UP and Away With a New Pixar Adventure

By Brad Cook

Pixar has seen nothing but critical and box office success since the release of “Toy Story” in 1995, and developer Heavy Iron Studios has matched the studio stride-for-stride with complementary videogames since 2004’s “The Incredibles.” (The lone exception was “Cars” in 2006.) So when the time came to translate Pixar’s tenth feature film, “UP,” into the world of videogames, senior producer Brian Wiklem and his team at Heavy Iron were ready to do the heavy lifting.

He recalls: “From the minute our screening of ‘UP’ — in storyboard fashion nearly two years before the film’s release — ended, the film team was talking to us about gameplay ideas, games they had played previously that could be inspirational, and ways we could explore the ‘UP’ universe using angles that perhaps wouldn’t make it into the film.”

Wiklem adds: “The film team are avid gamers, and they’ve been vocal about what we’ve created for the UP videogame. On average we were talking to members of the film team bi-weekly. Oftentimes they were blown away that we could prototype full game sequences before they had even blocked them out in the film version.”
The Essence of the Tale

The movie’s storyline features the unlikely pairing of elderly widower Carl Fredericksen and eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer Russell. With the threat of being moved into an assisted living facility over his head, Carl decides to fulfill his late wife’s dream of seeing South America by tying thousands of balloons to his home and taking to the skies. Russell, who had visited Carl to earn his “Assisting the Elderly” merit badge, becomes an accidental companion on the voyage.

“We tried to capture the essence of UP’s most exciting film moments and offer an experience that happens between those big moments in the film.”
- Brian Wiklem, senior producer

After Carl and Russell arrive at the majestic table-top tepuis of South America, however, their journey takes a sharp turn when they encounter famous adventurer Charles F. Muntz, his airship, and his pack of talking dogs, including one named Dug. A prehistoric flightless bird called Kevin adds to the intrigue as Carl and Russell try to keep him from being captured. Soon the pair find themselves embroiled in an adventure worthy of Indiana Jones.

Wiklem explains: “We tried to capture the essence of UP’s most exciting film moments and offer an experience that happens between those big moments in the film. The Pixar team was very detailed about what they saw and witnessed in South America on those tepuis, and we tried to be as faithful as possible to the reality of not just that area of South America, but also what was visually expressed in the film.”

He adds: “For example, we have a couple boss levels that you won’t see in the film, but all of the animals and vegetation in the game were thoroughly researched and taken directly from the geographic region.”


Rounding Out the Characters

As gruff Carl slowly warms to energetic Russell, the two work together to navigate the harsh environment, fend off enemies, and keep each other safe from danger. That dynamic encompasses the movie and the game, as Wiklem explains: “The entire game is based on cooperation, rather than individual challenges that require only one character. Even in single-player mode, the player will have to switch characters so they can work together and achieve their goals.”