Lifted (2006) User Reviews

Another unique and funny short.

[emasterslake · 8/10 · 6 July 2007]

Like always Pixar has created another one of a kind short for all of us to enjoy.

Lifted is set in the quiet/peaceful country side. When a flying saucer appears to abduct a sleeping individual with a tracker beam. unfortunately the tracker beam is operated by an alien trainee who isn't doing too well on his first job. And keeps messing up on the job while the professional alien grades him on his performances.

I won't give away any of the good or funny parts. But it is one of the funniest Pixar shorts yet. The use of no dialog, interesting characters and special effects is all made possible by Pixar. Along with the ever popular films, their shorts are very highly acclaim. And each one makes a further break through in animation or experiment a story that hasn't been made into CGI yet.

You're able to see Lifted along with Ratatouie.

All Hail the Wilhelm!

[jwf22 · 8/10 · 2 July 2007]

This is another fun little short in the tradition of fun little shorts from Pixar. Soundman extraordinaire Gary Rydstrom directs for the first time (according to IMDb), and the result is solid.

Not surprisingly, the sound for this short is fantastic, opening with some isolated nighttime noises of a country farmhouse. I've spent a fair amount of time on the real life equivalent of this digital set and this part sounded realistic to me.

By the way, I wrote this whole mini-review just so I could finish with this: Aieeeeeeeeee!

See Gary, the audience really IS listening.

Close Encounters of the Inept Kind

[ackstasis · 7/10 · 15 September 2007]

I've always thought it fantastic that Pixar precedes their excellent feature-length films with an equally-excellent animated short, since it serves beautifully to settle the audience down and ready them for the coming feature. With 'Ratatouille' currently in cinemas, the short film this time around was 'Lifted,' a brief but amusing tale of an attempted alien abduction that doesn't quite go to plan. It was directed by Gary Rydstrom, a first-time director but incredible seven-time Oscar winner, thanks to his excellent work in the sound department on such films as 'Jurassic Park' and 'Titanic.' Like Pixar's finest short films, the simple plot is propelled forward without the need for any dialogue, relying mostly on effectively-chosen sound effects. Accordingly, Rydstrom was an ideal candidate to direct.

In a quiet country farmhouse, a human sleeps peacefully, blissfully unaware that an immense UFO has stationed itself outside his house. Inside the spaceship, a young alien, named Stu, is trying desperately to remember which unlabeled toggle switches to press, presented with a vast selection across a large control panel. Stu's instructor, Mr. B., watches over him menacingly, his expression offering not a hint to the correct procedure and answering every mistake by scribbling briefly onto his notepad. Meanwhile, as Stu fumbles tentatively with the controls, the unfortunate human finds himself lifted from his bed by the spacecraft's tractor-beam and tossed violently against the wall and ceiling, never waking from his slumber.

I thought it was rather ambitious that the filmmakers decided to show the beings inside the UFO, since it is rare that we actually get to see a cinematic alien fiddling with buttons and levers behind a control desk. Not only this, but the two extraterrestrials – in just five minutes – become relatively well-developed characters: we immediately sympathise with poor hapless Stu, and Mr. B. discovers a streak of compassion that we hadn't originally expected of him. The comedic timing is just about perfect, and we hold our breath as Stu moves to press another button, before laughing at the unexpected consequence of this upon the unlucky human – his movements largely represented by a holographic blip above the control panel. The sound effects are cleverly-chosen, and the addition of the Wilhelm scream at the very end was a nice touch.

Clever and funny

[bob the moo · 4 May 2008]

A remote farm-house (probably in the Midwest) is suddenly bathed in a bright, clean light and the sleeping farmer is picked up from his bed and carried towards the window, where an alien craft awaits. Unfortunately for him, the abduction is being undertaken by a trainee, who really needs more hours in the simulator before tried to do it on a live subject.

This short film was screened before the feature Ratatouille and worked well in getting the audience in the laughing mood. Like the equally good "For the Birds" this short film delivers constant laughs in a short time before bowing out with a strong finish. The former short focused on a big tall bird, this film focuses on a trainee alien but the approach is the same – have one weakness or failing be the subject of the short. Here the trainee cannot get the man out the window with the controls and the repeated failures are simple but also very funny. This continues to the end, which is a nice big laugh at the end. The animation is typical Pixar, very clean, professional and impressive with plenty of cultural references in the alien abduction itself for film fans.

