ESSAY: On Alpha...
Lance is a horrible enabler. That is all.
Up is a movie that is simply about a man trying to become closer to his late wife. In fact, the original plot of the movie was about Carl flying his house so that he may join his wife in the sky, a strange sort of suicide mission. The need to travel to Paradise Falls in South America and the characters of Dug and Russell were added so that Carl has more of a purpose and so that the movie is more refreshing and less episodic, respectively. That being said, Up is a movie that even though it is light-hearted, has some dark moments. There is Carl and Ellie’s inability to have children, the destruction of Carl’s neighborhood for development, the need to evict Carl from his home and forcing him to move to a retirement facility after the scuffle with the construction worker…
Then there is the scene in which Muntz has Russell tied up in a chair and attempts to kill him by dropping him out of the hatch when they’re flying.
Now, Alpha does not actually see Muntz try to do this. Before Muntz attempts to kill Russell, he commands Alpha to keep an eye on Kevin, and Alpha leaves to do so with Beta and Gamma. In any case, Alpha would not have been able to do anything that would stop Muntz from killing Russell.
Alpha would not have done anything at all. Why? Because Muntz didn’t order him to do anything.
Earlier in the movie, due to Muntz’ paranoia, he orders the pack to stop Carl and Russell from leaving, and Alpha does this with gusto. When Russell falls off the fleeing Kevin, Alpha tries to basically maul Russell, but is unable to due to Russell’s constant movement due to Kevin’s high speed running. That doesn’t stop Alpha. When Dug attempts to stop the pack, Alpha makes sure that Dug’s attempts to stop the pack from carrying out Muntz’ orders are stopped by trying to kill Dug by throwing him over the cliff wall. Nice going there…
Orders are what matter to Alpha. It doesn’t matter if they’re good or bad. He’ll follow them because that is what he was raised to do. Just like that scene in Pokémon, “Pokémon are not bad. Pokémon only do bad things because their master order them to do them.” That is essentially Alpha.
Now that Muntz is gone (and I hold that the pack has no idea that Muntz is dead and just assumes that Carl got mastership the same way a dog get alpha by defeating the old alpha), Alpha has no clue what to really… do. He was raised to catch Kevin and now that Kevin is allowed to be free, and with Dug being the alpha, Alpha really doesn’t know what to do! He’s lost. He wants orders. But Carl won’t really… give him orders like Muntz would give him. What’s there for a dog to do?
Up is a movie that is simply about a man trying to become closer to his late wife. In fact, the original plot of the movie was about Carl flying his house so that he may join his wife in the sky, a strange sort of suicide mission. The need to travel to Paradise Falls in South America and the characters of Dug and Russell were added so that Carl has more of a purpose and so that the movie is more refreshing and less episodic, respectively. That being said, Up is a movie that even though it is light-hearted, has some dark moments. There is Carl and Ellie’s inability to have children, the destruction of Carl’s neighborhood for development, the need to evict Carl from his home and forcing him to move to a retirement facility after the scuffle with the construction worker…
Then there is the scene in which Muntz has Russell tied up in a chair and attempts to kill him by dropping him out of the hatch when they’re flying.
Now, Alpha does not actually see Muntz try to do this. Before Muntz attempts to kill Russell, he commands Alpha to keep an eye on Kevin, and Alpha leaves to do so with Beta and Gamma. In any case, Alpha would not have been able to do anything that would stop Muntz from killing Russell.
Alpha would not have done anything at all. Why? Because Muntz didn’t order him to do anything.
Earlier in the movie, due to Muntz’ paranoia, he orders the pack to stop Carl and Russell from leaving, and Alpha does this with gusto. When Russell falls off the fleeing Kevin, Alpha tries to basically maul Russell, but is unable to due to Russell’s constant movement due to Kevin’s high speed running. That doesn’t stop Alpha. When Dug attempts to stop the pack, Alpha makes sure that Dug’s attempts to stop the pack from carrying out Muntz’ orders are stopped by trying to kill Dug by throwing him over the cliff wall. Nice going there…
Orders are what matter to Alpha. It doesn’t matter if they’re good or bad. He’ll follow them because that is what he was raised to do. Just like that scene in Pokémon, “Pokémon are not bad. Pokémon only do bad things because their master order them to do them.” That is essentially Alpha.
Now that Muntz is gone (and I hold that the pack has no idea that Muntz is dead and just assumes that Carl got mastership the same way a dog get alpha by defeating the old alpha), Alpha has no clue what to really… do. He was raised to catch Kevin and now that Kevin is allowed to be free, and with Dug being the alpha, Alpha really doesn’t know what to do! He’s lost. He wants orders. But Carl won’t really… give him orders like Muntz would give him. What’s there for a dog to do?