Interestingly, my taste in movies have not changed notably since I was a child. I reliably enjoy ‘wholesome’ movies, which encompasses most Pixar, and generally, the family-film genre. I strongly disliked ‘The Prince of Egypt’ for its lack of wholesomeness – I would’ve wanted the brothers to sincerely try to understand each other.
This film was recommended by a friend as one of few non-animated films that encompass ‘wholesomeness’. That was a strong selling point for me, and a close friend agreed that it was a wholesome and very good movie. Interestingly, some other friends who’ve seen it did not seem to share this positive sentiment; one even described it as sad.
The film fully met my own expectations of being a satisfyingly good, wholesome film. The other friends who were not as initially enthused about up had a better opinion of it afterwards. It turns out that the friend who thought it was sad thought so because the main character does not get what they want, but my stance is reminiscent of something I once read on tumblr:
One thing I like about Pixar films is how the happy ending isn’t always what you think it’ll be. The toys don’t go with Andy to college, Gusteau’s restaurant gets closed down, Mike and Sulley get kicked out of university, Carl never gets Ellie to Paradise Falls. But they find out that what they wanted isn’t necessarily what they needed, and I really like the fact that kids get to learn that life doesn’t always turn out the way they dreamed and that’s okay.
Not getting what you initially dreamed is not deeply sad, as long you’re still living a life aligned with your values (be close to god).
What else makes for a wonderful life? A meaningful life? I think it’s also a life where your existence makes the world a better place.
And the protagnoist strives for this (although I guess it could be framed as a more selfish desire for greatness, not that anything’s wrong with that). Nonetheless, we are provoked to sympathize with his disappointment of sacrificing worldly aspirations for a local but clearly impactful problem. The error of this framing seems to be observed by Hamming in “You and Your Research” as well, where he postulates that many great people do great things only once because once they’ve solved An Important Problem, they are someone who solves Important Problems, even though the path to Important Problems often starts with a ‘hmm that’s weird’ in a humble experiment1 . This is tickling something so I’m sure this is reiterated elsewhere as well; ‘the path to greatness looks nondescript sometimes’ or something like that.
This leads to one of the probably more iconic lines from the film because it also tickles something: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”
FYI – I, if nothing else, have great friends.
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- I did not go back and read this; please correct me if I’ve misremembered.