Okay, I like watching a lot of critic shows such as the Nostalgia Critic, and I’ve been re-watching Linkara, who reviews comic books. These shows often have themed months, where they review things that have a similar thread. For me, I’m going to discuss four films by a studio owned by Disney: Pixar.

Oh, Pixar, there are a lot of happy memories that I associate with you. I believe that Disney and Steve Jobs pumped a lot of money in you because you truly saw your potential. Computer animation in the eighties was, at best, experimenting with what could be done. If you watch these animated shorts, they had minimal plot and looked more like projects to see what could be done. Pixar was the first to actually attempt to make a full-length computer animated film, and Toy Story was the result. Even though some of the animation in the 1995 film appears dated (humans that look like walking mannequins), the story could have worked on any level.

I will talk more about Toy Story and how it truly changed movie-making forever. I would like to talk about Up today, and I’m not certain if it is my favorite of all the Pixar films, but it is where the studio peaked.

I specifically want to talk about how Up is brilliant in its story, even though there are plenty of holes in it. For those of you who don’t know, Up is a story about an old man named Carl who has recently lost his wife Ellie. The film shows that the two of them longed for adventure in their ordinary life, but were unable to take a trip to their dream vacation to Paradise falls simply because they could never afford it. The scene where we see Carl’s life is just heart-warming as it is heart-breaking. It brings tears to my eyes every time, and it is in the film’s first five minutes.

The film takes a surreal turn as Carl realizes that even though he can’t fulfill he and his wife’s last dream, he can still go to Paradise Falls. The problem is that he cannot go as he is about to have his house taken away. This is another good scene where Carl hits a construction worker who accidentally damages his mailbox. Carl runs in his house out of shame, and then takes a look outside, to see a man in a suit put his hand on his fence, as if to say “oh, it’s mine now”.

Eventually, the film becomes its own poster as Carl, a former balloon salesman at a zoo, inflates thousands of balloons in order to lift his house from its foundations. He then manages to figure out how to steer his house toward South America.

There is only one problem. A young boy named Russell unintentionally stows away on the house. Carl doesn’t seem to have any intention of turning around and dropping the boy off, and it is very apparent that Russell is not in any hurry to get back home. In short, you have to suspend your disbelief a lot in this film.

I actually believe that suspension of disbelief is done three times in this film, and I want to clarify three types:

1) Acceptable. Many have complained that it would take millions of helium balloons to actually lift a house to make it float. I’m just going to assume that they are right, and I’m also going to say that I don’t care. I understand that Up has many more elements that are even more unbelievable, and I just went with it.

2. Unacceptable. In the opening of the film, we see young Carl watching a newsreel about an explorer named Charles Muntz. I’m not told what year this takes place in, but the newsreel mentions Prohibition, which means it is in the 20’s if the newsreel was attempting to be contemporary. During this scene, Carl looks 5 years old and Muntz must be in his late twenties. This means that Carl must be in his 80’s if he is in modern times, and Russell’s possession of a GPS device shows that we have to be after 2000. Eventually, Carl meets his hero Charles Muntz, and they almost look the same age. In fact, Muntz looks healthier than Carl. For some reason, I wasn’t willing to look past this one and kept crying out “No way”. However, I think I see how this occurred. According to the director’s commentary, Muntz was in South America looking for the fountain of youth. If he had found it, it would explain his longevity. It looks like during rewrites that the fountain of youth element was abandoned for this exotic bird plotline.

3. Unacceptable at first, but when you think about it, it actually is Acceptable. Okay, so if Carl wanted to bring his house to the top of Paradise Falls, what would he live on? My daughter pointed out this plot-hole, but the answer is pretty simple: Carl does not intend to live. Yeah, this gives a dark take on the story, but it makes a whole lot of sense. The pain of losing his wife is so severe that he doesn’t want to live anymore.

So there you have it, a Pixar film takes us to school on story-telling. I remember watching it in 3D in a theater, and this is honestly the only way to appreciate its massive scale. As I have said before, it is not perfect, but it is close.

In fact, I noticed a terrible flaw in the film the other day: there is no reason why Russell should accidentally stow away. Russell is on Carl’s porch when Carl discovers him, but Russell is not seen on the porch when the house floats away. Also, the house rose very slowly, and Russell could have jumped off a lot earlier.

I have a theory that the film does not support, but it would be cool if it did. I want to believe that Russell is not real, but is Carl’s imaginary friend/inner child representation. Yeah, other films like A Beautiful Mind and Fight Club have dealt with this idea, and I wish the film would have given this idea some fruition. For example, have none of the main characters ever address Russell directly.

Here’s another place in the story where you need to suspend your disbelief. Imagine if you are a mother, and your son went missing. If your son came back and told you a story about an old man who took you away in a flying house, what would you think? Yeah, you would not want your son hanging out with that old guy.

In short, Up is brilliant, and there really wasn’t anywhere for Pixar to go but with mediocre films and sequels. I already discussed that in my Frozen review, but essentially Pixar had nowhere to go but down.