title: Biology

text: The end of gastrulation signals the beginning of organogenesis, whereby the three germ layers form the internal organs of the organism. The cells of each of the three germ layers undergo differentiation, a process where less-specialized cells become more-specialized through the expression of a specific set of genes. Cellular differentiation is influenced by extracellular signals such as growth factors that are exchanged to adjacent cells, which is called juxtracrine signaling, or to neighboring cells over short distances, which is called paracrine signaling. Intracellular signals consist of a cell signaling itself (autocrine signaling), also play a role in organ formation. These signaling pathways allows for cell rearrangement and ensures that organs form at specific sites within the organism.


title: Biology

text: The immune system is a network of biological processes that detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens. Many species have two major subsystems of the immune system. The innate immune system provides a preconfigured response to broad groups of situations and stimuli. The adaptive immune system provides a tailored response to each stimulus by learning to recognize molecules it has previously encountered. Both use molecules and cells to perform their functions.


title: Biology

text: Nearly all organisms have some kind of immune system. Bacteria have a rudimentary immune system in the form of enzymes that protect against virus infections. Other basic immune mechanisms evolved in ancient plants and animals and remain in their modern descendants. These mechanisms include phagocytosis, antimicrobial peptides called defensins, and the complement system. Jawed vertebrates, including humans, have even more sophisticated defense mechanisms, including the ability to adapt to recognize pathogens more efficiently. Adaptive (or acquired) immunity creates an immunological memory leading to an enhanced response to subsequent encounters with that same pathogen. This process of acquired immunity is the basis of vaccination.


title: Biology

text: Behaviors play a central a role in animals' interaction with each other and with their environment. They are able to use their muscles to approach one another, vocalize, seek shelter, and migrate. An animal's nervous system activates and coordinates its behaviors. Fixed action patterns, for instance, are genetically determined and stereotyped behaviors that occur without learning. These behaviors are under the control of the nervous system and can be quite elaborate. Examples include the pecking of kelp gull chicks at the red dot on their mother's beak. Other behaviors that have emerged as a result of natural selection include foraging, mating, and altruism. In addition to evolved behavior, animals have evolved the ability to learn by modifying their behaviors as a result of early individual experiences.


title: Biology

text: Ecology is the study of the distribution and abundance of life, the interaction between organisms and their environment.


title: Biology

text: The community of living (biotic) organisms in conjunction with the nonliving (abiotic) components (e.g., water, light, radiation, temperature, humidity, atmosphere, acidity, and soil) of their environment is called an ecosystem. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy from the sun enters the system through photosynthesis and is incorporated into plant tissue. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. By breaking down dead organic matter, decomposers release carbon back to the atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form that can be readily used by plants and other microbes.


title: Biology

text: The Earth's physical environment is shaped by solar energy and topography. The amount of solar energy input varies in space and time due to the spherical shape of the Earth and its axial tilt. Variation in solar energy input drives weather and climate patterns. Weather is the day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the long-term average of weather, typically averaged over a period of 30 years. Variation in topography also produces environmental heterogeneity. On the windward side of a mountain, for example, air rises and cools, with water changing from gaseous to liquid or solid form, resulting in precipitation such as rain or snow. As a result, wet environments allow for lush vegetation to grow. In contrast, conditions tend to be dry on the leeward side of a mountain due to the lack of precipitation as air descends and warms, and moisture remains as water vapor in the atmosphere. Temperature and precipitation are the main factors that shape terrestrial biomes.


title: Biology

text: A population is the number of organisms of the same species that occupy an area and reproduce from generation to generation. Its abundance can be measured using population density, which is the number of individuals per unit area (e.g., land or tree) or volume (e.g., sea or air). Given that it is usually impractical to count every individual within a large population to determine its size, population size can be estimated by multiplying population density by the area or volume. Population growth during short-term intervals can be determined using the population growth rate equation, which takes into consideration birth, death, and immigration rates. In the longer term, the exponential growth of a population tends to slow down as it reaches its carrying capacity, which can be modeled using the logistic equation. The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources that are available. The carrying capacity of a population can be affected by changing environmental conditions such as changes in the availability resources and the cost of maintaining them. In human populations, new technologies such as the Green revolution have helped increase the Earth's carrying capacity for humans over time, which has stymied the attempted predictions of impending population decline, the famous of which was by Thomas Malthus in the 18th century.


title: Biology

text: A community is a group of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time. A biological interaction is the effect that a pair of organisms living together in a community have on each other. They can be either of the same species (intraspecific interactions), or of different species (interspecific interactions). These effects may be short-term, like pollination and predation, or long-term; both often strongly influence the evolution of the species involved. A long-term interaction is called a symbiosis. Symbioses range from mutualism, beneficial to both partners, to competition, harmful to both partners.


title: Biology

text: Every species participates as a consumer, resource, or both in consumer–resource interactions, which form the core of food chains or food webs. There are different trophic levels within any food web, with the lowest level being the primary producers (or autotrophs) such as plants and algae that convert energy and inorganic material into organic compounds, which can then be used by the rest of the community. At the next level are the heterotrophs, which are the species that obtain energy by breaking apart organic compounds from other organisms. Heterotrophs that consume plants are primary consumers (or herbivores) whereas heterotrophs that consume herbivores are secondary consumers (or carnivores). And those that eat secondary consumers are tertiary consumers and so on. Omnivorous heterotrophs are able to consume at multiple levels. Finally, there are decomposers that feed on the waste products or dead bodies of organisms.


title: Biology

text: On average, the total amount of energy incorporated into the biomass of a trophic level per unit of time is about one-tenth of the energy of the trophic level that it consumes. Waste and dead material used by decomposers as well as heat lost from metabolism make up the other ninety percent of energy that is not consumed by the next trophic level.


title: Biology

text: In the global ecosystem (or biosphere), matter exist as different interacting compartments, which can be biotic or abiotic as well as accessible or inaccessible, depending on their forms and locations. For example, matter from terrestrial autotrophs are both biotic and accessible to other organisms whereas the matter in rocks and minerals are abiotic and inaccessible. A biogeochemical cycle is a pathway by which specific elements of matter are turned over or moved through the biotic (biosphere) and the abiotic (lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere) compartments of Earth. There are biogeochemical cycles for nitrogen, carbon, and water. In some cycles there are "reservoirs" where a substance remains or is for a long period of time.


title: Biology

text: Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale. The largest driver of warming is the emission of greenhouse gases, of which more than 90% are carbon dioxide and methane. Fossil fuel burning (coal, oil, and natural gas) for energy consumption is the main source of these emissions, with additional contributions from agriculture, deforestation, and manufacturing. Temperature rise is accelerated or tempered by climate feedbacks, such as loss of sunlight-reflecting snow and ice cover, increased water vapor (a greenhouse gas itself), and changes to land and ocean carbon sinks.


title: Biology

text: Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is concerned with factors that influence the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biodiversity and the science of sustaining evolutionary processes that engender genetic, population, species, and ecosystem diversity. The concern stems from estimates suggesting that up to 50% of all species on the planet will disappear within the next 50 years, which has contributed to poverty, starvation, and will reset the course of evolution on this planet. Biodiversity affects the functioning of ecosystems, which provide a variety of services upon which people depend.


title: Biology

text: Conservation biologists research and educate on the trends of biodiversity loss, species extinctions, and the negative effect these are having on our capabilities to sustain the well-being of human society. Organizations and citizens are responding to the current biodiversity crisis through conservation action plans that direct research, monitoring, and education programs that engage concerns at local through global scales.


title: WALL-E

text: WALL-E (stylized with an interpunct as WALL·E) is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton, produced by Jim Morris, and co-written by Jim Reardon. It stars the voices of Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, with Sigourney Weaver and Fred Willard. The overall ninth feature film produced by the studio, "WALL-E" follows a solitary robot on a future, uninhabitable, deserted Earth in 2805, left to clean up garbage. He is visited by a probe sent by the starship "Axiom", a robot called EVE, with whom he falls in love and pursues across the galaxy.


title: WALL-E

text: After directing "Finding Nemo", Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to direct a film set largely in space. "WALL-E" has minimal dialogue in its early sequences; many of the characters do not have voices, but instead communicate with body language and robotic sounds designed by Burtt. The film incorporates various topics including consumerism, corporatocracy, nostalgia, waste management, human environmental impact and concerns, obesity/sedentary lifestyles, and global catastrophic risk. It is also Pixar's first animated film with segments featuring live-action characters. Thomas Newman composed the film's musical score. The film cost $180 million to produce, a record-breaking sum for an animated film at the time. Following Pixar tradition, "WALL-E" was paired with a short film titled "Presto" for its theatrical release.


