is also a good point. There is a lot of customization, in terms of aesthetics. Sure many of the parts do the same thing, but a lot of them look very unique. Which is where the replayability comes in. not the gameplay, but the editor. And that is the biggest thing in this game. The amount of things you can create. The individual stages seem like demos, just to show that there could be a game, and to make gamers happy. It seems most of the time has been spent on the editors. And that is where people will spend most of their time in the game



CLOSING COMMENTS

the creature stage is fun the first time, but becomes tiresome to play later. However the many parts in the editor will allow for much customisation of creatures, which seems to be the main selling point of the game.

SCORE:

presentation – 7 – nice, simple interface, similar to the cell stage

Graphics – 8 – exactly the same as the cell stage, kind of dissapointing. They could have made it look much better. And im no graphics whore

sound – 10 – again, same as the cell stage, it fits the mood of the gameplay very well

gameplay – 8 – same as cell stage, not much depth, but it is fun the first time.

lasting appeal – 10 – forget the whole stage, just the editor alone will last you awhile. especially if you are into seeing how far you can stretch the limit of the engine, or make your favorite game characters etc.

TOTAL = 43/50 = 8.6/10 = 86% = A = alright I guess...

Rigo, might rescore the cell stage later >_>

Rigo reviews the cell stage of spore!

This review of spore is one of 6, each detailing the individual levels of spore, and then an overall score.

SPORE : CELL STAGE REVIEW!

Hello and welcome to rigo's first review of spore, this one is of spores first stage, the cell stage. This is the first of 5, each with their own individual style of gameplay. The cell stage consists of you being 'created' when a meteor shower hits your home planet. You begin in a primordial soup, competing with other newly created creatures for food. You can be either a carnivore, who eats meat which drops from dead creatures, a herbivore who eats plants floating in the water, or an omnivore, who eats both. You can soon add different body parts to your creature, after mating. These include fins to move faster, little things that shoot in or electricity, and different eyes. However I would have liked more variety in the different parts in the cell stage. You gain extra parts by defeating enemies with them, or by breaking open meteor fragments.

To 'win' the cell stage, you have to collect enough DNA points by eating things, which are also the 'money' that let you buy new parts. Depending on which route you pick, be it carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore, you get a specific 'evolution card', which entitle you to different special abilities in later phases, and ultimately your 'class' so to speak in the space phase. After you have enough DNA points to evolve to land, you get to spend your remaining points on legs (or not) to walk the planet on. Your mouth also determines what you can eat in the creature and tribal stages, but more on that later.

CLOSING COMMENTS

overall the cell stage is well designed, albeit lacking in content, I hear that the company who made spore (maxis) are planning on releasing many expansion packs for the game, one of them for the cell stage. Hopefully we get more parts and depth to the stage.

SCORE:

presentation – 7 – nice looking interface, but can be somewhat complicated to understand when you are new, and gives out very little information for someone who has played many times.

Graphics – 8 – while good, they are far from perfect graphics, looking too unrealistic. Not that I want perfect realism, it is just too cartoony for me :/. I would also have liked to be able to add more effects to your creature, like gills and such. However the paint mode is very cool

sound – 10 – amazing music and quality, very relaxing, and soothing. Nice effects when you kill another creature then eat the meaty chunks that explode from the creature :)

gameplay – 8 – the idea is there, but it is very simplified. I would have liked more parts, and some better controls

lasting appeal – 7 – once you have played it about 3 times even, it gets boring real quick. After the 9th time, which you will need to do if you want all the achievements, it will most likely be very boring

TOTAL = 40/50 = 8/10 = 80% = A- = pretty cool

Rigo, out

birds are weird O_o

this morning i was woken up by the sound of two birds having an argument or something. went like this

CAW!
CARRRW!!!!!@
CAWWWW!!!!!
CRAA!!!
CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!!!
CRAH!

then it stopped. i went downstairs later and found a dead bird in our backyard, just near my window.

WTF @ birds?

Rigo, srsly wtf

Rigo reviews cave story!

Here comes rigo's second review, this time of cave story

CAVE STORY REVIEW!


Lets make this story bit quick, without much spoilers. Cave story starts you off in a cave, with no weapon. As you make your way through the cave you find a weapon. You then find yourself in a town inhabited by these cute little rabbit creatures. They are slowly being kidnapped by the character called the doctor. You find out more as the story progresses. Rest assured that it involves dragons, magical powers, floating islands, and a trip to hell itself.