Overall then a very clever and funny short film that works very well because it knows just what it needs to do and does it in a ruthlessly efficient manner.

Very cute and funny

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 9 February 2008]

LIFTED was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short for 2007 but it lost to THE DANISH POET. While THE DANISH POET was more original in style and scope, this Pixar short is simply funnier and more entertaining--even though the style isn't all that innovative these days (after all, there are TONS of CG shorts these days).

LIFTED was released both in theaters and on DVD with RATATOUILLE--a remarkable film in its own right. Here is the interesting part. It wasn't until the second time that I realized the character playing the sleeping guy was the same guy from RATATOUILLE. I think most people won't notice this right away either because seeing the short before the main feature, you aren't familiar with the character.

As far as the film goes, it represents the very state of the art in computer generated animation--you can't get any better. However, the cartoon isn't just CG but the story is cute and very funny. I really thing that the great success of Pixar actually hurt the chances of this film winning, as the studio already has won several awards and they are the "big boy" in the field--often, it seems, the Academy and film festivals are looking for more independent films in this category.

Funny Movie

[blackhayatego · 8/10 · 26 July 2022]

This movie was made in 2006. It's a short comedy movie.

One night, the swing is shaking. A house is illuminated by the light from the sky. There is a UFO. A boy sleeping in the house floats in the air and hits his head against the window. He hits his head many times. The boy is controlled by a little alien from the UFO who tries to carry the boy out, but he fails many times. There is another big alien who watches his operation and records something. He presses a lot of buttons while looking at the big alien's complexion, but it doesn't work. He finds the correct button, but drops the boy from the ship finally. Then, the big alien operates to put everything back. They go home with the little alien's driving... It was an interesting movie. The little alien's face shows his situation. I like the big alien letting the little alien operate the spaceship at the end. I think it's good to watch the last scene which is especially interesting. I couldn't predict it.

Oscar-nominated Lifted goes great with companion feature

[tavm · 10/10 · 30 June 2007]

Unless others are doing this at the same time, it looks like I'll be the first to comment on the Oscar-nominated short Lifted which is now playing right before Ratatouille since both films are produced by, you guessed it, Pixar. In this one, a young man is being abducted by a spaceship as indicated by the light that's on him. It doesn't go smoothly, however, since the light has the still sleeping man constantly hit a wall. Turns out the one doing the abduction is a trainee who has trouble remembering simple directions as indicated by the glum-faced guide watching over him inside the spaceship. All I'll tell you after that is how many things go constantly wrong in some of the most laugh-inducing scenes I've seen in the theatre all year so far. Definitely worth viewing with the feature it's attached to so what are you waiting for? Just go!

Just like "For the Birds": terrific and in the grand style of the best Looney Tunes

[karn · 10/10 · 7 January 2009]

I keep waiting for Pixar to run out of good ideas, and they never do. My favorite of their shorts, "Lifted" and "For the Birds", are very much in the tradition of the old Warner Brothers. The emphasis is on characterization, sight gags, facial expressions and sound effects rather than dialog, and much of the humor comes from playing with our expectations. You simply don't expect a huge "Close Encounters" alien ship to be piloted by an inept trainee on a check ride who can't even fit his captive through the window. You don't expect a highly advanced alien flight instructor to take notes with an ordinary clipboard and ball point pen. You don't expect that a would-be abductee would stay asleep through all that only to wake up when his alarm goes off.

The WB greats also discovered that the biggest laughs often come from the smallest details. When the Coyote realized that he was about to get pounded (again) by a huge falling boulder, his eyes shrank to pinpoints. I always found that funnier than the actual boulder-pounding. In "Lifted", watch the mailbox near the farmhouse when the spaceship (unexpectedly, of course) crashes. A moment later, the flag on the mailbox falls. I missed it even in the Blu-Ray version, but once the director pointed it out in the commentary, it became the funniest part of the gag for me.

