I love my animal stories like a mother musk ox thing loves its dirty
baby, so I never missed an episode of Planet Earth, the BBC’s
educationally vague but visually perfect 2006 documentary series.
Later, I even rented the British version on DVD to hear David
Attenborough narrate instead of Sigourney Weaver (because
duh—I’d like Attenborough to narrate the actual planet Earth, like, everything on it, everywhere, all the time). The
Brits released Earth as a big-screen feature in 2007—the
show’s most spectacular moments, plus additional footage, pared down
into one 90-minute film—and now, in conjunction with Disney, it’s
being released in the U.S. on Earth Day with new narration by James
Earl Jones (“Is that Morgan Freeman?” someone near me whispered).

Too bad it totally sucks starving-to-extinction polar-bear
bootyhole! There are enjoyable aspects to Earth, things I’m
happy to get to see on the big screen: the trip over Angel Falls,
massive caribou herds, the aurora australis, the tops of the fucking
Himalayas, that leaping shark, my old friend the dainty baboon… but
the feature-length restructuring is an embarrassing, ham-fisted
failure. It shies away from graphic death (remember when that
chimpanzee eats that other chimpanzee’s brain?) in favor of shoehorned
emotion and anthropomorphized cutesiness. But the worst offender is the
narration, which replaces the TV series’ light touch and unobtrusive
good humor with folksy chuckles and dishonest, unscientific babble.

A mother polar bear emerges from her den: “It’s fresh powder
conditions up here… she can’t help but enjoy the slopes!” Baby polar
bears walk around: “Unlike humans, polar-bear cubs don’t always listen
to their moms.” A lynx hunts in a snowy forest: “Those that live here
are so hard to glimpse, they’re like spirits!” The birds of paradise
perform their mind-altering mating
display, now backed by a JAZZY
SOUNDTRACK: “Get down, baby!” says James Earl Jones. How
humiliating.

The dying male polar bear is recast as “the cubs’ father” (no, he’s
clearly NOT! and anyway, more like deadbeat dad), and in the end, after
he dies from his walrus wounds, “Their father’s brave spirit will
always live on in their hearts.” That, Earth, is fucking
ridiculous. recommended

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

7 replies on “On Screen”

  2. Did you know David Attenborough regularly gets hate mail from fundies for not giving God a credit on his films? Oh, you did. Well can you do this? Oh, you can’t see what I’m doing.

  4. Not surprised at Disney calling the dying male polar bear a father – Disney gets off on parental death. Try thinking of one, just one, of their animated films that has a functional, complete set of parents included. Most throw in a child witnessing the death of a parent for good measure. My son’s 2.5 and I plan to keep him away from this dreck for as long as possible.

  7. Well, you know that Walt Disney’s mom died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a house that he bought for her with his earnings from Snow White? That might have something to do with the fixation on “parental death.”

Comments are closed.