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" was released in the United States on June 27, 2008. The film received critical acclaim for its animation, story, voice acting, characters, visuals, score, use of minimal dialogue, and scenes of romance. It was also commercially successful, grossing $521.3 million worldwide and becoming the ninth-highest grossing film of 2008. It won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Long Form Dramatic Presentation, the final Nebula Award for Best Script, the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature with five additional Oscar nominations. It is considered by many critics as the best film of 2008, and to be among the greatest animated films ever made. The film topped "Time"'s list of the "Best Movies of the Decade", and in 2016 was voted 29th among 100 films considered the best of the 21st century by 117 film critics from around the world.


title: WALL-E

text: In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: WALL-E

text: In the 22nd century, rampant consumerism, corporate greed, and environmental neglect had turned Earth into a garbage-strewn wasteland, and the megacorporation Buy n Large (BnL) had evacuated humanity to space on giant starliners, leaving trash compacting robots to clean up the planet. Seven hundred years later, in 2805, the cleanup has failed and the last remaining active robot, named Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class (WALL·E) has developed a personality. WALL·E is able to remain active by salvaging parts from other inactive robots and lives in a large truck designed to carry the robots. One day, WALL·E's routine of compressing trash and collecting interesting objects is broken by the arrival of an unmanned probe carrying an egg-shaped robot named "Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator" (EVE) who is sent to scan the planet for signs of sustainable life. WALL·E is smitten by the sleek, otherworldly robot, and the two begin to connect, until EVE goes into standby mode when WALL·E shows her his most recent find: a living seedling. The probe ship eventually returns and collects EVE and the plant, with WALL·E clinging on. The probe ship then returns to its mothership, the starliner "Axiom".


title: WALL-E

text: In the centuries since the "Axiom" left Earth, its passengers have degenerated into helpless obesity due to microgravity and laziness, with robots catering to their every whim. Even the Captain B. McCrea is used to sitting back while his robotic AI autopilot helm, nicknamed AUTO, pilots the ship. McCrea is unprepared to receive the positive probe response, but discovers that placing the plant in the ship's Holo-Detector will trigger a hyperjump back to Earth so that humanity can begin recolonization. When McCrea inspects EVE's storage compartment, the plant is missing, with EVE blaming WALL·E for its disappearance.


title: WALL-E

text: EVE is deemed faulty and taken to diagnostics. Mistaking the process for torture, WALL·E intervenes and inadvertently releases all the other faulty bots, causing him and EVE to be designated as rogues. Frustrated, EVE tries to send WALL·E home in an escape pod, but before she can, the two witness AUTO's henchman GO-4 stowing the plant in a pod set to self-destruct, revealing that WALL·E did not steal the plant. WALL·E attempts to retrieve it, but is launched into space. EVE uses an emergency exit to chase after WALL·E, and witnesses the pod explode, although both he and the plant survive unscathed. He and EVE reconcile, celebrating with a dance in space around the "Axiom".


title: WALL-E

text: EVE brings the plant back to McCrea, who watches her recordings of Earth, concluding that they can and must save it. However, AUTO reveals that it has been programmed with the secret no-return directive A113 issued after BnL CEO Shelby Forthright inaccurately declared that Earth could not be saved; AUTO had ordered GO-4 to dispose of the plant. When McCrea countermands the directive, AUTO and GO-4 mutiny, electrocuting WALL·E, forcefully putting EVE into standby, throwing them both down a garbage chute, and locking McCrea in his quarters. EVE (having been reactivated by a mouse-like robot) and WALL·E are nearly ejected into space with the ship's refuse, but "Microbe Obliterator" (M-O), a cleaning robot who had been following WALL·E's dirt trail across the ship, saves the two when he gets stuck when the gate closes, alerting the WALL·A garbage bots and prompting them to abort the ejection. As humans and robots help in securing the plant, McCrea and AUTO fight for control of the "Axiom". AUTO crushes WALL·E using the Holo-Detector in a last-ditch attempt to keep the human passengers in space; McCrea eventually overpowers and deactivates AUTO by switching it to manual mode, and EVE successfully inserts the plant, initiating the hyperjump.


title: WALL-E

text: Arriving back on Earth, EVE repairs WALL·E, but finds that his memory and personality have been erased. Heartbroken, EVE gives WALL·E a goodbye "kiss", which restores him to his normal self. WALL-E and EVE reunite as the inhabitants of the "Axiom" take their first steps on Earth. Humans and robots turn the ravaged planet into a paradise, and the plant grows into a mighty tree, which EVE and WALL·E rest beneath.


title: WALL-E

text: Andrew Stanton conceived "WALL-E" during a lunch with fellow writers John Lasseter, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft in 1994. "Toy Story" was near completion and the writers brainstormed ideas for their next projects — "A Bug's Life", "Monsters, Inc.", and "Finding Nemo"—at this lunch. Stanton asked, "What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn off the last robot?" Having struggled for many years with making the characters in "Toy Story" appealing, Stanton found his simple "Robinson Crusoe"-esque idea of a lonely robot on a deserted planet strong. Stanton made WALL·E a waste collector as the idea was instantly understandable, and because it was a low-status menial job that made him sympathetic. Stanton also liked the imagery of stacked cubes of garbage. He did not find the idea dark because having a planet covered in garbage was for him a childish imagining of disaster.


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton and Docter developed the film under the title of "Trash Planet" for two months in 1995, but they did not know how to develop the story and Docter chose to direct "Monsters, Inc." instead. Stanton came up with the idea of WALL-E finding a plant, because his life as the sole inhabitant on a deserted world reminded Stanton of a plant growing among pavements. Before they turned their attention to other projects, Stanton and Lasseter thought about having WALL-E fall in love, as it was the necessary progression away from loneliness. Stanton started writing "WALL-E" again in 2002 while completing "Finding Nemo". Stanton formatted his script in a manner reminiscent of Dan O'Bannon's "Alien". O'Bannon wrote his script in a manner Stanton found reminded him of "haiku", where visual descriptions were done in continuous lines of a few words. Stanton wrote his robot "dialogue" conventionally, but placed them in brackets. In late 2003, Stanton and a few others created a story reel of the first twenty minutes of the film. Lasseter and Steve Jobs were impressed and officially began development, though Jobs stated he did not like the title, originally spelled ""W.A.L.-E.""


title: WALL-E

text: While the first act of "WALL-E" "fell out of the sky" for Stanton, he had originally wanted aliens to plant EVE to explore Earth and the rest of the film was different. When WALL-E comes to the "Axiom", he incites a "Spartacus"-style rebellion by the robots against the remnants of the human race, which were cruel alien Gels (completely devolved, gelatinous, boneless, legless, see-through, green creatures that resemble Jell-O). James Hicks, a physiologist, mentioned to Stanton the concept of atrophy and the effects prolonged weightlessness would have on humans living in space for an inordinately extended time period. Therefore, this was the inspiration of the humans degenerating into the alien Gels, and their ancestry would have been revealed in a "Planet of the Apes"-style ending. The Gels also spoke a made-up gibberish language, but Stanton scrapped this idea because he thought it would be too complicated for the audience to understand and they could easily be driven off from the storyline. The Gels had a royal family, who host a dance in a castle on a lake in the back of the ship, and the "Axiom" curled up into a ball when returning to Earth in this incarnation of the story. Stanton decided this was too bizarre and unengaging, and conceived humanity as "big babies". Stanton developed the metaphorical theme of the humans learning to stand again and "grow[ing] up", wanting WALL-E and EVE's relationship to inspire humanity because he felt few films explore how utopian societies come to exist. The process of depicting the descendants of humanity as the way they appear in the movie was slow. Stanton first decided to put a nose and ears on the Gels so the audience could recognize them. Eventually, fingers, legs, clothes, and other characteristics were added until they arrived at the concept of being fetus-like to allow the audience to see themselves in the characters.


title: WALL-E

text: In a later version of the film, AUTO comes to the docking bay to retrieve EVE's plant. The film would have its first cutaway to the captain, but Stanton moved that as he found it too early to begin moving away from WALL·E's point-of-view. As an homage to "Get Smart", AUTO takes the plant and goes into the bowels of the ship into a room resembling a brain where he watches videos of Buy n Large's scheme to clean up the Earth falling apart through the years. Stanton removed this to keep some mystery as to why the plant is taken from EVE. The captain appears to be unintelligent, but Stanton wanted him to just be unchallenged; otherwise he would have not been sympathetic. One example of how unintelligent the captain was depicted initially is that he was seen to wear his hat upside-down, only to fix it before he challenges AUTO. In the finished film, he merely wears it casually atop his head, tightening it when he really takes command of the "Axiom".


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton also moved the moment where WALL-E reveals his plant (which he had snatched from the self-destructing escape pod) from producing it from a closet to immediately after his escape, as it made EVE happier and gave them stronger motivation to dance around the ship. Originally, EVE would have been electrocuted by AUTO, and then be quickly saved from ejection at the hands of the "Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Axiom-class" (WALL·A) robots, by WALL-E. He would have then revived her by replacing her power unit with a cigarette lighter he brought from Earth. Stanton reversed this following a 2007 test screening, as he wanted to show EVE replacing her directive of bringing the plant to the captain with repairing WALL-E, and it made WALL-E even more heroic if he held the holo-detector open despite being badly hurt. Stanton felt half the audience at the screening believed the humans would be unable to cope with living on Earth and would have died out after the film's end. Jim Capobianco, director of the "Ratatouille" short film "Your Friend the Rat", created an end credits animation that continued the story—and stylized in different artistic movements throughout history—to clarify an optimistic tone.


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" was the most complex Pixar production since "Monsters, Inc." because of the world and the history that had to be conveyed. Whereas most Pixar films have up to 75,000 storyboards, "WALL-E" required 125,000. Production designer Ralph Eggleston wanted the lighting of the first act on Earth to be romantic, and that of the second act on the "Axiom" to be cold and sterile. During the third act, the romantic lighting is slowly introduced into the "Axiom" environment. Pixar studied Chernobyl and the city of Sofia to create the ruined world; art director Anthony Christov was from Bulgaria and recalled Sofia used to have problems storing its garbage. Eggleston bleached out the whites on Earth to make WALL-E feel vulnerable. The overexposed light makes the location look more vast. Because of the haziness, the cubes making up the towers of garbage had to be large, otherwise they would have lost shape (in turn, this helped save rendering time). The dull tans of Earth subtly become soft pinks and blues when EVE arrives. When WALL-E shows EVE all his collected items, all the lights he has collected light up to give an inviting atmosphere, like a Christmas tree. Eggleston tried to avoid the colors yellow and green so WALL-E—who was made yellow to emulate a tractor—would not blend into the deserted Earth, and to make the plant more prominent.


