I was dis­ap­pointed during my trip to the movie the­ater last week to see the movie “Up”. This, of course, had nothing to do with the movie itself. Most of us know by now that Pixar has yet to make a bad (or even a really mediocre) movie. For me, “Up” exceeded my usual expec­ta­tions for Pixar, ranking higher than “The Incred­i­bles” or “Finding Nemo”; it’s roughly on par with “Wall-E”. No, my dis­ap­point­ment was not with the movie, which I am glad to have seen in the movie the­ater. It was pre­sented in 3D!

By the time the credits had fin­ished rolling, Monica and I were the only two patrons remaining. The only other people in the place were three mem­bers of the cleaning crew – impa­tiently waiting for us to vacate our seats so they could go about their busi­ness. I could tell the were won­dering why we were still there. The movie was over, right?

Well, no. The movie was not over. The credits were still being pre­sented. In addi­tion to being dis­re­spectful of the people who made the movie, the cleaning crew, and the patrons before them, didn’t seem inter­ested in the cre­ativity that went into cre­ating the credits. Now, I admit the fact that they were not tech­no­log­i­cally inno­v­a­tive. They took only subtle advan­tage of the 3D format in which the movie was pre­sented. But those people who walked out when the movie “fin­ished” missed a very clever visual pre­sen­ta­tion. This wasn’t your simple black screen with white type. They didn’t just dress it up with a nice font. The credits stayed true to both the movie’s theme and visual style. The main credits incor­po­rated some very cute, subtle visual humor. All the credits were dressed up with what one of my former pro­fes­sors would lov­ingly describe as little tchotchkies and visual detritus from the movie’s design. Unlike many other movies, this crew put thought into it, and I was dis­ap­pointed very no one else was there to really appre­ciate it.

Despite the small per­centage of viewers who really take the time to look, I hope movie makers will con­tinue to create some­thing inter­esting out of the movie credits. Per­haps it’s a way to reward those poeple who stay for the whole movie. Per­haps, as with the design of the titles that come at the start, it’s a way to make the infor­ma­tion part of the movie itself, rather than (as many people seem to per­ceive it) as some­thing tacked onto the end that may be dis­missed. I admit I used to be like that, but I’m glad I’ve grown a bit. If I had not, I would have missed the won­derful music at the end of “Clover­field”. I would not have enjoyed the pre­view at the end of “Matrix Reloaded”. I would not be puz­zled by the odd little coda at the end of “Adaptation”.

I wonder what else I have missed. Maybe not much. Maybe nothing. But I’m going to make sure I pay more atten­tion in the future. Just in case.