How does Up fit in the Pixar Theory?
What is Up about?
This amazing Pixar movie starts
with Carl Fredricksen, a young boy growing up in 1934. We know its 1934 because
we see an ambulance license plate, dated 1934. The film opens, showing Carl
watching a movie of Charles Muntz, a famous explorer who was shames for faking
his discovery of a rare bird in South America. Later, Carl befriends a girl
named Ellie, who has the same enthusiasm as Carl, about Charles Muntz and of
course adventure. The two friends eventually get married and live a long
beautiful life together. Sadly, they find that Ellie can’t have kids. Still the
couple live a happy life, with the dream of one day going to Paradise Falls in
South America, a place they’ve wanted to go since they were kids. Carl and
Ellie reach their elderly years but they still haven’t saved enough for their
trip. Sadly, Ellie passes away shortly after Carl planned to surprise her wth
two tickets he had got for the trip.
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Paradise Falls
Some time passes and Carl lifts
his house into the air with thousands of helium balloons, setting off on a
grand adventure to Paradise Falls. However, he has a stowaway on board, an
eight year old boy scout who was on Carl’s porch when the house lifted off. A
reluctant Carl has to take the boy on his journey. Using Russell’s (the Boy
Scout) GPS, they make it to their destination but after falling out of the
house they have to walk it through the jungle while roped to the porch. They
encounter the rare bird that Charles Muntz was after, as well as a dog names
Doug. He has a collar on his neck that allows him to speak English and other
languages and he’s not the only one. Charles Muntz had an army of talking dogs.
Eventually, the dogs capture Carl and Russell and the pair discover that Muntz
has become paranoid in his old age, killing anyone who is a threat to Muntz
discovering the bird. The pair manage to escape but the bird is captured after
Carl’s preoccupation with saving his floating house.
They make it to the falls but Russell sets out on his own to rescue the bird. Carl and Doug soon follow, with the house. They assault Muntz’s zeppelin and save the bird. In the end Muntz is defeated and falls to his death. After all of this mayhem, Carl and Russell take the zeppelin to fly back home, leaving the house near the falls, just as Carl promised Ellie. The main part of the movie is most likely set in 2007 like Ratatouille and Toy Story 3. Now in Up, there are many references and ties to other movies. There are a lot of ties between Toy Story and Up but the most important is the connection of the presence of BnL. Before Carl lifts his house into the sky, we see that his house was in the way of a huge construction project. Their logo reveals them to be from BnL, the company that eventually takes over the world. At this point, we know that BnL has been using consumerism, with the help from their advanced toys, in order to expand their business. There are many more little references to other movies, but they are not that important. So far in this report, we have talked about how animals are becoming more intelligent but Up pushes this concept even further with the presence of Muntz’s talking dogs. Somehow, Muntz created technology that would let him command and understand his servant dogs. He invented collars with GPS tracking and a translator that allows him to receive updates during the dogs’ pursuit of the rare bird that Muntz has been looking for. This technology also encourages the dogs to act more like humans. They play poker and serve Muntz through easy jobs like cooking and cleaning. |
The Facts/Evidence
- BnL is slowly taking over the world
- Carl discovers that animals can talk.
- Charles Muntz creates an army of talking dogs.