Part of A House Next Door’s Pixar Week, Jonathan Pacheco finds similarities between Pixar’s Up and Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle:
“Many similarities between the two stick out to anyone with a pair of eyes. Each film features a spectacular traveling domicile that houses an old, old, protagonist. Beyond the protagonist, Up’s principal characters and their designs mirror Howl’s Moving Castle. Docter’s Russell the Eagle Scout resembles the magical disguise of Miyazaki’s Markl the boy wizard; the exotic bird Kevin takes her cues from the hopping scarecrow, Turnip; Dug the talking dog can easily be linked to Calcifer the fire demon, the nearly catatonic but strangely adorable Witch of the Waste, or, of course, the rasping dog that follows her.”
Up featurette about Dug the Dog.
The dogs were easily my favorite part of the film, which is chock full of amazing moments.
The Slashfilm bloggers and readers compiled a pretty comprehensive list of the hidden easter eggs and nods in Up. (Contains some spoilers for the film, but not many)
We watched The Pixar Story a couple nights ago. It’s a well-made documentary following the inception of Pixar and it’s growth and development into an animation studio on the backs of people like John Lasseter, Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull, and Alvy Ray Smith.
Lasseter was the main creative drive in getting the company so heavily invested in computer animation. Some of the things he created in the lead up to his first feature, Toy Story, are amazing to see, considering the time in which they were made.
