Portal vs. Wall-E
July 8, 2008How does one animation studio consistently put out box office hits like Pixar? Sometimes I wonder how they do it, but I think it all boils down to incredible graphics and incredible story-telling. Oh, and the fact that a lot of the people who work there went to Brown. True Story. Maybe not John Lasseter but you don’t name a major character in Toy Story after a Brown CS professor for nothing!
Anyway, I knew I wasn’t going to be disappointed with Wall E and I’m glad to say I wasn’t. But my only question was–how much Portal did the animators play while putting the movie together?
First off, the “Presto” short that played before the screening was a direct rip-off of the Valve video game. Instead of being a prisoner equipped with an awesome portal-making machine, a magician’s bunny wrecks havoc when he messes around with a pair of portal magic hats.
The short was cute, but c’mon now!
And then there were the characters. Eve, a round, cylindrical white robot who would fold up into a smooth column whenever she shut down. Does anyone else think this looks like the white turrets in Portal whose arms would fold up if you knocked them down?
Plus, AUTO, the nemesis, whose red eye and constant swiveling around from the ceiling reminded me way too much of GLaDOS in the final scene.
Alright, so they’re not exact replicas but I can’t be the only one to think about the many similarities in the design, feel, and constant robot voices.
Right?? Right?? RIGHT???
I haven’t seen it yet but some of my animator friends flew up to SF to see a rough cut of Wall-E in early 2006, about a year or so before Portal was released. It was in rough animatic form, but I think Eve was as she is in the movie. Sidenote: Eve was designed with the help of Apple’s designer Johnny Ive, so maybe they’ll all just inspired by the ipod/ mighty mouse?
I think Auto and GLaDOS look similar because they’re both a nod to HAL, from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I wrote a post about this same issue for Geekanerd…
http://www.geekanerdblog.com/2008/06/robot-day-tracing-lineage-of-wall-es.html
good points. obviously i’m basing this all on my own observations but it’s fun to think that they all share similar ideas and creativity.
They also all look like Apple products.
Wall-E totally looks like the robot from “Short Circuit”… minus the cheesy 80’s style of course
Right.
Did you notice the likeness with Fallout too?
50s music and post-apocalyptic setting on earth…
I am very glad that I am not the only who has noticed the rip off. IMHO there was a robot who was hanging from the ceiling exactly like GlaDOS. THAT was weird, sometimes I felt like im playing portal during the film. The glossy white textures, the turrets of portal in a Pixar movie?
And an other thing: maybe I am too geek, but the whole design of the city, the brounish pastell colours made me think of NFS:Most Wanted. Am I right?
the entire time i was watching this movie (saw it for the first time just the other day on StarzHD) i kept being reminded of Portal….glad to see im not the only one…
and how about the BnL corporation’s ad voice?…sounds a lot like GLaDOS…instead, maybe, ‘and there will be cake—in a cup!’
I think Auto looks like a turret from the front.