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Up (2009 film)

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For the video game on the film, see Up (video game).
Up
File:Up Poster.JPG
Theatrical poster
Directed byPete Docter
Co-Director:
Bob Peterson
Written byScreenplay:
Bob Peterson
Pete Docter
Story:
Pete Docter
Bob Peterson
Tom McCarthy
Produced byJonas Rivera
Executive Producers:
John Lasseter
Andrew Stanton
StarringEdward Asner
Christopher Plummer
Jordan Nagai
Bob Peterson
Delroy Lindo
Jeromy Ranft
John Ratzenberger
Music byMichael Giacchino
Production
company
Distributed byWalt Disney Pictures
Release dates
May 29, 2009 (North America)
September 3, 2009 (Australia)
October 16, 2009 (United Kingdom)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$175 million[1]

Up is a computer-animated 3-D film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It is distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, and premiered by opening the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The film was released on May 29, 2009 in North America and scheduled for release on October 16, 2009 in the United Kingdom. This is director Pete Docter's (Monsters, Inc.) second film, and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson and Jordan Nagai. The film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews with a current rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

A young boy named Carl Fredrickson has dreams of adventure, wishing to follow in the footsteps of his idol, the famous explorer Charles F. Muntz. One day, he meets an equally adventurous girl named Ellie, and they fall in love over their shared interests and dreams; Ellie also shows him her album, with which she hopes to chronicle her adventures. They eventually marry and begin making plans to explore the Paradise Falls in South America. To fund for their adventure, Carl and Ellie take jobs at the local zoo where Ellie becomes a zookeeper and Carl a balloon salesman; unfortunately, they are continually forced to spend their savings on renovations, accidents, a miscarriage followed by sterility,[2] medical bills among other things. After several decades, just when it finally seems they are able to fulfill their dream, Ellie falls ill and passes away.

By now, Carl has become a bitter old man whose house sits in the middle of a construction site for an entire city block. He is also briefly tormented by a young Wilderness Explorer named Russell, who is trying to obtain a merit badge for "Assisting the Elderly," thus completing his collection and making him a Senior Wilderness Explorer; to get him out of his hair, Carl sends the boy off to find a snipe. After Carl assaults and accidentally injures a construction worker for damaging his mailbox he and Ellie decorated together, Carl is deemed a public menace and ordered to be put in a retirement home. However, that night, Carl decides that now is the time to go off on the adventure he and Ellie had always dreamed of. The next day, when men from the home arrive to take him away, Carl surprises some by revealing thousands of helium-filled balloons all tied to his house, which lifts it off the ground and flies away, setting a course for Paradise Falls to fulfill his promise to Ellie.

Shortly after taking off, Carl discovers that Russell has unwittingly stowed away on the porch of his flying house while searching for the non-existent snipe. Carl is greatly annoyed by the talkative boy's presence and contemplates getting him down from the house, but before he can do so, the house flies into a thunderstorm. Carl and Russell are forced to work together to land to safety, hanging on to a long garden hose attached to the house and tying themselves to it. Surely enough, Carl and Russell land on a mesa in South America, right across from Paradise Falls. Carl is overjoyed until he discovers neither he nor Russell can climb up the tether back into the house and fly to the other side, so the two are forced to make their way there on foot through the jungle below, with three days before the balloons deflate. In the jungle, Russell discovers a large, colorful, non-flying bird and names it Kevin. Carl and Russell later come across a dog named Dug, who wears a collar that translates his thoughts into audible, verbal speech. Dug explains that he is part of a pack of dogs hunting for Kevin; he also explains that Kevin is actually a female who is trying to return to her chicks. Carl reluctantly agrees to Russell's request to protect Kevin and bring her home.

Along they way, the group discovers Carl's childhood idol, Charles Muntz. Muntz, having supposedly found skeletal remains of Kevin's rare species many years ago in Paradise Falls, was declared a fraud by scientists, so he set off to find a living specimen with his dog pack, growing dangerously obsessive with achieving his goal over the years. Muntz treats Carl and Russell hospitably until he discovers they have come across Kevin, the bird he has been searching for. Believing them to be trying to steal his glory, Muntz sends his dogs after them. The group manages to escape, though Kevin is injured when one of the dogs bites one of her legs. Before the group can make it to Kevin's home, Muntz tracks them down with a homing device planted in Dug’s collar, captures Kevin and lights part of Carl's house on fire, which pops several of the balloons and damages several of his belongings which hold memories of Ellie. Russell pleads for Carl to help, but Carl angrily refuses and resumes his trek to Paradise Falls, disillusioning Russell in his attempts to assist him.