I won't put it down

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 7/10 · 7 November 2009]

This animated short is on the 2-Disc Special Edition of Ratatouille, and I understand that it was also played in theaters right before aforementioned feature was. With a running time of five minutes and not a single spoken word, this communicates entirely through the visuals, and the quality is definitely top-notch. The story-telling is quite good, and this doesn't go for the cheap audience-pleaser of just doing fancy stuff with the ever-expanding technology, and instead uses it. This has a cool enough, minimalistic plot that you can instantly get into, and a conflict that takes a mere second to wrap your head around, including for young children, in spite of the exact situation being one that I'm willing to bet no one in the audience has found themselves in. All of the sound is excellent, as is the use of it. I didn't personally find this terribly funny, but I can imagine that many will. The material tends to be physical, with slapstick and sight gags. Cartoon violence, and a brief image that might remind people of plumbers is the extent of the offensive material. I recommend this to fans of CGI movies. 7/10

very funny animated Pixar short

[disdressed12 · 9/10 · 25 May 2008]

i just viewed this short a few minutes ago,and i thought it was great.the animation was excellent,but i really loved the story.i won't give anything away here,but if you're a fan of Pixar,you should really enjoy this little gem.even if you're not,i still think you'll enjoy it.it's very clever and manages to tell a great story in just 5 minutes.i laughed out loud more than once,in fact more often than i have in some full length comedies.if this is something that interests you,it's available as a Pixar collection of shorts which are probably available in most stores,or online.anyway,i loved Lifted and highly recommend it.

Funny

[nadeshikomail · 7/10 · 11 July 2018]

The first impression of this movie was I already had feeling that it would become a funny movie. And I was not wrong. The film about two aliens working together in order to lift a human up to their UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) is brilliant. First of all, I like how they portrayed aliens as green slime like creatures. Not to mention they are irresistibly cute as well. The small alien is my favorite. He probably has no talent to be what aliens are supposed to be, but he would never stop trying. The human who is going to be lifted is so unrealistic in my opinion, but that is what makes this film more interesting in the first place. This film is only five minutes, and I recommend you to watch it.

Makes me laugh many times

[ymtm · 8/10 · 17 July 2013]

One night, two green aliens came to earth by spacecraft. Their purpose is to abduct a man who is sleeping in his bed. The smaller alien tries to control the man with a lot of switches.

I could not help laughing to see this film. The contrast between the smaller alien and the man was funny. While the alien is trying to catch the man, he does not notice what is happening to him and continues to sleep. I was surprised at him. The bigger alien is very tolerant. No matter how many times the smaller alien fails, the bigger one gives one more chance to the smaller one. I fell that there is a strange bond between them. However, this film is a comedy. It can make you laugh to the end. It is a very short film, so you can watch it anytime you want.

How about watching it when you are sad or depressed? It can make you laugh and feel happy.

Lifted

[jboothmillard · 6/10 · 27 February 2008]

If you have Ratatouille on DVD, then you would have this short animated film in the special features. From the geniuses at Pixar, this another amusing short. Basically a human is peacefully sleeping, and all of the sudden a bright light appears outside. A large alien ship tries to pull the human outside with the light power, the abduction by the way is being done by a teenage alien. There are so many switches tough, and he is failing to even get out the window, and no matter where he is being thrown and banged against the wall, the human doesn't wake. The other alien is not pleased, but the human does eventually come out the window, but looking all smug, the teenage alien forgets the light power, and they put him back in bed, but not before crashing into the ground, and taking the ground, apart from the human's bed, with them. Phew! Obviously see it for yourself, I'm not always good with long explanations like this, even for a short film. It was nominated Oscar Best Short Animated Film. Good!

Doesn't look funny to me

[AnonymousbutDilpreet002 · 4/10 · 23 June 2018]

This is probably Pixar's weakest short film. Every Pixar short has one of these three qualities - It can be cute or it teach us something or atleast be funny. But this film did not has any of the three. I didn't feel entertained.

Puppetering

[RResende · 11 September 2007]

You will watch this short in the theatre before the beginning of Ratatouille. And it's very well placed, since it indicates much of the theme that drives Ratatouille. An artist puppeteering an instrument in order to create his art.

This short may be understood as a synonym for the work of an animator. Really really hard to manage, check out the number of buttons in the board of the spaceship. It's hard to learn the job, and while you don't master it, all you do will be a disgrace. But if you get to do it well, you'll do wonders. You'll puppeteer the world below, create and destroy, move and control.

