Big Ups to Disney's 'Up'!
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

Disney's Up features a Japanese-American voice actor to freshen things up!

Pixar has the uncanny ability to strike gold with everything they put their hand at. That is still the case with Pixar’s latest animation project, Disney’s Up, recently out on DVD and Blu-Ray.

I loved the film, but relative to Pixar’s other projects (WALL*E, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, and Toy Story), I personally don’t think Up was as magical. I can’t quite pinpoint what it’s missing. Maybe it’s because it’s not your conventional Pixar movie that is completely out of our real world frame of reference. In the other stories, there was always an element of the story that let the spectator know that he’s in a world of fantasy. Not so much in Up. Everything that happens in the beginning seems so grounded and real that when things get thrown for a loop, it’s quite alarming.

It’s just the story of a widowed old man trying to hold onto his house and keep the corporate bigwigs building the multiplex next door from bullying the land away from him. He’s a simple man, satisfied with his job. His issue is that he hasn’t moved on since his wife died. Real enough, right? For about thirty minutes or so, everything is completely plausible. Then all of a sudden, he’s floating his house away attached to thousands of helium balloons, you meet a bunch of talking dogs and an unlikely villain in a 100 year old man.

So I suspend my disbelief and enjoy the rest of the movie. One of the greatest stars in the movie is the character voiced by a nine year old Japanese-American kid Jordan Nagai, Russell the happy-go-lucky Wilderness Adventure ranger that finds his way into the old man’s life. Some of my friends couldn’t even tell he was Asian when they watched the movie in theaters but upon this second viewing, it was pretty obvious to me. The musical inflection in his voice, the almond-shaped eyes, the inquisitive chipper attitude and the passive aggressive stubborn attitude he takes on when there’s conflict. I loved that he was written in there as a main character. He was amusing and the motivating factor in allowing the old man to enjoy the adventure of life and moving past regrets after the trauma of the death of his wife.

All in all, Pixar’s Up was a movie that’s not a traditional Pixar movie. Kids will still enjoy aspects of it but the movie deals with deeper, adult themes that we can all learn a little from. And the casting of an Asian-American character in a non-stereotypical role is a big step, especially in a widely-distributed film like Up.