Wall-E’s Eve: Designed By Apple?
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 13 of May , 2008 at 1:21 am
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine commented that Eve, Wall-E’s girlfriend, looked kinda like an iPod. I didn’t agree, not so much because I couldn’t see the resemblance, but mostly because I didn’t want to admit that Apple may have some subtle influence over the design of a major character in a Pixar movie. Turns out I was dead wrong, and Apple’s influence over Eve wasn’t even particularly subtle, reports Fortune Magazine. Here are some excerpts from the article:
“I wanted Eve to be high-end technology - no expense spared - and I wanted it to be seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous,” Andrew Stanton, Wall-E’s director, told Fortune. “The more I started describing it, the more I realized I was pretty much describing the Apple playbook for design.”
A call from Stanton to Jobs in 2005 resulted in Johnny Ive, Apple’s behind-the-scenes design guru, driving across the San Francisco Bay to Pixar’s converted warehouse headquarters to spend a day consulting on the Eve prototype. Stanton said that it was a “lovefest” with Ive, but that the notoriously tight-lipped design wizard offered few specific modifications. “Apple is so proprietary and so secretive that he couldn’t even really allude to where the future of technology was going,” says Stanton. “The most he could do is nod his head to the things we said we wanted to do.”
I’m honestly not sure whether this should matter at all, but it kinda does, to me anyway. It’s not exactly product placement, but at the same time, it’s a little unsettling that Pixar, to some extent, is looking to Apple to help them define what is futuristic rather than trusting what (until now?) has been a wonderful imagination and vision of their own.
[ Fortune ] VIA [ The Pixar Blog ]
Category: Art
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Comment by Joe Deeley
Made Tuesday, 13 of May , 2008 at 7:17 am
How weird is it that Wall-E resembles Johnny Five from Short Circuit and the guy helping design Eve is Johnny Ive? Things that make you go, huh? Don’t forget that Pixar was once purchased by Steve Jobs.
Comment by Drew T.
Made Friday, 4 of July , 2008 at 7:28 pm
Also, if you have seen the movie, when Wall-E boots up, he makes the noise that the early iMac G3s make when they start up
Comment by another 3D Animator out there
Made Saturday, 5 of July , 2008 at 6:29 pm
Hey, just wanted to point out, Steve jobs owns a large chunk of Pixar, and even has an office there. it doesn’t surprise me that Eve is influenced by apple or that Pixar is. if you’ll look back at Cars, theres even an apple stock car on the raceway. also, in Wall E the movie, Auto’s voice is made with a mac application, and Wall E’s fully charged sound is the boot sound from early Mac OSX.
Comment by courtney
Made Saturday, 12 of July , 2008 at 3:19 pm
yes! i am glad that someone here wrote that! Steve Jobs actually bought out Pixar from Lucas arts a while back. He’s the CEO. i’m glad that you feel passionately about Pixar, but you shouldn’t put down Apple for putting their design in the film. They were funny jokes at any rate… guess you have to be an apple person to fully understand. look it up.
Comment by Bonesy
Made Saturday, 2 of August , 2008 at 10:13 pm
An “imagination and vision of their own”? Now just what is that supposed to mean? If people didn’t have inspiration, their movies would suck miserably.
Comment by bill cosby
Made Saturday, 20 of September , 2008 at 12:15 am
there is an ipod in the movie
Comment by steve
Made Wednesday, 24 of September , 2008 at 3:55 am
yeah i think so cos eve has that apple design and wall-e make the same sound when He’s finished charging as when an apple computer starts up
Comment by Andra
Made Wednesday, 22 of October , 2008 at 7:48 am
when i saw the movie, eve seemed pretty fam. too me… I didn’t know why but now, thanks to you, i know : she’s apple-designed… I think it’s not a really bad thing that apple is everywhere but sometimes it’s anoying… But i like apple ;))
Comment by Josh
Made Thursday, 1 of January , 2009 at 9:26 pm
The designer of the macbook pro designed eve. Duh. There’s a story of this on digg… losers