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton also wanted the lighting to look realistic and evoke the science fiction films of his youth. He thought that Pixar captured the physics of being underwater with "Finding Nemo" and so for "WALL·E", he wanted to push that for air. While rewatching some of his favorite science fiction films, he realized that Pixar's other movies had lacked the look of 70 mm film and its barrel distortion, lens flare, and racking focus. Producer Jim Morris invited Roger Deakins and Dennis Muren to advise on lighting and atmosphere. Muren spent several months with Pixar, while Deakins hosted one talk and was requested to stay on for another two weeks. Stanton said Muren's experience came from integrating computer animation into live-action settings, while Deakins helped them understand not to overly complicate their camerawork and lighting. 1970s Panavision cameras were used to help the animators understand and replicate handheld imperfections like unfocused backgrounds in digital environments. The first lighting test included building a three-dimensional replica of WALL-E, filming it with a 70 mm camera, and then trying to replicate that in the computer. Stanton cited the shallow lens work of Gus Van Sant's films as an influence, as it created intimacy in each close-up. Stanton chose angles for the virtual cameras that a live-action filmmaker would choose if filming on a set.


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton wanted the "Axiom"s interior to resemble Shanghai and Dubai. Eggleston studied 1960s NASA paintings and the original concept art for Tomorrowland for the "Axiom", to reflect that era's sense of optimism. Stanton remarked "We are all probably very similar in our backgrounds here [at Pixar] in that we all miss the Tomorrowland that was promised us from the heyday of Disneyland," and wanted a "jet pack" feel. Pixar also studied the Disney Cruise Line and visited Las Vegas, which was helpful in understanding artificial lighting. Eggleston based his "Axiom" designs on the futuristic architecture of Santiago Calatrava. Eggleston divided the inside of the ship into three sections; the rear's economy class has a basic gray concrete texture with graphics keeping to the red, blue, and white of the BnL logo. The coach class with living/shopping spaces has "S" shapes as people are always looking for "what's around the corner". Stanton intended to have many colorful signs, but he realized this would overwhelm the audience and went with Eggleston's original idea of a small number of larger signs. The premier class is a large Zen-like spa with colors limited to turquoise, cream, and tan, and leads on to the captain's warm carpeted and wooded quarters and the sleek dark bridge. In keeping with the artificial "Axiom", camera movements were modeled after those of the steadicam.


title: WALL-E

text: The use of live action was a stepping stone for Pixar, as Stanton was planning to make "John Carter of Mars" his next project. Storyboarder Derek Thompson noted introducing live action meant that they would make the rest of the film look even more realistic. Eggleston added that if the historical humans had been animated and slightly caricaturized, the audience then would not have been able to recognize how serious their devolution was. Stanton cast Fred Willard as the historical Buy n Large CEO because "[h]e's the most friendly and insincere car salesman I could think of." The CEO says "stay the course", which Stanton used because he thought it was funny. Industrial Light & Magic did the visual effects for these shots.


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL·E" went undeveloped during the 1990s partly because Stanton and Pixar were not confident enough yet to have a feature-length film with a main character that behaved like Luxo Jr., the Pixar lamp or R2-D2. Stanton explained there are two types of robots in cinema: "human[s] with metal skin", like the Tin Man, or "machine[s] with function" like Luxo and R2. He found the latter idea "powerful" because it allowed the audience to project personalities onto the characters, as they do with babies and pets: "You're compelled ... you almost can't stop yourself from finishing the sentence 'Oh, I think it likes me! I think it's hungry! I think it wants to go for a walk!'" He added, "We wanted the audience to believe they were witnessing a machine that has come to life." The animators visited recycling stations to study machinery, and also met robot designers, visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to study robots, watched a recording of a Mars rover, and borrowed a bomb detecting robot from the San Francisco Police Department. Simplicity was preferred in their performances as giving them too many movements would make them feel human.


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton wanted WALL·E to be a box and EVE to be like an egg. WALL·E's eyes were inspired by a pair of binoculars Stanton was given when watching the Oakland Athletics play against the Boston Red Sox. He "missed the entire inning" because he was distracted by them. The director was reminded of Buster Keaton and decided the robot would not need a nose or mouth. Stanton added a zoom lens to make WALL-E more sympathetic. Ralph Eggleston noted this feature gave the animators more to work with and gave the robot a childlike quality. Pixar's studies of trash compactors during their visits to recycling stations inspired his body. His tank treads were inspired by a wheelchair someone had developed that used treads instead of wheels. The animators wanted him to have elbows, but realized this was unrealistic because he is only designed to pull garbage into his body. His arms also looked flimsy when they did a test of him waving. Animation director Angus MacLane suggested they attach his arms to a track on the sides of his body to move them around, based on the inkjet printers his father designed. This arm design contributed to creating the character's posture, so if they wanted him to be nervous, they would lower them. Stanton was unaware of the similarities between WALL-E and Johnny 5 from "Short Circuit" until others pointed it out to him.


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton wanted EVE to be at the higher end of technology, and asked iPod designer Jonathan Ive to inspect her design. He was very impressed. Her eyes are modelled on Lite-Brite toys, but Pixar chose not to make them overly expressive as it would be too easy to have her eyes turn into hearts to express love or something similar. Her limited design meant the animators had to treat her like a drawing, relying on posing her body to express emotion. They also found her similar to a manatee or a narwhal because her floating body resembled an underwater creature. Auto was a conscious homage to HAL 9000 from "", and the usage of "Also sprach Zarathustra" for the showdown between Captain McCrea and Auto furthers that. The manner in which he hangs from a wall or ceiling gives him a threatening feel, like a spider. Originally, Auto was designed entirely differently, resembling EVE, but masculine and authoritative and SECUR-T was also a more aggressive patrol steward robot. The majority of the robot cast were formed with the Build-a-bot program, where different heads, arms and treads were combined in over a hundred variations. The humans were modelled on sea lions due to their blubbery bodies, as well as babies. The filmmakers noticed baby fat is a lot tighter than adult fat and copied that texture for the film's humans.


title: WALL-E

text: To animate their robots, the film's story crew and animation crew watched a Keaton and a Charlie Chaplin film every day for almost a year, and occasionally a Harold Lloyd picture. Afterwards, the filmmakers knew all emotions could be conveyed silently. Stanton cited Keaton's "great stone face" as giving them perseverance in animating a character with an unchanging expression. As he rewatched these, Stanton felt that filmmakers—since the advent of sound—relied on dialogue too much to convey exposition. The filmmakers dubbed the cockroach WALL-E keeps as a pet "Hal", in reference to silent film producer Hal Roach (as well as being an additional reference to HAL 9000). They also watched "2001: A Space Odyssey", "The Black Stallion" and "Never Cry Wolf", films that had sound but were not reliant on dialogue. Stanton acknowledged "Silent Running" as an influence because its silent robots were a forerunner to the likes of R2-D2, and that the "hopeless romantic" Woody Allen also inspired WALL-E.


title: WALL-E

text: Producer Jim Morris recommended Ben Burtt as sound designer for "WALL-E" because Stanton kept using R2-D2 as the benchmark for the robots. Burtt had completed "" and told his wife he would no longer work on films with robots, but found "WALL-E" and its substitution of voices with sound "fresh and exciting". He recorded 2,500 sounds for the film, which was twice the average number for a "Star Wars" film, and a record in his career. Burtt began work in 2005, and experimented with filtering his voice for two years. Burtt described the robot voices as "like a toddler ... universal language of intonation. 'Oh', 'Hm?', 'Huh!', you know?"


title: WALL-E

text: During production Burtt had the opportunity to look at the items used by Jimmy MacDonald, Disney's in-house sound designer for many of their classic films. Burtt used many of MacDonald's items on "WALL-E". Because Burtt was not simply adding sound effects in post-production, the animators were always evaluating his new creations and ideas, which Burtt found an unusual experience. He worked in sync with the animators, returning their animation after adding the sounds to give them more ideas. Burtt would choose scientifically accurate sounds for each character, but if he could not find one that worked, he would choose a dramatic and unrealistic noise. Burtt would find hundreds of sounds by looking at concept art of characters, before he and Stanton pared it down to a distinct few for each robot.


title: WALL-E

text: Burtt saw a hand-cranked electrical generator while watching "Island in the Sky", and bought an identical, unpacked device from 1950 on eBay to use for WALL·E moving around. Burtt also used an automobile self-starter for when WALL·E goes fast, and the sound of cars being wrecked at a demolition derby provided for WALL·E's compressing trash in his body. The Macintosh computer chime was used to signify when WALL-E has fully recharged his battery. For EVE, Burtt wanted her humming to have a musical quality. Burtt was only able to provide neutral or masculine voices, so Pixar employee Elissa Knight was asked to provide her voice for Burtt to electronically modify. Stanton deemed the sound effect good enough to properly cast her in the role. Burtt recorded a flying radio-controlled jet plane for EVE's flying, and for her plasma cannon, Burtt hit a slinky hung from a ladder with a timpani stick. He described it as a "cousin" to the blaster noise from "Star Wars".


