Earth

boilerbabe · Post by **boilerbabe** » Mar Mon 23, 2009 9:46 am

I just saw that on advertised on t.v. last night. I like the idea that they will plant a tree! We need all the help we can get, we've really made a mess of our planet.

I don't know if anyone else did this, but if you bought the Wall-E DVD, you could send in for a free tree seedling! I did, and my is sprouting!!! I guess it doesn't take much to make me happy.

Jacca5660 · Post by **Jacca5660** » Mar Mon 23, 2009 3:58 pm

Captain Schnemo wrote:Yay, I finally get to say something good about Disney.

Have you seen the new commercial for Earth? It sounds just like me rambling on about Walt creating the True Life Adventures and inventing the nature documentary.

It looks like it's going to follow the same story-telling method of the old TLAs, and even some of the shots looked like the ones from 50 years ago.

I really hope it's good. I would love to see a return of the entertaining nature documentary as G-rated theatrical releases that people talk about and learn from.

And if they tied them in to the Animal Kingdom or Adventureland, that would actually be synergy that wouldn't make me barf.

I didn't think anything could get my hopes up about Disney these days, but this is the first tiniest sliver of potential goodness I've seen in years, so I'm going to savor it while I can.

Once the movie comes out and the penguins leap out of the water and start singing Hannah Montana songs, I can crawl back into my hole of despair...but until then!!

Edit:
Did some more reading on this. Looks like it came out a couple years ago in Europe and Japan and got great reviews. It seems to be an overseas production (the BBC is involved) which gives me hope that it will not suck.

It's a bit troubling that they are replacing the Patrick Stewart narration with James Earl Jones. Jones has a great voice, no doubt, but it's not like we wouldn't understand Stewart, and when narration is changed for American audiences, it tends to get dumbed down.

The David Attenborough narration on Blue Planet and Planet Earth was far superior to the pointless American versions. Hell, they even got another Brit to do the Blue Planet retread, which means it has nothing to do with the accent.

Attenborough is one of the coolest guys around and certainly the world's most entertaining and respected (or at least famous) naturalists. Removing him from a project makes no sense at all. I'd pay money to watch that guy describe how he makes toast.

Anyway, even if they stupidify the script, the visuals should still be the same, so it is bound to be at least half good.

They seem to be going at this with the right spirit, and they've already got a number of movies ready to roll, so I really hope they don't screw this up.

Their web site gives Walt the respect he deserves and even has clips of the classic TLA series. I recommend clicking on the "History" section, then watching the "Secrets of Life" clip.

It's a good example of how they fabricated the stories, mostly by causing animal fights, which are always entertaining to watch. There's a fair bit of humor too.

You can also totally see them cheating...pretending different animals are the same one in order to make a story out of the footage they shoot. Well, they were still working out the bugs.

Here's a fun story from the site, although "legend" is hardly decent evidence, especially when it comes to Walt. But I will choose to believe this one:
Alfred and Elma Milotte shot the fascinating footage that formed the beginning of the True-Life Adventure series. Walt had hired them to do some filming for him in Alaska, but as he studied the footage they sent back to the Studio, he zeroed in on the seal footage as having the most promise. So he asked them to emphasize the life cycle of the seals and not show any indication of man's presence.

The resulting film did not appeal to RKO, the Disney distributor, who felt that no one would want to sit in a theater for half an hour watching a nature film, so Walt had a friend of his, who ran the Crown Theater in Pasadena, run the film for a week in order to qualify for an Academy Award.

Sure enough, it won the award for Best Documentary. According to legend, Walt took the Oscar down to Roy Disney's office and said:

"Here, Roy, take this over to RKO and bang them over the head with it."

As one could expect, RKO was soon clamoring for more of the True-Life Adventures.

Are you sure you're not a "U" boat captain?

Post by **js3901** » Mar Mon 23, 2009 5:00 pm

I just saw the ad today. it was very short (it had to be less than 30 seconds). but it did have that little add on (AD-on, perhaps? hehe) saying that they'll plant a tree for everyone who sees it in the first week. interesting concept. I'll have to see where it's playing near me...

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Apr Tue 07, 2009 10:46 pm

I haven't seen the original ad that got me excited about the film on television again. The 30-second clip is nice, but it doesn't feature Walt, and it wouldn't have really distinguished itself to me.

Here's the thing that I saw originally. Actually, it was trimmed down a bit to fit into a longish commercial, but you get the idea.

If Disney addressed its customers in this way more frequently, I wouldn't be in such danger of spraining my orbital muscles from all the intense eye-rolling.

Future Guy · Post by **Future Guy** » Apr Wed 08, 2009 2:07 pm

I'm really excited about this, too. It's quite surprising to see Disney trying to create (or re-create) a franchise that has nothing to do with Licensed Characters. And there's ample opportunity to create "synergistic" (how I hate that word!) attractions at Animal Kingdom, the Magic Kingdom, and even EPCOT. I really hope this movie is a hit, so Disney will realize that there's an audience for more than animated characters and manufactured teeny-bopper "sensations".