These small appointments (not necessarily short films) are interesting to me because they are explicit indications pointing on how each creator comes out with his own originality and my opinion is, the creations reflect usually every stuff which is very close to the creator, usually his own thoughts and life (It's the second time in a short time i identify these signs, the other was with Miyazaki's Kiki).

The funny thing is when the construction, no matter how simple it is, is honest in its origins, works out very effective, so this short is really really funny.

My evaluation: 4/5

http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

Well-arranged animation

[hind-21501 · 9/10 · 28 June 2017]

This is Pixar's short film about the alien from space who try to abduct the sleeping man in countryside using functions of alien's aircraft, but it is really complicated.

This film is really funny. There is no dialog in this film (actually, one line of dialog is in this film but we cannot understand language), but because this film is animation, characters move comically and change their facial expression emotionally. In addition, that is the point I was impressed most, this film made me laugh many times by building up the story like waves. It means I could laugh almost constantly. In terms of comedy, I think showing a huge clump of continuous amusing scenes make audiences tired or bored, so it is not effective. On the other hand, this movie puts some interval between each amusing scenes, so these scenes come to me like waves and do not make me weary. In addition, despite the waves, this film is a 'short' film so these waves are arranged compactly. It harmonizes the film beautifully.

This is Pixar's film but short film so I think it is not known as much as ordinary Pixar's movies. So, I want to recommend this to people who do not know this film.

Lots of Fun

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 16 March 2019]

This short from Pixar involves the effort to abduct a man from his bed. He is certainly a hard sleeper. The kicker is that the UFO is a trainer and a neophyte alien is trying to master a gigantic control panel. He keeps missing the window of the upstairs bedroom, smashing the guy's head and doing all kinds of damage. His trainer is very patient. It's a hilarious use of animation.

Great entertainment

[qingruivic-25161 · 8/10 · 10 July 2018]

I cannot describe how much I am amused by this short film. Also, this film gives me a practical lesson how up and down are properly arranged for optimum effects.

A young alien, who seems like a freshman, tries to practice abducting human by the spaceship technology under the supervision of a predecessor, which is not going smoothly at all. Many funny moments are brought by the continuous failure. For instance, after a sequence of struggling, he gets impatient and flicks switches randomly on the spacecraft control panel, causing the sleeping man to crash into walls, ceilings, trees... Finally he gets the man out of window, but he dropped the man again. Then the up comes. His predecessor steps in, fixing everything in house in order and putting the human back to bed. Instead of taking over the control of panel, the predecessor gives him another chance. The young freshman manages to drop the whole spaceship on the human's house, before flying off. The scream from the abductee in the end gives me a last surprise, which is the point of this film I especially like.

Pixar short films are well known by the way it handles characters. The protagonist's expressive face and his predecessor's poker face intensify the amusement in a contrary way. Lifted is a great film for laughter, but it might fail in building vivid characters. After finish watching the film, audiences should have had emotional connection to the character, but audiences of Lifted might rarely think about the background or off-scene stories of either the clumsy freshman or the skilled predecessor. They are just there for entertainment.

An amusing film that shows important thing

[AdamHawkes · 8/10 · 25 May 2013]

The film is a pure comedy. There are two aliens. One is testing for lifting a man and striving to pass the examination. The other is the examiner. The examinee makes mistakes so many times. The examiner is so stern that the examinee is uneasy and gradually becomes upset. And the end of this film is very surprising and amusing.

I watched such an amusing film for the first time in a long time. The way to make audience have fun is elaborate. For example, the use of background music is good. Seemingly, a scene is serious and the music of the scene is solemn, but the next moment it becomes comical. The film delighted me while I was watching it.

The film had a great influence on me. It showed me how important striving to achieve something was. I came to think that efforts necessarily bore fruit.

And the film also showed me how beautiful friendship was. If we cherish our friends, they might also cherish us, I'm sure. The film reminded me of it.

The film is very humorous and shows us important things. I would like to watch the film again. I recommend that you watch this film.