title: WALL-E

text: MacInTalk was used because Stanton "wanted Auto to be the epitome of a robot, cold, zeros & ones, calculating, and soulless [and] Stephen Hawking's kind of voice I thought was perfect." Additional sounds for the character were meant to give him a clockwork feel, to show he is always thinking and calculating.


title: WALL-E

text: Burtt had visited Niagara Falls in 1987 and used his recordings from his trip for the sounds of wind, and ran around a hall with a canvas bag up to record the sandstorm. For the scene where WALL-E flees from falling shopping carts, Burtt and his daughter went to a supermarket and placed a recorder in their cart. They crashed it around the parking lot and then let it tumble down a hill. To create Hal (WALL-E's pet cockroach)'s skittering, he recorded the clicking caused by taking apart and reassembling handcuffs.


title: WALL-E

text: Thomas Newman recollaborated with Stanton on "WALL-E" since the two got along well on "Finding Nemo", which gave Newman the Annie Award for Best Music in an Animated Feature. He began writing the score in 2005, in the hope that starting this task early would make him more involved with the finished film. But, Newman remarked that animation is so dependent on scheduling he should have begun work earlier on when Stanton and Reardon were writing the script. EVE's theme was arranged for the first time in October 2007. Her theme when played as she first flies around Earth originally used more orchestral elements, and Newman was encouraged to make it sound more feminine. Newman said Stanton had thought up many ideas for how he wanted the music to sound, and he generally followed them as he found scoring a partially silent film difficult. Stanton wanted the whole score to be orchestral, but Newman felt limited by this idea especially in scenes aboard the "Axiom", and used electronics too.


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton originally wanted to juxtapose the opening shots of space with 1930s French swing music, but changed his mind after seeing "The Triplets of Belleville" (2003), not wanting to appear as if he were copying it. Stanton then thought about the song "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from "Hello, Dolly!", since he had portrayed the sidekick Barnaby Tucker in a 1980 high school production. Stanton found that the song was about two naive young men looking for love, which was similar to WALL-E's own hope for companionship. Jim Reardon, storyboard supervisor for the film, suggested WALL-E find the film on video, and Stanton included "It Only Takes a Moment" and the clip of the actors holding hands, because he wanted a visual way to show how WALL-E understands love and conveys it to EVE. "Hello, Dolly!" composer Jerry Herman allowed the songs to be used without knowing what for; when he saw the film, he found its incorporation into the story "genius". Coincidentally, Newman's uncle Lionel worked on "Hello, Dolly!"


title: WALL-E

text: Newman travelled to London to compose the end credits song "Down to Earth" with Peter Gabriel, who was one of Stanton's favorite musicians. Afterwards, Newman rescored some of the film to include the song's composition, so it would not sound intrusive when played. Louis Armstrong's rendition of "La Vie en rose" was used for a montage where WALL-E attempts to impress EVE on Earth. The script also specified using Bing Crosby's "Stardust" for when the two robots dance around the "Axiom", but Newman asked if he could score the scene himself. A similar switch occurred for the sequence in which WALL-E attempts to wake EVE up through various means; originally, the montage would play with the instrumental version of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", but Newman wanted to challenge himself and scored an original piece for the sequence.


title: WALL-E

text: The film is recognized as social criticism. Katherine Ellison asserts that "Americans produce nearly 400 million tons of solid waste per year but recycle less than a third of it, according to a recent Columbia University study." Landfills were filling up very rapidly worldwide, and predictions were made that the UK could run out of landfill space by 2017.


title: WALL-E

text: In the DVD commentary, Stanton said that he has been asked if it was his intention to make a movie about consumerism. His answer was it was not; it was a way to answer the question of how would the Earth get to the state where one robot would be left to continue the cleanup by itself. Nevertheless, some critics have noted an incongruity between the perceived pro-environmental and anti-consumerist messaging of the film, and the environmental impacts in the production and merchandising of the film.


title: WALL-E

text: In "WALL-E: from environmental adaption to sentimental nostalgia," Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann explain the important theme of nostalgia in this film. Nostalgia is clearly represented by human artifacts, left behind, that WALL-E collects and cherishes, for example Zippo lighters, hubcaps, and plastic sporks. These modern items that are used out of necessity are made sentimental through the lens of the bleak future of Earth. Nostalgia is also expressed through the musical score, as the film opens with a camera shot of outer space that slowly zooms into a waste filled Earth while playing "Put on Your Sunday Clothes", reflecting on simpler and happier times in human history. This film also expresses nostalgia through the longing of nature and the natural world, as it is the sight and feeling of soil, and the plant brought back to the space ship by EVE, that make the captain decide it is time for humans to move back to Earth. WALL-E expresses nostalgia also, by reflecting on romantic themes of older Disney and silent films.


title: WALL-E

text: I realized the point I was trying to push with these two programmed robots was the desire for them to try and figure out what the point of living was ... It took these really irrational acts of love to sort of discover them against how they were built ... I realized that that's a perfect metaphor for real life. We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people or dealing with the person next to us. That's why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another. I thought, 'That's a perfect amplification of the whole point of the movie.' I wanted to run with science in a way that would sort of logically project that.


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton noted many commentators placed emphasis on the environmental aspect of humanity's complacency in the film, because "that disconnection is going to be the cause, indirectly, of anything that happens in life that's bad for humanity or the planet". Stanton said that by taking away effort to work, the robots also take away humanity's need to put effort into relationships. Christian journalist Rod Dreher saw technology as the complicated villain of the film. The humans' artificial lifestyle on the "Axiom" has separated them from nature, making them "slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human". Dreher contrasted the hardworking, dirt covered WALL-E with the sleek clean robots on the ship. However, it is the humans and not the robots who make themselves redundant. Humans on the ship and on Earth have overused robots and the ultra-modern technology. During the end credits, humans and robots are shown working alongside each other to renew the Earth. ""WALL·E" is not a Luddite film," he said. "It doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature—that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and help move that along."


title: WALL-E

text: Stanton, who is a Christian, named EVE after the Biblical figure because WALL-E's loneliness reminded him of Adam, before God created his wife. Dreher noted EVE's biblical namesake and saw her directive as an inversion of that story; EVE uses the plant to tell humanity to return to Earth and move away from the "false god" of BnL and the lazy lifestyle it offers. In cohesion with the classical Christian viewpoint, WALL-E shows that work is what makes humans human. Whereas other sources would say that laziness and pleasure is paradise, WALL-E tries to show that that is not true. Dreher emphasized the false god parallels to BnL in a scene where a robot teaches infants "B is for Buy n Large, your very best friend", which he compared to modern corporations such as McDonald's creating brand loyalty in children. Megan Basham of "World" magazine felt the film criticizes the pursuit of leisure, whereas WALL-E in his stewardship learns to truly appreciate God's creation.


title: WALL-E

text: During writing, a Pixar employee noted to Jim Reardon that EVE was reminiscent of the dove with the olive branch from the story of Noah's Ark, and the story was reworked with EVE finding a plant to return humanity from its voyage. WALL-E himself has been compared to Prometheus, Sisyphus, and Butades: in an essay discussing WALL-E as representative of the artistic strive of Pixar itself, Hrag Vartanian compared WALL-E to Butades in a scene where the robot expresses his love for EVE by making a sculpture of her from spare parts. "The Ancient Greek tradition associates the birth of art with a Corinthian maiden who longing to preserve her lover's shadow traces it on the wall before he departed for war. The myth reminds us that art was born out of longing and often means more for the creator than the muse. In the same way Stanton and his Pixar team have told us a deeply personal story about their love of cinema and their vision for animation through the prism of all types of relationships."


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" premiered at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on June 23, 2008. Continuing a Pixar tradition, the film was paired with a short film for its theatrical release, "Presto". The film is dedicated to Justin Wright (1981–2008), a Pixar animator who had worked on "Ratatouille" and died of a heart attack before "WALL-E"s release.


title: WALL-E

text: Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) built animatronic WALL-Es to promote the picture, which made appearances at Disneyland Resort, the Franklin Institute, the Miami Science Museum, the Seattle Center, and the Tokyo International Film Festival. Due to safety concerns, the 318 kg robots were always strictly controlled and WDI always needed to know exactly what they were required to interact with. For this reason, they generally refused to have their puppets meet and greet children at the theme parks in case a WALL-E trod on a child's foot. Those who wanted to take a photograph with the character had to make do with a cardboard cutout.


title: WALL-E

text: In 2016, Jim Morris noted that the studio has no plans for a sequel, as they consider "WALL-E" a finished story with no need for continuation.


title: WALL-E

text: Small quantities of merchandise were sold for "WALL-E", as "Cars" items were still popular, and many manufacturers were more interested in "Speed Racer", which was a successful product line despite the film's failure at the box office. Thinkway, which created the "WALL·E" toys, had previously made "Toy Story" dolls when other toy producers had not shown an interest. Among Thinkway's items were a WALL-E that danced when connected to a music player, a toy that could be taken apart and reassembled, and a groundbreaking remote control toy of him and EVE that had motion sensors that allowed them to interact with players. There were even plushies. The "Ultimate WALL-E" figures were not in stores until the film's home release in November 2008, at a retail price of almost $200, leading "The Patriot-News" to deem it an item for "hard-core fans and collectors only". On February 4, 2015, Lego announced that a WALL-E custom built by lead animator Angus MacLane was the latest design approved for mass production and release as part of Lego Ideas.


title: WALL-E

text: The film was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on November 18, 2008. Various editions include the short film "Presto", another short film "BURN-E", the Leslie Iwerks documentary film "The Pixar Story", shorts about the history of Buy n Large, behind-the-scenes special features, and a digital copy of the film that can be played through iTunes or Windows Media Player-compatible devices. This release sold 9,042,054 DVD units ($142,633,974) in total becoming the second-best-selling animated DVD among those released in 2008 in units sold (behind "Kung Fu Panda"), the best-selling animated feature in sales revenue, and the third-best-selling among all 2008 DVDs.


