New York Comic Con hosted a panel this afternoon with the creators behind Disney Pixar’s new film Up. Pete Docter, the director, and Jonas Rivera, the film’s producer, introduced and screened five clips and then discussed the film.
Up is about 78-year-old widower Carl Frederickson (voiced by Ed Asner) who, after a lifetime of dreaming, decides to take a worldly adventure. He rigs the house that he and his wife shared to hundreds of balloons and flies away on his adventure—only to discover that 8-year-old Russell, a “Junior Wilderness Explorer,” is stranded with him. Russell is very persistent to earn his last merit badge for helping the elderly, and the curmudgenly Carl grudgingly winds up adventuring with the boy through the jungles of South America.
I won’t go into details because the clips have some wonderful surprises that could be terrible spoilers, but I generally got a very favorable impression from these short teasers. The first clip was the meeting between Carl and Russell, which you’re probably already familiar with from the first trailer released. This scene felt a little long and awkwardly paced, but the Pixar brand of humor was unmistakable. The next three clips were superb—you meet a number of other quirky, original, and wonderfully weird supporting characters. The interactions between Carl and Russell were funny but tender and the story had elements of the fantastic without being utterly ridiculous. The final clip took a turn for the supremely weird, but based on the strength of the others I think they will pull it off. Here’s hoping the clips get posted out there shortly.
Congoers later in the evening were treated to a preview of the first 45 minutes of the film, but I couldn’t bear to spoil myself by seeing so much. I can’t wait to see the full version of Up.
