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Why Disney shouldn't make a live-action version of Pixar's Up, according to its director/co-creator Pete Docter
For Pete Docter, Pixar's best animated films, including Up, take advantage of the storytelling forms that are specific to animation
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There seems to be no end in sight for Disney's live-action remakes. While Snow White crashed and burned earlier this year, it's safe to say that next year's live-action remake of Moana is likely going to be a hit with audiences around the world. While it isn't clear if the House of Mouse is planning on extending the live-action remake treatment to Pixar films, Pete Docter, the director of hits like Up, Inside Out, and Monsters, Inc. has some thoughts on whether or not Up could translate well with real people.
Speaking on Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out podcast, Docter raised some good points for why a live-action Up might not work as well as the original animated film. "I have wondered, like if you made a shot-by-shot remake of Up, with real people, would you get away with it? I mean, for one, you'd be like, 'Really, a house flying? Whatever.' But more than that, I wonder if some of the stuff that was sort of 'appealing' and 'likable' for a grouchy old man to do in an animated film would actually be like, 'Ugh, I hate him' in live-action? I don't know," Pete Docter said.
Docter is right to point out how emotional beats play out differently in animation versus live-action. Up is a story that soars (sorry) in animation because that medium, inherently, isn't committed to verisimilitude - or representing "reality" as accurately and "real" as possible. Characters' appearances are more exaggerated, like the old man's comically large glasses and short, stocky frame. Nothing against old, grouchy men, but I think Disney would be hard-pressed to find an actor and then make him look as charming as his original animated counterpart to Disney's target audience: children. Adults, in contrast, are perfectly fine with watching old men be grouchy, just look at films like Nebraska, A Man Called Ove (or Otto, for the Tom Hanks remake), or latter-day Robert de Niro.
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