BURN·E 2008

As WALL-E Ben Burtt drifts through space, tethered to the ship carrying EVE back to the Axiom starliner, he brushes past the Rings of Saturn and a tiny rock is dislodged from his path. The rock gathers momentum and becomes a meteor that smashes into a hull spire, destroying one of the Axiom’s running lights. The ship’s computer sounds the alert, and AUTO, the autopilot, orders repairs. To fix the damaged light, AUTO activates SUPPLY-R, who then brings in BURN-E, a Basic Utility Repair Nano Engineer armed with a welding torch. BURN-E begins by disabling the broken spire and crossing the ship’s hull along a special track to complete the repair. Yet, the moment WALL-E’s arrival disrupts his focus, the spire slips away and floats off into the vacuum. SUPPLY-R hands him a second spare, but an exploding escape pod (the one WALL-E briefly rode inside) startles him and cuts the second attempt short.

Undeterred, SUPPLY-R leaves a third spare on the floor, and BURN-E picks it up with a sense of stubborn determination. He succeeds in repairing the light, but before he can bring it online, WALL-E and EVE slip inside the Axiom and close the exterior hatch behind them, accidentally locking BURN-E out. Desperate to reenter, BURN-E scouts other routes, including the open garbage airlock, only to have the door shut by a WALL-A unit before he can slip back in. Realizing there might be another way, he uses his welding torch to cut a fresh entrance directly into the hull, and starts to work his way back in.

His progress is interrupted, however, when a clash between Captain B. McCrea and AUTO tilts the ship violently to starboard. BURN-E clings to the hull, catching hold of the spire he’s trying to fix as the Axiom rights itself. Just then, EVE inserts the plant into the Holo-Detector, triggering a hyperjump that yanks the ship away from normal course and pins BURN-E against the hull, preventing another reentry.

When the Axiom finally touches down on Earth, BURN-E heads to SUPPLY-R to press the button and bring the spire back online. Yet the humans and robots are outside, and he ends up jetting a pod unintentionally—crashing to Earth and sending the pod door shooting into the air. He races to find SUPPLY-R and, at last, gets the spire to light again. But the moment the door diseasures the connection, the spire is destroyed, and BURN-E collapses in frustration, the small engineer’s persistence echoing in the quiet of the deserted hull.