Glorious 'Earth'
Seeing Disney’s ‘Earth’ on the big screen is second only to being there
By Lisa Miller 04/30/2009
Documentary filmmaker Alastair Fothergill knows that bear cubs are about the cutest baby animals on the planet.
Following several large shots to establish the springtime reawakening of Arctic animal life, “Earth” narrows its focus to a mother polar bear and her 2-month-old twins emerging from their den. Positioned high on a steep bank, the cubs struggle to find their footing. They are desperate to reach mother’s milk, expressing their displeasure with a torrent of angry growls. Some yards down the slope, mother ignores their cries as she rolls with abandon in virgin snow to cleanse from her fur five months of accumulated debris from her den.
Down on the pack ice, a larger bear, introduced as the cubs’ father, is having little luck in his quest to find food. His story, one that will not end well, testifies to the effects of global warming.
By land and by sea, from extreme heat to bone-numbing cold, “Earth” was filmed for Disney Nature alongside the BBC series “Planet Earth.” Approximately 60 percent of its footage was culled from the 11-hour series widely seen on the Discovery Channel. However, viewing this film on the big screen is a vivid experience second only to being there.
Along with the polar bears, the film follows a humpback whale mother and calf on their 4,000-mile migration from tropical waters to feast on Arctic krill. Yet another sequence tracks a herd of African elephants making a mad dash to reach an oasis where their thirst can be quenched. Battered by a relentless dust storm, a mother and young calf become separated from the herd. Their efforts are heartrending.
As can be expected in a G-rated Disney film, this dramatic moment and a handful of others are anthropomorphized by narrator James Earl Jones. We see a cheetah run down a baby springbok, a wolf and a caribou calf on an extended chase and a bear lying down for his final time — but each scene ends moments before either blood
or death arrive. The film cuts back and forth, but I would have preferred seeing each animal tale play out in its entirety. Following the whales, polar bears and elephants comprises about 40 percent of the footage, with the remaining screen time used to highlight some of the planet’s most spectacular events. From far above, we take in the highland conifer forests producing one-third of the planet’s oxygen, or sweep beneath the Amazon jungle canopy to observe elusive bird species engaged in courtship.
“Earth,” the first of what Disney promises will be many documentaries of this sort, provides the type of nature experience best captured on film. Dozens of panoramic views document vast animal gatherings and vistas beyond beautiful. Storks embark on a make-or-break flight, requiring them to breach Himalayan peaks against stormy downdrafts. A humungous, endless caribou herd all but obliterates the ground from view. Over a five-year span, more than 30 camera crews shot film in 200 locations and 64 countries to capture intimate and astounding animal behaviors most of us would never get to see.
They were right to call it “Earth,” just as we are fortunate to call this grand planet home.
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