"Mr. Fredricksen, you are cleared for landing on the 86th floor." or Up in the WNU

I just got back from the theatre where I saw Up. It was very good and one of the few true A+ flicks I've seen this year. But of interest to this blog is where the adventure takes place

Check out the planning artwork above, remind you of anything? Yes, Conan Doyle's The Lost World. (or if you will, Maple White Land) And before we got further I'll add that in the movie proper the plateau looks identical, but sadly for our purposes I could not find any stills from the movie.
Now read this description of Maple White Land from Chapter 4 of The Lost World:

"I was still unable to sympathize. It was a full-page sketch of a landscape roughly tinted in color--the kind of painting which an open-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation, which sloped upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color, and curiously ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen. They extended in an unbroken wall right across the background. At one point was an isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be separated by a cleft from the main crag. Behind it all, a blue tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetation fringed the summit of the ruddy cliff."

Who would have thought that a Pixar kiddie movie would be in the Wold Newton Universe?

James B.