Earth DVD Review

Fate, instinct, circumstance and global warming are large factors in the lives of the migratory animals in Walt Disney’s Studio Home Entertainment’s September 1st DVD release of the film Earth. Narrated with the honeyed and serious tones of James Earl Jones and somewhat like its predecessor March Of The Penguins (but much better!), polar bears, elephants and humped back whales make their necessary survival migrations across the entire surface of the earth each year. This “new” type of documentary (true adventure series) was invented by Walt Disney himself, and we saw him make these films long ago (without the amazing technology that we have today) in black-and-white.

Original music composed and conducted by George Fenton and performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker make Earth much more thrilling! As far as we know, our earth is the only life-sustaining planet because it is at just the right angle and distance from the sun. Spending a year (in film time) with these wild animals who must forage for food and struggle to survive makes us grateful for our own (far easier!) situation! Excellent editing and visuals make you feel like you’re right there, in the Arctic, the water, the rain forest, the unbelievably high mountains, the desert and the snow.

Of course the film Earth involves youngsters – e.g. the cutest polar bear babies you’ve ever seen, and the polar bear, being pushed out of existence by melting ice floes, has become a well-known symbol of global warming – which makes our learning experience far more fun! The migratory routes and activities of these wild creatures has changed tremendously, making life far more difficult for them.

Besides the three focus groups we also share the mating dances of Birds Of Paradise in New Guinea and the habits of a varied assortment of predators. Some aerial photography is shot from hot air balloons and other sequences are shot at night using infra-red light that only the camerawoman sees!

I highly recommend Earth, although despite its GP rating parents must realize that children will see predators leaping on their prey to eat them (although no victory eating shots are shown!). The perfectly breathtaking photography transports us to another world until we come to realize that it’s a world that’s co-existing with ours at this very moment!

Earth makes us realize that we are not the only inhabitants of earth, because as we go about our daily routines, so much else is going on! Director Alastair Fothegill states that these shots would no longer be available for his children or his children’s children, so we can be grateful that (with five years in the making) these filmmakers took the time to get them for us now!

Running Time: 90 minutesDVD Release Date: September 1, 2009

Director: Alastair Fothegill and Mark Linfield

DVD Review by Christina of Movie Room Reviews

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