Trailer
Plot summary
As a boy, Carl Fredricksen idolizes the explorer Charles Muntz, who is discredited when the skeleton of a giant bird he found at Paradise Falls is judged fake. Carl befriends Ellie, another Muntz fan, and they marry, save for a trip to the falls, and spend the money on other needs. Ellie falls ill and dies, leaving Carl alone in the house they fixed up. Now 78, he refuses to move while the neighborhood is redeveloped, and after he injures a construction worker who damaged his mailbox, a court orders him into assisted living. Carl ties balloons to the house and lifts it toward Paradise Falls; Russell, a young Wilderness Explorer trying to earn a badge for helping the elderly, is carried along, and a storm drives them to a Venezuelan tepui.
Cast
- Elie Docteras Young Ellie (voice)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Up (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Docter auditioned 400 boys nationwide for the voice of Russell, and eventual star Nagai only got the part because he showed up to his brother's audition and out-talked him, behaving just like the character.
- A technical director calculated the house would need 23 million balloons to fly, but director Docter realized so many would look like small dots that the balloons were built twice the size of Carl instead.
- Despite Pixar's usual merchandising muscle, Target and Walmart barely stocked Up toys and the studio's longtime toy partner, Thinkway Toys, made none at all, calling the story too unusual to sell.
- Director Pete Docter first conceived the movie in 2004 under the title Heliums, growing it out of a personal fantasy of escaping from life when it became too irritating.
- The film became only the second animated feature ever nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, sandwiched between Beauty and the Beast and Toy Story 3, though it lost to The Hurt Locker.
