Amidst all this, through a series of complications I will leave you to discover, a plot finally takes shape as WALL·E stows away on a rocket that lands on a gigantic spaceship inhabited by humans. We learn that Earth has been abandoned for 700 years and that the low-gravity atmosphere inside has turned the human race into fat and lazy beings who ride around in vehicles resembling large shopping carts, avoid any human contact, and stare blankly at their monitors spoon-feeding sugar-coated information everyday.

The ship’s captain (Jeff Garlin) is not even properly manning his ship because everything is really being controlled by artificially intelligent machines. Everything changes, however, when the captain himself starts to relearn about this long-abandoned planet called Earth and WALL·E and EVE must aid him to revive the human race.

At this point, I realize I have grown so enchanted with the story and the visual invention that I forgot to mention this is supposed to be a family film, too. It is just that it is a family film made with the imagination of a true dreamer and the patience of a skilled storyteller.

What is most ennobling is the way Stanton and the animators refuse to cater to the ADD-styled mindset of children these days and really challenge and engage the young viewers with bigger and even starker ideas. Besides being a moving love story between robots, the movie presents a highly effective cautionary warning not only for children but also for adults on not letting the world reach the state where an apathetic consumerist culture has led everything to be turned into trash and the humans to become a slothful culture (although I guess the WALL·E tie-in toys will still sell big time).

While digital animation has now presently become so commercially ingrained that the other studios have produced more mediocre, less imaginative efforts, the original innovators of Pixar have continued to provide great family films that entertain children as well as encouraging adults to tapping into their own childhood selves.

Last year’s Ratatouille showed how curiosity can transcend the label of “an animated family film” and explore more mature themes. Now, by even following the great tradition of classical science fiction of creating fantastical worlds to comment on the human condition, WALL·E brings to the forefront what all the other previous Pixar movies have hinted at: that curiosity must remain an unalienable human trait because, without it, we will lose our ability to look beyond ourselves like WALL·E does.

Bottom line: What are you waiting for? Go see it!