The Real Story Behind ‘UP’

The story of “UP: Altas Aventuras” is one of Pixar’s most exciting, after all, in the animation, it is possible to follow Carl Fredricksen, an elderly widower and balloon salesman who, after seeing his old neighborhood gain new air, had to make a big decision: whether or not to sell the house where he lived happy decades alongside his late wife, Ellie.

In the plot directed by Pete DocterCarl chooses not to give up his home to the large construction company that was transforming the houses in the neighborhood where he lived into buildings and, determined to fulfill the dream he shared his entire life with Ellie, he attached balloons to the house to take her to Paradise Falls, a place located in the mountains of Venezuela.

Even though traveling between countries in a house attached to balloons is impossible, a large part of Carl’s journey connects with the life of someone who really existed in the real world, whose story bears great similarity to that seen in Pixar’s tenth animation.

Inspiration for “UP: High Adventures”?

The person in question is Edith Macefielda lady who was already in her eighties when she received an intriguing offer: to sell the house she had lived in for almost 60 years in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, United States, for the trifle of US$ 1 million (approximately R$ 3 million).

As revealed by the Seattle Times, she moved into the residence in 1952 to care for her elderly mother, and received a million-dollar offer from a company that wanted to build a shopping mall in the neighborhood just over fifty years later, in 2006, when the home had already completed 108 years since its founding.

At the time, the story became popular because, in addition to Macefield having rejected the proposal, the decision made the construction company begin the works by isolating the elderly woman’s house among the large concrete constructions, since all her neighbors had already signed an agreement with the company.

According to the Seattle Times, Macefield ended up becoming a victim of pancreatic cancer and, while battling the disease, he was the superintendent of the construction of the shopping mall, called Barry Martinwho took care of her until she passed away in 2008. The closeness between the two meant that Macefield left him the keys to the house, which was sold shortly afterwards at the request of the elderly woman herself.

It is worth remembering that, in the year of the release of ‘Up: Altas Aventuras’, the house that belonged to Macefield was decorated with balloons as a way of promoting the film — although it is unlikely that the story was an inspiration for the animation, since the plot was written in 2004, two years before the real estate drama made headlines, according to AdoroCinema.

Since then, the house has undergone several changes of ownership, even being included in a foreclosure auction in 2015, and even though the crowdfunding fund created to prevent the destruction of the house did not reach the amount needed to keep it standing, it was not demolished. As reported by the ScreenRant portal, in 2018, Regency Centers purchased the house with the plan to preserve it among the constructed shopping mall, this being the most recent update on the residence that was Macefield.