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Capone takes a little time out of this busy day to enjoy the great outdoors with Disneynature's EARTH!!!
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
I'll admit to being more than a little confused by the existence of this elegant and breathtaking nature documentary released under Disney's new Disneynature imprint. Not that there's anything inherently boggling about the film itself, but my point of confusion comes from the fact that I'd seen a great deal of the footage before as part of the groundbreaking, multipart "Plant Earth" series on the Discovery Channel a couple of years back. Still, serving as a sort of a Greatest Hits package, EARTH has one very important thing going for it that the television series did not have--it gives us the chance to view these staggeringly beautiful images on the big screen, and you need to take full advantage of the opportunity to do so.
As narrated by James Earl Jones in the States and Patrick Stewart in the UK (for you completists, the series was narrated by Sigourney Weaver in the U.S. and renowned wildlife expert David Attenborough in the UK), EARTH streamlines three of the remarkable stories from "Planet Earth" and fleshes them out with other incredible footage from around the globe of rare animals and natural phenomenon, all shot with the most modern camera equipment available. Yes, messages about conservation, global warming, melting ice caps, endangered species, the destruction of the rain forests and holes in the ozone layer all find their way into the film, but when you watch a fully grown polar bear starving to death because the ice he normally walks upon to find food is melting under his feet, the message kind of screams out whether the narrator says something or not. Parents should be warned that, although the editors do a decent job keeping the really bloody stuff off the screen, there are some pretty scary and deadly moments captured here. Watching a great white shark jump completely out of the water while swallowing a grown seal whole might be a bit much for young children to handle.
The first story involves a polar bear family--the father separated while looking for food, while the mother and two adorable cubs emerge from hibernation in search of their own source of nutrition. This portion of the film is the most difficult to watch simply because watching these creatures adapt to their changing environment is troubling. The second story follows a herd of African elephants making the long journey to find a massive watering hole that only fills up at certain times of the year. One particularly tense moment comes when a group of lions goes after some of the younger, smaller elephants. The third sequence is perhaps the most serene and humbling, as we journey with a pair of humpback whales as they travel 4,000 miles to a feeding ground in the Antarctica. Their journey doesn't seem quite as treacherous (other than when they swim through powerful storms), but that doesn't make watching them any less spectacular.
The films frequently diverts from the three main stories just to show us something cool, and there's nothing wrong with that. Since I'm guessing that the overall point of the Disneynature films is to get kids interested in protecting the planet and the environment and awesome animals in general, I really didn't mind the way EARTH jumped around quite a bit, often sacrificing a cohesive narrative for images that are almost more than the eyes can take in. And while for some of us, the footage might be a bit of a rehash, I was pleased to see a trailer for Disneynature's 2010 offering, OCEANS, which seems to be all-new footage. The film isn't nearly as thorough and detail-oriented as the series or even something like MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, but at least Jones' narration isn't as pandering as, say, Queen Latifah's was in 2007's ARCTIC TALE. More importantly, I just like the idea that every year we'll be getting a new, feature-length nature documentary to see on the big screen. I grew up watching "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" and the original Disney nature shorts that Uncle Walt himself used to introduce and sometimes narrate. Directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield have pieced together something that is magnificent, but more importantly they've produced a film that was destined for the big screen even if it was made for television. Even if you aren't much of a documentary person, EARTH is something quite unique, and if you have children, you pretty much need to take them to see this. The kids in the audience that I saw this movie with were mesmerized for the duration. You'll love this film.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
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Is this going to be on IMAX?
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The article says "all shot with the most modern camera equipment available." I would hope that means IMAX. I dunno.
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to feel creeped out with companies using the environment as a way to make money and as marketing tools?
The latest hot way to market is being green. green this, green that...(green = new greed) isnt greed the whole reason we have gotten the world in this situation?? ..the 'Disneynature' name make we want to run as far away from this as I can. -
Try lugging an IMAX camera to the mountains of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and waiting for months to get a glimpse of a snow leopard!
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by removing the squid.
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"The article says "all shot with the most modern camera equipment available." I would hope that means IMAX. I dunno." Since IMAX is the opposite of modern camera equipment, the answer is obviously no.
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I'd imagine it would still look incredible on a true IMAX screen. A big summer blockbuster may look grand in IMAX but this is the stuff IMAX (and its theaters) was made for.
