34

In the beginning an advertisement said ships are leaving every day. But we only see one ship in the movie.

As the title says; Are there other cruise ships in WALL•E universe?

Valorum
  • 689,072
  • 162
  • 4,636
  • 4,873
1.21 gigawatts
  • 3,481
  • 4
  • 31
  • 43
  • 4
    It's been 700 years. It's certainly possible that only the Axiom (the largest ship with the most resources) has survived. – Valorum Nov 01 '15 at 08:57
  • 8
    Equally likely the reason we don't see any other ships is because their Autopilots prevented their return to Earth. – Xantec Nov 01 '15 at 14:26
  • Or that only the one Starliner was looking for life on Earth and didn't tell the others about the discovery. –  Nov 01 '15 at 23:06

1 Answers1

40

At the start of the movie, we see three (possibly four) other BNL Starliners in the advert that WALL•E accidentally triggers on his way back home. The ultimate fate of these ships (e.g. whether they survived the next 700+ years) remains unclear and they aren't seen in the movie, or any of the supplementary materials:

enter image description here

You can see the extended version here:

The President of BNL is clearly speaking to multiple autopilots (and hence multiple ships) when he makes his final address:

BUY N LARGE CEO: Just cut it off, will ya?! (music stops; forced chuckle) Hey there, Autopilots! Uh, got some bad news. Operation Cleanup has, uh, well... failed! Wouldn't you know, rising toxicity levels have made life unsustainable on Earth.

The makers of the film originally envisioned four main classes of BNL Starliner, with the Axiom-class sitting alongside the Zephyrus, Epiglothus and Mucus(!) classes as the the largest and most luxuriously appointed. The Axiom itself is described as the "jewel of the BNL fleet", suggesting that it's both the flagship and class namesake.

enter image description here

enter image description here

More Starliners are seen in the official Disney graphic novel that was released to accompany the film

enter image description here

Valorum
  • 689,072
  • 162
  • 4,636
  • 4,873
  • 5
    Can't help but think there might be a decent movie sequel in this somewhere... not that I support ruining a fantastic movie by shoe-horning more into the franchise... – Lightness Races in Orbit Nov 01 '15 at 12:48
  • 13
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit what makes you think that Disney would spoil a good movie with a terrible sequel? They have never done that before... –  Nov 01 '15 at 18:41
  • The probe was an annual probe. This suggests at least 700 EVE probes from axiom alone. It brought 5 pods back, and eve spoke a number of languages suggesting multiple probes per run. The autopilot had a system to hide positive returns, it might have had to be a fleet-wide practice. The escape pods were sufficient to bring wall-e to earth, so interstellar transit was abundantly possible. – EngrStudent Mar 15 '20 at 16:25
  • @EngrStudent-ReinstateMonica - To be honest, I felt that the ending (a rolling hillside near where EVE found the plant, sparsely covered in similar plants) signified that life had begun to return to Earth very recently indeed. – Valorum Mar 15 '20 at 16:28
  • Darker interpretation, the ship we see is the only one that survived because it's autopilot hid the results. All the other ships returned to earth and the population died off when they couldn't fend for themselves. – John Meacham Jun 27 '21 at 11:28