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" was released in Japan in a limited edition Blu-ray box set, which included a book featuring artwork from the film, a framed print, and a remote control version of Wall-E. This edition is now discontinued.


title: WALL-E

text: At the request of Stanton, Disney licensed "WALL-E" to The Criterion Collection in 2022, who created a special 4K Blu-ray-Blu-ray combo edition of the film that was released on November 22, 2022, featuring the same 4K digital master used for Disney’s original 4K Blu-ray release, but now presented in Dolby Vision and HDR10+ as approved by Stanton, along with additional special features. This makes it the first Pixar feature, and Disney's eighth feature to be released under the Criterion umbrella.


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" grossed $223.8 million in the United States and Canada and $297.5 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $521.3 million, making it the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2008.


title: WALL-E

text: In the US and Canada, "WALL-E" opened in 3,992 theaters on June 27, 2008. The film grossed $23.1 million on its opening day, the highest of all nine Pixar titles to date. During its opening weekend, it topped the box office with $63,087,526. This was the third-best opening weekend for a Pixar film after "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles", and the second-best opening weekend among films released in June, behind "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". The film grossed $38 million the following weekend, losing its first place to "Hancock". "WALL-E" crossed the $200 million mark by August 3, during its sixth weekend.


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" grossed over $10 million in Japan ($44,005,222), UK, Ireland and Malta ($41,215,600), France and the Maghreb region ($27,984,103), Germany ($24,130,400), Mexico ($17,679,805), Spain ($14,973,097), Australia ($14,165,390), Italy ($12,210,993), and Russia and the CIS ($11,694,482).


title: WALL-E

text: The American Film Institute named "WALL-E" as one of the best films of 2008; the jury rationale states:


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL•E" proves to this generation and beyond that the film medium's only true boundaries are the human imagination. Writer/director Andrew Stanton and his team have created a classic screen character from a metal trash compactor who rides to the rescue of a planet buried in the debris that embodies the broken promise of American life. Not since Chaplin's "Little Tramp" has so much story—so much emotion—been conveyed without words. When hope arrives in the form of a seedling, the film blossoms into one of the great screen romances as two robots remind audiences of the beating heart in all of us that yearns for humanity—and love—in the darkest of landscapes.


title: WALL-E

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds approval rating based on reviews, with an average score of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""Wall-E"s stellar visuals testify once again to Pixar's ingenuity, while its charming star will captivate younger viewers—and its timely story offers thought-provoking subtext." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has an average score of 95 out of 100 based on 39 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average rating of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: WALL-E

text: "IndieWire" named "WALL-E" the third-best film of the year based on their annual survey of 100 film critics, while Movie City News shows that "WALL-E" appeared in 162 different top 10 lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the most mentions on a top 10 list of any film released in 2008.


title: WALL-E

text: Richard Corliss of "Time" named "WALL-E" his favorite film of 2008 (and later of the decade), noting the film succeeded in "connect[ing] with a huge audience" despite the main characters' lack of speech and "emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders, [and] elbows". It "evoke[d] the splendor of the movie past" and he also compared WALL-E and EVE's relationship to the chemistry of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Other critics who named "WALL-E" their favorite film of 2008 included Tom Charity of CNN, Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune", Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly", A. O. Scott of "The New York Times", Christopher Orr of "The New Republic", Ty Burr and Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe", Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal", and Anthony Lane of "The New Yorker".


title: WALL-E

text: Todd McCarthy of "Variety" called the film "Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder", saying it was imaginative yet straightforward. He said it pushed the boundaries of animation by balancing esoteric ideas with more immediately accessible ones, and that the main difference between the film and other science fiction projects rooted in an apocalypse was its optimism. Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" declared that "WALL-E" surpassed the achievements of Pixar's previous eight features and probably their most original film to date. He said it had the "heart, soul, spirit and romance" of the best silent films. Honeycutt said the film's definitive stroke of brilliance was in using a mix of archive film footage and computer graphics to trigger WALL·E's romantic leanings. He praised Burtt's sound design, saying "If there is such a thing as an aural sleight of hand, this is it."


title: WALL-E

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" named "WALL-E" "an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment, and a decent science-fiction story" and said the scarcity of dialogue would allow it to "cross language barriers" in a manner appropriate to the global theme, and noted it would appeal to adults and children. He praised the animation, describing the color palette as "bright and cheerful ... and a little bit realistic", and that Pixar managed to generate a "curious" regard for the WALL·E, comparing his "rusty and hard-working and plucky" design favorably to more obvious attempts at creating "lovable" lead characters. He said "WALL-E" was concerned with ideas rather than spectacle, saying it would trigger stimulating "little thoughts for the younger viewers." He named it as one of his twenty favorite films of 2008 and argued it was "the best science-fiction movie in years".


title: WALL-E

text: The film was interpreted as tackling a topical, ecologically-minded agenda, though McCarthy said it did so with a lightness of touch that granted the viewer the ability to accept or ignore the message. Kyle Smith of the "New York Post", wrote that by depicting future humans as "a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk", "WALL-E" was darker and more cynical than any major Disney feature film he could recall. He compared the humans to the patrons of Disney's theme parks and resorts, adding, "I'm also not sure I've ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers." Maura Judkis of "U.S. News & World Report" questioned whether this depiction of "frighteningly obese humans" would resonate with children and make them prefer to "play outside rather than in front of the computer, to avoid a similar fate". The interpretation led to criticism of the film by conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck, and contributors to "National Review Online" including Shannen W. Coffin and Jonah Goldberg (although he admitted it was a "fascinating" and occasionally "brilliant" production).


title: WALL-E

text: A few notable critics have argued that the film is vastly overrated, claiming it failed to "live up to such blinding, high-wattage enthusiasm", and that there were "chasms of boredom watching it", in particular "the second and third acts spiraled into the expected". Other labels included "preachy" and "too long". Child reviews sent into CBBC were mixed, some citing boredom and an inadequate storyline.


title: WALL-E

text: Patrick J. Ford of "The American Conservative" said "WALL-E"s conservative critics missed lessons in the film that he felt appealed to traditional conservatism. He argued that the mass consumerism in the film was not shown to be a product of big business, but of too close a tie between big business and big government: "The government unilaterally provided its citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth's downfall." Responding to Coffin's claim that the film points out the evils of mankind, Ford argued the only evils depicted were those that resulted from losing touch with our own humanity and that fundamental conservative representations such as the farm, the family unit, and wholesome entertainment were in the end held aloft by the human characters. He concluded, "By steering conservative families away from "WALL-E", these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice."


title: WALL-E

text: Director Terry Gilliam praised the film as "A stunning bit of work. The scenes on what was left of planet Earth are just so beautiful: one of the great silent movies. And the most stunning artwork! It says more about ecology and society than any live-action film—all the people on their loungers floating around, brilliant stuff. Their social comment was so smart and right on the button."


title: WALL-E

text: Archaeologists have commented on the themes of human evolution that the film explores. Ben Marwick has written how the character of WALL-E resembles an archaeologist with his methodical collection and classification of quotidian human artefacts. He is shown facing a typological dilemma of classifying a spork as either a fork or spoon, and his nostalgic interest in the human past further demonstrated by his attachment to repeated viewings of the 1969 film "Hello, Dolly!". Marwick notes that the film features major human evolutionary transitions such as obligate bipedalism (captain of the spaceship struggles with the autopilot to gain control of the vessel) and the invention of agriculture, as part of watershed moments in the story of the film. According to Marwick, one prominent message of the film "appears to be that the envelopment by technology that the humans in "Wall-E" experience paradoxically results in physical and cultural devolution." Scholars such as Ian Tattersall and Steve Jones have similarly discussed scenarios where elements of modern technology (such as medicine) may have caused human evolution to slow or stop.


title: WALL-E

text: In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing at the 81st Academy Awards, which it lost to "Slumdog Millionaire" (Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing), "The Dark Knight" (Sound Editing), and "Milk" (Original Screenplay). Walt Disney Pictures also pushed for an Academy Award for Best Picture nomination, but it was not nominated, sparking controversy over whether the Academy deliberately restricted "WALL-E" to the Best Animated Feature category. Film critic Peter Travers remarked, "If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for best picture it's Wall-E." Only three animated films, 1991's "Beauty and the Beast" and Pixar's next two films, 2009's "Up" and 2010's "Toy Story 3", have ever been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. A reflective Stanton stated he was not disappointed the film was restricted to the Best Animated Film nomination because he was overwhelmed by the film's positive reception, and eventually "The line [between live-action and animation] is just getting so blurry that I think with each proceeding year, it's going to be tougher and tougher to say what's an animated movie and what's not an animated movie."


title: WALL-E

text: "WALL-E" made a healthy appearance at the various 2008 end-of-the-year awards circles, particularly in the Best Picture category, where animated films are often overlooked. It has won the award, or the equivalent of it, from the Boston Society of Film Critics (tied with "Slumdog Millionaire"), the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Central Ohio Film Critics awards, the Online Film Critics Society, and most notably the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, where it became the first animated feature to win the prestigious award. It was named as one of 2008's ten best films by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.


