Our family watched "The March of the Penguins" movie last night. The DVD contains the original movie and a bonus movie. The more I watched this beautifully-made movie, the more puzzled I became. I admire the determination of the crew of three French moviemakers to track the mating cycle of the Emprorer Penguin for an entire year. Or was it 13 months? Both durations are given.
That's just one example of the many inconsistancies and missing bits of information that pop up all over the two productions. For instance, frequent use of slow-motion make the otherwise awkward, flightless birds more beautiful than in real life.
Inconsistant Distances
The movie's narrator (some guy with an impressive sounding voice) repeatedly reports that the mating area is 70 miles from the ocean, and even further during the winter when more ocean freezes up. The Bonus narrator (one of the movie crew) says the area is 60 miles away.
When the chicks are ready to head for the ocean, however, the Bonus narrator says the trip is just a few hundred meters (a half-mile). We also learn that the breeding ground is just one mile from the French research station, which itself is close enough to water to be reached by icebreaker.
We are told of the long dangerous journey, but not how long it takes. Long sequences show the penguins making their long march.... Yet, after the chicks are old enough to withstand the cold on their own, we are told the parents make frequent trips back and forth to bring back food.
It could be the ice pack grows from 1 mile to 60/70 miles, but the only detail we get is that the ice pack grows enough for the mother penguins to have to walk an extra couple of days.
Inconsistant Times
We are told that the mommy penguin must transfer the egg to the daddy penguin quickly. If the egg lays on the ice more than a couple of seconds, we are warned, then it freezes. As narrators in both movies relate this, we watch as the egg spends a great deal of time on the ice (much more than 2-3 seconds), as the male penguin tries to figure out how to place it on his feet.
Nevertheless, both narrators declare the the egg trasfer a success. How would they know? Perhaps the most dramatic footage is of an abandoned egg cracking as its contents freeze and expand. We are never told why eggs are abandonned by males, who, we have been assured, are very caring.
This being sponsored by the National Geographic, I would have like to have had much, much more detail about the lives of penguins. For example, how long is the egg incubation period. (We are told newly-laid eggs contain beating hearts. This and other life-in-the-egg statements must make pro-abortionists grind their teeth.) How long does it take the chick to peck its way out of the shell. How long does it take the penguins to walk the 70 or 60 or 0.5 miles. We are never told. The only time periods we are given (other than the "seconds" mentioned above) is "months," and one reference to the mating period taking two weeks.
The Bonus shows explicit mating, while the movie only hints at it. Mating details are not described by either movie, however: "What is the daddy doing on top of they mommie?"
Only in the Bonus do we learn that Emperor Pengiuns can live to 40 years. Or that the chicks spend five years in the ocean before heading inland to mate. Or maybe it's four years -- both durations are stated.
Anthropomorphization
Both narrators give penguins human feelings, which the birds do not have. As a result, the moviemakers get caught in a trap of their own making. Here's an example: They show a penguin apparently mourning over an egg that froze. The soundtrack imposes a sorrowful sounding penguin call, along with sad sounding music.
Later, a petral (we only learn the name of the bird in the Bonus) reaches the colony, and attempts to eat chicks. The penguins stand around watching the bird's attack, as the chick struggles to break free of the predator's beak. Watching their young being eaten is apparently not a mournful experience. (The other helpless chicks are going to need some serious therapy later in life: "Why did that mommie let her baby be killed?")
When a chick-less penguin tries to kidnap another penguin's chick, the "group", we are told, intervenes. Or perhaps we were just seeing several penguins bumping into each other, as they often to.
When penguins do things we see as funny, the soundtrack plays humerous-sounding music. But it's funny only to us. Penguins have no sense of humour.
We are told the penguins are brilliant for huddling together for warmth, yet there is no explanation for the lone penguins we see some distance from the group during the blizzard. The only explanation that fits for me is that penguins are stupid, and not nearly as brilliant as the movie tries to make them out to be.
Contrast that with the moviemakers beig amazed at the lack of fear penguins have of people. The Bonus narrator reveres them for their "innocence.". I still think pengiuns are just stupid.
After the egg is transferred to the male, the females take off for the ocean -- because they are hungry, the narrator with the impressive-sounding voice tells us. Just because penguins haven't eaten for a couple months doesn't necessarily mean they experience hunger. What about the daddies that stay behind? They should be hungry too, yet they don't head off. The proper explanation is that the mommies return to the ocean so that they can bring back food for the babies.
Seals are depicted as evil for eating the mommie penguins. The moviemakers manage to make the seals look like snakes with gapping mouths as they attack the penguins underwater. In contrast, the penguins are shown as graceful swimmers, enjoing their time "back home" as they eat mommie and daddy and baby fishes -- even gobbling up fish caught in the underside of the ice pack.
We are told that when the penguins feet get tired, they slide on their stomaches, being propelled by their arm-wings. (How do the narrators know penguins slide because of tired feet?) Yet we clearly see the penguins using their feet to propelling themselves along on their stomaches. I think penguins use their stomaches because it's fun. Also, you see them crossing small crevices on their stomachs.
The movie tell us the penguins make their march inland to "where the ice is thicker." The Bonus agrees with that theory, but adds that the mating area is somewhat protected from wind. How would penguins know the thickness of ice? I think penguins head inland for protection from winter storms and predetors.
Clean Poop
The Antartic is described repeatedly as pristine, clean, etc. Indeed, the narrator of the Bonus goes to the extreme, claiming his very words dirty the snow and ice. Yet the movie makes no mention of the penguins creating huge areas of dirty ice from their droppings; nor does it ever show the brown ice.
The Bonus does show the large areas of fouled ice, and makes two references -- to the stink surrounding the colony, and the colony moving because of the soiled ice.
Other Stuff the Movie Doesn't Tell Us
The movie never never tells us what the chicks are fed, expept that the daddies secrete a milk-like substance in their mouths. Do the mommies feed the chicks milk or regurgitated fish or something else? The Bonus eventually mentions regurgitated fish.
When it gets really cold, the penguins huddle together for warmth. Only in the Bonus do we learn that the temperature in the middle of the group can reach 15C.
Only in the Bonus do we learn that roughly 25% of chicks don't make it to the ocean: the eggs freeze, the chicks freeze, the mothers fail to return with food, predetors eat the chicks, or the chicks can't handle the hike to the ocean.
Hint: When you get the DVD, you need only watch the Bonus movie: it is shorter, is narrated by someone who was actually there, provides more detail, and is more interesting than the original movie.
Even so, too much information is missing. I would have liked to have known what kind of movie camera could operate in extreme cold. How did they get the batteries to last long enough.
It is unfortunate that both remarkable movies suffer from such sloppy editing of the narration. It makes me wonder what other "facts" the National Geographic tells us are inaccurate.
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