Upon reaching the falls, Carl settles down in his house and takes Ellie's old album, discovering that she had filled it with memories of her life with him, along with a note from Ellie thanking him for giving her the adventure of their marriage, and advising him to have one of his very own. Carl takes this advice to heart and goes outside, only to find that Russell has left with some of Carl's balloons to rescue Kevin himself from Muntz's blimp overhead. Carl empties his house of its furniture to send it aloft and gives chase, with Dug tagging along. Russell ends up getting captured, but is saved by Carl and brought into his house. Carl and Dug then rescue Kevin, with Muntz chasing them throughout the blimp. Eventually the chase leads them to Carl's house, where Muntz makes a critical mistake and plummets to his death, while the house sinks into the sea of clouds below. Carl, Russell, and Dug return Kevin to her home where she reunites with her chicks before piloting Muntz's blimp back to the city.

Russell is promoted to Senior Wilderness Explorer, with Carl personally presenting him a bottle cap badge Ellie had given him on the day they first met. Carl takes Dug as his own dog and remains close with Russell. Carl's house, meanwhile, is shown to have finally landed right next to Paradise Falls, on the exact spot where he and Ellie had dreamed of living.

Cast

  • Edward Asner as Carl Fredricksen. Docter and Rivera noted Asner's television alter-ego Lou Grant had been helpful in writing for Carl, because it guided them in balancing likeable and unlikeable aspects of the curmudgeonly character.[3] When they met Asner and presented him with a model of his character, he joked "I don't look anything like that." They would tailor his dialogue for him, with short sentences and more consonants, which "cemented the notion that Carl, post-Ellie, is a disgruntled bear that's been poked awake during hibernation".[4]
  • Jordan Nagai as Russell, Wilderness Explorer stowaway on Carl's flying house.[5] He accompanies Carl in order to earn his "assisting the elderly" badge: the only one he doesn't have.[6] Docter auditioned 400 boys in a nationwide casting call for the part.[7] Nagai showed up to an audition with his brother, who was actually the one auditioning. However, Docter, who had passed on other potential voices that sounded too artificial, realized Nagai behaved and spoke non-stop like Russell and chose him for the part.[8] Nagai was seven years old when cast.[7] Docter encouraged Nagai to act physically as well as vocally when recording the role, lifting him upside down and tickling him for the scene where Russell encounters Kevin.[4]
  • Bob Peterson as Dug, a dog with a collar that translates his thoughts into comical-sounding English, and is the odd duck out of a pack of dogs with similar collars owned by Muntz. Peterson knew he would voice Dug when he wrote his line "I have just met you, and I love you," which was based on what a child told him when he was a camp counselor in the 1980s.[9]
    • Peterson also voices Alpha, a talking Doberman Pinscher and the leader of Muntz's pack of dogs. Despite his menacing appearance, a malfunction in his collar occasionally causes his voice to sound comically high-pitched and squeaky.[9]
  • Kevin, a large tropical bird. Russell gives the bird a male name although Kevin is actually a girl.[10]
  • Christopher Plummer as Charles F. Muntz, the villain. He was an adventurer Carl and his wife admired when they were children.[11] He disappeared after scientists claimed he had faked his discovery of the skeleton of a 13-foot tall bird (Kevin's breed), vowing to find a living specimen.[9] Pete Docter compared Muntz to Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes.[5]
  • Delroy Lindo as Beta, Muntz's talking Rottweiler.[9]
  • Jerome Ranft as Gamma, Muntz's talking Bulldog.[9]
  • John Ratzenberger as Tom, a construction worker.[9]
  • Elizabeth "Ellie" Docter as Young Ellie, Carl's late wife (as a child). Elizabeth is the director's daughter.[12]

Production

Story

The main character Carl Fredricksen is partially based on Spencer Tracy[13]

The fantasy of a flying house was born out from director Pete Docter's thoughts about escaping from life when it becomes too irritating,[5][7] which he explained stemmed from his difficulty with social situations growing up.[14] Writing began in 2004. Actor and writer Thomas McCarthy aided Docter and Bob Peterson in shaping the story for about three months.[8] Docter selected an old man for the main character after drawing a picture of a grumpy old man with smiling balloons.[8] The two men thought an old man was a good idea for a protagonist because they felt their experiences and the way it affects their view of the world was a rich source of humor. Docter was not concerned with an elderly protagonist, stating children would relate to Carl in the way they relate to their grandparents.[5]

Docter noted the film reflects his friendships with Disney veterans Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Joe Grant (who all died before the film's release). Grant gave the script his approval as well as some advice before his death in 2005.[15] Docter recalled Grant would remind him the audience needed an "emotional bedrock" because of how wacky the adventure would become; in this case it is Carl mourning for his wife.[8] Docter felt Grant's personality influenced Carl's deceased wife Ellie more than the grouchy main character,[15] and Carl was primarily based on Spencer Tracy and Walter Matthau, because there was "something sweet about these grumpy old guys".[13] Docter and Jonas Rivera noted Carl's charming nature in spite of his grumpiness derives from the elderly "hav[ing] this charm and almost this 'old man license' to say things that other people couldn’t get away with [...] It's like how we would go to eat with Joe Grant and he would call the waitresses 'honey'. I wish I could call a waitress 'honey'."[16]

