Lifted

2006

Animation / Comedy / Family / Sci-Fi

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 88%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 88% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.7/10 10 21806 21.8K

alien farmer alien spaceship short film teenager

Plot summary

When an overconfident teen alien gets behind the controls of a spaceship, he must attempt to abduct a slumbering farmer under the watchful eye of a critical instructor. But abducting humans requires precision and a gentle touch, and within a few missteps it's painfully clear why more humans don't go missing every year.

Director

Gary Rydstrom Photo
Gary Rydstrom

Top cast

Sheb Wooley Photo
Sheb Wooley as Ernie
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
46.64 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
12 hr 5 min
Seeds 19
95.69 MB
1920*1080
English 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
12 hr 5 min
Seeds 65

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by jwf22 8 / 10

All Hail the Wilhelm!

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.
Reviewed by emasterslake 8 / 10

Another unique and funny short.

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.
Reviewed by ackstasis 7 / 10

Close Encounters of the Inept Kind

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.
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