Dug's Special Mission

Being a Pixar fan, I was looking forward to this short film ever since it was announced. Heck, I was eager for it even BEFORE it was announced, because Pixar always includes a second short film on their DVDs. While I can see by the ratings here on IMDb that some people didn't enjoy it as much as I did (I can see why, if they're comparing it to "Up"), I still think that this short film had a number of elements that made it very enjoyable to watch.

All the humor that comes with Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Dug is here, as well as Alpha's "broken collar" joke. However, this film did have a few discrepancies with the feature film it was based on that bothered me slightly. They're mostly anachronisms or continuity errors, but I can forgive them considering that this film is supposedly a representation of how Dug remembers these events, just like the "Married Life" sequence in "Up" was supposed to be how Carl Fredricksen remembered his marriage with Ellie.

This film isn't all physical humor, though. Before I go on, please note that you shouldn't watch this until you've seen the feature film it's based on. Anyway, after Alpha gets fed up with Dug, Dug is (to be brief) very sad and alienated. Pixar does their thing with the emotions, and Dug runs away into some fog-filled rocks. The first time I saw that, I felt sorry for Dug. However, as per his birthday wish (it is his birthday, after all), he finds "a new master": Carl and Russell. What a nice alternate location story!

I really impressed after watching this mini movie... You need to watch Up first and then watch this movie and enjoy!

I saw Dug's Special Mission as I love Pixar and Up is my second favourite of Pixar's films. Plus I wanted to see what this short film was going to be like from Dug's perspective. It was very well done, with a lot of what I loved about Up shown here. As with all of Pixar's work, it is beautifully animated, with character designs that have life and backgrounds and colours that have such a bright and breezy look to them. The music has a uplifting and nostalgic feel to it, the story is cute with a lot of heart to it and while the physical humour is genuinely amusing there is always room for some poignancy as well particularly at the end. The characters do engage, I personally like Dug and I liked what was done with him here, and the other dogs, Carl and Russell are great in support. The voice work is as solid as can be. Overall, very well done, I liked it very much. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Dug is a happy and slightly dim dog. It's his birthday. The other dogs Alpha, Beta, and Gamma are exasperated when Dug gets into the way of their hunt for the giant bird. Alpha assigns Dug meaningless tasks to keep him out of their way only to have it backfire again and again. Dug is ostracized by the pack and then he encounters Russell and Carl Fredricksen.

It's a fractional prequel right before Dug's appearance in the movie Up. It's good to see Dug in his 'natural' everyday life. It's great to tie it all together with Carl and Russell. It's something to watch after finishing the movie.

Remember Dug from the Pixar film UP? He was the Golden Retriever sort of dog given an ability speak. He was very friendly except when he was distracted by Squirrels, which he was every ten seconds, despite there being no squirrels in the part of the world he was.

Well, he's back and it's his birthday. And the big, angry, Doberman Pinscher dogs don't like him, so they give him an assortment of pointless tasks, like watching a rock. For the sake of amusing the audience, this always turns out all right for Dug and badly for the Dobermans.

There's no clear indication of where this very funny and heartfelt cartoon first appeared, but it appears to have been on a DVD. I'm guessing it was the DVD release of UP.