Ultimate Pixar Tribute- Movie #10: Up

by Nick DeVito

For almost a year after it came out, Up was my second favorite movie, behind the masterpiece that is Wall•E. Now between that time and now, I have seen other movies and currently Up is my fifth favorite movie, but its greatness is still significant.

There exist two kinds of good movies, those that are consistently good from beginning to end, and those that have really good moments and rather bad moments, but the good moments out-weigh the bad. Up fits into the consistently good category, and because of that Up is near-perfect.

For one thing, the score that exists in Up is one of my favorites, and the starring characters in the films are very likable to say the least. The score, as I said, is beautiful, and becomes a character in itself. It’s interesting to hear the different forms of Giacchino’s work. The original tune is great, but only by making it sound happier, darker, and sadder, do you realize how brilliant it is.

It appropriately won Giacchino an Oscar for Best Original Score. However, the real reason why I bring up the score is because of that one scene. If you’ve seen the movie, then you know what I’m talking about. Of course I’m talking about Carl and Ellie’s “Married Life” montage. It’s reminiscent of Wall•E in the sense that there is no dialogue at all during this scene, and the score is all that you hear (not even sound effects).

It starts off light with Carl getting married to Ellie. We see that they are the perfect couple, and we care for the characters and want their lives to be successful. That’s the beauty of Pixar, making the audience care about two characters more than any other set of characters not in a movie by the studio... only ten minutes in!

Anyway, we see the ups and down of their marriage. For every new car there’s a broken leg, and for every touching moment, a tree falls on their house. Along the way they start saving up money to go on their Venezuela adventure, but every time they earn enough money, they are forced to spend it on something else, such as a blown out tire.

We later see Ellie and Carl preparing a room for an upcoming baby, a risqué yet subtle move from Pixar in a PG film. However, we then see Ellie crying in a doctor’s office as he explains to her that she is unable to give birth to a child. Hello? What just happened here? You spend the entire first part of the movie with cheerful gags and heart-warming moments, but then Pixar knocks everybody off their feet with such a dark theme as this.

When this moment occurred in the theater, all off the kids were left wondering what was going on, all of the parents were worried about having to explain it to their kids after the movie ended, and people like me (who weren’t obliged to any of these reasons) thought it was very dark and depressing, but understood Pixar’s intended meaning of it and respected Pixar’s presentation as it never talked down to kids.

That’s not even the worst part. After this moment the montage returns to its previous ways of cheerful moments and heart-warming thoughts, but this time they’ve grown much older. Suddenly, Carl realizes that Ellie is extremely old, and they never fulfilled her Venezuela dream. So he goes to buy two tickets in plans of surprising her with them at a private picnic. Then she dies...

I can’t even begin to explain the sadness in this scene. It’s like in Gremlins when Phoebe Cates’ character performs her infamous Christmas monologue. “You see kids, not only is Santa not real, but he’s your dead dad! Sorry.”

Not only is this one of the saddest scenes in movie history (yes, I just said that), but it comes out of nowhere. The song accompanying the scene is enough to make grown men roll around in their own tears. You might not cry, but if you don’t at least, at least feel moved by this scene, then you have no soul.

Remember, this entire scene (from marriage to death), is one long montage without any dialogue; only a score. How is it even possible to create so much rich story amongst a few minutes without any dialogue? That’s it; I have come to a conclusion. Pixar is God! Okay, maybe not, but how lucky are they to have so many talented artists, and keep making huge risks that always end up successful despite everybody’s predictions and criticism.

This scene must not have meant all that much to certain kids, but to me it was a huge leap for Pixar. Red’s Dream, Finding Nemo, and Toy Story 2 (amongst others) were all extremely sad movies at parts, and Wall•E upped the ante by having scenes that still leave me teary-eyed when I see them, but this is just huge! It’s like if Star Wars 7 came out tomorrow and it was actually good!

