Earth (2007 film)

This article is about the 2007 film. For the accompanying television series, see Planet Earth (TV series). For other uses, see Earth (disambiguation).

Earth
Directed by	Alastair Fothergill Mark Linfield
Produced by	BBC Worldwide Greenlight Media
Narrated by	Patrick Stewart (UK) James Earl Jones (US) Paolo Bonolis (IT)
Music by	George Fenton Berliner Philharmoniker
Distributed by	BBC Worldwide(International) Disneynature (US)
Release dates	October 10, 2007 November 16, 2007 January 12, 2008 February 7, 2008 April 22, 2009
Running time	95 min. 90 min. (U.S. theatrical)
Countries	United Kingdom Germany
Languages	English Spanish French Italian German Japanese
Budget	USD15 million
Box office	$106,848,000 (estimated)

Earth is a 2007 British natural history film from the BBC Natural History Unit. It was released in cinemas internationally in 2007 and in the US on 22 April 2009, which is Earth Day. The UK version was narrated by Patrick Stewart and the US version is narrated by James Earl Jones.

A UK-German co-production, it was filmed entirely in high-definition and 35mm using the latest filming techniques. A companion piece to the 2006 BBC/Discovery/NHK series Planet Earth, the film uses many of the sequences from the television series, albeit in a re-edited form.

Earth depicts the diversity of wild habitats and creatures across the planet and cautions the threats to their future survival, starting in the Arctic in January of one year and moving south, finishing in the Antarctic in the December of the same year. It was co-directed by Alastair Fothergill, who also acted as executive producer of the television series, and Mark Linfield, also the producer of Planet Earth’s "From Pole to Pole" and "Seasonal Forests" episodes.

The same production team had previously worked on Deep Blue, a documentary about life in the oceans released in 2003 and itself based on the television series The Blue Planet. They are currently working on a television sequel to Planet Earth called The Frozen Planet and a feature-length documentary (in conjunction with Disneynature) called Chimpanzee.

Subject matter

Over the course of a calendar year, Earth takes the viewer on a journey from the North Pole to the South, revealing how plants and animals respond to the power of the sun and the changing seasons. The film focuses on three particular species, the polar bear, African elephant and humpback whale.

Stating in the high Arctic in January, as the darkness of winter gives way to the sun, a mother polar bear is shown emerging from her den with two new cubs. She needs food and must lead her cubs to her hunting ground on the sea ice before it begins to break up. By April, the sun never sets, and by August all the sea ice has melted. The mother and cubs have retreated to dry land, but a male polar bear is trapped at sea and must seek out land by swimming. He reaches an island with a walrus colony but is too exhausted to make a successful kill. He dies from injuries sustained in a walrus attack.

African elephants are filmed from the air as they negotiate a dust storm in the Kalahari Desert. June is the dry season and they must follow ancient paths passed down through generations to reach watering holes. A mother and calf are separated from the herd in the storm but manage to reach shelter. The matriarch leads the herd to a temporary watering hole, but they must share it with hungry lions. The lions are shown attacking a solitary elephant at night, when their superior vision gives them the upper hand. The herd times its arrival at the Okavango Delta to coincide with seasonal floodwaters which transform the desert into a lush water world.

A humpback whale mother and calf are filmed from the air and underwater at their breeding grounds in the shallow seas of the tropics. There is nothing here for the mother to eat, so she must guide her calf on a 4,000-mile (6,400 km) journey south to the rich feeding grounds near Antarctica, the longest migration of any marine mammal. En route, they negotiate dangerous seas where great white sharks are filmed breaching as they hunt sealions, and sailfish and dolphins combine to bait a shoal of small fish. By October they enter polar waters, and by December the Antarctic sun has melted the sea ice to form sheltered bays. Here, the whales are shown feeding on krill by trapping them in bubble nets.

The stories of these individual creatures are woven into the film alongside a great many additional scenes. The supporting cast of animals include mandarin ducklings filmed jumping from their tree hole nest, Arctic wolves hunting caribou, cheetah hunting Thomson's gazelle, birds of paradise displaying in the New Guinea rainforest and demoiselle cranes on their autumn migration across the Himalayas.

Time-lapse photography is used to show the blossoming of spring flowers, seasonal changes to deciduous forests, clouds sweeping up Himalayan valleys and the growth of jungle spores and fungi.

Environmental message

"Of all the planets in our universe, there is only one we know can support life. Just the right distance from its sun, with a perfect climate, it’s been called the lucky planet. All life on Earth is built on chance and powered by the Sun, but the delicate balances of our world are faltering as the planet struggles to support our growing demands. This is the time to take stock of what we have, and what we stand to lose."

— Excerpt from Patrick Stewart’s opening narration

The narration makes reference to environmental changes throughout the film, and uses the three featured species to illustrate particular threats to the planet’s wildlife. In the Arctic, rising temperatures are causing a greater area of sea ice to melt and threatening the polar bear with extinction as early as 2030. Global warming is also disrupting the planet’s weather systems and making seasonal rainfall patterns less predictable. This poses a threat to creatures like elephants, which must travel greater distances to reach water. Rising ocean temperatures have started to kill the plankton on which humpback whales and most other sea life depend. However, the film also ends with the message that "it’s not too late to make a difference".

Production

Earth was produced by Alix Tidmarsh of BBC Worldwide and Sophokles Tasioulis of Greenlight Media. Following Deep Blue, it is the second film of a five-picture deal between the two companies.

The process of bringing Planet Earth and Earth to the screen took over 5 years. With a combined budget of USD47 million, USD15 million of which was earmarked for the film, it represented the most expensive production in the history of documentary filmmaking.

Principal photography began in 2004 and was completed in 2006.

Box office

Earth received its global premiere at Spain’s San Sebastian International Film Festival in September 2007. It was released across Europe in the fourth quarter of 2007 to much success. It grossed over USD30 million at the German box office, became one of the three highest-grossing films of the year in France and had the best opening of any natural history documentary in Spain. By contrast, in the UK Earth debuted on just 14 screens and went on to gross less than £75,000.

In January 2008, the Japanese version of Earth, narrated by actor Ken Watanabe, knocked Hollywood blockbuster I Am Legend off the top of the box office despite opening on half the number of screens. It went on to gross more than 2 billion yen (USD18.5 million), making it the most successful documentary there of the last 10 years.

In April 2008, it was announced that Earth would be the first feature distributed by the newly-formed Disneynature, a subsidiary of the Disney Company specialising in natural history documentaries. The film got a North American theatrical release in 2009, with James Earl Jones narrating in place of Patrick Stewart. Disneynature will also distribute the film in Latin American territories.

Critical reception

Earth US release

The film has received positively reviews from critics and fans. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 85% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 80 reviews, with an average score of 7.1 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics" demographic, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television, and radio programs, the film holds an overall positive approval rating of 85% based on 20 reviews. At another review aggretator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 72, being a generally favorable review, based on 26 reviews.

Further reading

• Nature filmmaking: Ready for their close-up from The Independent.
• Screen giants of Earth, the year's biggest film from The Daily Telegraph.
• Earth press book from the Greenlight Media website.

External links

• US Official website
• UK Official website
• Earth at IMDb