Carl Fredricksen in UP

is a 2009 computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.
The film premiered on May 29, 2009 in North America by opening the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, the first animated film to do so. It was accompanied in theaters by the short film Partly Cloudy, directed by Peter Sohn.

The film was released on October 16, 2009 in the United Kingdom. This is the second film of director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.).
UP features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson and Jordan Nagai. The film centers around a cranky old man and an overeager Camp Scout who fly to South America in a floating house suspended from helium balloons.

The film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews with a current rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. It is both the first Pixar film to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D and the first Pixar film since The Incredibles to have a PG rating by the MPAA. A video game based on the film of the same name was released on May 26, 2009.

Carl Fredricksen is a quiet young boy who meets a tomboy named Ellie and discovers they share the same interest in exploration as their hero, famed explorer Charles Muntz. Ellie expresses her desire to move her clubhouse to Paradise Falls in South America, a promise she makes Carl keep. Carl and Ellie wed and grow old together in the old house where they first met. Unable to have children, they also try to save up for the trip to Paradise Falls but other financial obligations arise. Just as they seem to finally be able to take their trip, Ellie dies of old age, leaving Carl living alone in their home. As the years pass, the city grows around Carl's house with construction as Carl refuses to move. After a tussle with a construction worker over Carl's broken mailbox, the court orders Carl to move into Shady Oaks Retirement Home. Carl comes up with a scheme to keep his promise to Ellie, and creates a makeshift airship using thousands of helium balloons which lift his house off its foundation. Russell, a Wilderness Explorer trying to earn his "Assisting the Elderly" badge, has stowed away on the porch after being sent on a snipe hunt by Carl the day before.

After a storm throws them around for a while, they find themselves across a large ravine facing Paradise Falls. With their body weight providing ballast allowing Carl and Russell to pull the floating house, the two begin to walk around the ravine, hoping to reach the falls while there's still enough helium in the balloons to keep the house afloat. As they walk towards Paradise Falls, Russell finds a colorful tropical bird which he names Kevin, not realizing that the bird is actually female. They later run into a dog with a translating collar named Dug. They discover Dug's owner is Charles Muntz, who has remained in South America for several decades to find a bird like Kevin in order to restore his reputation after bringing back a skeleton and being called a fraud. Though Carl is initially thrilled to meet his hero, when he realizes that Muntz is after Kevin and will kill to obtain her, Carl takes steps to save the bird and escape from Muntz. Thanks to Kevin and Dug they escape Muntz's pack of vicious dogs, led by Alpha, but Kevin is injured during the escape.

As Carl and Russell assist the injured Kevin to her chicks, Muntz and his dogs arrive in his airship, led by a tracking device in Dug's collar, and sets Carl's house on fire, forcing Carl to choose his house over Kevin. Muntz and his dogs quickly capture the bird and fly off. Though Carl successfully gets the house on the ground overlooking Paradise Falls per Ellie's wish, he has lost Russell's favor. Carl, settling down in his house, finds Ellie's childhood scrapbook and discovers her mementos of her life with Carl after they wed, and a final note from her to thank Carl for her adventure and an encouragement for him to go on his own. Invigorated by Ellie's last wish, he goes outside to see Russell, only to find him giving chase to Muntz. Carl lightens the weight of his house by dumping furniture and his possessions, allowing him to chase after Muntz with Dug by his side.

Russell enters the airship through a window, but is captured by the dogs. He is tied up and left to fall to the earth, but Carl saves him and keeps him tied up in the house. Carl and Dug board the ship, and are able to lure the guard dogs away from Kevin to free her. Carl and Muntz duel face to face and fight (Muntz with a sword, Carl with his cane), while Dug is able to wrest control of the dogs and the dirigible from Alpha. Russell frees himself but clings to a lifeline as he finds the house in a literal dogfight with biplane fighters. When Carl shouts for help, Russell distracts the dog pilots and regains control of the house to rescue his friends, who are now on top of the blimp. In pursuit, Muntz shoots out some of the balloons, causing the house to land and slide off the airship. Carl manages to trick Muntz inside the house while saving Russell, Dug, and Kevin; Muntz falls to his death while Carl's house drifts off into the clouds; a loss Carl gracefully accepts is for the best.

Carl takes Muntz's dirigible and returns Kevin to her chicks, and then returns Russell and Dug back to the city. When Russel's father snubs his son's Senior Explorer ceremony, Carl fulfills that role himself to proudly present Russell with his final merit badge, the grape soda badge that Ellie presented to Carl when they first met. Afterward, Carl cheerfully reinvigorates his life as an active community volunteer with a strong father like relationship with Russell, Dug, and the other Wilderness Explorers. His house, through happenstance, has landed exactly where Ellie envisioned it- overlooking Paradise Falls.