The game play is simple but awesome. It is your basic metroidvania style platformer meaning you slowly gain new skill while traversing a large map. There is also a basic level up system. As you kill enemies, they drop little triangles that power up the gun you are holding, up to level 3. as you get hit you lose some of that experience. However it is really easy to get more. You have your generic rocket launcher, and machine gun. As well as your ungeneric bubble gun and flame gun. There is also a little sub quest with your weapons. There are 3 weapons that are able to replace your default weapon, and there are 5 other ones. Total of 8. also the default, and the swappable ones are each able to be upgraded to a new weapon once. So that is 12 weapons, and technically 36 different weapon styles. Pretty nice :)

CLOSING COMMENTS

to sum up, cave story is an awesome free game. My only problem is the length of the game. Even with the optional hell stage, you only have about 2.5 hours of playtime, maybe 4 if you take your time.

SCORE:
presentation – 10 – Nice clean interface, easy to determine information.

Graphics – 10 – I am a big fan of old school style games, and this one pull of that style very well.

Sound – 10 – intense music during boss fights, and addictive melodies are prevalent through the whole game

gameplay – 10 – now, there are 4 different ways you could play this game, for each of the different main weapons. There are also 3 different ending. But all three are available in one playthough. Plus 36 different weapons and great physics make for a very fun experience

lasting appeal – 8 – ouch, only problem in this almost perfect game. Could be longer. However I have played it a few times, and it is fun each time still.

BONUS
tilt – 2 points – I like to add a little bit of 'tilt' to games to give them the score I want them to have ;) in this case it is for the quality of the story. It really pulls you in.

TOTAL – 48+2 = 50 = 5/5 = 10/10 = 100% = AWESOME!!!! A+++++

rigo, out

Rigo reviews super mario bros.!

for rigo's computer class, he has to write reviews for games. here comes his first!

SUPER MARIO BROS. REVIEW!

ahhh, super Mario bros. lots of people probably have fond memories of this game. i first played it on my SNES, with super Mario all stars. i don't remember how far a got the though... i first finished it i believe on the game boy version, super Mario bros deluxe.

i don't think this game needs a description, but Harvey (the wonder hamster) demands one!
you are Mario, a plumber. you are on a quest to rescue princess peach. in the way are many obstacles such as bottomless pits, goombas, giant dinosaur/dragon things and flying bullets. with EYES. to help you, you have some magic mushrooms, and practically unlimited retries. Oh , and flowers that shoot fire. When you finally reach the end of the castle, you are told the princess is in fact in another castle. So you make your way through 7 more castles until you finally find her. Then she demands you rescue her again, this time in a harder game. Ungrateful hag >_<

CLOSING COMMENTS

now, to improve the game, I would do nothing. The game is a classic already, and any changes may ruin the game. And it just so happens that this has happened before :P

SCORE:

presentation – 10 – the interface to the game is very basic. Just a score, time, coins and lives. But it does it job so well

graphics – 10 – you cant beat these old school graphics. They defined gaming. Even games these days cant replicate the awesomeness of the mario bros graphics.

Sound – 10 – again, these sounds defined gaming for many people. I don't think they could be changed for the better.

Gameplay – 10 – way ahead of its time. Play other early NES games and you shall see why this was a big hit

lasting appeal – 10 – for a game that is over 15 years old and yet is still played and enjoyed by millions, it has to be the longest lasting game ever.

TOTAL – 50/50 = 10/10 = 100% = A+++ = LEGENDARY

Rigo, out

yay im 17 ^_^

not yay - no updates in over a month ;_;

however birthdays seem to get less and less 'important' every year. like it is fun to have a party, get presents, etc but the general feel is different :/

every now and then you have a big milestone, 18,21,30,40,100 etc. but really they are just some arbitrary number decided decades/centuries ago...

you know what? the same thing happens with Christmas. we (my family) only really continue the whole Santa tradition for my siblings, and they seem to know what is going on...
and same with birthdays, it is fun to see your family, friends and such. so i don't see it as pointless, just not as big as when i was little :/

i also think it is partly because we dont have the rest of our family here. sure i despised some of them, and loved others, but they were entertaining to say the least. we would go to our grandparents house most Christmases and different family members will be there, have a big Christmas dinner, etc. i do miss that, i hate to say ;_;

maybe this is a sign i am growing up, or maybe it just happens when you get older. or are they both the same thing?
and boy does time fly when you get older too. we have now been living in America for 1 year, since last week. just zoomed by...