Jacca5660 · Post by **Jacca5660** » Apr Wed 08, 2009 2:56 pm

Future Guy wrote:I'm really excited about this, too. It's quite surprising to see Disney trying to create (or re-create) a franchise that has nothing to do with Licensed Characters. And there's ample opportunity to create "synergistic" (how I hate that word!) attractions at Animal Kingdom, the Magic Kingdom, and even EPCOT. I really hope this movie is a hit, so Disney will realize that there's an audience for more than animated characters and manufactured teeny-bopper "sensations".

The only thing Disney sees is $$$$. If it makes money you will see them use it all over the place.

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Apr Wed 08, 2009 7:41 pm

Jacca5660 wrote:The only thing Disney sees is $$$$. If it makes money you will see them use it all over the place.

If this turns out to be a movie of quality, then I really hope it makes them a huge amount of dough. Better that they learn "quality = cash" than "screwing the customer = cash".

DAR · Post by **DAR** » Apr Wed 08, 2009 10:11 pm

I'll probably wait until the Blu-Ray comes out. HI-DEF is the only way to watch as I found out while watching Planet Earth.

Peerless83 · Post by **Peerless83** » Apr Wed 08, 2009 10:58 pm

I havent read anything about this...but is disney ripping off Discovery Channel's planet earth documentary? or is this completely differnt?

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Apr Thu 09, 2009 12:23 am

It was apparently shot at the same time as Planet Earth, by the same people. That's why my major worry is that they are going to totally screw up the narration, because that tends to happen with these BBC productions when they're brought to America.

I suppose the other concern is that they will recycle too much footage, but the storytelling method is completely different, so hopefully the material will be all (or at least mostly) new.

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Apr Tue 28, 2009 10:26 pm

First of all, I have to say that I have not seen the entire Planet Earth series. Given that I don't have an HD signal piped into the tube, the eye candy was not distracting enough to allow me to stomach the lame American narration on the show.

From what I have read, Earth recycles most, if not all, of the footage you've already seen if you've seen the entire series. I'm looking at this from the point of view of a piece of work that will be viewed for decades and how it stands alone as a film itself, and in that sense, I believe the film succeeds.

The narration was much better than I expected it to be. It had a tiny bits of good science (although not nearly enough) and was not overly silly or bland. They didn't anthropomorphize the animals, yet they managed to stay true to the original style of the classic Disney nature films.

The music was a bit overdone, but I think largely appropriate. I particularly liked the poignant, melancholy violins as various creatures succumbed to predators in super slow motion. They could have playing cheesy action or triumphant music, or gone overly morbid, but instead the music put you just in the right emotional place for an event which is both positive and negative, depending on your point of view.

The movie was not fantastic, but it was good. It would be tough to dislike it or be bored, and it kept the audience thoroughly entertained.

The theatre was full of middle school students who were yammering away like crazy and ignoring shushes before the movie began (so much so that we considered bailing before the movie started), but once the movie came on, it shut them right up. The girls shrieked when predators caught cute prey, the boys laughed when the blinded baby elephant walked into a tree (to loudly prove they were too manly to be affected by the drama, which clearly had them glued to the screen) and in retrospect I think they added to our experience.

There was applause at the end.

The previews featured Walt himself talking about his nature films (imagine that, treating Walt respectfully) which made me a little misty. The teaser for next year's Oceans looked fantastic, although it looks like they're following the model of repackaging another BBC series into a film. It's basically free money for Disney, so I understand why they're doing it, but I hope every single thing Disneynature puts out is not going to be something we've already seen on television.

Best fights: lion vs. elephant, cheetah vs. mystery-antelope (the movie annoyingly fails to identify a large number of species), wolf vs. caribou, polar bear vs. walrus

The climate science is not preachy or political and succeeds in being matter-of-fact, which is just what you want to see in this kind of film. There's no graphic violence, but the violence is there (as it must be) and it's not sugar-coated. There is dramatic tension and pathos. The ending is hopeful, but it doesn't poop sunshine and rainbows.

All in all, a solid film, unless you've seen the entire Planet Earth series, at which point it would be a complete rip-off that would have you screaming at the screen if the images weren't so durn purty.

Joe Bob says check it out.

Peerless83 · Post by **Peerless83** » Apr Wed 29, 2009 8:27 am

as long as it doesnt go into a long boring rant about global warming..not that I dont respect peoples opinions about it..i just hate having it crammed down your throat......but if all it is is recycled material from discovery channel..i might just wait until it comes out on dvd.

Captain Schnemo · Post by **Captain Schnemo** » Apr Wed 29, 2009 1:41 pm

Peerless83 wrote:as long as it doesnt go into a long boring rant about global warming..

They mention it because they'd really be making a statement by not saying something about it, given the material they covered, but it's in a matter-of-fact "this is what's happening" tone. There is no call to arms or attempts to make anyone feel guilty. They were smart enough to let the images do the talking.

I've read that there were not a lot of changes to the narration. The ending was apparently retooled a bit, but the final result is tasteful.

Peerless83 · Post by **Peerless83** » Apr Thu 30, 2009 6:27 am

i think i heard that its coming to the imax by my house...i might have to check it out.