The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences certainly has not ignored WALL-E. Even without the coveted Best Picture nomination, the computer-animated masterpiece was recognized in six categories, including Best Animated Feature and Sound Mixing, as well as Original Score and…Original Screenplay?

How did a film without human dialogue for about the first half hour get that particular nod? The silent films of yesteryear may hold the key to the answer; just because a script has minimal dialogue doesn’t mean that it isn’t saying something.

Director Andrew Stanton co-wrote the award-winning screenplay with Jim Reardon from”The Simpsons.” The descriptions are short and terse sentences; let the characters beep for themselves, so to speak.

In the place of dialogue, the script uses music (a superb score in addition to the somewhat unexpected use of excerpts from the musical Hello, Dolly) and emotional intonations to convey meaning. It comes as no surprise that Stanton and the Pixar team spent over a year watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton movies.

Just as The General or City Lights need nothing more than a few hand gestures and facial expressions to convince the audience that what they’re watching is real, WALL-E gives us a taste of how so much of what we say isn’t on the surface of the words we use.

Evan Smith, Chair of the Screenwriting Program at Syracuse University and author of the best-selling book Writing Television Sitcoms, believes WALL-E didn’t need words to be a great screenplay. Said Smith, “If you compare the film and screenplay for WALL-E, you’ll see that every ‘beep,’ action and emotional response shown onscreen was included in the original, full-length script. Only the words are missing, or scarce.”

After each line of “dialogue,” translations in brackets, which give inflections and even actual words that the character means to say, explain the meaning of each beep.

Curious, she begins unspooling the tape.

WALLY

(loud beeps)

[My tape!!]

He grabs it back. Protective.

Inserts it carefully into the VCR. Please still work.

The movie eventually appears on the TV.

Plays a clip of POYSC. (“Put on Your Sunday Clothes”)

Wally is relieved.

WALLY

(beeps)

[What do you think?]

Mimics the dancing for Eve.

Encourages her to try.

She clumsily hops up and down.

Makes dents in the floor. Rattles everything.

Wally politely stops her.

WALLY

(beeps)

[How ‘bout we try a different move?]

Ben Burtt, the genius behind the expressive beeping of our favorite mechanical buddy R2-D2, was also the man-behind-the-sound-curtain of WALL-E, molding the dings and tones into relatable characters.

“The bulk of the vocals, the expressive vocals, are really sounds that are more like a toddler makes, kind of the universal language of intonation,” he said in an interview on AP Radio. “‘Oh,’ ‘Hm?,’ ‘Huh!,’ you know? This sort of thing.”

As many acting students can tell you, writers can create a scene using only one line of dialogue. For example, intonations explain most uses of sarcasm, so that saying “Wow, you look great” can actually mean just the opposite given the right tone of voice.

One of the most heartbreaking scenes in WALL-E uses only the word “directive.” In the following excerpt, oceans of meaning exist behind each syllable. What one screenwriter might give pages of description to portray, Stanton and Reardon accomplish in under 50 words:

Wally opens his compactor.

Pulls out the plant.

WALLY

(weak)

Di…rec…tive.

Eve holds the plant.

Her “RETURN TO AXIOM SUPERIOR” flashes in her display.

She considers it for a moment…

…then tosses the plant to the floor.

I don’t care about the plant anymore.

She holds her hand out to him.

EVE

Directive.

“Does the film deserve an Oscar for original screenplay?” Asked Smith of Syracuse University. “It tells a strong story in a daring fashion; how often does something this original come along?”

Find out if WALL-E’s form of talking will win the little gold man on February 22nd. The Oscars will air at 8 PM on ABC. For a complete list of nominations, visit www.oscar.com.