comment #1

DarthCorleone says ...

It looks like that cheetah is giving that little antelope a friendly pet on the back. That could be the sanitized version - just show the still and let the picture speak for itself.

One of my favorite books as a very young child was National Geographic's The Book Of Mammals. Lots of pictures, lots of devouring...no punches pulled.

comment #2

BurmaShave says ...

So now we understand Wells' problems with women, blacks, and blue collar workers.

comment #3

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

Yes, folks, this is life, this is how nature works. it's a dog eats dog world. I'm so bloody sick of our watered down society, where people have now been silenced into being politically correct and that everything has become Disney-fied. Oh, God, save the children!

remember when fairy tales used to be actually SCARY? Now it's just wishy washy crap. Remember when little boys and little girls used to look at dirty, racy magazines and would try a cigarette? That was considered normal. Today it's considered "scandalous."

Remember Jodie Foster, child star of the 70s? When she was a hardcore tomboy and wore boyish clothes? When she refused to doll herself up? today we have teenybopper, barf-inducing tween stars who look like plastic Barbie dolls.

wake me when this pathetic era called "the 2000s" is over.

comment #4

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

lol @ Darth's comment. That cheetah does look like it's petting the antelope.

comment #5

D.J.Z. says ...

Aren't Bambi and the Lion King G, too? What's the difference? Jeff's pretty damn cold to not be traumatized by a dog run over by a car, though. I still can't forget the one which was whimpering its last breath in some passerby's arms on Sunset a decade ago. I know I've seen dead birds and rats around when I was a child, but they can't necessarily feel on an emotional level like canines.

comment #6

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to D.J.Z.: You say it was "pretty damn cold" of me not to be traumatized by the flattened dead puppy? Reading skills much? I wrote, "It was awful to see -- traumatic is the word -- but it also made me a little stronger, I think, or at least a little tougher."

comment #7

D.J.Z. says ...

Jeff: My bad.

comment #8

actionman says ...

the film looks spectacular. i love this type of stuff. planet earth was astounding

comment #9

D.J.Z. says ...

Disney's got some animal trainers at the El Capitan screening, I think.

comment #10

berg says ...

There are three animal deaths in EARTH ... although they cut right at the instant of the death bite .... in the case of the antelope the motion is super slow to where it is hauntingly beautiful (I don't know if it was shot at over 100 fps or if the effect was a digital slowing down of the film rate) .... in Disney's The Living Desert I have heard that they herded the lemmings over the cliff on purpose thus establishing the myth of the lemming being a conformist suicide animal - does anybody know if this is true?

comment #11

Carl Kolchak says ...

Ahhh....."Black Puppy Pancake"......their first album was good but the rest were a letdown.

comment #12

televisiontears says ...

Yeah... it looks like that cheetah is giving the antelope the business.

Also: Wells put the phrase "black puppy pancake" in bold. So there's that...

comment #13

frankbooth says ...

If you think that was bad, D.Z., I probably shouldn't tell you the story of how my black lab got into some strychnine somehow (we lived in the sticks) and lay there convulsing on the living room floor. We called the vet after hours, and he told us we had an epileptic dog and not to worry, ha ha. It eventually ended after a long and very lousy evening, not well. I learned that the country is bad place for outdoor pets, not to trust adults, and that bad things happen and there's not a goddam thing you can do about it.

We only found out about the poison when our NEXT puppy had the same thing happen, and my dad rushed him to the vet, who saved him. He was later shot by a neighbor.

These were actually our third and fourth dogs -- the first strangled on his own leash, the second was hit by a kid on a motorcycle (the bastard was barely scratched). And yet somehow I grew up to be the happy-go-lucky, cockeyed optimist I am today.

comment #14

D.J.Z. says ...

frank: Sorry to hear that. That first case seems really effing unusual, the poor pup. I hope you found a better place to raise pets since then.

comment #15

bfm says ...

It's not that I try to protect my kids from programs like that by stopping them watching them. But my 8 year old won't watch them because he says they'll give him nightmares. (He does tend to get nightmares - he's a worrier).

comment #16

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

This reminds me of the post-review Rating blurb in the NY Times review for Wendy and Lucy - "It has some swearing, a little drug use and a brief implication of violence, but no nudity, sex or murder. The [R] rating seems to reflect, above all, an impulse to protect children from learning that people are lonely and that life can be hard." Ha!

comment #17

Rich S. says ...

Apparently, this reviewer never watches Discovery or Animal Planet. You can watch either one pretty much any night of the week and see all the natural carnage you can stomach.

Personally, I think kids should be exposed to as much adult stuff as you can cram down their throats from birth. Toughen them up for the "real world." That way, they can become bitter, angry, misanthropic movie bloggers that much sooner.

comment #18

byanyother says ...

"When I was three years old I saw a neighbor chop a chicken's head off, and then watched as the chicken's body ran around a bit with the arterial blood spurting out."

Ha. Best quote of the week.

Earth is going to be spectacular. It is not supposed to be a hard-hitting on the realities of the natural world but rather a celebration of it. Like Africa, there is much to be celebrated despite the obvious tragedies therein. I do not believe in coddling children, though. Let them know the truth early. And if it doesn't come from you it will come from other sources.

comment #19

rr3333 says ...

I have 2 month old twins and I'll protect them (without smothering them) as long as I can.

I want their innocence to last as long as humanly possible, because besides them, my wife, my mom, and my sister's kids, I've realized that no-one else really matters in this cruel world.