WALL-E Gets Some Tunes From Peter Gabriel

I’m terribly excited over WALL-E. Pixar has shown that they can do no wrong so far, and this year’s release doesn’t look to change that at all. Every glimpse we get of the little robot, from his newfound place in the Pixar logo to the Super Bowl commercial featuring Buzz Lightyear and Woody talking about WALL-E just excites me more and more.

Today’s cause for excitement: Andrew Stanton has apparently brought Peter Gabriel on board to help with the music for WALL-E. The scope of Gabriel’s involvement ins’t quite clear, but in his latest video blog, Gabriel discusses a little about the picture, revealing a few things we didn’t know before and drawing some comparisons between WALL-E and the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

We know from the trailers that the movie centers around a small robot who was left behind on Earth to clean up garbage after mankind moved to the stars. The environmentally conscious musician says that Pixar consulted with NASA and, based on description of bone deterioration in space, humans are being made to look like “flat blobs in armchairs.” That sounds really cool to me.

Apparently Gabriel has been involved with the picture for some time (he says Stanton approached him in 2005) and he thinks the movie is going to continue the Pixar legacy of films that are appropriate for kids but also contain content for adults as well. I’m guessing that’s the environmental message Gabriel is talking about, but only those involved know for sure right now.

As for how much Gabriel is creating for the movie, the musician describes his contribution as creating one or two new things as well as putting some glue on things he’s done before. I’m not sure if that means he’s just creating a few songs for the movie or if he’ll be scoring it as well, like he has previously with films like The Last Temptation of Christ. Either way, I’m excited to hear some Gabriel tunes accompanying WALL-E.

I’ve hit the high points here, but if you want to hear Gabriel talking about his involvement himself, click over to his video blog entry. Be warned however: the musician talks about his broken leg (the result of a skiing accident) as well as engineering designs of a friend of his before he even begins to mention the Pixar project in what winds up being a thirteen minute long video.

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By Rafe Telsch: 2008-02-13