Another good job

[Polaris_DiB · 7/10 · 17 July 2007]

Animated shorts are making something of a small, barely-noticed comeback, mostly because of Pixar. In general, they are used as extra bells and whistles in special edition DVD releases to help tack on an extra five bucks or so to the cost of the disc. However, Pixar has been very faithful about preserving an old tradition and including animated shorts before each feature in the theatre.

The best part? Almost all of them are sans-dialog.

"Lifted" is another short in this vein involving a botched alien abduction. It's very good slapstick, and a great opening to a very visual and kinetic film to follow (Ratatouille). In terms of general approach, the characters are a lot more cartoon-y than previous Pixar works (Yeah, I know, it is a cartoon, but these characters seem more like something you'd find on a cable children's show than as an independent feature), but they're still well written and empathetic.

I wouldn't say it's a more memorable short from such a prolific studio, but the way things have going these past years, "Lifted" itself is much more worth the price of admission than most other Hollywood films.

--PolarisDiB

Sasuga Pixar

[biareisschmidt · 9/10 · 7 June 2018]

Animation is my weakness. To me, it is easier to get envolved with the story when real people do not take part in it (acting). The story is simple; a young alien comes to Earth to take his "abduction exam", as if it was a "driver license exam", and things don't go very well during the exam. As many other PIXAR SHORT FILMS, the purpose of Lifted is to make the audience laugh. Well, I laughed.. And the nicest thing is that even though you can figure what is going to happen next during the whole time, you end up laughing. I may be terribly wrong, but my impression is that one of the reasons for such thing is the usage of sounds; every sound just fits perfectly with each scene.

a good and cute short film

[tjch · 7/10 · 30 July 2017]

I like this short movie, because there are many points to amuse me within 5 minutes, and I do not get tired of it while watching it. When I watch Pixar's movies, I feel the producers are genius to engage our hearts in their story every time. Maybe, I think they care about how they can make a good set-up, so when I watched lifted for the first time, I thought it was aw kind of horror movie or aliens experimented with a human by kidnapping, but it betrayed my expectation, or my stereotype for alien movies. If it ware not such set-up, I would be disappointed at this movie, and would not try to watch it again. In addition, the last scene of this movie is also good. The smaller alien cannot control their UFO well till the end, I could not stop laughing at that, and at the same time, I empathized with the man who was target for the aliens, because he got a lot of misfortunes while he was sleeping. Anyway, I will watch Lifted again when I get depressed, or I meet unhappiness, because I want to get energy from this movie, and it lets me laugh.

Interesting movie

[shuna-14122 · 9/10 · 25 July 2016]

This is an interesting movie. An Apprentice alien operates and tries to draw the human into space craft. But, the operation system is very complicated and has many buttons. He was tested by the teacher. He struggled the operation, weeped. The teacher pushes aside him but, I think the teacher is very kind. That's because the teacher tries to safe the human and put away many things in the human's house, and give a chance to him after he failed. I think most people target like this, caring teacher or boss. That's because job or boss seems to be a job that the person takes responsibility on behavior of subordinates because subordinates don't fear of failure.

Alien's hard struggle

[napo0523 · 7/10 · 14 May 2013]

A spaceship is floating above a boy's house. A small alien is attempting to abduct the boy to the ship, but it seems impossible for the alien. There are too many switches to control for him, and this makes the story funnier. The small alien dose not know well which switches to use to lift the boy. The funniest point I think is however roughly he is moved, he never wakes up. If he were an ordinary man, he would wake up soon. Another amusing point is the small alien is frightened by the big alien. The frightened face of the small alien is so cute. Maybe the big one is his boss. These two aliens are like a subordinate and its boss in the world of humans, so we can fell familiar to these aliens. I love Pixar's movies!

nice

[satohakilesson · 5/10 · 17 July 2013]

This movie is that the aliens try to lift a man to their spaceship who sleeps in his house.

There are many interesting scenes in this film. I like the contacts between aliens. It is very humorous. A small alien's trial and error is very funny and a big alien's correspondence is cool and interesting. The scene that a man in a house crashes into a wall many times is also funny. The BGMs in this movie are very good. They suit each scenes. They also enlarge the fun of this film.

There is no scene that I don't like. I like all of the scenes.

This movie is constituted by the funny moment, so I think it is made to make people funny. I like the movie that is full of fun. When you are sad and want to make yourself cheer up, you should watch it!