The filmmakers' first story outline had Carl "just wanted to join his wife up in the sky," Docter said. "It was almost a kind of strange suicide mission or something. And obviously that's [a problem]. Once he gets airborne, then what? So we had to have some goal for him to achieve that he had not yet gotten."[12] Docter created Dug as he felt it would be refreshing to show what a dog thinks, rather than what people assume it thinks.[17] The idea derived from thinking about what would happen if someone broke a record player and it always played at a low pitch.[8] Russell was added to the story at a later date than Dug and Kevin;[8] his presence, as well as the construction workers, helped to make the story feel less episodic.[12]

Carl's relationship with Russell reflects how "he's not really ready for the whirlwind that a kid is, as few of us are".[15] Docter added he saw Up as "coming of age" tale and an "unfinished love story", with Carl still dealing with the loss of his wife.[18] He cited inspiration from Casablanca and A Christmas Carol, which are both "resurrection" stories about men who lose something, and regain purpose during their journey.[19] Docter and Rivera cited inspiration from the Muppets, Hayao Miyazaki, Dumbo and Peter Pan. They also saw parallels to The Wizard of Oz and tried to make Up not feel too similar.[20] There is a scene where Carl and Russell haul the floating house through the jungle. A Pixar employee compared the scene to Fitzcarraldo, and Docter watched that film and The Mission for further inspiration.[21]

Design

Docter and eleven other Pixar artists visited tepuis in Venezuela in 2004 for research

Docter made Venezuela the film's setting after Ralph Eggleston gave him a video of the tepui mountains.[5][15] In 2004, Docter and eleven other Pixar artists spent three days reaching Monte Roraima by airplane, jeep and helicopter.[9] They spent three nights there painting and sketching,[22] and encountering dangerous ants, mosquitos, scorpions, frogs and snakes. They also flew to Matawi Tepui and climbed to Angel Falls,[9] as well as Brazil. Docter felt "we couldn't use [the rocks and plants we saw]. Reality is so far out, if we put it in the movie you wouldn't believe it."[13] The film's creatures were also challenging to design because they had to fit in the surreal environment of the tepuis, but also be realistic because those mountains exist in real life.[15] The filmmakers visited Sacramento Zoo to observe a rare pheasant for Kevin's animation.[1]

Docter wanted to push a stylized feel, particularly the way Carl's body is proportioned: he has a squarish appearance to symbolize his containment within his house, while his wife's body is shaped like a balloon.[4] The challenge on Up was making these stylized characters feel natural,[5] although Docter remarked the effect came across better than animating the realistic humans from Toy Story, who suffered from the "uncanny valley".[15] Cartoonists Al Hirschfeld, Hank Ketcham and George Booth influenced the human designs.[8][11][19] Simulating realistic cloth on caricatured humans was harder than creating the 10,000 balloons flying the house.[14] New programs were made to simulate the cloth and for Kevin's iridescent feathers.[10] To animate old people, Pixar animators would study their own parents or grandparents and also watched footage of the Senior Olympics.[3] The animators modeled Russell on Peter Sohn, the Pixar storyboarder who voiced Emile in Ratatouille, because of his energetic nature[7]. Russell was also designed as Asian-American[23].

A technical director worked out that in order to make Carl's house fly, he would require 23 million balloons, but Docter realized that number made the balloons look like small dots. Instead, the balloons created were made to be twice Carl's size.[24] There are 10,927 balloons for shots of the house just flying, 20,622 balloons for the lift-off sequence, and it varies in other scenes.[9]

Release

Pete Docter (left), Jonas Rivera (right) in 2009 with KUSI-TV's Phil Konstantin

Up is the first Pixar film to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D.[20] The film premiered by opening the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, the first animated film to do so.[25] It was accompanied in theaters by the short film Partly Cloudy, directed by Peter Sohn.[26] Whenever the film is screened at the El Capitan Theatre from May 29 to July 23, it will be accompanied by Lighten Up!, a live show featuring Pixar's characters.[27]

Among the children's books that will be published to promote the film is My Name is Dug, which was illustrated by screenwriter Ronnie del Carmen.[28] Despite Pixar's track record, Target Corporation and Wal-Mart will stock few Up items, while Pixar's regular collaborator Thinkway Toys will not produce merchandise, claiming its story is unusual and will be hard to promote. Disney acknowledged not every Pixar film would have to become a franchise.[1] Promotional partners include Aflac,[29] NASCAR and Airship Ventures,[30][31] while Cluster Balloons will promote the film with a replica of Carl's couch that will be lifted by hot air balloons, that journalists can sit in.[32]

