More 'UP'dates [UPdated]

Up comes out in only 2 weeks! Once that happens, I will keep you up-to-date on its box office totals, Rotten Tomatoes score, etc. But, for now, much of the world has yet to see the wonderful film (I am one of the lucky individuals who has gotten to see it. Not to brag but, ha! it was really great). So, to quench your thirst for Up, here are a bunch of links so that you can get your daily dose of Pixar:


Update: Cartoon Brew has an extremely great article about Up, which, in addition to much, much more, compares Specncer Tracy and Carl (above; image courtesy of Cartoon Brew), and compares Charles Muntz to an event from early Disney history:

The villian of the piece is named Charles Muntz. I wonder what inspired his name? In real life, Charles Mintz was the animation producer who “stole” Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, forcing Walt Disney to create Mickey Mouse. In Up, Muntz is trying to capture an elusive “cartoon-like” bird, and created a way to make animals “talk”.

I never thought of that! Very, very interesting . . . I recommend reading the full article which compares little quirky and intriguing bits of info like the quote above. Read it here.


DisneyStore.com has just released a whole bunch of new Up items in an Up section of the online store. Items range from a snow globe to an Up-inspired Hawaiian shirt, luggage tags to mouse pads! Get all of your Up merchandise here!

Newsweek has a good article about Up and Pixar in general. It even includes some of pixar's history, which you may or may not know (if you don't, but like their films, I recommend researching their history. It is very, very interesting). Read the article from Newsweek here.


NYTimes also has a terrific article about Up, but more specifically about the process that Pixar went through to design the numerous characters of Carl, Russell, Kevin, and Dug. It discusses their bringing ostriches to the studio, visiting overweight dogs, and even going to the zoo with their sketchpads. To give you a little sneak peek of the interesting article, here is Mr. Nierva briefly describing the process they went through to design Kevin:

Every film at Pixar, there’s always one character that’s really difficult to design, and Kevin is that character on ‘Up,’ Pete wanted this complex character. It had to be vulnerable, it had to be scary, it had to be colorful, it had to be huge.

Read the full article here, and explore the interactive 'Inside and Out'
section of their site for great, never-before-seen concept art, along with commentary about the character development by Pete Docter and Ricky Nierva. Very interesting!

Here is a new Up clip that has appeared on YouTube called Pursuit:



Also, IESB has a pretty good featurette about the production of Up. It is fifteen minutes and split into 3 parts. It didn't really tell or show me anything new, but its still a decent watch if you just can't wait for Up. See all of the parts here, or just the first part below:


IESB also has an interview with Docter which is, frankly, much more interesting than the featurette.


The Disney Blog is reporting that visitors wandering around Walt Disney World will begin to see the characters of Carl, Russell and Dug around the park!

That's all the Up news for now! Be sure to check out my review of Pixar's newest movie, released in only 2 weeks!