title: WALL-E

text: It won Best Animated Feature Film at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, 81st Academy Awards, and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2008. It was nominated for several awards at the 2009 Annie Awards, including Best Feature Film, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Direction, Production design, Storyboarding and Voice acting (for Ben Burtt); but was beaten out by "Kung Fu Panda" in every category. It won Best Animated Feature at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards and was also nominated there for Best Music and Sound. Thomas Newman and Peter Gabriel won two Grammy Awards for "Down to Earth" and "Define Dancing". It won all three awards it was nominated for by the Visual Effects Society: Best Animation, Best Character Animation (for WALL-E and EVE in the truck) and Best Effects in the Animated Motion Picture categories. It became the first animated film to win Best Editing for a Comedy or Musical from the American Cinema Editors. In 2009, Stanton, Reardon, and Docter won the Nebula Award, beating "The Dark Knight" and the "Stargate Atlantis" episode "The Shrine". It won Best Animated Film and was nominated for Best Director at the Saturn Awards.


title: WALL-E

text: At the British National Movie Awards, which is voted for by the public, it won Best Family Film. It was also voted Best Feature Film at the British Academy Children's Awards. WALL-E was listed at #63 on "Empire"s online poll of the 100 greatest movie characters, conducted in 2008. In early 2010, "Time" ranked "WALL-E" #1 in "Best Movies of the Decade". In "Sight & Sound" magazine's 2012 poll of the greatest films of all time, "WALL-E" is the second-highest-ranking animated film behind "My Neighbor Totoro" (1988), while tying with the film "Spirited Away" (2001) at 202nd overall. In a 2016 BBC poll of international critics, it was voted the 29th-greatest film since 2000.


title: WALL-E

text: In 2012, Mike McMaster, an American robotics hobbyist, began working on his own model of WALL·E. The final product was built with more moving parts than the WALL·E which roams around Disneyland. McMaster's four-foot robot made an appearance at the Walt Disney Family Museum and was featured during the opening week of Tested.com a project headed up by Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of "MythBusters". Since WALL-E's creation, Mike and the popular robot have made dozens of appearances at various events.


title: WALL-E

text: In the same year, Mike Senna completed his own WALL·E build. He also created an EVE. They were present at a photo op at Disney's D23 Expo 2015.


title: Claire Forlani

text: Claire Antonia Forlani (born 17 December 1971) is an English actress. She became known in the mid-1990s for her leading role in the film "Mallrats", and in the Jean-Michel Basquiat 1996 biopic, "Basquiat". In 1998, she achieved wide recognition for starring in the fantasy romance film "Meet Joe Black" (1998). Other notable films include "Mystery Men" (1998), "Boys and Girls" (2000), "Antitrust" (2001), "The Medallion" (2003) and "In the Name of the King" (2007). Forlani also has appeared in numerous TV films and series, including a starring role on the historical-fantasy-drama series "Camelot", and recurring roles on the CBS action series "", "", and "Hawaii Five-0". She played the role of Meredith Newman in the 2019 film "Five Feet Apart".


title: Claire Forlani

text: Forlani was born in Twickenham, London, the daughter of Barbara, who is English, and Pier Luigi Forlani, a music manager from Ferrara, Italy. At age 11, Forlani entered the Arts Educational School in London, where she began to study acting. During her six years at the school, she also studied ballet, which led to performances on stage in "The Nutcracker" and "Orpheus in the Underworld".


title: Claire Forlani

text: Forlani's parents moved to San Francisco in 1993, in order to allow for wider casting opportunities in Hollywood films. Subsequently, she was cast in the television mini-series "" and the film "". In 1995, she played the supporting role of Brandi Svenning in "Mallrats". In 1996, Forlani appeared in a supporting role as Sean Connery's daughter in the film "The Rock". She continued to appear in both widely released and smaller-budget films, such as "Basquiat", directed by Julian Schnabel. In 1998, she starred with Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt in "Meet Joe Black". The following year she starred with Ben Stiller and Geoffrey Rush in "Mystery Men". She then appeared opposite Ryan Phillippe and Tim Robbins in "Antitrust", a thriller released in January 2001.


title: Claire Forlani

text: Forlani was the new face of L'Oréal in 2001. She has been ranked no. 51 (2000) and no. 89 (2001) in "Stuff" magazine's "100 Sexiest Women", no. 85 (2001) in "FHM" magazine's "100 Sexiest Women" and was in "Loaded"'s "Hot 100 Babes".


title: Claire Forlani

text: In 2003, she co-starred with Jackie Chan in "The Medallion", and in 2005 she appeared in "Green Street Hooligans" with Charlie Hunnam and Elijah Wood. In 2007's "Hallam Foe" she starred with Jamie Bell and Ciarán Hinds. In Autumn 2006, Forlani joined the cast of "" in a recurring role as a medical examiner, Dr. Peyton Driscoll. In February 2007, Forlani portrayed Tori Bodeen in the film version of Nora Roberts's best-selling book "Carolina Moon". In 2008, she starred opposite Daniel Craig in "Flashbacks of a Fool". In 2011, she played Queen Igraine in "Camelot".


title: Claire Forlani

text: In 2010, Forlani made an appearance on "" as Agent Lauren Hunter, replacing Henrietta Lange (Linda Hunt) temporarily as the operations director at NCIS for the end of season 2. She later appeared in season 3's finale.


title: Claire Forlani

text: In 2016, the second episode of season seven of "Hawaii Five-0" introduced Alicia Brown, a retired criminal profiler portrayed by Forlani. In a recurring role, Brown helped the "Five-0" team find a serial killer.


title: Claire Forlani

text: On 8 June 2007 Forlani married Scottish actor Dougray Scott in Italy. Their son, Milo Thomas Scott, was born on 27 December 2014.


title: Claire Forlani

text: In 2017, Forlani revealed that she "escaped" Harvey Weinstein five times, including twice in a hotel, and that she had a "disgusting" experience with the producer.


title: Burger King

text: Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based restaurant chain. After Insta-Burger King ran into financial difficulties in 1954, its two Miami-based franchisees David Edgerton (1927–2018) and James McLamore (1926–1996) purchased the company and renamed it "Burger King". Over the next half-century, the company changed hands four times and its third set of owners, a partnership of TPG Capital, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners took it public in 2002. In late 2010, 3G Capital of Brazil acquired a majority stake in the company, in a deal valued at US$3.26 billion. The new owners promptly initiated a restructuring of the company to reverse its fortunes. 3G, along with partner Berkshire Hathaway, eventually merged the company with the Canadian-based doughnut chain Tim Hortons, under the auspices of a new Canadian-based parent company named Restaurant Brands International.


title: Burger King

text: The 1970s were the "Golden Age" of the company's advertising, but beginning in the early 1980s, Burger King advertising began losing focus. A series of less successful advertising campaigns created by a procession of advertising agencies continued for the next two decades. In 2003, Burger King hired the Miami-based advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B), which completely reorganized its advertising with a series of new campaigns centered on a redesigned Burger King character nicknamed "The King", accompanied by a new online presence. While highly successful, some of CP+B's commercials were derided for perceived sexism or cultural insensitivity. Burger King's new owner, 3G Capital, later terminated the relationship with CP+B in 2011 and moved its advertising to McGarryBowen, to begin a new product-oriented campaign with expanded demographic targeting.


title: Burger King

text: Burger King's menu has expanded from a basic offering of burgers, French fries, sodas, and milkshakes to a larger and more diverse set of products. In 1957, the "Whopper" became the first major addition to the menu, and it has become Burger King's signature product since. Conversely, Burger King has introduced many products which failed to catch hold in the marketplace. Some of these failures in the United States have seen success in foreign markets, where Burger King has also tailored its menu for regional tastes. From 2002 to 2010, Burger King aggressively targeted the 18–34 male demographic with larger products that often carried correspondingly large amounts of unhealthy fats and trans-fats. This tactic would eventually damage the company's financial underpinnings, and cast a negative pall on its earnings. Beginning in 2011, the company began to move away from its previous male-oriented menu and introduce new menu items, product reformulations and packaging, as part of its current owner 3G Capital's restructuring plans of the company.


title: Burger King

text: As of December 31, 2018, Burger King reported that it had 17,796 outlets in 100 countries. Of these, nearly half are located in the United States, and 99.7% are privately owned and operated, with its new owners moving to an almost entirely franchised model in 2013. Burger King has historically used several variations of franchising to expand its operations. The manner in which the company licenses its franchisees varies depending on the region, with some regional franchises, known as master franchises, responsible for selling franchise sub-licenses on the company's behalf. Burger King's relationship with its franchises has not always been harmonious. Occasional spats between the two have caused numerous issues, and in several instances, the company's and its licensees' relations have degenerated into precedent-setting court cases. Burger King's Australian franchise Hungry Jack's is the only franchise to operate under a different name, due to a trademark dispute and a series of legal cases between the two.


title: Burger King

text: The predecessor to Burger King was founded in 1953 in Jacksonville, Florida, as Insta-Burger King. After visiting the McDonald brothers' original store location in San Bernardino, California, the founders and owners (Keith J. Kramer and his wife's uncle Matthew Burns), who had purchased the rights to two pieces of equipment called "Insta-machines", opened their first restaurants. Their production model was based on one of the machines they had acquired, an oven called the "Insta-Broiler". This strategy proved to be so successful that they later required all of their franchises to use the device. After the company faltered in 1959, it was purchased by its Miami, Florida, franchisees, James McLamore and David R. Edgerton. They initiated a corporate restructuring of the chain, first renaming the company Burger King. They ran the company as an independent entity for eight years (eventually expanding to over 250 locations in the United States), before selling it to the Pillsbury Company in 1967.