Not only is it a miracle that a movie you’ve been waiting for all your life suddenly opens the next day, but it’s a miracle that it works on par with the original trilogy. That’s what’s happening here. Not only is Pixar (the little company that became a multi-billion dollar industry) creating the saddest movie of all time, but it is one of the best movies of all time.

However, that’s not even the craziest part. You want to know something? That scene is not even the saddest scene in the movie! That trophy would have to go to the scene where Carl is looking through Ellie’s Adventure Book before the action-packed finale. It’s the same scenario as the montage scene, but it’s even more unbelievable. Not only is the scene actually sadder, but it’s not even a short silent film like “Married Life” was. It is simply Carl looking at different pictures from his life with Ellie.

Even the score, instead of “Married Life”s’ full orchestra , is just a piano. Just... one... piano. This scene is less then half as complex as “Married Life” is, but it’s more than twice as powerful. I swear that at least four people in my theater lost it and started crying at this point.

Then there’s the scene where Carl gives Russell the “Ellie Badge”. So you have three of the saddest scenes in film history in one Pixar movie, but you want to know the most amazing thing of all. It’s not the impact or the sadness or even the score. The thing is that, well, the movie is so rich, that this entire time I’ve only been talking about the first ten minutes.

Let this sink into your head for a moment, Up is one of the greatest movies of all time, and it is so good, that for the past three pages I’ve been writing about the first ten minutes! Great Scott, this is heavy!

Anyway, I should probably talk about the remaining hour and twenty-six minutes of the movie. I’m not saying that this is one of the best movies of all time simply because it has a great score, and plenty of sad scenes, there’s far more great things in this movie. I said it was the saddest Pixar movie, but it is also arguably the funniest.

Up has a ton of hilarious scenes, mostly involving either Russell or Dug (Dug being the most universally liked character of the film). It also has plenty of memorable lines. Sure there’s “Squirrel!”, but I’m not just talking about the jokes.

For example, I love the scene when Russell and Carl are walking the house and Kevin over to her babies, and Russell’s talking about the times he had with his Dad, before he had to work more and ignore Russell. So many scenes in this film are memorable that I often trick myself into believing that nothing else exists except the story I am witnessing.

When Carl first takes off in his house and releases thousands of individually colored balloons, I froth at the mouth with excitement. Despite his bitter attitude at times, Carl is my favorite character in the movie. I love the action climax the most, because I was lucky enough to first see Up at the Downtown Disney movie theatre in Walt Disney World (the place where dreams come true), and every time I see this scene, I am reminded of all the fun I had there.

Going to Disney World is an adventure, and adventure is the entire theme of the movie. I never got to see it in 3-D (to my disappointment), but it still holds up enough to be an extremely fun and heart-lifting movie. It’s the perfect follow-up to Wall•E, because while that film was a romance about the main character trying to propose his love to the second character, Up shows that two characters have already announced their love for each other, and have gotten married, but instead it shows us of the life of the main character after the second character has died.

We know neither Wall•E or Eve can die because they are both solar powered, (at least Wall•E is; I’m not sure about Eve), and Wall•E has plenty of spare parts in his garage in case an accident occurs. We don’t need to know how and when Carl proposed to Ellie, because they were already in love to begin with. Death is the perfect theme to follow after love, and Up is the perfect movie to follow after Wall•E.

Final Thoughts: Why is Up so good? Up has amazing visuals, a fantastic and memorable score, great characters, a good story, and two passionate meanings. The first one being that life is an adventure, and the second one being life is short, so live it as greatly as you can.

Like I said before, a large portion of Up’s strength comes from its sad scenes, but that’s hardly why the movie works so well. Need I remind you that Pixar can do anything, and if you are ever in doubt that the next Pixar film will be a smash hit, you’re wrong because it will be.

Up unsurprisingly won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film (as well as the one for its score), but it also was nominated for Best Picture. The only other animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture before was Beauty and the Beast.

Bottom line, Up is one of the best movies of all time. I give it four and a half leaf-blowers out of four. Can I do that? Of course I can; it’s my review. (Déjà vu?) ****1/2