Up

So I finally saw Up a while back, and of course I'll joint the legions of people telling you "it's amazing."

However, the helpless romantic in me (I'm sure you'll be surprised to know that despite my cynicism and general grumpiness I'm essentially an optimist and a sap) couldn't help but be directly hit by some of the character storylines. I still believe the mythos: that as an archaeologist I'm basically an adventurer (of sorts). Yeah, Dayton may not be deepest darkest South America, but it's related, right? (That and there's nothing that specifically prevents me from changing my focus to someplace that exotic...other than the spiders. and snakes. and scorpions. Okay, there are lots of things preventing me from changing my focus to someplace that exotic. Stop bothering me. The point is I COULD be working in Alaska...or Malta...or Ireland...or wherever, as it's all within what "we" do.) But I still wander, I still consider the new things I learn exploration and discovery, so it's close enough that it strikes my personal harmonic.

As a kid I was definitely Carl, and not Ellie: satisfied with books and models and limited activity to accompany my fantasies (wheras Ellie was more run around, make a clubhouse and imagine it and do it big in the physical world...not my bag). On the other hand I've not settled for life "happening while I make other plans" although once or twice I've gotten kinda of distracted and almost wandered into complacency.

In other words: Ellie's fate terrifies me, which made the movie far sadder to me than I think it did to most people? Maybe not...maybe the people who have put aside their childhood ambitions of becoming an X felt it more strongly than me. Maybe we feel it all the same. Maybe I'm just super full of myself...And to be totally honest, it's not like being an archaeologist even WAS a childhood fantasy of mine, it's something that came to my attention a little later in life (as a kid it was paleontology, of course...which I guess to most people it's close enough, right?).