animals out of context..

animals out of context..
18-05-2007

i was just having a joke with zoopro about capuchins in film when which reminded me of a film called Outbreak in which wild a monkey smuggled to america from africa spreads a ficticious ebola-like virus through the population.

the only problem was that the african monkey is in fact a capuchin monkey.

it got me thinking how often i see "wild animals" placed in the wrong context in films...

anyone else been unfortunatre enough to see Anacondas: Hunt for the blood orchid - for some reason instead of this film taking place in the geographically correct amazon like its predecessor - for some unknown reason this time the anacondas are in indonesian borneo (with no explaination as to why they are there whatsoever). the openeing sequence also features macaws and tigers roaming in the borean jungle, as well featuring a character with a pet capuchin (you would assume that we are to expect the monkey supposed to be a native species)..

or what about gruelsome Welcome To The Jungle in which "the rock" faces off with a wild baboon in the middle of the jungles of latin america?

anyone else?.....

18-05-2007

I met Nigel Marven last year and he said that research was needed before the film could take place. He did that work for the original My familiy and other animals. It was made a TV seris from th sucess of Gerald durell's book.

18-05-2007

There are so many of these!
Don't get me started on George of the Jungle, there's about a million. Its got toucans and Asian Elephants in African Jungle -but I guess sometimes you just have to let the filmmakers off. When its a kid's film it feels a little petty to complain, as half the animals are talking anyway!

18-05-2007

Or the swiss family robinson which couldn't make up its mind if it was in Africa or Asia

18-05-2007

My favourite is the old tarzan movies. There is always a kookaburra to be heard in the back ground.

20-05-2007

thats a good one boof - its not just tarzan either YOU DO always hear kookaburras in american films set in "the jungle"!!

however, on that note tarzan the ape man features an orangutan that lives with tarzans family of chimps and the usual asian elephants...

20-05-2007

For some reason the Kookaburra's call was obviously thought by the old film producers to be the perfect 'tropical jungle' bird call- I too have noticed its use in old films featuring the jungle is almost universal...

15-06-2007

"Alien vs Predator", in the old whaling station in Antarctica there's a Humboldt's penguin

13-03-2008

we should crank this one up again.....

2001: A Space Odessy - features brazilian tapirs roaming around an arid rocky environment with "monkey people" in prehistoric africa.

the live action remake of The Jungle Book uses a brown bear instead of the more accurate option of a sloth bear (obviously there are no trained sloth bear in hollywood).

there was a sequel made that got even worse - it featured chimps as the "monkeys" (and the slightly less inaccurate orangutan) in king louis temple.

and whilst slightly off-topic, anyone who recognises the distinct topography of the island of kauai in hawaii, will know that it is by far the most overused location for hollywood jungles i have ever seen...

everything from the jurassic park films to mighty joe young have used it. and it regularly stands in for almost any continent on earth.

13-03-2008

Alot of the old Tarzan Movies used to feature an asian elephant, these would be alot easier for me to watch if they just let it be, but no, they had to get cardboard, cut it into big circles and attach them to the elephants ears so it was african. the ears look horrible and I haven't seen too many Africans with the domes on top of their heads.

14-03-2008

In many of those type of films, the film of elephants also would be speeded up to make them look more lively- resulting in a strange jerky motion. We all know elephants can walk fast, but not run...

14-03-2008

the tarzan films use a lot of stock footage to sew the films together. i have seen one particular oldie, that in a herd of stampeding elephants, featured regular asians, stock footage of africans and also asians with the cardboard ears jarkari mentioned!

Ace Ventura: pet detective 2 features asian elephants in so-called africa.

14-03-2008

A Night At the Museum has capuchin monkeys in the 'African' section of the museum.

14-03-2008

ever noticed in old western/cowboy films when the goodies are chasing the baddies, again the chases are speeded up so the horses are galloping at an amazing speed....

15-03-2008

okay please - no more mentions of A Night at the Museum guys, come up with something else, we get it!!!

this is a bit of along shot but here goes...

Jurassic Park, both the book and film is absolutely full of errors. okay put aside that the dinosaurs are brought to life bit, thats (very good) science fiction. fine.

but the all the amber in the film/book comes from the dominican republic, only the dinosaur species come from all over the world and at all different time periods. an amber deposit is generally always going to be from teh same time period and all the dinosaur DNA found in such must be local. but okay, maybe all these spacies live in that place at that time and we have just never found eidence for that - forgivable.

but dilophosaurus had no neck frill. pteranodon (in JP3) do have teeth! also in the appalingly bad 3rd film was spinosaurus which was no way near as big and heavily built as it was in the film. it was longer than t-rex, but certainly wasn't larger. the velociraptor's in the film are actually made-up in design, more heavily based apon another larger dromaeosaurid called deinonychus. velociraptor was knee-high with a long thin snout. not nearly as scary (but with a pretty cool name, hence they became "raptors). speaking of which at teh start of teh film alan grant is digging up a "raptor" in montana - even though this species is only known from mongolia!

all in all it can easily be explained within context of the story, i mean who said the jurassic park scientists didn't just name teh animals after more well known relatives for publicity, but if being picky. its full of errors.

still fun though!