Just as audiences expect that filmmakers typically make their Oscar submissions in the fall, summer audiences expect Hollywood’s fireworks display. This summer’s film releases promise to be stuffed with humor, coated in action, baked, and delivered from May to August. Rather than just having to swallow hard, health-conscious viewers will find that the film industry has been mindful of their moral diet. These five anticipated summer films, at least, appear to re-establish core cultural values and perceptively explore moral themes.

The newest magic of the Pixar wizards, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class) opens June 27. After 700 years of being responsible for the impossible task of cleaning up the trash that the departed humans have left on earth, the comically curious robot-hero WALL-E develops the astonishing ability of human emotion—first of loneliness and then of love.

According to an interview with www.hollywood.com, director Andrew Stanton said that among many sources for the idea, he remembers a comment that Tom Hanks made while he was working on Toy Story 2. Hanks, who was also filming Cast Away at the time, said that the greatest human fear is that of loneliness.

“We just loved the loneliness of that character,” Stanton said in an interview with the Badger Herald, “and the futility of a character that didn’t know it could just stop doing what it does, and would it ever eventually question its existence and why it’s doing what it’s doing, like a lot of people do in real life.”

The filmmakers chose to use non-verbal robots as the main characters in order to increase audience identification. Instead of characters telling the audience how they feel, the robots give subtle hints that then cue the audience to extract those emotions from themselves. And while we may be reminded of what loneliness feels like, we may learn afresh how to feel love as well. 

Though perhaps less philosophical, the new DreamWorks animated film Kung Fu Panda (opening this Friday, June 6th) will certainly be no less funny and also speaks to a core human experience. Set in ancient China, the film has Jack Black voicing a panda named Po who works at his family’s noodle shop until he gets the chance of realizing his secret dream of being a Kung Fu master.

Interviewed by www.emanuellevy.com, Kung Fu Panda co-director Mark Osborne said that early on he was trying to figure out not only why Po would have the dream of becoming a Kung Fu master but why he would keep it a secret. He soon discovered Po’s inner-conflict: “He’d rather keep his kung fu dreams as a safe haven to escape to, than risk the ‘Cosmic Shame’ of trying to realize it and fail. If you go out on a limb, you can fall (especially if you are a fat panda) and Po doesn’t believe in himself enough to think he can make his dream come true. His accidental hero’s journey, however, ultimately takes him to a place where he must try with all his heart.”  

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