Pixar's anime Up remix is both bizarre and exhilarating

If there's one film sequence guaranteed to make you cry, it's the first ten minutes of Pixar's Up. Charting the lives of Carl Fredericksen and his wife Ellie, the opening montage is a masterclass in capturing the highs and lows of marriage. Was it crying out to be turned into a high-octane anime mashup? Nope, but that doesn't mean we don't love Pixar's bizarre new offering.

The studio has created an official 'Up Remix' which re-renders Up in a more traditional 2D style (think Studio Ghibli) and distills the entire film into a 90-second anime opening sequence. (Check out our best laptops for video editing if you're inspired to knock together a remix of your own.) Still haven't seen Up? Grab yourself a Disney Plus subscription to get involved.

Here, that devastating montage is just ten seconds long, and then we're thrust straight into a snappy re-telling of the entire film, complete with crashing drums and guitars, and Dragon Ball Z-esque fight sequences and transitions. The wistful whimsy of the original film is replaced with a minute-and-a-half of pure adrenaline.

"Time to (re)mix it up!" the company announced in the video description. "Inspired by Japanese-style animation, this new twist on a pixel-perfect adventure is one you don’t want to miss." It's the second remix Pixar has shared in as many years – last year we were treated to a 16-bit retelling of Wall-E (below) which made us yearn for the days of the Sega Mega Drive.

It's always fun to see a studio experimenting with its existing work and creating the kind of content that would usually be confined to the realm of the fan-made. We can't help but wonder what mash-ups we might see next: film noir Finding Nemo? Stop motion Toy Story? 

Unsurprisingly, fans have been loving the project. "The fact that this wasn’t just a fan project and is made by Pixar itself is simply just amazing," one user comments on the video. Others, meanwhile, have pointed out the refreshing contrast between Pixar and other film studios, with one user declaring, "Disney: Live action remakes. Pixar: Anime remakes. I'm sticking with Pixar on this one."

Indeed, Pixar certainly seems to have enjoyed experimenting with its video content over the past few months – the studio's fun cooking series was a highlight during the locked down summer of 2021. And speaking of fan-made projects, we'll never forget the utterly terrifying take on the Pixar logo we saw last year, revealing the dark side of the studio's famous desk lamp.

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