Movie Review: Up (2009) {part 2: the magic}

After all the praise that Up has received (from Taylor, myself, ever major movie reviewer, and basically ever other person who has seen it), a simple but nagging question still comes to mind: why go 3D? Pixar seems to have such a good thing going with their own personal style, so why throw a wrench into the gears of the animation progress. Why seemingly reduce a very powerful and provocative movie with a gimmick that reminds one of cheap thrills from campy movies of one’s childhood. The answer is quite simple: the 3D is no gimmick. Unbeknown to most, apparent leaps and bounds have been made in the realm of 3D projections and the head-aches, disorientation and other less appealing aspects of old-school 3D films are all but gone. In the end the 3D component of this film is not a gimmick but instead a tool used to enhance the story telling.

Up is not the first Pixar film to break a technological boundary in the name of animation. In many ways, each Pixar film has brought about amazing visual revolutions in animated storytelling and each revolution has been utilized not to wow, but instead to enhance the elements of the story in which we as humanbeings can best relate.

Toy Story started it all and opened the world to computer animation as a viable story telling method. Computers were finally able to create characters that moved with expression and detail and could mimic the natural expressions and body languages of humans even in non-human characters.

Monsters inc. then pushed computers in the field of fur creation and rendering and continued Pixar’s astounding work in creating characters, which while far from human still possess the human spark that makes them engaging. (This humanizing of the un-human is a continuing theme for Pixar films and is something that no other digital animation house has been able to approach with such care and nuance.)

Finding Nemo brought forth amazing advancements in translucence.

The Incredibles followed with new advancements in squash and stretch modeling and the first set of “human” protagonists to grace a Pixar film.

Ratatouille introduced an entirely new look to Pixar films: a cross between a watercolor and a pastel painting.




The animators of Wall-e took the look of Ratouille a step further and created a landscape that was desolate and yet hauntingly beautiful. They also raised their level of storytelling with a movie that is basically silent for the first hour.

Each movie for Pixar has represented a leap in technological ability and yet these new leaps have never led to missteps or mistakes, like so many other technological innovators (Windows Vista anyone…). Each new advancement has been added upon what had come before it. Never was a new technique, method or idea integrated just for the sake of its creation. It had to serve a purpose in the story. It had to enhance the character's ability to relate with the audince or create an even better world in which the audince could be drawn into.

Up - for the most part - follows the same paradigm of technological advancment.

I say, for the most part, because the 3D in Up isn't really crucial to the film. After all, unlike many of the other technological innovations from the previous Pixar films Up's 3D isn't a neccessary or even truely an important part of the storytelling. However, this is all really a mute point because as I mentioned before the 3D is never used a gimik. Objects are not selectively 3D; everything is given a place on the dimensional horizon. Objects don't fly towards the audience; they lie on a proper 3D plane and this is what makes Pixars use of 3D so amazing.
This is only speculation, as I have not seen the 2D version, but I have a feeling that even though this movie was designed from the ground up as a 3D entity that in it’s traditional 2D form the movie would still be just as an astounding masterpiece. Because the 3D version doesn't rely on making an audience feel like they have to dodge flying object, watching the 2D version shouldn't make a viewer feel like they are missing something important.

Perhaps the greatest praise that can be given to Pixar for the visual aspect of Up is how they handled the 3D. They utilized a very old technology and brought it back into the mainstream. They did it in a way that enhanced the film and yet would not damage it, even if the 3D was removed. No matter what advancement Pixar makes, they never seem to forget that it is the story that matters in the end and not some new technique or technology.

(One last little aside: a unique property of the 3D glasses was that they slightly dimmed the image that was being projected. This served to darken and slightly de-saturate the colours of the film. One can not help but wonder if the darker vibe of the movie would be slightly diminished in the 2D version or if the animators took this into account and made the 3D version more vibrant to account for the effect of the glasses.)