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.[9] 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'."

The filmmakers' first story outline had Carl "just wanted to join his wife up in the sky," Docter said. "It was almost a kind of strange suicide mission or something. And obviously that's [a problem]. Once he gets airborne, then what? So we had to have some goal for him to achieve that he had not yet gotten."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; his presence, as well as the construction workers, helped to make the story feel less episodic.

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 a "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.

An inspiration for the Charles Muntz villain character was cartoon producer Charles B. Mintz who stole Walt Disney's hit character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from him forcing Disney to create replacement character Mickey Mouse. Mintz, like Muntz, did get his comeuppance in real life.

Docter and eleven other Pixar artists visited tepuis in Venezuela in 2004 for researchDocter 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 spent three days reaching Monte Roraima by airplane, jeep and helicopter. They spent three nights there painting and sketching,and encountering dangerous ants, mosquitos, scorpions, frogs and snakes. They also flew to Matawi Tepui and climbed to Angel Falls, as well as Brazil. Docter felt "we couldn't use [the rocks and plants we saw]. Reality is so far out, if we put it in the movie you wouldn't believe it."[6] 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 Himalayan Monal Pheasant Kevin's animation.The animators designed Russell as an Asian-American, and modeled Russell after similar looking Peter Sohn, a Pixar storyboarder who voiced Emile in Ratatouille and directed the short Partly Cloudy, because of his energetic nature.

Docter wanted to push a stylized feel, particularly the way Carl's body is proportioned: he has a squarish appearance to symbolize his containment within his house, while his wife's body is shaped like a balloon.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.[9] 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.

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 balloons created were made to be twice Carl's size.There are 10,927 balloons for shots of the house just flying, 20,622 balloons for the lift-off sequence, and it varies in other scenes.

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. When they met Asner and presented him with a model of his character, he joked "I don't look anything like that." They would tailor his dialogue for him, with short sentences and more consonants, which "cemented the notion that Carl, post-Ellie, is a disgruntled bear that's been poked awake during hibernation".

Jordan Nagai as Russell, a Wilderness Explorer 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. Though he has never really been to the wilderness, he is depressed that his father is always too busy to spend time with him and heavily suggested that his father is with another woman.Russell's design was based on Pixar animator Peter Sohn. Docter auditioned 400 boys in a nationwide casting call for the part. Nagai, who is Japanese American showed up to an audition with his brother, who was actually the one auditioning. Docter realized Nagai behaved and spoke non-stop like Russell and chose him for the part. Nagai was seven years old when cast. Docter encouraged Nagai to act physically as well as vocally when recording the role, lifting him upside down and tickling him for the scene where Russell encounters Kevin.Asian Americans have positively noted Pixar's first casting of an Asian lead character, in contrast to the common practice of casting non-Asians in Asian parts.

Bob Peterson as Dug, a golden retriever with a collar that translates his thoughts into comical-sounding English, and is the odd duck out of a pack of dogs with similar collars owned by Muntz. Peterson knew he would voice Dug when he wrote his line "I have just met you, and I love you," which was based on what a child told him when he was a camp counselor in the 1980s.
Peterson also voices Alpha, a talking Doberman Pinscher and the leader of Muntz's pack of dogs. Despite his menacing appearance, a malfunction in his collar occasionally causes his voice to sound comically high-pitched and squeaky, as if he had been breathing helium.
Kevin, a large, flightless tropical bird. Russell impulsively gives the bird a male name, only later learning that Kevin is female. Near the end of the film, it is shown that Kevin has three baby tropical birds.[24] The bird's iridescent appearance is based upon the male Himalayan Monal Pheasant. [32]

Christopher Plummer as Charles F. Muntz, the villain. He was an adventurer Carl and his wife admired when they were children.He disappeared after scientists claimed he had faked his discovery of the skeleton of a 13-foot tall bird (Kevin's breed), vowing to find a living specimen. However the countless years he spent there has made him unhinged and paranoid, believing anyone who came to Paradise Falls was after the bird to steal his glory.Pete Docter compared Muntz to Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes.

Delroy Lindo as Beta, a Rottweiler, and a member of Muntz's pack of talking dogs.

Jerome Ranft as Gamma, a Bulldog, and a member of Muntz's pack of talking dogs.

John Ratzenberger as Tom, a construction worker who asks if Carl is ready to sell his home.

Elizabeth "Ellie" Docter as Young Ellie, Carl's wife as a child since during their adult years there were no speaking scenes. Elizabeth is the director's daughter. Elizabeth also provided some of the children's crayon-based drawings shown by Ellie.