title: Burger King

text: Pillsbury's management tried several times to restructure Burger King during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The most prominent change came in 1978 when Burger King hired McDonald's executive Donald N. Smith to help revamp the company. In a plan called "Operation Phoenix", Smith restructured corporate business practices at all levels of the company. Changes included updated franchise agreements, a broader menu and new standardized restaurant designs. Smith left Burger King for PepsiCo in 1980 shortly before a system-wide decline in sales.


title: Burger King

text: Pillsbury's Executive Vice President of Restaurant Operations Norman E. Brinker was tasked with turning the brand around, and strengthening its position against its main rival McDonald's. One of his initiatives was a new advertising campaign featuring a series of attack ads against its major competitors. This campaign started a competitive period between Burger King, McDonald's, and top burger chains known as the Burger wars. Brinker left Burger King in 1984, to take over Dallas-based gourmet burger chain Chili's.


title: Burger King

text: Smith and Brinker's efforts were initially effective, but after their respective departures, Pillsbury relaxed or discarded many of their changes, and scaled back on construction of new locations. These actions stalled corporate growth and sales declined again, eventually resulting in a damaging fiscal slump for Burger King and Pillsbury. Poor operation and ineffectual leadership continued to bog down the company for many years.


title: Burger King

text: Pillsbury was eventually acquired by the British entertainment conglomerate Grand Metropolitan in 1989. Initially, Grand Met attempted to bring the chain to profitability under newly minted CEO Barry Gibbons; the changes he initiated during his two-year tenure had mixed results, as successful new product introductions and tie-ins with The Walt Disney Company were offset by continuing image problems and ineffectual advertising programs. Additionally, Gibbons sold off several of the company's assets in an attempt to profit from their sale and laid off many of its staff members.


title: Burger King

text: After Gibbon's departure, a series of CEOs each tried to repair the company's brand by changing the menu, bringing in new ad agencies and many other changes. The parental disregard of the Burger King brand continued with Grand Metropolitan's merger with Guinness in 1997 when the two organizations formed the holding company Diageo. Eventually, the ongoing systematic institutional neglect of the brand through a string of owners damaged the company to the point where major franchises were driven out of business, and its total value was significantly decreased. Diageo eventually decided to divest itself of the money-losing chain and put the company up for sale in 2000.


title: Burger King

text: The 21st century saw the company return to independence when it was purchased from Diageo by a group of investment firms led by TPG Capital for US$1.5 billion in 2002. The new owners rapidly moved to revitalize and reorganize the company, culminating with the company being taken public in 2006 with a highly successful initial public offering. The firms' strategy for turning the chain around included a new advertising agency and new ad campaigns, a revamped menu strategy, a series of programs designed to revamp individual stores, a new restaurant concept called the "BK Whopper Bar", and a new design format called "20/20". These changes successfully re-energized the company, leading to a score of profitable quarters. Yet, despite the successes of the new owners, the effects of the financial crisis of 2007–2010 weakened the company's financial outlooks while those of its immediate competitor McDonald's grew. The falling value of Burger King eventually led to TPG and its partners divesting their interest in the chain in a US$3.26 billion sale to 3G Capital of Brazil. Analysts from financial firms UBS and Stifel Nicolaus agreed that 3G would have to invest heavily in the company to help reverse its fortunes. After the deal was completed, the company's stock was removed from the New York Stock Exchange, ending a four-year period as a public company. The delisting of its stock was designed to help the company repair its fundamental business structures and continue working to close the gap with McDonald's without having to worry about pleasing shareholders. In the United States domestic market, the chain has fallen to third place in terms of same store sales behind Ohio-based Wendy's. The decline is the result of 11 consecutive quarters of same store sales decline.


title: Burger King

text: In August 2014, 3G announced that it planned to acquire the Canadian restaurant and coffee shop chain Tim Hortons and merge it with Burger King with backing from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. The two chains will retain separate operations post-merger, with Burger King remaining in its Miami headquarters. A Tim Hortons representative stated that the proposed merger would allow Tim Hortons to leverage Burger King's resources for international growth. The combined company will be the third-largest international chain of fast food restaurants. The deal lead to a controversy over the practice of tax inversions, in which a company decreases the amount of taxes it pays by moving its headquarters to a tax haven, a country with lower rates but maintains the majority of their operations in their previous location. As a high-profile instance of tax inversion, news of the merger was criticized by U.S. politicians, who felt that the move would result in a loss of tax revenue to foreign interests, and could result in further government pressure against inversions.


title: Burger King

text: In 2019, Burger King reported that it planned to close up to 250 low-volume locations per year, with closures coming into effect in 2020.


title: Burger King

text: In February 2021, Burger King began testing a customer loyalty rewards program called "Royal Perks" in Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, New Jersey and Long Island, New York.


title: Burger King

text: In March 2022, Burger King suspended all its corporate support, including operations, marketing, supply chain, investments and expansion in Russia in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It halted its corporate support to the more than 800 fully franchised restaurant chains in Russia managed by a local master franchisee. However, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism revealed that Burger King retained its stake in the Russian franchises through an offshore joint venture with the Russian state-owned VTB Bank and a Ukrainian investment firm linked to corrupt deals with Ukraine's former pro-Russian leader.


title: Burger King

text: Burger King Holdings is the parent company of Burger King, also known as Burger King Corporation and abbreviated BKC, and is a Delaware corporation formed on July 23, 2002. A subsidiary, it derives its income from several sources, including property rental and sales through company owned restaurants; however, a substantial portion of its revenue is dependent on franchise fees. During the transitional period after the acquisition of the company by 3G Capital, Burger King's board of directors was co-chaired by John W. Chidsey, formerly CEO and chairman of the company, and Alex Behring, managing partner of 3G Capital. By April 2011, the new ownership completed the restructuring of Burger King's corporate management and Chidsey tendered his resignation, leaving Behring as CEO and chair.


title: Burger King

text: The company operates approximately 40 subsidiaries globally that oversee franchise operations, acquisitions and financial obligations such as pensions. One example of a subsidiary is Burger King Brands, Inc. which is responsible for the management of Burger King's intellectual properties. A wholly owned subsidiary established in 1990, Burger King Brands owns and manages all trademarks, copyrights and domain names used by the restaurants in the United States and Canada. It is also responsible for providing marketing and related services to the parent company.


title: Burger King

text: In 2011, the majority of Burger King restaurants, approximately 90%, were privately held franchises. In North America, Burger King Corporation is responsible for licensing operators and administering of stores. Internationally, the company often pairs with other parties to operate locations or it will outright sell the operational and administrative rights to a franchisee which is given the designation of master franchise for the territory. The master franchise will then be expected to sub-license new stores, provide training support, and ensure operational standards are maintained. In exchange for the oversight responsibilities, the master franchise will receive administrative and advertising support from Burger King Corporation to ensure a common marketing scheme. The 3G Capital ownership group announced in April 2011 that it would begin divesting itself of many corporate owned locations with the intent to increase the number of privately held restaurants to 95%. As of 2016, the percentage of privately owned Burger King establishments grew to 99.5%.


title: Burger King

text: As the franchisor for the brand, Burger King Holdings has several obligations and responsibilities; the company designs and deploys corporate training systems while overseeing brand standards such as building design and appearance. The company also develops new products and deploys them after presenting them to its franchises for approval per a 2010 agreement between itself and the franchise ownership groups. Burger King has limited approval over franchise operations such as minimum hours of operation and promotional pricing. Additionally, Burger King designates approved vendors and distributors while ensuring safety standards at the productions facilities of its vendors.


title: Burger King

text: Burger King is headquartered in a nine-story office tower by the Miami International Airport in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida. Elaine Walker of the "Miami Herald" stated that the headquarters has a "Burger King" sign that drivers on State Road 836 "can't miss". In addition, the chain planned to build a neon sign on the roof to advertise the brand to passengers landing at the airport. On Monday July 8, 2002, 130 employees began working at the Burger King headquarters with the remainder moving in phases in August 2002. Prior to the moving to its current headquarters in 2002, Burger King had considered moving away from the Miami area to Texas; Miami-Dade County politicians and leaders lobbied against this, and Burger King stayed. In August 2014, the future of the company's Miami headquarters was again in doubt as reports surfaced that Burger King was in talks about buying the Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons, with a view to relocating its headquarters to Canada where the corporate tax rate was lower. The merger between Burger King and Tim Hortons created the fast food company now known as Restaurant Brands International Inc.


title: Burger King

text: The company's previous headquarters were in a southern Dade County campus located on Old Cutler Boulevard in the Cutler census-designated place. The former Burger King headquarters as of 2007 houses rental offices for several companies.


title: Burger King

text: When Burger King Corporation began franchising in 1959, it used a regional model where franchisees purchased the right to open stores within a geographic region. These franchise agreements granted BKC very little oversight control of its franchisees and resulted in issues of product quality control, store image and design, and operational procedures.


title: Burger King

text: During the 1970s, structural deficiencies in Burger King's franchise system became increasingly problematic for Pillsbury. A major example was the relationship between Burger King and Louisiana-based franchisee Chart House, Burger King's largest franchisee group at the time with over 350 locations in the United States. The company's owners, William and James Trotter, made several moves to take over or acquire Burger King during the 1970s, all of which were spurned by Pillsbury. After the failed attempts to acquire the company, the relationship between Chart House and Burger King soured and eventually devolved into a lawsuit. Chart House eventually spun off its Burger King operations in the early 1980s into a holding company called DiversiFoods which, in turn, was acquired by Pillsbury in 1984 and absorbed into Burger King's operations.


