Respect Authority

Long has Disney pilfered the coffers of classical fairy tales and folklore in order to fund their empire of unadulterated, marketable glee. But now they’ve set their sights on a more modern fairytale of sorts to inspire their latest docudrama, where all the animals die and the children in the audience develop deep-seating psychological issues by the end of the film. The only difference this time is that James Earl Jones will be providing the narration, as Morgan Freeman reportedly declined due to his ongoing post traumatic stress disorder treatment following his work on March of the Penguins.

The new movie in question is called Earth, and the source material it’s shamelessly appropriating is not quite a fairytale so much as a groundbreaking, Emmy-winning, six-part megadocumentary — born when each individual episode combines to form a unique and awe-inspiring whole, sort of like a more naturey Devastator, of Transformers fame and lasting nerd-joke legacy. Anyway, the documentary in question is called Planet Earth… you might have heard about it. Or seen it on the Discovery Channel; in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s currently filling their entire programming schedule.

Now, like any good outraged blogger with nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon but complain and smoke the half-burned remains of last night’s good cheer, I did my research. Apparently, Earth is, more or less, a feature-length version of Planet Earth… which seems a little retarded as Planet Earth was nothing if not lengthy. In fact, in this case, “feature length” means about 30% the length of the original material, making Disney’s latest excuse to drag all your whining kids to the movies no more than a watered-down CliffsNotes of its predecessor, and without Sigourney Weaver’s soft caress sending chills down my spine at that.

Frankly, I don’t see any reason why Earth should even exist, short of some Disney execs figuring they could make a whole bunch of money with relatively little effort, considering it uses the same fucking footage reedited and repackaged under the guise of family-friendliness. You’re going to have to do better than Darth Vader to get me in line for this one, Mickey fucking Mouse.