Carl Fredricksen

Intro Carl Fredricksen is the protagonist of Disney•Pixar's 2009 animated feature film Up. He is an old and cranky retired helium balloon salesman and the widower of Ellie Fredricksen. One of the stylization choices made for Up was that a square represented the past, and a circle represented the future, the reason for Carl being box-shaped. After the death of his wife, Ellie, Carl has shut off the world around him and has sunk very low to the ground, like a brick. But the characters around him, which have curves, circles, and other shapes making up their figures, continue to change while Carl stays within the confinements of his "square."