title: Burger King

text: As part of the franchising reorganization segment of Operation Phoenix, Donald N. Smith initiated a restructuring of future franchising agreements in 1978. Under this new franchise agreement, new owners were disallowed from living more than one hour from their restaurants – restricting them to smaller individuals or ownership groups and preventing large, multi-state corporations from owning franchises. Franchisees were also now prohibited from operating other chains, preventing them from diverting funds away from their Burger King holdings. This new policy effectively limited the size of franchisees and prevented larger franchises from challenging Burger King Corporation as Chart House had. Smith also sought to have BKC be the primary owner of new locations and rent or lease the restaurants to its franchises. This policy would allow the company to take over the operations of failing stores or evict those owners who would not conform to the company guidelines and policies. By 1988, parent company Pillsbury had relaxed many of Smith's changes, scaling back on construction of new locations, which resulted in stalled growth of the brand. Neglect of Burger King by new owner Grand Metropolitan and its successor Diageo further hurt the standing of the brand, causing significant financial damage to BK franchises and straining relations between the parties.


title: Burger King

text: By 2001 and after nearly 18 years of stagnant growth, the state of its franchises was beginning to affect the value of the company. One of the franchises most heavily affected by the lack of growth was the nearly 400-store AmeriKing Inc., one of the largest Burger King franchisees. By 2002, the franchise owner, which until this point had been struggling under a nearly US$300 million debt load and been shedding stores across the US, was forced to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The failure of AmeriKing deeply affected the value of Burger King, and put negotiations between Diageo and the TPC Capital-led group on hold. The developments eventually forced Diageo to lower the total selling price of the chain by almost . After the sale, newly appointed CEO Brad Blum initiated a program to help roughly 20 percent of its franchises, including its four largest, who were in financial distress, bankruptcy or had ceased operations altogether. Partnering with California-based Trinity Capital, LLC, the company established the Franchisee Financial Restructuring Initiative, a program to address the financial issues facing BK's financially distressed franchisees. The initiative was designed to assist franchisees in restructuring their businesses to meet financial obligations, focus on restaurant operational excellence, reinvest in their operations, and return to profitability.


title: Burger King

text: Individual franchisees took advantage of the AmeriKing failure; one of BK's regional owners, Miami-based Al Cabrera, purchased 130 stores located primarily in the Chicago and the upper mid-west region, from the failed company for a price of , approximately 88 percent of their original value. The new company, which started out as Core Value Partners and eventually became Heartland Foods, also purchased 120 additional stores from distressed owners and revamped them. The resulting purchases made Cabrera the largest minority franchisee of Burger King, and Heartland one of the company's top franchises. By 2006, the company was valued at over , and was sold to New York–based GSO Capital Partners. Other purchasers included a three-way group of NFL athletes Kevin Faulk, Marcus Allen, and Michael Strahan who collectively purchased 17 stores in the cities of Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia; and Cincinnati-based franchisee Dave Devoy, who purchased 32 AmeriKing stores. After investing in new decor, equipment and staff retraining, many of the formerly failing stores showed growth approaching 20 percent.


title: Burger King

text: As part of 3G's restructuring plan, the company decided to divest itself of its corporate owned locations by re-franchising them to private owners and become a 100% franchised operation by the end of 2013. The project, which began in April 2012, saw the company divest corporate-owned locations in Florida, Canada, Spain, Germany, and other regions. The move gave the company a Q3, 2013 profit of US$68.2 million over the same quarter, 2012 of US$6.6 million.


title: Burger King

text: At the end of its 2013 fiscal year, Burger King was the second largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants in terms of global locations, behind industry bellwether McDonald's, which had 32,400 locations. At the end of 2014, Burger King ranked fourth among US food chains in terms of US sales, behind McDonald's, Starbucks, and Subway. Burger King now has over 12,000 stores worldwide.


title: Burger King

text: While BK began its foray into locations outside of the continental United States in 1963 with a store in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it did not have an international presence until several years later. Shortly after the acquisition of the chain by Pillsbury, it opened its first Canadian restaurant in Windsor, Ontario in 1969. Other international locations followed soon after, including Australia in 1971, with a restaurant in the Perth suburb of Innaloo, and Europe in 1975, with a restaurant in Madrid. Beginning in 1982, BK and its franchisees began operating stores in several East Asian countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. Due to high competition, all of the Japanese locations were closed in 2001; however, BK reentered the Japanese market in June 2007. BK's Central and South American operations began in Mexico in the late 1970s and by the early 1980s in Caracas, Venezuela, Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. While Burger King lags behind McDonald's in international locations by over 12,000 stores, as of 2008 it had managed to become the largest chain in several countries including Mexico and Spain. The company divides its international operations into three segments; the Middle East, Europe and Africa division (EMEA), Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In each of these regions, Burger King has established several subsidiaries to develop strategic partnerships and alliances to expand into new territories. In its EMEA group, Burger King's Switzerland-based subsidiary Burger King Europe GmbH is responsible for the licensing and development of BK franchises in those regions. In APAC region, the Singapore-based BK AsiaPac, Pte. Ltd. business unit handles franchising for East Asia, the Asian subcontinent and all Oceanic territories. The LAC region includes Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands and has no centralized operations group.


title: Burger King

text: Australia is the only country in which Burger King does not operate under its own name. When the company set about establishing operations down under in 1971, it found that its business name was already trademarked by a takeaway food shop in Adelaide. As a result, Burger King provided the Australian franchisee, Jack Cowin, with a list of possible alternative names derived from pre-existing trademarks already registered by Burger King and its then corporate parent Pillsbury, that could be used to name the Australian restaurants. Cowin selected the "Hungry Jack" brand name, one of Pillsbury's US pancake mixture products, and slightly changed the name to a possessive form by adding an apostrophe "s" forming the new name Hungry Jack's. After the expiration of the trademark in the late 1990s, Burger King unsuccessfully tried to introduce the brand to the continent. After losing a lawsuit filed against it by Hungry Jack's ownership, the company ceded the territory to its franchisee. Hungry Jack's is now the only Burger King brand in Australia; Cowin's company Hungry Jack's Pty Ltd. is the master franchise and thus is now responsible for oversight of the operations that country with Burger King only providing administrative and advertising support to ensure a common marketing scheme for the company and its products.


title: Burger King

text: Over a 10-year period starting in 2008, Burger King predicted 80 percent of its market share would be driven by foreign expansion, particularly in the Asia-Pacific and Indian subcontinent regional markets. While the TPG-led group continued BK's international expansion by announcing plans to open new franchise locations in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and Brazil, the company plan is focusing on the three largest markets – India, China, and Japan. The company plans to add over 250 stores in these Asian territories, as well as other places such as Macau, by the end of 2012. Its expansion into the Indian market has the company at a competitive disadvantage with other fast food restaurants such as KFC because of the aversion of the country's large Hindu majority to beef. BK hopes to use their non-beef products, such as their TenderCrisp and TenderGrill chicken sandwiches, as well as other products like mutton sandwiches and veggie sandwiches, to help them overcome this hurdle to expand in that country. 3G has reported that it will continue with the plans to grow globally, even ramping up the planned expansion to help increase their return on investment. It is expected that 3G Brazilian-based management connections in the region may help Burger King expand in Brazil and Latin America, where it has been having problems finding acceptable franchisees.


title: Burger King

text: In December 2020, Burger King India went in for an initial public offering (IPO) on the BSE and NSE in India. The IPO was subscribed over 150 times. The stock opened at per share on December 14, nearly double the IPO price of , and closed at .


title: Burger King

text: Burger King has been involved in several legal disputes and cases, as both plaintiff and defendant, in the years since its founding in 1954. Depending on the ownership and executive staff at the time of these incidents, the company's responses to these challenges have ranged from a conciliatory dialog with its critics and litigants, to a more aggressive opposition with questionable tactics and negative consequences. The company's response to these various issues has drawn praise as well as accusations of political appeasement from different parties over the years.


title: Burger King

text: A trademark dispute involving the owners of an unrelated restaurant also named Burger King in Mattoon, Illinois, led to a federal lawsuit. As a result, the larger Burger King chain was ordered not to build any franchises within a 20-mile radius of the Mattoon Burger King. An existing trademark held by a shop of the same name in South Australia forced the company to change its name in Australia to "Hungry Jack's", while another state trademark in Texas forced the company to abandon its signature product, the Whopper, in several counties around San Antonio. The company was only able to enter northern Alberta, in Canada, in 1995, after it paid the founders of another chain named Burger King.


title: Burger King

text: Legal decisions from other suits have set contractual law precedents in regards to long-arm statutes, the limitations of franchise agreements, and ethical business practices. Many of these decisions have helped define general business dealings that continue to shape the entire marketplace.


title: Burger King

text: Controversies and disputes have arisen with groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), governmental and social agencies, and unions and trade groups over various topics. These situations have touched on legal and moral concepts such as animal rights, corporate responsibility, ethics, and social justice. While the majority of the disputes did not result in lawsuits, in many of the cases, the situations raised legal questions, dealt with legal compliance, or resulted in legal remedies such as changes in contractual procedure or binding agreements between parties. The resolutions to these legal matters have often altered the way the company interacts and negotiates contracts with its suppliers and franchisees, or how it does business with the public.