also one quick question. what happens with time zones on your birthday? like, does where you are living at the moment mean it is your birthday, or where you were born? right now it is 12:15 AM here in Seattle, but it has been the 19th for about 17 hours now in Australia... probably doesn't matter

Rigo, likes his birthday date - 19/8/91

omg kawaii*!

this photobucket features drawings of children dressed up as pokemon. almost every pokemon is in here!
found from the blog sexy videogameland
Enjoy my obligatory cute post of the monthish!
*kawaii roughly translates to "so cute" in Japanese. inb4weaboo >_>
Rigo, had a hard time making the first sentence not seem creepy...

OH SNAP! the photos get deleted from photoucket XDXDXD
oh well, moi moi thought they were creepy anyway >_>

Rigo, out

Hancock review!

heh, cock.

now that that is out of the way, on with the review!

hancock was a very cool movie. im not sure weather I should spoil anything, so I wont. some people complain about how the first half was really cool, and the last half was lame, but i disagree. i feel the whole thing was well balanced, good action scenes, mixed in with a nice story, with afew twists. sadly i was spoiled before the movie, so i knew what the twist was, but it allowed me to notice some little camera angles and such that could give away the twist partly, if you pay attention >_>

i can easily see them doing a sequel or two. cartoon series could work too. a lot of mythology and background... if you have seen the movie, you will know what i am talking about. now im trying to decide whether will smith was what made the movie or not. take i am legend for example. without him, it would have been really lame. but even with him i didn't like the movie >_>

i recommend seeing it, mostly for the awesome way they do the flying scenes. you really need to be in a theater for those, i believe. i also had a good atmosphere in the theater i saw it in. everyone was laughing at the right times, and such.

downsides... everyone other than will smith seemed to be pushed to the side a bit, in terms of the story. but their acting was top-notch. the physics were a bit off too, just sometimes things would fall weirdly. but that doesn't detract from the movie.

now then, onto the rating. i am testing out a rating system i have come up with. might change my mind about it later. basically, instead of 1 - 10, it is -10 - 10. i call it the MEH scale. so the lower, the better. a crappy movie, like highschool musical, gets 5 mehs. that equals about 2.5 in the 10 point scale. that means it is so bad, i have to say meh 5 times about it. a good movie, like memento, would get -10 mehs. a perfect score! that means it is so good, i have to say negative 10 mehs about it!.  it  may be a bit complicated, but i think it is cool ^_^ so i will give 2 scores, a meh and a general (GEN 1-10) score! they both mean the same thing, though!

scores:
MEH: -7
GEN: 8.5

Rigo, nothing witty to say

bad rigo! bad!

you promised to update your blogses every week you dids. yeeessss. your preeciouss blogses. any you did not do it! bad rigo! hisssssssssssss

ok, enough gollum talk. >.>

yes, I haven't updated in like 2 weeks. I’m sowwy ;_;
big hello to Mark Muggeridge, all the way from http://evilgeniusmedia.wordpress.com/!
i have a quick question for mr muggeridge. do you have a son named nick? because I used to know a nick muggeridge...

moving on, i have good news everyone! well, not really good news. but still news. I saw Hancock last week, and I have a review for it!

might make it a completely new post, so stay tuned, rigo-nites!
oh, and i am seeing hellboy 2 tonight, lets hope it is as good as the first!

and one last thing. I am currently reading the book "twinkie deconstructed". it is about processed food in America, and how it is grown, and mined! I had a twinkie a few days ago, to see how bad they really are. BLECH! they were disgusting. in the book it is described how they put so many preservatives and shit in there to make it moist, yet keep it dry. scary shit there, man.

Rigo, now looking twice at his food labels...

