Breaking Down: Up

13:09 We see the Grape Soda badge Ellie gave Carl as a child. He still wears it, and it's in the same spot she pinned it on him: right over his heart. Grapes are a symbol of fertility in a host of traditions. In Christianity, they herald the abundance of the Promised Land ¹. In the Chinese tradition of feng shui (which is often used to determine how buildings should be oriented, appropriately enough), displaying grapes in your home is said to cure infertility ². They also match Ellie's vibrant purple bows and kerchiefs. And would it be going too far to point out that they look just like balloons?

At this point we learn that the neighborhood's changed. Or, to use more appropriate phrasing, it's done what Carl hasn't: moved on. We see the skyline at 10:25 up close and learn that the developers in the area want to buy his house from him, but at this point it represents the part of his life he's lost and won't let go of, so he refuses. He doesn't do this just to annoy them, though one gets the impression that'd be reason enough.

14:35 John Ratzenberger makes his obligatory appearance (he's been in every Pixar film), this time as a gregarious construction worker who attempts to persuade Carl to sell. Carl angrily retreats to his house, apparently no longer living by the ethos that "Adventure is out there!" given how much time he spends inside, and turned inwards.




15:31 Russell is introduced. He's dressed a good deal like Ellie was for her job at the zoo, because he's part of some sort of Boy Scout-esque organization called the Wilderness Explorers (co-director and co-writer Bob Peterson was once a camp counselor). Russell wants to help Carl with something—anything—so he can obtain his "Assisting the Elderly" badge. Or, as he puts it:

"These are my Wilderness Explorer badges. You may notice one is missing." And it's not for nothing that the missing badge is right over Russell's heart.

Russell has many suggestions as to the things he can help Carl do to earn his badge, and Carl shoots down each one:

Russell: "I could help you cross the street."
Carl: "No."
Russell: "I could...help you cross your yard?"
Carl: "No."
Russell: "I could help you cross your porch?"
Carl: "No!"
Russell: "Well I gotta help you cross something."

He does, indeed: his heart. Russell can help Carl "cross his heart," which represents the pledge he's made to Ellie ³.

Carl tries to slam the door, but accidentally slams it on Russell's foot. This is the only way people can work their way into Carl's life: by forcing themselves in. Carl eventually gets rid of Russell by sending him on a snipe hunt.

17:36 Carl loses his temper momentarily when a vehicle uproots his mailbox, and injures a well-meaning construction worker. He's called to court and in another sequence without dialogue, we're made to understand that the court has ordered him to enter an old folks' home called Shady Oaks Retirement Village.




19:45 Carl looks through the Adventure Book (and note that even the liver spots on his hand are square), and gets to the "Stuff I'm Going To Do" page. Note that the book has magenta lining. He sighs, and closes the book without going any further, unable to bear the empty pages where records of Ellie's adventures should have been. He then looks at the mantle, the mural, and his pamphlet for the retirement home, and crosses his heart. He's going to keep his promise.




21:10 The two orderlies from Shady Oaks come to pick Carl up, and on their way back to the van we see piles of empty compressed air containers, leading to...




21:20 The big reveal. The music here is pitch-perfect; each note seems to delight in what's happening. Carl's house lifts up off the ground and simply floats away, and the images and music that follow are pure wonder. This is on par with Dorothy's first glimpse at the vibrant color of Oz. We see people going about their daily lives only to be bathed in the light of the balloons, or to see a house simply float by them. It is something extraordinary smuggled into their ordinary routines.

Note the little girl's room as the balloons go by; you can see Lotso, a character from Pixar's Toy Story 3 sitting in the corner, in keeping with Pixar's tradition of hiding something in each film about their next ⁴. Oh, and she also has a drawing of a long-necked bird and an intimidating dog on her wall, both of which we'll be seeing soon.

22:29 Carl salutes a window washer who waves back feebly. We're not given a specific time frame as to when the film takes place, but the ancient looking computer inside the office window would imply that it's set a solid decade before the year in which it was released (2009). However, Russell's GPS navigator, which we see later, suggests otherwise.

This is just one way in which Up mixes the nostalgic with the new. We see it here, with technology, but it's most obviously embodied in the pairing of septuagenarian Carl and preteen Russell. It's also suggested in the pairing of Carl and Ellie: both are fond of flight, with Carl preferring the new and man-made (blimps), and Ellie preferring the old and natural (birds).

For those wondering, Docter says that 10,297 total balloons were animated here, though I haven't verified this personally. He also relays that, in reality, one would need about 26 million balloons to lift a house. I haven't verified that either.

Amusingly, a few adventurous types at National Geographic tried to recreate this feat. They ended up needing 300 8' weather balloons to lift a hollow 16x16' house.




22:03 We see Carl's setup for steering the house, and it looks almost exactly like (and is in the exact same place as) the setup Ellie had in the house when it was abandoned, as seen around 3:44.




22:41 What's that on the left? A billboard for an airline, with South America the most prominent continent on the billboard's globe, and a plane pointed in exactly the direction they're going.

Russell (who stowed away) starts poking around and sees the Adventure Book. He reads the text from before: "A land lost in time." It has a new meaning for us now, because that's quite literally what it is: the land Carl and Ellie wanted to go to, but never found the time for.

There are three particularly lovely parts in the next sequence: the wide shot of the house above the clouds, the way the house is dwarfed by the size of the storm cloud it's approaching, and the way the house's colors are subtly muted (but still stand out) once the storm starts. And if Up felt just a little bit like The Wizard of Oz with its dramatic, colorful reveal earlier, it should feel a lot more explicitly so now that there's a house tumbling around in the sky. The parallels are probably intentional, given that Pete Docter read L. Frank Baum growing up ⁵.

To really drive the similarity home, Carl is knocked out only to wake up in his new wonderland, just like Dorothy.