Up - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Up or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Up

[nicholas]

In the credits, Carl can be seen taking Russell to see Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) . Disney would eventually buy the Star wars franchise.

[wallace]

Dug shows as a shadow in 'Ratatouille.

[ruby]

The second animated film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. The first was Beauty and the Beast (1991). However, it is the first Disney/Pixar film to do so.

[ella]

On the DVD cover and in commercials, the dogs appear to be flying Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk fighter planes. The U.S. Navy airships Akron (ZRS-4) and Macon (ZRS-5), built and flown in the early 1930s, were actually designed to carry and launch these fighters, using an elaborate "trapeze" to launch and retrieve the planes in mid-flight. Although the system worked well, both airships were lost at sea in severe storms; the Akron in 1933 off the New Jersey coast, and the Macon two years later off Big Sur, California. The Navy then abandoned the technology, so it was never used in actual combat operations.

[jeffrey]

The second Pixar film to be rated PG by the MPAA, after The Incredibles (2004).

[tammy]

The first Pixar film with the Luxo Jr. ball since The Incredibles (2004). Although, in The Incredibles (2004), it only appears in the short film, Jack Jack Attack, and it appears in an Alternate Opening of The Incredibles (2004). Up is on the other hand the first movie with the Pixar ball since Finding Nemo (2003).

[richard]

Russell is Pixar's first Japanese/Asian-American character voiced by an Asian-American actor, Jordan Nagai.

[norma]

The second Pixar film whose main character is a senior citizen. The first film was Geri's Game (1997), which won Best Animated Short in 1997.

[javier]

The exotic bird Russel names 'Kevin' is named after Kevin Spacey who voiced Hopper in A Bug's Life (1998).

[caroline]

When Carl and Ellie are children, only Ellie speaks at length. (Young Carl screams, gasps, and says "Wow" once.) When Carl and Ellie are adults, only Carl speaks.

[miriam]

Many possible endings were proposed for Charles Muntz. At first, the animators considered redeeming him by having him iron out his differences with Carl after their fight on the zeppelin. However, this ending was deemed too dull, as it would amount to both men simply standing and talking for a length of time. In another scenario, Muntz's obsession with catching Kevin took him inside the dreaded labyrinth against his own recommendation, where he would eventually get lost and die (much like Jack Nicholson's character in The Shining (1980)). As the animators wanted to keep the climax situated in the air, they considered having Muntz lured into Carl's house by Kevin and then dying as the house fell off the zeppelin with him still inside. However, they did not want to associate the house, which symbolized Ellie, with a violent death. Another potential ending had Muntz getting tangled into some balloons and getting lifted away rather than falling. But animators felt this was too ambiguous and did not give proper closure to the character. In the end, the directors decided that this was Carl's story, and therefore Muntz's ending was to be kept simple.

[chris]

The iconic, slightly out-of-perspective drawing of the house sitting by the falls is a homage to the style of Mary Blair, the artist credited with bringing the modern art look to Disney animation.

[fred]

Carl becomes a grumpy man after his wife dies, only to return to his cheerful self again near the end of the film. Christopher Plummer, who voices Muntz, played a similar character, Captain Georg Von Trapp, in The Sound of Music (1965) . Captain Von Trapp is cold and grouchy after the death of his first wife, but begins to warm after hearing his children sing together.

[ella]

The rifle that Charles Muntz uses is an 1874 Sharps, a very popular model with buffalo hunters of the American Wild West, and the procedure he uses to load, aim, and fire the weapon is accurate. (His use of shot-shells in a long-range rifle, however, is questionable at best.)

[jeffrey]

The house is based on the real life Edith Macefield house in the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard, Washington. Edith fought building developers and her little house still stands in the center of a large development known as the Ballard Blocks.

[lena]

About halfway through the film, Carl and Russell are trying to put up a tent. Carl is surprised that Russell, with all his badges, never put up a tent before. When he asks Russell why he didn't ask his dad for help, Russell reveals (albeit indirectly) that his parents are divorced (during the conversation where Russell says "Phyllis isn't my mom"). This is the first time in a Disney full-length animated feature where divorce is even hinted at as being a reason for a character having a single parent (most of Disney's single parents are assumed to be widowed).

[tammy]

Charles Muntz is the sixth animated Disney villain to fall to his death (following the Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective (1986), McLeach in The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Gaston in Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)). He is the first Pixar villain to do so. It's also noteworthy that Lucifer the cat in Cinderella (1950) fell to his apparent death but was brought back in the direct-to-video sequel, Malificent in Sleeping Beauty (1959) falls after being mortally wounded with a sword, and Clayton in Tarzan (1999) falls after fighting Tarzan, but actually dies by being hanged by vines.

[riley]

Disney's fifth computer-animated film to be rated PG by the ACB (Australian Classification Board) after Dinosaur (2000), The Incredibles (2004), Chicken Little (2005), and Ratatouille (2007).

[jesse]

The only Best Picture nominee to have just two letters in the title. The record for shortest Best Picture nominee title belongs to the film Z (1969), a 1969 nominee.