I am an idiot

this is kinda hard to explain...

so i want to change my background to one i had earlier. i change it, and then i notice that there are icons under my normal icons that i cant click on :O
wtf?

so i move them around, refresh the screen, reboot. nothing changes.then i realize that those are the icons that i had when i used to have the wallpaper O_O

then it occurs to me. i took a picture of my previous background to use for some reason, and then i used that one as my background >_<

/facepalm

Rigo, feeling stupid

lol wut @ spore

so im itching to make a new creature tonight. I start spore, and it gives this weird error
'A required security module cannot be activated.
This program cannot be executed (5024).'

im liek, k. so I Google it.

turns out that secuROM does not like my favorite program, 'process explorer'. no fucking clue why not. so i close PE, and lo and behold, it works.

and then I remember, oblivion did this exact same shit. like goddamn, this is why im hating PC gaming at the moment. all this DRM crap /facepalm

Jesus Christ, im sick of it ._.
the only good game company is ironically valve. their steam service makes it so simple to download, and keep track of your games. and in the past valve were ridiculed for how much protection they gave their games...

oh, and another thing. why are pancakes so yummy!?!? ^_^

 

rigo, out!

am I a bad person for laughing at this ?_?

I honestly can not tell whether this is a real advert or not...

really? like seriously Internet. really?
dubbya tee eff

Brice would love this!

Brice (my 8 year old brother) told me of a dream he once had awhile ago. in his dream, there existed somewhere in the world, a most wondrous place. in this place, let us call it a 'vault', there was every single Lego ever created sitting in there, waiting for him to play with it. I called him crazy. we all did. but now just who are the crazy ones?

as it turns out, there really is a place where all the Lego sets ever created are held. Brice was not crazy. i present to you a video of someone visiting the LEGO VAULT.

wait, forget that. i cant get the darn... ok, new link.

i now present to you, the blog that hosts the video of someone visiting the LEGO VAULT

http://gizmodo.com/5018990/lego-secret-vault-contains-all-sets-in-history

stupid gizmodo and their lousy video player >:(  ......oh, your back ?_?

in summary, Lego is awesome. wait... yeah it is. and so is diablo 2 >_>

 

Rigo, out

my spore creature creations

wow, this game is awesome. first of all, my profile page

http://www.spore.com/view/profile/kurtsoft

secondly, my first creation, the rigo cat

be nice, it was my first creation >:(

 

expect more  creations on my youtube page and my spore page

'Rigo, out!

sweet trackmania track

my photoshop teacher made this track, apparently took him ~40 hours to make

 

sorry for the crappy quality ;;._.

*dies from cuteness* X_X

im speechless, just watch

 

it's time for... "WHAT DID YOU FIND ON THE INTERNET TODAY, 'RIGO?!"

welcome to the first installment of hopefully many. to begin, we have this wonderful little creature created in the recently leaked 'SPORE CREATURE CREATOR'.

now i should warn you, this video is somewhat graphic, so if there are any children present in the room, please vacate them from the website momentarily.

now then, lets take a look, shall we?

my lord, what a ghastly creature. someone pull out the bug spray

/laughter

 

well then, tune in next time for another exciting installment of "WHAT DID YOU FIND ON THE INTERNET TODAY, 'RIGO?!"

R rated movies

parents these days, taking kids to see R rated movies. when I went to see Harold a Kumar 2, in front of us was a mom, and her 2 ten year old children. practically for 90% of the movie, covered the kids eyes. and then halfway through, I think the bit with him having sex to the bag of pot, they walked out >_>
so that was a few weeks ago. cue just 5 minutes ago, when i stumble upon this web page
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/parentalguide
it is a 'parent guide' for "the happening"... many of these entries result in much /facepalm

Profanity
A kid calls someone the five letter vulgar word for the female genitalia. the end of a dirty joke about male genitalia is heard. brief sex related humor
Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking
fake glasses of wine are seen in a model home.
Frightening/Intense Scenes
a woman slaps a young child's wrist when she reaches for a cookie.

this makes me wonder about what parents took their kid to see a bloody R rated movie, then complained about a woman SLAPPING A CHILD'S WRIST ._.
i seem to have forgotten my point, so i shall wrap this up.
PARENTS, DONT TAKE YOUR YOUNG, IMMATURE KIDS TO MOVIES THAT THEY WILL BE SCARED SHITLESS AT AND THEN COMPLAIN >_<
now I realize that this article that i linked to did not itself result from complaints, but you have to wonder what has happened in the past to cause such measures to be taken
now i could also be considered somewhat of a hypocrite, for i am under 18 yet see R rated movies often, but I feel I can understand them, and not be scarred for life by some scenes. but heaven forbid if i ever see a child's wrist being slapped in my R rated movie. i may just have to sue the movie producer

'Rigo, out

welcome to my new blog

in this blog, i shall post my many thoughts and ramblings. you can try to make sense of them if you wish. this is going to be mostly for my amusement