Reception

As of May 29, 2009, Up holds a 98% "freshness" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 141 reviews with an 8.6/10 review average.[33] The film also holds a score of 89 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, the highest score obtained this year, as of May 29, 2009.[34] Notable critics such as Roger Ebert have given the film four out of four stars. [35]

Dug, the talking canine, was awarded the Palm Dog by the British film critics as the best canine performance at Cannes Film Festival. Dug beat out the fox from Antichrist and the black poodle from Inglourious Basterds. [36]

References

  1. ^ a b c Brooks Barnes (2009-04-05). "Pixar's Art Leaves Profit Watchers Edgy". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
  2. ^ Interview: Pete Docter Goes Up
    Written by
    Christina Radish
    Friday, 15 May 2009    , Interview: Pete Docter Goes Up
    Written by
    Christina Radish
    Friday, 15 May 2009.
  3. ^ a b "Video Interview: Up Director Pete Docter and Producer Jonas Rivera". /Film. 2009-02-13. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
  4. ^ a b c Richard Corliss (2009-05-08). "Going Up". Time. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "News Etc". Empire. February 2009. pp. 12–15.
  6. ^ "Comic-Con DISNEY/PIXAR Panel: UP". UGO Networks. 2008-07-26. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
  7. ^ a b c d Patrick Lee (2009-03-02). "Up director Peter Docter on talking dogs, youth scouts and adventure". Sci Fi Wire. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g "Up Producer/Director". Moviehole. 2009-02-12. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Production notes". Official site. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
  10. ^ a b Jenna Busch (2009-02-12). "Up footage and Q&A!". JoBlo.com. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
  11. ^ a b Edward Douglas (2009-02-06). "A Sneak Preview of Pixar's Up". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
  12. ^ a b c John Horn (2009-05-10). "'Up' is Pixar at its most ambitious". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
  13. ^ a b c James Keast (2009-02-06). "Pixar Reveals Early Look At Up". Exclaim!. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
  14. ^ a b Ed Liu (2009-02-08). "NYCC 2009: Spending Time with Disney/Pixar's "Up" (and, Disney's "Surrogates")". Toon Zone. Retrieved 2009-02-08.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Bill Desowitz (2008-07-29). "Pete Docter Goes Up". Animation World Network. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
  16. ^ Eric Vespe (2009-03-27). "Quint chats with Pixar's Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera about UP! Plus a McCameo!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved 2009-03-28.
  17. ^ Katey Rich (2009-02-08). "NYCC: Interview With Pete Docter And Jonas Rivera". Cinema Blend. Retrieved 2009-02-09.
  18. ^ Shawn Adler (2008-08-07). "'Up' And Coming: 3-D Pixar Movie Tells A 'Coming Of Old Age' Story, Director Says". MTV. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
  19. ^ a b Bill Desowitz (2009-02-11). "Docter Goes Halfway Up". Retrieved 2009-02-14.
  20. ^ a b Erik Davis (2009-02-07). "Cinematical Previews Pixar's 'Up'". Cinematical. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
  21. ^ "Mr. Beaks Goes UP with Pixar's Pete Docter!". Ain't It Cool News. 2008-07-27. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
  22. ^ "Exclusive! First Look at 12 Big Movies Coming In 2009". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
  23. ^ New York Magazine May 24, 2009 "a roly-poly Asian-American wilderness explorer"
  24. ^ Sean P. Means (2009-04-22). "Who's 'Up' for an original summer movie?". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
  25. ^ "Disney/Pixar's Up to Open Cannes". ComingSoon.net. 2009-03-19. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
  26. ^ "Partly Cloudy, Pixar's Next Short". Pixar Planet. 2009-02-07. Retrieved 2009-02-07.
  27. ^ "Up at Disney's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood w/ New Stage Show". Pixar Planet. 2009-04-22. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
  28. ^ "UP: My name is Dug". Ronnie del Carmen's blog. 2009-03-15. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
  29. ^ "Aflac Announces New Integrated Marketing Campaign". PR Newswire. 2009-04-22. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
  30. ^ "Aflac's Partnership with Up: NASCAR/TV Commercial". Pixar Planet. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
  31. ^ "Up Two For One: Blimp Goes Up + New Up Still". Pixar Planet. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
  32. ^ "Up Cluster Balloon Tour". Pixar Planet. 2009-04-23. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  33. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/up/
  34. ^ http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/up
  35. ^ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090527/REVIEWS/905279997
  36. ^ Pixar pooch picks Up Cannes prize, BBC News 22 May 2009, retrieved on 27 May 2009
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