Up Movie Main Characters List

This Pixar UP movie has many colorful, memorable characters. When you know who they are, watching the show can become more meaningful and fun, too! On this page you will become acquainted with old man Carl Fredricksen and understand how he became so grumpy. Then you can't help but love Russell, the sweet and innocent boy who teaches much. And lastly, Charles Muntz, a childhood hero who's turned dangerous and obsessive. Read on for all the details of these Up movie main characters.

Carl Fredricksen

Carl Fredricksen is the typical grumpy old man in the Up movie. He has a square squished face with square black glasses. He wears a hearing aid and uses a cane with four tennis balls on the bottom. Carl won't hesitate brandishing his cane if provoked.

This movie begins with Carl when he's nine-year-old boy in the 1930's. His hero is adventurer Charles Muntz, whom he watches in the movie theater. Carl likes to pretend that he is Muntz as he carries a party balloon he pretends is Muntz's blimp, Spirit of Adventure.

Young Carl passes by an abandoned old house, where he meets Ellie, a tomboyish girl who is outgoing and also pretends to be like Muntz. They become best friends in the clubhouse, which Carl promises to help Ellie move to the top of Paradise Falls in South America.

They grow up and marry one another and the montage of their life holds highs and painful lows together and before long they are elderly. Ellie passes away before Carl can take her on the last grand adventure to South America and he feels terrible that he could make this last wish for his wife come true.

In his old age and since losing Ellie, Carl has lost all desire for adventures. His life takes on a bland sense of sameness and routine.

But he soon meets Russell, a cute and chubby Asian-American boy who is a member of the Wilderness Explorer scouting troop. Eagerly wanting to earn his Assisting the Elderly Badge, Carl sends Russell on a snipe hunt to make him go away.

When Carl is forced to go to a retirement village for seniors after a lawsuit, he decides to take matters into his own hands. It's finally time for an adventure! He uses all his balloons that he formerly sold at the zoo where he and Ellie used to work to lift his house up, up and away. He decided to fulfill his promise to Ellie anyway.

He soon discovers that Russell is on the porch outside, but a storm prevents Carl from taking Russell back down. So they ride together to South America and land near Paradise Falls in the Up movie.

Carl's adventure in Paradise Falls helps him learn that it's the people in his life that gives him adventure. This main lesson makes Carl happy again and he becomes involved in Russell's life. He's there for Russell as he receives his "Assisting the Elderly" badge and they have ice cream together and play one of Russell's favorite games.

Russell

Russell is a Junior Wilderness Explorer scout who knocked on Carl Fredricksen's door seeking to earn his last badge for "Assisting the Elderly". He is from Tribe 54, Sweatlodge 12 and this last badge will promote him to Senior Wilderness Explorer.

In the Up movie, Russell is outgoing, very talkative and enthusiastic - just the opposite of Carl. He ends up on Carl's porch when the house lifts up into the sky with all those colorful balloons because he was following a "snipe" that Carl sent him to catch. From Russell's description, it sounded more like a rat!

Russell's a smart cookie, too. While Carl starts cutting a few balloons to descend and let Russell out to go home, he warns Carl of the Cumulonimbus clouds looming ahead. He knows those are stormy thunder clouds! Russell also manages to take control of the house, steering through the storm as Carl collects his stuff and ties it down.

This likable and chubby boy also loves animals. When they are both walking the house over to Paradise Falls in the Up movie, they meet Dug, the talking golden lab. Russell immediately wants to keep him. The same goes when they meet Kevin, the tall and colorful tropical bird. Russell gives the bird its name before realizing it is a female, but Kevin doesn't seem to mind. She takes quite a liking to Russell and he fiercely protects her from Muntz and his dogs.

He is a compassionate boy, but Russell is also determined when it comes to defending what he believes in. At first glance, you don't think he's capable of much, but he's the first one who will go after what's important to him. Think of when he tied some balloons to himself and used a leaf blower to get to the Spirit of Adventure blimp to rescue Kevin.

During a conversation with Carl, Russell hints around that his own father is largely absent in his life and a woman named Phyllis doesn't want him bothering his father so much. He says that Phyllis is not his mother, so it's presumed that his parents are divorced and his father is involved with someone else.

At the end of the Up movie, Russell is awarded not only with his "Assisting the Elderly" badge, but also bestowed with the special "Ellie Badge", the grape soda cap that Ellie had given to Carl when they were both children. Russell is genuinely touched at the old man's gesture and they continue to have a relationship with one another upon their arrival home.

Charles Muntz

When he was about 23 years old in the 1930s, Charles Muntz was a great and respected, famous explorer. Muntz was also an inventor for his dogs, creating a automatic dog washer and a treadmill for dogs.

He was a media darling who loved to tell of his adventures in far flung places he went to in his giant blimp, Spirit of Adventure. He also brought back curious animal specimens to show. Charles Muntz was a hero to many children, including Carl and Ellie.

But Muntz was accused of being a fraud when the giant bird skeleton he brought back was told to be a fake. He was stripped of his National Explorer's Society membership as a result. In the Up movie, Charles went back to South America in search of the bird to bring it back alive and redeem his reputation.

The quest for this mysterious bird for all these decades has degraded Muntz's sense of humanity and compassion. He lives by himself inside his blimp within a large cave near Paradise Falls. Muntz is still clever and invented special collars for his dogs to enable them to talk, in different languages, no less, depending on how you turn the dial. The collars also come with a tracking device and video screen, all for the sake of finding the mysterious "Beast of Paradise Falls."

He wants that bird at all cost and does not hesitate to command his large pack of dogs to kill Carl and Russell to get to that bird. His greed is his own undoing at the end, when he plunges to his death after trying to jump from the falling house back onto the blimp's tail.

• Minor Characters
• Charles Muntz's Dogs