I haven’t watched enough contemporary children’s shows to say whether there has been an increase or decline in environmental awareness media for kids.

Who are you to say that it is wrong to prefer the immediate comforts of a pleasing life to the abstract appreciation of some far-off wilderness (never to be seen, if conservationists have their way)?

There may be cases where people make the wrong choice out of wilderness, but there are plenty of situations where people choose progress over wilderness with their eyes wide open.

What else falls into this category? I looked at Category:Environmental films on Wikipedia and found the list pretty lacking.

The film was interpreted as tackling a topical, ecologically minded agenda. Todd McCarthy said it did so with a lightness of touch that granted the viewer the ability to accept or ignore the message. Jessica Jensen of The Huffington Post, while praising the film overall, felt it did not make enough of a point with its environmental themes. She suggested it should have had environmental advice or a website link during the end credits, adding it was “troubling” that by the end “humans return to Earth and it seems as if everything will just be hunky-dory”. The film’s ecological theme was criticized by conservative commentators such as CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck, and contributors for National Review Online; Shannen W. Coffin said that the film was “leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind”, and Jonah Goldberg wrote that he agreed with the charges of hypocrisy and “Malthusian fear mongering” leveled at the film by others, but said that it was “fascinating” and occasionally “brilliant”.

Patrick J. Ford of The American Conservative said WALL-E’s conservative critics were missing lessons in the film that he felt were appealing to traditional conservatism. He argued that the mass consumerism in the film was not shown to be a product of big business, but of too close a tie between big business and big government: “The government unilaterally provided its citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth’s downfall”. Responding to Coffin’s claim that the film points out the “evils of mankind”, he argued the only evils depicted were those that resulted from “losing touch with our own humanity” and that fundamental conservative representations such as the farm, the family unit, and “wholesome” entertainment were in the end held aloft by the human characters. He concluded, “By steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice”.

Vulnerability may be enough for children. We can save the terrifyingly real prospect of human species extinction through poor ecological management for teenagers.

Wall-E strikes a better balance than many other similar films. I wouldn’t call it ‘educational,’ per se, but I would call it ‘environmentalist.’

I understand the concept of fiction, but that doesn’t change the fundamental sentiments that I garnered from the film.

That being: it doesn’t matter if we wait to destroy the Earth, everyone will be fine. Just make sure that you don’t forget how Earth used to be, so you can return and re-habilitate it single-handedly.

How about teaching children.. OH, I don’t know. The delicate balance of the eco-system, and how we have the power to destroy but not to recreate?

I don’t doubt that it demonstrates to children about the transience of natural life under duress, but I think it would be a real stretch to call it an environmentally educational film.

Naturally, anyone seeing this film today should think: “We ought not completely wreck the planet,” rather than: “Even if we do wreck the planet, we will endure as a species and eventually be able to return and rebuild.”

A quasi-apocalyptic film featuring the possibility of redemption is also likely to do better at attracting and keeping an audience of children than a straightforwardly apocalyptic one wou

I agree that the film was blatantly unrealistic: in everything from the breathability of the Earth atmosphere (with few plants, there would be little oxygen) to the mechanics of spaceflight. Further, without plants to both eat and alter the atmosphere, Wall-E’s cockroach companion would not have been about.

That being said, it must be taken allegorically. The aim is not to represent the world as it is or could be, but to convey certain general ideas through aesthetics.

The fact that saving a few thousand Americans who then repopulate the Earth is blatantly xenophobic.

The film repeatedly implies that there are other ships out there. The Axiom is just (apparently) the only one to return at that point in time. In the future, other scattered humans may also do so.