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disney made the documentary accessible, give credit where due
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That's a horrifying oxymoron if ever there was one.
I had passes to this and skipped it. -
Do they chase more lemmings off of a cliff to create drama?
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ZOMG GRAMMAR NAZI IN THE ROOM! RUN!
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Don't you have a Holocaust deniers onference to go to?
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Even though I have Planet Earth. Seeing this in a theater was breathtaking. Especially with children. Life kicks fucking ass.
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I like to scare kiddies by dumping their heads in toilets and flushing while they thrash around in terror. Then I tell them that this is what we do to stop terrorist attacks. Then I take them to church to be molested. It's character building.
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Waterboarding stopped a terror attack on LA..........FACT
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Is there any point to seeing this? Isn't this just fooage from that cobbled together for a feature?
That said, some of the imagery is truly amazing and the thought o seeing it on the big screen is tempting.
I know James Earl Jones does the voiceover for Disney, replacing the BBC versions Sir Anthony Hopkins (top notch) and the US versions Sigourney Weaver (considerably less top notch).
So Darth Vader can tell you how adorable a baby duck is. Awesome. -
kids can handle more than you will ever believe.
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i'm guessing they have the american rights? but releasing this as a film borders on plagarism surely! also disney are the most environmentally irresponsible company i have ever seen. i was at disneyland Paris recently and they gave away plastic bags like nobodys business.
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["I was pleased to see a trailer for Disneynature's 2010 offering, OCEANS, which seems to be all-new footage."]
Much like the footage for "Earth" came from the shoots for "planet earth," much of the footage for the upcoming "Oceans" came from "blue planet." -
Son/Brother?!?!
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We executed waterboarders after WW2. That was the war against the Nazis that we won without torturing anyone. Then there was that cold war that we also won without torturing anyone. But I guess that now instead of doing what is proven to work against Nazis and superpowers with which we are in a nuclear arms race... we are going to do what losers do. Losers that we executed. But yeah, you know, I'm sure that the heroes of WW2 and the cold war got it all wrong. Now that everything has changed with a much scarier threat. Ok.
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"Waterboarding stopped a terror attack on LA..........FACT"
Wrong... Myth:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/probes-of-bush-administration/flashback-bushs-fbi-director-said-torture-didnt-foil-any-terror-plots/
Debunked a while ago. -
I saw this on Earth Day, and yeah I have the whole Planet Earth series but on standard def DVD. This big screen experience was one to savor. It was really beautiful and touching, and gave the audience a wonderful communal experience.
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NPR had an exhaustive report that all the valuable intel was derived through interrogation and before torture was applied. And they made a good point - if torture was so effective why didn't they give up Bin Laden? The former Bush Admin better suit up for a (figurative) flogging.
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Apr 24, 2009 5:31:41 PM CDT
Earth, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the star stu
by kbarber29
Earth, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the star studded polar bear. It's 2 hour mission: to seek out new non-melting ice, to seek out new meat, and to boldly go where no polar bear has gone before... McDonalds.
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He spelled it "Plant Earth". Also he gotta eat, has a bomb in his ribcage, etc.
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It was Richard Attenborough, the King of nature. I've got this on DVD, and the Shark breaching is still the best in the world. See, THIS is why I love that we pay a TV Licence fee.
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or The Vanishing Prairie, Seal Island and the rest of the True Life Adventures. Those we're all great.
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Narrated by Will Smith.
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Apr 24, 2009 11:07:48 PM CDT
IMO most kids can handle some violent nature footage.
by gibsonusa returns
It's nature. Lions hunting. Sharks hunting. Kids burn bugs under magnifying glasses. IMO most kids can handle graphic footage of nature, in fact its educational.
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is the second coming of cinema I'm fucking serious
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and this one looks beautiful gonna drag the nieces and nephews
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From what I understand, most of Planet Earth (which is where they got all the footage for this) was filmed with 1080p video cameras, not film cameras. So all we get from seeing it on the big screen is...bigness. No extra visual detail. In fact, it'll have less detail than the average movie shown at the theater.
Better just to get the British version of Planet Earth and watch that, get better narration and 550 minutes of amazing footage rather than a mere 90 minutes. -
Right you are, Sir Richard is was. I am scheduled to have my head surgically removed from my butt on Monday so hooray for me.
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