What I Think Makes Auto An Attractive Character.

What I think makes Auto an attractive character.

I seem to have a thing for faceless characters. I don’t exactly know why but I think it’s the mystery and how we don’t know their expression. Darth Vader, Michael Myers, Mysterio, Ghostface, Hal 9000 and the list goes on. The way we don’t know what Auto is thinking, or shall I say calculating. The way his small LEDs circulate around his circumference as he says absolutely nothing, just constantly calculating. “I wanted a character that was cold and clinical, and was always calculating” -Andrew Stanton, director. I feel like that mystery behind him is attractive and makes us curious about him.

I think his demeanour is a big factor. His emotionless, quiet, observant and professional way. Even though he is all of those things, at the same time, he is dominant, commanding, swift, cold, controlling and also extremely intelligent. He shows more of the first adjectives I mentioned at the start of the film but later on shows more of the second set of adjectives. The way he pretends he doesn’t know about the state of the planet and just stays mostly quiet until the Captain questions it. The way he knows everything about the ship, Earth, the people and the robots. He is very quick when arguing with the Captain, like when he blocks him and tries to take the plant. The way he uses his taser. He uses it on Wall-e and attempts to use it on the Captain, but not on Eve. He knows he is the dominant one on the ship. He basically runs the ship and knows more than his Captains.

I think his design is oddly attractive. The white and black is quite neat and it goes nicely with his circular, singular, central, non-blinking red eye lens. The eye is a tad unsettling and it would feel like he’s constantly watching you. But you could argue it creates a sense of safety as he always watches and has his guard up. His taser is a nice touch and it was quite clever to make it retractable and use it as a handle also. His small LEDs that rotate around his faceplates shows us that he is thinking and calculating all the time. It also creates a nice sound to listen to, you can hear it whenever he’s on screen. His soft zip line sound and the sound of him rotating is quite satisfying and clean. His faceplates splitting occasionally is a nice little detail that may convey some sort of emotion. His voice. UGH. It was so smart to use Macintalk to show that he has no humanity inside him, unlike Eve and Wall-e who are both voiced by humans. It’s very monotone and emotionless. It shows he is the epitome of a robot and programming. But it’s still quite attractive due to the deep tone. However, later on when he is fighting with the Captain, the pitch does change slightly to show panic and frustration. For example, “I 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭 you give me the plant.” “𝐍𝐨!” “𝐍𝐨𝐭..𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞.” “𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧...𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧?” 𝐍𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨...”

If anyone has any other reasons please do tell I’d love to hear themmm 🫶🏻