UP

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In 1939, Carl Fredricksen is a shy 8-year-old boy who meets an outgoing and rather eccentric girl named Ellie and discovers they share the same interest in adventures as their hero, famed explorer Charles Muntz. Ellie expresses her desire to move her clubhouse to Paradise Falls in South America, a promise she makes Carl swear to keep. Years pass, and Carl and Ellie marry and grow old together in the old house where they first met while making a living as a toy balloon vendor and a zookeeper respectively. Unable to have children, they also try to save up for the trip to Paradise Falls but other financial obligations arise. Just as they finally seem to be able to take their trip, Ellie dies of old age, leaving Carl living by himself, becoming sour and missing his wife terribly. As the years pass, the city grows around Carl's house with construction as he refuses to move. After a tussle with a construction worker over his broken mailbox, the court orders Carl to move into Shady Oaks Retirement Home. Carl comes up with a scheme to keep his promise to Ellie, and uses his old professional supplies to create a makeshift airship using 10,000 helium balloons which lift his house off its foundations. Russell, a Wilderness Explorer trying to earn his final merit badge for "Assisting the Elderly", has stowed away on the porch after being sent on a snipe hunt by Carl the day before.
After a storm throws them off course, Russell steers the house with the help of his GPS navigator, and they find themselves on the opposite side of the tepui from Paradise Falls. With their body weight providing ballast allowing Carl and Russell to pull the floating house, the two begin to walk across the tepui, hoping to reach the falls while there's still enough helium in the balloons to keep the house afloat. During the journey, Russell befriends a huge, colorful bird which he names Kevin, not realizing that the bird is actually female. They later run into a dog named Dug with a translating collar that lets him speak. They discover Dug's owner is 85-year-old Charles Muntz, who has remained in South America for many decades to find and bring back a giant bird (who turns out to be Kevin) in order to restore his reputation after bringing back a skeleton of the bird and being called a fraud because scientists thought he faked the evidence. Carl is initially thrilled to meet his hero, but when he realizes that Muntz is after Kevin and will kill remorselessly in order to capture her alive, Carl takes steps to save the bird and escape from Muntz. Thanks to Kevin and Dug they escape Muntz's pack of vicious dogs, led by a Doberman Pinscher named Alpha, but Kevin is injured during the escape.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(2009_film)

-Borapina

This movie brings out lots of interesting values in life. As Russell mentioned when he reached Paradise Fall,” It’s not like what they say in the book. It’s wild.” This is very true in the context of almost every scenario. Companies and institutions might be fighting the economic crisis, making bulks to cash and expanding successfully after many mergers and acquisitions throughout the year. What seems like a revolution to the rest of the world is in fact just an evolution. The media has the propensity to portray the success of an institution as though it happened overnight, as if one right move brought about the magnificent change in the company. Conversely, it is actually decades of hard work and years of consistent co-operation between individuals in the company that makes all these happen. It is only when one enters the corporation, will he be able to fully understand how hectic and stressful it actually is inside the company. Biographies, articles and reports are merely highlights of the company’s success. The effort put it to make all these happen are actually covered up by the media as it is deemed as stale and boring.

This brings me to another point which Russell made in the movie,” It’s the boring things that I remember.” Russell is actually a Wilderness Explorer in the movie. He accompanies Carl in order to earn his "assisting the elderly" badge: the only one he doesn't have. Although he is an explorer, he has never really been outfield; he has never even constructed a tent before. He deluded himself into the fact that if he gets the final badge, his father, who has always been neglecting him, will teach him how to construct one himself. Even though he has always been ignored, he remembers the boring moments that he shares with his dad. To be honest, it is all these trivial things that actually come a long way, all these minutiae in our life, our foibles, are the little things that truly matter. As mentioned by Stephen R. Covey, “To deal only with the superficial trivia without seeing the deeper, more tender issues is to trample on the sacred ground of another’s heart.” What seems to be impertinent to the rest might actually mean the world to the individual. That particular incident or memory could be the solution to the rancorous relationship between two individuals. By bringing it up, it could bring light to the problems and abate it to a level almost insignificant. In fact of true understanding and concern, all problems are easily identified and resolved.

Another key point of the story is the assisting of the elderly. In the society today, many of the young are extremely sardonic when it comes to issues pertaining to the elderly; they think that they are already too old to understand the world today. But in actual fact, they are the real professionals at it. They are the ones that have been through a lot more than we do. Rather than consulting them, we tend to be ignoring them. In some cases, some kids even upbraided their grandparents for damaging their belongings when it was just an accident. Where has all the respect for them gone to? Recently, there was all this hype about Susan Boyle who has managed to concur up a euphonious rendition of “I dreamed a dream.” But before she even began to sing, no one believed in her, no one thought she could do it. Why? It was simply because she looks traditional and ragged. However, after she let out the first line off her diaphragm, everyone was awakened to the reality, that she is sui generis, one of a kind. Therefore, rather than treating them like people who are oblivious to all the happenings today or stereotyping them as weaklings and people who gripe all day long, we should change our perceptions. Learn to understand them before you expect the others to understand you.

Last but not least, Ellie left a message for Carl, just before she died, at the end saying,” Thanks for the adventure. Now go have a new one.” Upon deep pondering, Carl finally realized that he should learn to let go of things and move on. He dumped his chair and the one which belonged to Ellie in an attempt to elevate the house once more into the air. In life, sometimes we are just overly-attached to memories and our past mistakes. We have to give it up at certain point in time before we are going to make any further progress. So long as there is a baulk in front of our path, we are going to remain as a moribund individual. Some people are trapped for days, some years, and some even decades. Many refused to let go before they are afraid of letting other people down. However, it ultimately boils down to the fact that you are living your own life and you only have one life. So live it to the fullest and have no regrets. At the end of the day, the only person that can hold you back is you, yourself, not anyone else.

UP is no doubt yet an incandescent masterpiece of Pixar. A simple yet meaningful illustration has proved to be one that is packed with a bountiful matured themes and teachings. It teaches us most importantly that we should give up our pointless pursuit for rewards(badges) and destinations(Paradise Fall) for something more important, something which we feel have a higher priority and that we should not beguile ourselves into the illusion of possessions. What we should seek for is actually the higher value, higher priority in life, something that is really deep down, close to our heart.