Why didn’t EVE recognize the little cockroach as a living organism just like the plant? The cockroach possesses all characteristics sustainable in life as the plant with the exception of reproduction, although neither does the plant that has yet to show signs of reproduction.
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3I marvel how with almost no references, someone managed to answer this. =D ;) – An old man in the sea. Mar 18 '19 at 13:00
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3@Anoldmaninthesea. - There's lots of reference; several junior novels, an art book, a script and dozens of DVD features that mention EVE – Valorum Mar 18 '19 at 13:24
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3Plants represent the bottom rung of the ecosystem. If the planet supports plan life, then it can, in time, be inhabited by other forms of life. Strictly speaking, the cockroach should be dead by now, because what is there for it to eat? – AJFaraday Mar 18 '19 at 15:23
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17@AJFaraday - Twinkies – Valorum Mar 18 '19 at 15:46
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1@Valorum There's a lot of cockroaches in the world, and a limited supply of packaged food. 'nuff said. – AJFaraday Mar 18 '19 at 16:09
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3@AJFaraday - I don't see evidence of lots of cockroaches, I only see evidence of three – Valorum Mar 18 '19 at 16:54
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@Valorum EVE is not Eve... I think Eve is a pretty common name in fiction. – An old man in the sea. Mar 18 '19 at 21:21
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2@Anoldmaninthesea. - In the novelisations, Her (its?) name is consistently spelled EVE, not Eve. – Valorum Mar 18 '19 at 21:22
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2@Valorum I'm not a sci-fi buff... and that's why if we read the question we see it was written with Eve. That's why I was surprised people immediately understood who the OP was refering to. =D – An old man in the sea. Mar 19 '19 at 17:46
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1@Anoldmaninthesea - I was merely being accurate – Valorum Mar 19 '19 at 18:31
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1@AJFaraday Cockroaches are extremely omnivorous, some species also cannibalistic. With the amount of waste left behind on the planet, there may have been enough to sustain an ever-dwindling population of cockroaches. A more serious objection, I would think, would be that with no plant life at all on the planet for 800 years, some kind of runaway greenhouse effect would likely have started, making the planet completely uninhabitable and unable to sustain new plant life. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 20 '19 at 12:05
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@JanusBahsJacquet - If no plant life can arise if there's no plant life, then how did plant life arise in the first place? – Valorum Apr 18 '19 at 22:19
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I thought my answer to this was nicely comprehensive, drawing from three different sources (other than the film). Is there anything else you think I should address before you consider an acceptance? – Valorum Apr 18 '19 at 22:20
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1@Valorum Over a much longer period than just 800 years. And also on a very different planet to what Earth is now, during a time when there was little to no risk of runaway greenhouse effects. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 18 '19 at 22:21
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@JanusBahsJacquet - I suspect that the potential impact of a dieback of surface plant life is actually pretty small over a period as short as a thousand years. I saw an article in New Scientist that talked about the atmosphere becoming unbreathable for humans (in the event that all plant life on the planet died suddenly) in something like 52,000 years. – Valorum Apr 18 '19 at 22:26
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@Valurm not that we would last more than a few months (or whatever current food stores would last) without plant life, so we wouldn't find out whether it's 52,000 years or 10 ;) And that's assuming whatever made plant life impossible didn't kill us just as fast! – Andres F. Apr 19 '19 at 00:19
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As you can see from this DVD insert (describing the various robots and their primary focus) EVE is an Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. Her main focus is to review organic, read plant organic, life on the planets that she surveys.
As such, a life-form other than a plant wouldn't register on her scanners.
WALL-E’s visitor is a probe-bot who has been sent to Earth to check for signs of plant life. The Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, otherwise known as EVE, takes her mission very seriously.
You might want to note that on a purely personal level she absolutely does recognise the roach as a living being.
Eve finds the insect intriguing. Lowers her arm. The end separates into individual hovering sections...
But when she scans Wall•E and the cockroach together, she finds that they're simply "not what she was looking for" (e.g. plant life).
She let the roach get closer. The little bug intrigued her, and she let him crawl up her arm. WALL · E heard her emit a series of electronic beeps. She was giggling! The roach must have tickled her.
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She slowly approached the shivering box. The cockroach ran down EVE’s blaster arm and hopped onto his master. EVE’s blue light scanned WALL·E. NEGATIVE. He was not what she was looking for. She retracted her blaster arm and glided away.
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14Given that she was scanning for vegetation on Earth, she should technically be a Terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. – Vikki Mar 19 '19 at 03:18
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7I don't totally agree with Sean. EVE's function, by design, could be Extraterrestrial, however after the events on Earth transpired, is being used Terrestrially. Using a robot in an unforeseen way would not change it's acronym. – AxGryndr Mar 19 '19 at 06:27
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21@Sean She was on Earth, but from Space - beyond (extra) Earth (terrestrial). An "Extraterrestrial Vegetation-Evaluator", not an "Extraterrestrial-Vegetation Evaluator" – Chronocidal Mar 19 '19 at 08:19
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14@Chronocidal - I read it differently. In my head, her typical role is to evaluate life on the various planets that BNL can get to in their exploration ships. Once Operation Recolonise was implemented, her role changed to periodically evaluating life on Earth. So she's a restasked EVE probe. – Valorum Mar 19 '19 at 08:40
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Unlike a plant, a cockroach does not show that the planet has started to recover, just that it has not yet run out of food waste yet.
More importantly: "EVE" stands for "Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator" - as the name suggests, she is specifically designed to search for Flora, not Fauna, (i.e. to search for Plant Life, not Animal Life).
Chronocidal
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This is important! Roaches are great at scavenging. Even in the current time, it is predicted that roaches can easily survive a nuclear holocaust. – Stark07 Mar 21 '19 at 07:37
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It is commonly thought that cockroaches are uniquely capable of surviving even in a highly radioactive environment.
Therefore the presence of a cockroach is not an indicator of an envoriment being inhabitable, or even safe to be in.
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6To clarify are you saying that Eve did recognise the cockroach as a living organism but discounted it because of the nature of a cockroach? – TheLethalCarrot Mar 18 '19 at 16:20
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9For the record, cockroaches are particularly susceptible to radiation poisoning and would likely be among the first class of creatures to die in a nuclear holocaust – Valorum Mar 18 '19 at 16:52
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3@Valorum: Compared to (say) fruit flies, yes. Compared to (say) humans, it's precisely the opposite. – Vikki Mar 19 '19 at 03:19
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3I feel this answer should get more upvotes. The scene was clearly a nod to the fabled hardiness of cockroaches, and their alleged ability to survive natural disasters. – Konrad Rudolph Mar 19 '19 at 08:38
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@TheLethalCarrot Precisely. Note that it scans the cockroach more thoroughly than any of the inanimate matter around. – Mayavin Mar 21 '19 at 10:54
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1@Valorum Well, not exactly. They used the cockroach in the movie because it is a widespread belief that they are all that will be left after the nuclear holocaust (may it never come to be). Invertebraes in general have much bigger chances of surviving, so cockroach is not more susceptible than a human let's say. Note also that there are around 5000 species of cockroaches - so perhaps some of them have a particular resistance. – Mayavin Mar 21 '19 at 11:05