Surf's Up (2007)

A behind-the-scenes look at the annual Penguin World Surfing Championship, and its newest participant, up-and-comer Cody Maverick.
Surf's Up is a 2007 American animated mockumentary comedy film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It was directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck (in the former's feature directorial debut) from a screenplay they co-wrote with Don Rhymer and Chris Jenkins, based on a story by Jenkins and Christian Darren. The film stars the voices of Shia LaBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, and James Woods. It is a parody of surfing documentaries, such as The Endless Summer and Riding Giants, with parts of the plot parodying North Shore. Real-life surfers Kelly Slater and Rob Machado have vignettes as their penguin surfer counterparts. To obtain the desired hand-held documentary feel, the film's animation team motion-captured a physical camera operator's moves.
Surf's Up was released in the United States on June 8, 2007, by Sony Pictures Releasing, and received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for the animation and humor. The film grossed $152 million worldwide against a budget of $100 million. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 80th Academy Awards. A sequel, titled Surf's Up 2: WaveMania, was released direct-to-video in the United States on January 17, 2017, and theatrical in select countries.
== Plot ==
In a mockumentary, northern rockhopper penguin Cody Maverick, living in Shiverpool, Antarctica, with his mother Edna and his older brother Glen, has yearned to be a professional surfer ever since meeting the famous surfer Big Z many years ago. When a talent scout shorebird named Michael Abromowitz arrives to find entrants for the Big Z Memorial surfing contest on Pen-Gu Island, Cody jumps at the chance. En route to the contest, Cody befriends another entrant, Chicken Joe, a friendly but dim-witted rooster surfer from Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
The entrants arrive at Pen-Gu Island, where Cody meets and immediately falls in love with Lani Aliikai, a female gentoo penguin who is a lifeguard. He also meets the contest's arrogant champion, Tank "The Shredder" Evans, who has won the Big Z Memorial nine times since it was first held after Z's presumed death during a previous match ten years ago. Cody sees Tank vandalizing Big Z's memorial and immediately challenges him to a surfing duel. Tank wins the duel while Cody nearly drowns and is stung by a sea urchin named Ivan. Lani rescues him and takes him to her uncle, "Geek", to help Cody recover from his injuries. Cody wakes up, but cannot find the souvenir necklace given to him by Big Z. Geek then finds it in his hut.
While returning the necklace, Geek finds Cody sitting on a koa log and offers to help him make a surfboard. They attempt to take the log back to Geek's house, only to lose control of it and end up on a beach far away from the house. When Cody gets to the beach, he discovers a shack full of old trophies and surfboards, which used to belong to Big Z. After observing Geek walking sadly into the shack, he realizes that Geek is actually Big Z himself. Thrilled, Cody asks him to teach him how to surf. Z reluctantly agrees, but tells Cody he has to make his own board first.
The attempt does not go well, however, as an impatient Cody refuses to listen to Z's advice and crafts a weak and unstable board that shatters upon hitting the water. Angry, Cody storms off and runs into Lani, who eventually persuades him to return. Cody spends the night working patiently on a new board.
Z compliments Cody on his new board, and Cody is eager to start training. Z instead has him do menial tasks seemingly unrelated to surfing. Finally, when Cody starts having fun, Z and Lani teach him how to surf the waves. Afterwards, Cody asks Z if he will come to watch the contest, but Z refuses, revealing that he faked his death because he realized he couldn't compete with his then-new rival Tank, and that he had become too focused on winning. Not impressed that Z gave up, Cody throws the necklace Z gave him into the sea, meets up with Joe, and gets back to the contest just as it begins.
Tank makes it to the finals, as do Cody and Joe. In the semifinals, Tank battles with Cody, with Tank trying to throw him off his board, but Tank falls off his own board and loses. During the finals, however, Tank appears and tries to knock Joe off his board. Cody intervenes at the last minute, sending himself and Tank into an area of the beach known as the Boneyards, which consists of dangerously sharp rock outcroppings and has killed many surfers who have ventured there.
Tank punches Cody off his board before crashing and is rescued by Lani. Z, who had secretly been watching Cody's performance, rescues Cody from a gigantic wave and helps him get back to the beach safely.
Z and Cody find out that Joe won by default since Tank and Cody were disqualified. However, Cody accepts the loss, having decided he would rather just have fun instead. Z reveals himself to the spectators and invites all of them to surf at his beach, where he joins Cody in tube-riding. Cody finishes his interview with a reflection of the past events and then joins the rest of his friends in the water to celebrate and enjoy life.
