“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie” – 10 year old girl with cancer too sick to see UP. Pixar flies a DVD to her home. She dies 7 hours later.
When Colby Curtin saw the Dream Works 3-D movie “Monsters Vs. Aliens” she was impressed by the previews for “Up.” “It was from then on, she said, ‘I have to see that movie. It is so cool,’” a family friend told the OC Register:
Two days later Colby’s health began to worsen. On June 4 her mother asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair for Colby so she could visit a theater to see “Up.” However, the weekend went by and the wheelchair was not delivered, Lisa Curtin said.
By June 9, Colby could no longer be transported to a theater and her family feared she would die without having seen the movie.
At that point, Orum, who desperately wanted Colby to get her last wish, began to cold-call Pixar and Disney to see if someone could help.
Pixar has an automated telephone answering system, Orum said, and unless she had a name of a specific person she wanted to speak to, she could not get through. Orum guessed a name and the computer system transferred her to someone who could help, she said.
Pixar officials listened to Colby’s story and agreed to send someone to Colby’s house the next day with a DVD of “Up,” Orum recalled.
She immediately called Lisa Curtin, who told Colby.
“Do you think you can hang on?” Colby’s mother said.
“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie,” the girl replied.
And she did…
“When I watched it, I had really no idea about the content of the theme of the movie,” said Curtin, 46. “I just know that word ‘Up’ and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven.”
Pixar officials declined to comment on the story or name the employees involved.
The content and theme of the movie, consequently is about death, loneliness, unfulfilled dreams and drive to complete long time ambition before your life is over.
Brief synopsis of this item in the first few seconds of this clip from the Register:
THE MOVIE
At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD.
He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.
Colby couldn’t see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film.
At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.
The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.
“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”
After the movie, Colby’s dad, Michael Curtin, who is divorced from Lisa Curtin, came to visit.
Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.
Among the Up memorabilia the employee gave Colby was an “adventure book” – a scrap book the main character’s wife used to chronicle her journeys.
“I’ll have to fill those adventures in for her,” Lisa Curtin said.
In UP, 78 year old Carl Fredrickson buys a plane ticket for his wife and himself to visit South America like they always promised each other they would some day, but she dies shortly after the purchase.
UP is the story of Carl going to extreme lengths to fulfill his promise to his late wife after finding her “Adventure Book” from their childhood, so he may fill in the blank pages with the adventures in South America they never got to have…