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The Happening may be only two weeks out of the boxoffice, but if it were to be reimagined in animated form, recast with primarily robotic characters, and retold in a family friendly G-rated fashion, Disney/Pixar's WALL-E could very well be The Happening II: Recolonization.

Due to our consumer-driven anti-ecological lives, Earth has been made uninhabitable. As we see when WALL-E opens in the year 2700, the earth is completely covered with trash. There are no people. There are no plants. And the only forms of "life" for miles around are a tiny robot and his loyal cockroach friend. The landscape is littered with reminders of the global Buy-n-Large corporation that came to rule the planet, a super-corporation feeding the insatiable human appetite for consumption, ease, and waste. We learn about the evacuation of the human population, since earth became uninhabitable some 700 years before. Corporation space stations, by contrast, offered vacationers hover chairs and the best in virtual-reality media screens.

For WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), life consists of compacting trash, collecting select treasures from among the rubble, and going home to watch old musicals on his junkyard TV. Although he diligently goes about his work every day, his wide eyes and friendly personality are constantly searching for something more. But, thankfully, "after 800 years of doing what he was built for," says the movie's tagline, "he'll discover what he was meant for."

One day, while WALL-E goes about his regular tasks, a mysterious ship delivers a small white robot he later comes to know as EVE. As soon as WELL-E sees her, his desire for connection and companionship comes to life more than ever before. Even though EVE is distracted from her mission by nothing, WALL-E continues to try to get her attention with everything he's got. Eventually, he succeeds. But just as soon as he does, his gift of the only plant life on earth essentially sends EVE into a coma. Before he knows it, the ship returns to take EVE back to wherever she is from. And so, WALL-E does what any smitten man would and follows.

Sure, the earth may be a mess. But on EVE's mother ship, life is not exactly full of anything that would make me want to keep on living. Enter EVE and her plant. Much like the dove that carries an olive branch back to Noah after the great flood, EVE and her plant are the sign the ship's crew has been waiting for. But unbeknownst to even the ship's captain, not everyone is on board with the program.

What the mutineers didn't count on, however, was WALL-E. When the plant goes missing, he finds it. When EVE is deemed defective, he rescues her. When he bumps into several of the ship's occupants and knocks them out of their normalcy, they too become aware of how much value exists outside the zombie lives they are living. "We can't just sit here and do nothing," says the Captain when he realizes the tiny plant's promise. "I don't want to survive; I want to live."

And so, together, WALL-E, EVE, and the Captain fight to make that happen. Each time one of them steps up to help another, it is as if something which has been long dead is brought to life. And in much the same way that The Happening paired the call for a healthy relationship with our earth with the need for genuine relationships with each other, at the end of WALL-E, the message is also very much that all life truly does depend upon harmonious relationships for both its survival and its value.

In the end, I don't know if I can say that WALL-E quite lives up to the much beloved Ratatouille and Cars that came before it. Visually and thematically, its world is entirely different. With barely any dialogue, few human characters, and a futuristic setting, it feels even more outside of recognizable human experience than Cars. But in its own unique way, WALL-E and his journey become just as relatable as that of Nemo, Lightning McQueen, and Remy the rat.

In this day and age of global warming and heightened environmental concern, WALL-E's story of a planet overrun by consumer waste is one that is relevant. I must say, for a kid's movie, it is a bit heavy. If they weren't animated, many of the movie's scenes would be outright scary. But just as its characters move away from hopelessness towards change, the movie pushes us to do the same.

Just as a significant is the simple yet poignant romance between WALL-E and EVE. They may be robots, but the agony and joy in their pursuit of love couldn't be any less real. WALL-E shows us how much it means to have someone in your life and what it looks like to truly care. EVE reminds all of us who have a tendency to become too focused on our own individual pursuits how much we may be missing. And when they finally get past both their own roadblocks and life's challenges, even their simple robot connection is enough to make you want to fall in love today.

In many ways, WALL-E reminds me not only of the story of Noah's flood, but also of Adam and Eve. In both, the story begins with one "man." It continues with the arrival of a "woman" called Eve. Where the story of Adam and Eve is about a fall from paradise, WALL-E and EVE's story begins after "paradise" has completely crumbled to pieces.

But what we often forget about the story of Adam and Eve is that it exists as a part of a greater tale. It is the story about the loss of perfection and the descent into a world of hardship. But the tale of which it is a part is one that tells us that imperfection need not define us or our lives. By sacrificing his life to restore our broken relationships with Him, our world, and each other, Jesus proved that even in our flawed world, life can conquer death.

And WALL-E also sacrifices his life for those around him, and through love, returns to show us the same.

Sure, our world may not be any Garden of Eden. But as WALL-E reveals, it is still a place that can be filled with the hope of love, life, and connection.