In almost a year of recording Beyond The Box Set, it occured to us this week that we've never actually covered a fully animated movie. So in the spirit of the new year, we decided to correct this oversight and turn our imaginations towards one of the most beloved animated features of the past decade, Pixar's WALL-E. 

Written and directed by Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, WALL-E was one of Pixar Studios riskiest and most ambitious releases. Set in the wasted remnants of a long-abandoned Planet Earth, the movie follows a largely non-verbal trash compactor robot who dreams of experiencing true love - or at least the version of it depicted in his worn-out VHS of the 1969 musical Hello Dolly. 

From its virtually dialogue-free first half to the depiction of a future in which humans have quite literally become oversized babies, WALL-E challenges its audience considerably more than the average children's movie. It was a gamble that paid off when the movie became a highly acclaimed global blockbuster, taking in over $200 million at the US Box Office and picking up the 2008 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. 

Despite all this success, to date WALL-E has never been recomissioned for a sequel. Join us as we attempt to recitify this with a haunting end-of-humanity origin story and a romantic sequel that finds WALL-E and EVE's teenage child experiencing the first pangs of robot love during the Earth cleanup process. 

Along the way we also discuss whether WALL-E should really be considered a children's movie, question the necessity of sentient parasols in the future and learn the hard way that 'cockroach life span' is a difficult phrase to say...

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Every week on Beyond The Box Set, we watch a classic standalone movie and compete to pitch the most ridiculous sequel, prequel or spin-off ideas to bring them back to the big screen. We were recently featured by Apple iTunes as a 'Binge-Worthy Podcast', which was a very validating start to 2018.  

If you like the show, please hit subscribe on your preferred podcasting platform to hear a new episode every Friday. Beyond The Box Set is available for free download and streaming on iTunes, Stitcher, aCast, Podbean, Pocket Casts, Youtube, Google Play and most other popular podcasting platforms.

If your new year's resolution was to review more podcasts, why not start with us? It makes us feel nice and it's the best way to help us find new listeners, so please consider throwing us some stars on iTunes, Stitcher and any other podcatcher that allows it. 

If you have a suggestion for a film you'd like to hear us cover - or a sequel idea of your own that you'd like us to shout out on air, you can contact us via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Tumblr - or by leaving a comment under any blog post on our official website. 

00.00: Intro - EVE shoots first, asks questions later...

20.55: WALL-E Drinking Games

26.00: WALL-E: A Garbage Movie

37.25: WALL-E 2.0

48.25: Listener Submissions & Episode 47 Preview