Up

Upis a computer-animated film by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, and was released on May 29, 2009 in North America and on October 16, 2009 in the United Kingdom. The film is directed by Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai and John Ratzenberger.

Plot
Young Carl Fredricksen (Jeremy Leary) is a shy, quiet boy who idolizes renowned explorer Charles F. Muntz (Christopher Plummer). He is saddened to learn, however, that Muntz has been accused of fabricating the skeleton of a giant bird he had claimed to have discovered in Paradise Falls, South America. Muntz vows to return there to capture one alive. One day, Carl befriends an energetic tomboy named Ellie (Elizabeth Docter), who is also a Muntz fan. She confides to Carl her desire to move her "clubhouse"—an abandoned house in the neighborhood—to a cliff overlooking Paradise Falls, making him promise to help her. Carl and Ellie eventually get married and grow old together in the restored house, working as a toy balloon vendor and a zookeeper, respectively. Unable to have children, they repeatedly pool their savings for a trip to Paradise Falls, but end up spending it on more pressing needs. An elderly Carl finally arranges for the trip, but Ellie suddenly becomes ill and dies, leaving him alone.

Years later, Carl (Edward Asner) still lives in the house, now surrounded by urban development, but he refuses to sell. He ends up injuring a construction worker over his damaged mailbox. As a result, he is evicted from the house by court order and ordered to move to a retirement home. However, Carl comes up with a scheme to keep his promise to Ellie: he turns his house into a makeshift airship, using thousands of helium balloons to lift it off its foundations. A young Wilderness Explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai) becomes an accidental passenger, having pestered Carl earlier in an attempt to earn his final merit badge, "Assisting the Elderly".

After surviving a thunderstorm, the house lands near a large ravine facing Paradise Falls. Carl and Russell harness themselves to the still-buoyant house and begin to walk it around the ravine, hoping to reach the falls before the balloons deflate. They later befriend a tall, colorful flightless bird (whom Russell names "Kevin") trying to reach her chicks, and then a dog named Dug (Bob Peterson), who wears a special collar that allows him to speak.

Carl and Russell encounter a pack of dogs led by Alpha (also Bob Peterson), and are taken to Dug's master, who turns out to be an elderly Charles Muntz. Muntz invites Carl and Russell aboard his dirigible, where he explains that he has spent the years since his disgrace searching Paradise Falls for the giant bird. When Russell innocently reveals his friendship with Kevin, Muntz becomes disturbingly hostile, prompting the pair, Kevin, and Dug to flee, chased by Muntz's dogs. Muntz eventually catches up with them and starts a fire beneath Carl's house, forcing Carl to choose between saving it or Kevin. Carl rushes to put out the fire, allowing Muntz to take the bird. Carl and Russell eventually reach the falls, but Russell is angry with Carl.

Settling into his home, Carl is sadly poring over Ellie's childhood scrapbook when, to his surprise, he finds photos of their married life and a final note from Ellie thanking him for the "adventure" and encouraging him to go on a new one. Reinvigorated, he goes to find Russell, only to see him sailing off on some balloons to save Kevin. Carl lightens his house and gives chase.

Russell is captured by Muntz, but Carl manages to board the dirigible in flight and free both Russell and Kevin. Muntz pursues them around the airship, finally cornering Dug, Kevin, and Russell inside Carl's tethered house. Carl lures Kevin out through a window and onto the airship, with Dug and Russell clinging to her back, just as Muntz is about to close in. Muntz leaps after them, only to snag his foot on some balloon lines and fall to his death. Freed from its tether, the house descends out of sight through the clouds.

Carl and Russell reunite Kevin with her chicks, then fly the dirigible back to the city. When Russell's father misses his son's Senior Explorer ceremony, Carl proudly presents Russell with his final badge: the grape soda cap that Ellie gave to Carl when they first met. The two then enjoy some ice cream together, sitting on the curb outside the shop as Russell and his father used to do, with the dirigible parked nearby. Meanwhile, Carl's house is shown to have landed on the cliff beside Paradise Falls.

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.
 * Jordan Nagai as Russell, the boy scout stowaway on Carl's flying house. He accompanies Carl in order to earn his "assisting the elderly" badge: the only one he doesn't have. Docter auditioned 400 boys in a nationwide casting call for the part. 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.
 * Christopher Plummer as Charles Muntz, an adventurer whom Carl and his wife admired when they were children. Pete Docter compared Muntz to Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes.
 * John Ratzenberger as a construction worker.
 * Bob Peterson as Dug, a dog with a collar that translates his thoughts into comical sounding English.