== Production ==
TBA
== Release ==
=== Marketing ===
To promote the film's release, surfboard wax bearing the film's logo and a rendering of Cody was given out at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con. It was attached to Open Season, which came out on September 29, 2006. On June 8, 2007, McDonald's issued eight Surf's Up toys in their Happy Meals for one month. In the Australian market, a few small plush characters of Cody, Lani, Chicken Joe, and Geek replace some of the toys in the US lineup. There was also a tie-in with the candy Airheads which introduces a "New Wave" flavor (pineapple) and four collectible lenticular motion surfboard shaped pieces. Build A Bear stores sold plush toys of the film's protagonist, Cody Maverick. Patrons could "build" their own Cody as well as dress him up in an array of surf-themed clothing and other accessories in Build A Bear workshops. They could also purchase Cody and accessories at the official site. Several plushes from Nanco intended for claw machines can also be found and purchased in varying sizes (from 6 inches to 11 inches to 17 inches). Characters available: Cody, Lani, Tank, Geek, Big Z, Chicken Joe, and Reggie Belefonte. A rare set of larger (Geek measures 15 inches) and higher quality plushes had been made available at the premieres after party. Won either through available games or given away with gift sets for attendees. Cody, Lani, Arnold and Geek were created and so far, no plans for the dolls to be sold commercially have appeared. A series of children's 100-piece puzzles are available as well depicting various characters and setups. Five-inch waterproof plush tub toys released by Jakks Pacific in minimal quantities to most major retailers. Five characters were produced, including Cody, Tank, Big Z, Arnold, & Chicken Joe. Each character has an attached washcloth/surfboard, but sport questionable likenesses (and in the case of Chicken Joe, entirely off model, bearing more of a resemblance to Mikey). Along with the release of the film, a companion Surf's Up video game was released by Ubisoft for all the current video gaming systems on the market. All versions of the game are the same with mild graphical differences, with only the Nintendo DS version changing the overall format.
=== Home media ===
Surf's Up was released on high-definition Blu-ray Disc, PSP UMD Video and DVD in the United States on October 9, 2007. The DVD and Blu-ray included two animated short films: The ChubbChubbs! and The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas, the latter of which premiered with this release.
== Trivia ==
* Some performers handled real props while recording their lines: Zooey Deschanel carried a sandbag to simulate Lani's squid, and James Woods really did throw things at the filmmakers when his character did the same.
* (at around 11 mins) Early in the movie, Cody remarks about the lack of waves in Shiverpool, "You should have been here yesterday...", a common surfing aphorism lamenting poor surfing conditions.
* The character of The Geek is a homage to another of Jeff Bridges's creations, The Dude, in The Big Lebowski (1998).
* Sony Animation's first film to not have any humans.
* UFOs are placed all around the movie in various scenes like "Z is for Zurfing" and where viewers meet Chicken Joe's dead father. This is revealed in one of the Easter Eggs on the DVD.
* The character Big Z is based on pioneer surfer Greg Noll. Noll is known for having surfed particularly imposing waves from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, but he chose to end his career shortly after trying to surf the largest wave ever attempted.
* The first theatrically released animated film to be composed by Mychael Danna, later he'd go onto compose The Good Dinosaur (2015), Storks (2016), The Breadwinner (2017), The Addams Family (2019), and Onward (2020).
* The original premise for Madagascar (2005) was also going to be a mockumentary film about penguins though it was going to be about a penguin rock band titled Rockumentary.
* Originally, there were interviews with two of Z's old girlfriends, Doris and Sheila (voiced by Mindy Sterling and Jane Krakowski, respectively). They were cut to keep the focus of the film on Cody. Doris and Sheila do appear in the movie, when Z appears on the beach near the end. If this happened, then Krakowski would have voiced a female character in every film made by Sony Animation.
* Big Z faked his death and assumed a new identity as the Geek. This is a tribute to James Woods's previous film, the gangster classic Once Upon a Time in America (1984), where the same thing happened with Woods's character.
=== References or mentions in CHACE! Media ===
TBD
=== References from CHACE! Media ===
* Open Season (2006): Mikey Abromovitz says, "I feel a little light headed."
== Gallery ==
Surf's Up/Gallery
Category:2007
Category:2000s
Category:Animation
Category:Animated Films
Category:Columbia Pictures
Category:Sony Pictures Animations
Category:Surf's Up
Category:Sports Comedy
Category:Sports
Category:Films about Chickens
Category:Films about Otters
Category:Films about Birds
Category:Films about Penguins
Category:Films set in Antarctica
Category:Films set in Islands
Category:Films set in Beaches
Category:Mychael Danna
Category:Sony Pictures
Category:Mockumentary
Category:Surfing Films