8 Startling Early Versions Of Your Favourite Pixar Films
5 It Was Almost A Suicide Metaphor (Accidentally Of Course) - Up
Up's development is one so beautifully simple it's easy to see how the final product ended up so joyous. Director Pete Docter had always fancied the notion of someone flying away in their house. Thinking of what sort of character would do it his mind fell to an old man out of touch with the world. Then, to make him relatable in a grandfatherly way instead of a grumpy curmudgeon, the heartbreaking opening segment was conceived.
It all seems so logical, but there was a period where the films main plot drive (the hunt for the bird otherwise known as Kevin) was a little different. After the loss of Ellie had been set up, Docter used that as the direct motivation for the balloon trickery, stating Carl would want to join his wife up in the sky. Suddenly that heartwarming story of freedom becomes a thinly veiled metaphor for suicide and the moral is the polar opposite to what the production crew wanted.
Thankfully Docter quickly realised this, although not because of the depressing message but because (in true Pixar fashion) it didn't work on a plot level. If Carl's sole goal was to go into the sky, the film's plot was resolved twenty minutes in, so playing on the director's love of the tropics the Venezuelan dream was added.