Other characters include Kevin, a large tropical bird that Russell names, and more dogs with the collar that Dug has; Alpha, Beta and Gamma.

Story
The fantasy of a flying house was born out from director Pete Docter's thoughts about escaping from life when it becomes too irritating, which he explained stemmed from his difficulty with social situations growing up. Writing began in 2004. Actor and writer Thomas McCarthy aided Docter and Bob Peterson in shaping the story for about three months. Docter selected an old man for the main character after drawing a picture of a grumpy old man with smiling balloons. 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.

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. 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. Docter felt Grant's personality influenced Carl's deceased wife Ellie more than the grouchy main character, and Carl was primarily based on Spencer Tracy and Walter Matthau, because there was "something sweet about these grumpy old guys". 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'.

Docter created Dug as he felt it would be refreshing to show what a dog thinks, rather than what people assume it thinks. The idea derived from thinking about what would happen if someone broke a record player and it always played at a low pitch. Russell was added to the story at a later date than Dug and Kevin; Carl's relationship with Russell reflects how "he's not really ready for the whirlwind that a kid is, as few of us are". 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. 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. 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. 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.

Design
Originally, Carl would have flown to a desert island, but Docter deemed this too cliché and made Venezuela the film's setting after Ralph Eggleston gave him a video of the tepui mountains. In 2004, Docter and eleven other Pixar artists hiked up a tepui and spent three nights there painting and sketching. Pixar also visited Brazil to observe the plants and rock formations, which Docter decided "we couldn't use. Reality is so far out, if we put it in the movie you wouldn't believe it." 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. The filmmakers visited Sacramento Zoo to observe a rare pheasant for Kevin's animation.

Docter wanted to push a stylized feel, particularly the way Carl's body is proportioned. The challenge on Up was making these stylized characters feel natural, although Docter remarked the effect came across better than animating the realistic humans from Toy Story, who suffered from the "uncanny valley". Cartoonists Al Hirschfeld, Hank Ketcham and George Booth influenced the human designs. Simulating realistic cloth on caricatured humans was harder than creating the 10,000 balloons flying the house. New programs were made to simulate the cloth and for Kevin's iridescent feathers. To animate old people, Pixar animators would study their own parents or grandparents and also watched footage of the Senior Olympics. The animators modeled Russell on Peter Sohn, the Pixar storyboarder who voiced Emile in Ratatouille, because of his energetic nature.

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 10,000 balloons created were made to be twice Carl's size.

Release
Up became the first Pixar film to be projected in Disney Digital 3-D. The film made its premiere by opening the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and it became the first animated film to open the film festival. The movie was accompanied in theaters (and on the DVD and Blu-Ray) by the short film Partly Cloudy, directed by Peter Sohn. When the film was screened at the El Capitan Theatre from May 29 to July 23, it was accompanied by Lighten Up!, a live show featuring Pixar's characters.

Among the children's books that were published to promote the film is My Name is Dug, which was illustrated by screenwriter Ronnie del Carmen. Despite Pixar's track record, Target Corporation and Wal-Mart stocked few Up items, while Pixar's regular collaborator Thinkway Toys did not produce merchandise, claiming its story is unusual and was be hard to promote. Disney acknowledged not every Pixar film would have to become a franchise. Characters from the film appeared in an Aflac commercial, as well as on the Roush Fenway Racing's #99 car driven by Carl Edwards, and Cluster Balloons promoted the film with a replica of Carl's couch that were lifted by hot air balloons, that journalists and local celebrties could sit in.

Awards
The film was the winner of Best Animated Feature at the 2010 Golden Globes, the 37th Annie Awards and the 82nd Academy Awards. Up also became the second animated film (as well as the first CGI film) to be nominated for the prestigious Best Picture Oscar, but lost to Iraq war thriller ''The Hurt Locker. Other notable nominees included James Cameron's Avatar, which had overtaken Cameron's own Titanic to become the highest grossing film of all time, Inglourious Basterds, the latest from Pulp Fiction helmer Quentin Tararntino, District 9, a sci fi alien film that made points about immigration, Up in the Air, the latest esemble romcom from Juno helmer Jason Reitman, and The Blind Side, a triumph over adversity movie with paralells to Forrest Gump''. In addition, Michael Giacchino took home the Oscar for Best Original Score beating out James Horner's score for Avatar and Hans Zimmer's score for Sherlock Holmes.