Carl Fredricksen

Carl Fredricksen (better known as "Mr. Fredricksen" by Russell) is an elderly, short-tempered, easily frustrated balloon salesman and the main protagonist in Up, Pixar's 10th feature film. He is the husband of Ellie. In 1939, when Carl was a 9-year-old boy, he was very shy. In the movie, Carl fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America. He met Ellie (who was a young girl), and he discovered that they share the same interest in adventures as their hero, the famed explorer, Charles Muntz.

Ellie expresses her desire to move her clubhouse to Paradise Falls in South America, a promise, that she makes Carl swear to keep.

Years passed, and Carl and Ellie got married and grew into adults together in the old house, where they first met as children, while making a living as a balloon vendor and a zookeeper in their self-owned zoo. Unable to have children, however, Carl and Ellie also tried to save up for the trip to Paradise Falls, but other financial obligations arised.

Just as Carl and Ellie finally seem to be able to take their trip, Ellie died of old age, leaving Carl living by himself, becoming sour and missing his wife terribly. As the years passed, the city grew around Carl's old house with construction, as he refused to move.

After a tussle with a construction worker over his broken mailbox, the court ordered Carl to move into Shady Oaks Retirement Home. Carl came up with a scheme to keep his promise to Ellie, and he used his old professional supplies to create a makeshift airship, using 10,000 helium balloons, which lifted Carl's house off its foundations.

He is 78 years old. He has white hair. He wears a tuxedo, and carries a cane (as he is unable to walk normally). His eyes are blue. He also wears huge squared black glasses.

He is voiced by Ed Asner.

Life


In his youth (age 9), Carl Fredicksen was a fan of Charles, who piloted his own self-made dirigible, "Spirit of Adventure". One day, while running down a sidewalk, pretending to pilot his balloon (a regular blue balloon with the words "Spirit of Adventure written on the side), Carl hears a voice coming from a dilapidated house. Curious, Carl enters the house and meets Ellie, a young girl and fellow fan of Charles Muntz, and they become close friends almost instantly. Ellie's startling introduction causes Carl to release his balloon, which gets stuck in the attic. With Ellie's encouragement, he tries to get it back by crossing a single wooden plank across the second floor of the house. However the wooden plank breaks, and Carl ends up breaking his arm. Ellie visits him at his bedroom later that night (returning his balloon to him) and shows Carl her secret Adventure Book. She also tells Carl of her plans to go to Paradise Falls, the same place Muntz had visited on his recent expedition to capture an exotic creature. Years later, Carl marries Ellie and they begin rebuilding the old house, making it their home. Ellie becomes a tour guide for a zoo and Carl becomes a balloon salesman, working side-by-side. They go through many stages of their life together (at one point expecting a child, but discover that Ellie is infertile) and dream of going to Paradise falls in South America. However, due to their general life expenses and Ellie's aging, they become incapable of making the trip. Ellie dies peacefully and Carl lives as a lonely widower afterwards.

Now
Carl is now 78 years old and cranky, has become withdrawn and lonely due to losing Ellie. He manages to get through the day, performing arbitrary tasks such as cleaning the windows, getting the mail, and watching television, but is socially isolated and avoids human interaction. His house now sits on a large construction site. He refuses to leave the house because, to him, it symbolizes his lost love, even going as far as talking to it as if it were Ellie, and it remains an important material possession that he must keep. The leader of the construction crew has apparently been hassling him to sell the house for some time, but Carl remains persistent, even retaliating with acts such as "pouring prune juice in his gas tank."

Carl soon meets Russell, an anxious, loud, and high-strung Wilderness Explorer looking to acquire his final badge, the "Assisting the Elderly Badge." Hoping that Carl will confide in his quest to become a Senior Wilderness Explorer, Russell knocks on Carl's door, and asks to help him. Carl refuses, and dismisses the boy as obnoxious. Russell is adamant to assist Carl, and Carl sends him off on a wild goose chase to find a 'snipe', a bird that does not exist. After Russell leaves, a construction worker accidentally directs a large vehicle into Carl's mailbox. Outraged by what has happened, Carl chastises the man, and struggles to take the mailbox from him, while the worker attempts to fix it. Carl strikes the worker on the head with his cane, even causing the man to bleed, and nervously withdraws into his house. The leader of the construction crew stares at Carl through his window menacingly.

Carl is then sued, and evicted from his house, forcing him to move into a retirement home. While gathering his belongings to leave the next morning, he stumbles across Ellie's old Adventure Book. He searches through it, and upon reaching the page saying "Stuff I'm Going To Do", makes a strong decision to fulfill his promise to Ellie to get to Paradise Falls. He spends the entire night rigging his house with thousands of balloons.

After Travel
After returning from South America, Russell attends a Wilderness Explorer sweat lodge meeting, to receive his "Assisting the Elderly Badge". The Campmaster approaches Russell to give his father the badge, but Russell's father is absent. While Russell is looking around for his father, Carl walks across the stage to Russell and tells the Campmaster "I'm here for him." The Campmaster hands Carl the badge. Carl then leans down to Russell, and gives him his grape soda bottle cap Ellie had given to him as a kid, instead of the badge. Carl does so while saying it is the "highest honor I can bestow, the Ellie Badge." Carl, Russell, and Dug are then found sitting at the curb outside Fentons, counting cars as they drive by and eating their ice cream. The camera zooms out to show the "Spirit of Adventure" parked above them, suggesting that is his new home as his old home is seen perched on the top of Paradise Falls, fulfilling his childhood promise to Ellie after all those years.

Design
One of the stylization choices made for Up was that a square represented the past and a circle represented the future, the reason for Carl being box-shaped. After the death of his wife Ellie, Carl has shut off the world around him and has sunk very low to the ground, like a brick. But the characters around him, which have curves, circles and other shapes making up their figures, continue to change while Carl stays within the confinements of his "square".