It wasn't like "life sucks we live in a hopeless wasteland ravages of war in a cruel world" kind of sad. It was like, real life kind of sad. And then it was happy in the end too. But even for all the flying houses and talking dogs, the emotions in Up were as real as, well, any other movie I can think of. Certainly more real than Avatar. This is why I kind of struggled on where to put Up in Drama or Comedy, because I think you're right, it wasn't totally a comedy. But it wasn't totally a Drama either. I would definitely put it in Best Picture, but we didn't have one of those. Up is kind of a weird movie ... straddling the line between happy and sad, drama and comedy, fantasy and reality.

The saddest part of Up, in my opinion anyway, was that if it were real life, Carl would have just gone to the nursing home the same as any number of real old people ...