User Reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I think it is the funniest movie I've ever seen. We can't infer characters' situation. For example, what is the purpose of their taking human away?, what they want to do? and where the story is? However, everybody can enjoy the story, even children. I like the part where the little green alien is upset and puts his head down on the switches on the desk. When you watch this movie, you'll get a sincere feeling. It's also nice you can find the reaction of the man after he gets up.

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.

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

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"Lifted" is a quiet comedy about the abduction of a sleeping human being by aliens. The young alien is still an apprentice, and the examiner is testing him. The story is exciting and leaves me wondering what is going on from the beginning. The main character doesn't seem to be very smart and always makes mistakes. Also, his actions make me nervous. Although the examiner looks scary at first glance, he actually has a kind personality, willing to let his apprentice take the wheel again even if he fails. The use of sudden light and sudden loud sounds is impressive and makes me even more fidgety. Also, the characters' facial expressions are so funny that I can't help but laugh even when they're not saying anything. This is a good film packed with fun, surprises, and excitement in just five minutes, and I think it's worth watching. You won't want to miss the end scene.

This short animation by Pixar Studios recounts the training of an alien in abducting humans on earth. The young inexperienced alien is having quite a hard time figuring out all the tricks of the job. He indeed needs to figure out how to use a machine with more than a thousand buttons that look exactly the same in order to successfully lift the human target out from his window and into the spaceship. Though the trainee alien seems quite confident on his capacities to succeed his examination, it will not be without a couple of hardships along the way.

I saw this short animation for the first time in the cinema when I was a child before the screening of a Pixar movie. I remember enjoying it then and my feelings have not changed a bit, I still laughed at every twists and turns. The film therefore does an amazing job in catching the attention of every age groups and making them laugh just the same, and doing so only through visual representations, as there are no dialogues. Even if the context is that of an alien passing a training exam, it is so easy to project oneself through him. The stress, the unflinching gaze of the examiner watching and judging every one of your move, the loss of confidence and failing every new attempt: all these characteristics are so relatable, and reminded me so much of my own traumatizing experience of the driving license exam. We therefore easily get attached to the trainee alien, but also to the examiner when we realize his "humanity" at the very end of the animation. Overall, a sweet and funny short animation which brightened my day.

Made in 2006, "Lifted" is a kind of a SF film and is the story of a small alien taking an exam under the supervision of a big alien. In this movie, the small alien strives to pass the exam, having difficulty operating a machine properly.

I love "Lifted" for the following two reasons. Firstly, in my opinion, when you watch this movie, you have to pay attention not only to characters' behaviors but also to other motions such as movements of an object, an appearance of light, and so forth.

This is because the movie does not have dialogue. Although you may think that it would be difficult to figure out contents of that kind of film without dialogue, fortunately you should manage it easily because there are quite a lot of hints like characters' facial expressions, actions, sounds, and motions of objects like I said earlier to understand the movie. In addition to this, the story is composed of funny, cute, and somewhat weird characters. For these reasons mentioned above, personally I really like this film, and do want other people to watch and enjoy it.

"Lifted" is a comedy about an alien taking a test in the flying object. The alien is taking a test of controlling the person to get him into the object. He tries to control the sleeping man, but it doesn't go well. As the examiner stares at him, he gets so anxious and nervous. This film is interesting in that we can see how aliens feel anxiety about taking the test just like us. The alien's situation is what we face in our daily life, so we come to feel like cheering for him. The contrast of two aliens' facial expressions is one of the elements that we can enjoy in the film.

The examiner's face is expressionless, in contrast, the examinee's face changes often. It is a little tiring to see his failure so many times. However, it expresses the reality we face in general, so we can still enjoy it. Also, the music goes well with the scenes, and it helps us watch the film comfortably. Therefore, I recommend people to watch this film because of these reasons.

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.

One night,a man is sleeping in his bed. Suddenly his body starts to float, and goes toward a window. A creature tries to move his body to outside by a window. However he made mistakes many times. This short movie was created by Pixar. In their movies, almost of all cases, the main characters is not a human. Of course, in this movie, a main character is an alien. Even all characters don't say anything, we can understand their feeling by their face and body language. I think that Pixar's expression of feeling is one of the strong point for Pixar. Also that's why, Pixar's movie is loved by children especially. Not only character's face but sounds are very important in this film. Sounds are also one of the way to express the situation. In this movie, these way are used very well. When we watched it, everybody laughed. Nobody couldn't understand. Only 5 minutes, this movie attract people.

One night, a UFO comes above a house to carry off the man who sleeps in the house. However, the alien who controls the beam that can move everything can't control it well and it is difficult to carry off the man easily. The reason why he can't control the beam easily is there are a lot of switches. When I watch the scene in this film, I can't believe that the aliens have to operate these switches to control the beam because if they have the technologies that can make the UFO and go to the earth, they must have the technology that can carry off people easily. The zest of the science fiction is the fusion of imagination and reality. The balance of them is very important. The many switches are the core of the film, but if it is unrealistic and it destroys the world of the film, the film gets absolutely nothing out of it. The end of a film is important. Naturally, this film has an end. People who watch films hopes that the film has the end that he or she can't imagine. People who watch this film may be able to imagine the end of this film easily. I think it is good to make a more imaginative.

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!