Disney/Pixar’s latest animated family film is available to own today on DVD and Blu-ray. The movie comes packaged with a host of bonus features, including an animated short that introduces a new character from the world of WALL’E, and the new Pixar short Presto, which screened in theaters with the feature presentation.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, WALL’E takes place 700 years in the future and revolves around a young industrial robot left alone to clean up the mess human kind left behind when the Earth became too polluted to support life. WALL’E’s life changes one day when a spacecraft arrives carrying a sleek new robot probe who captures our hero’s heart and takes him into space on a thrilling journey to an orbiting luxury liner where human beings have all of their needs met by robots and a greedy corporation. The movie features Fred Willard in Pixar’s first live-action segment, and voice work by Jeff Garlin, Ben Burtt, Sigourney Weaver, John Ratzenberger and Kathy Najimy.
Included on the disc is Burn-E, an all-new animated short about a repair robot trying to do his job aboard an orbiting luxury liner, but is foiled at every turn by WALL’E’s adventures aboard the Axiom. The film is directed by veteran Pixar animator Angus MacLane, who has worked on Geri’s Game, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, For the Birds, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and One Man Band, and won an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character Animation for his work on The Incredibles.
Presto is the story of a turn-of-the-century magician who forgets to feed his rabbit, Alec, one too many times. Comical on-stage high jinx ensue when Alec gets fed up with not being fed and sets out to sabotage the great Presto in the middle of a performance. The short is written by Pixar animator Doug Sweetland, who has won Annie Awards for his character animation work on Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo.
The WALL’E disc also offers director commentary, deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, a look at the film’s sound design with Oscar winner Ben Burtt (Star Wars), the Leslie Iwerks documentary The Pixar Story, a sneak peek at ‘Wall’E’s Tour of the Universe,’ a number of shorts on Buy n Large Corp., a storybook titled Lots of Bots and a collection of funny moments dubbed ‘Wall-E’s Treasures and Trinkets.’ The Blu-ray edition also features a video game arcade, 3D set fly-throughs, pop-up commentary by Pixar’s Geek Squad and a presentation of Burn’E with picture-in-picture storyboards presented by the film’s director. The three-disc special edition carries a suggested retail price of $39.99 on DVD and $40.99 on Blu-ray. The single-disc release can be had for $29.99 or less.
