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''Earth'' is a 2007
nature documentary
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of t ...
film which depicts the diversity of wild habitats and creatures across the planet. The film begins in the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
in January of one year and moves southward, concluding in
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
in the December of the same year. Along the way, it features the journeys made by three particular species—the
polar bear,
African bush elephant and
humpback whale
The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hu ...
—to highlight the threats to their survival in the face of rapid
environmental change Environmental change is a change or disturbance of the environment most often caused by human influences and natural ecological processes. Environmental changes include various factors, such as natural disasters, human interferences, or animal in ...
. A companion piece to the 2006
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
/
Discovery
Discovery may refer to:
* Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown
* Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown
* Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence
Discovery, The Discover ...
television series ''
Planet Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...
'', the film uses many of the same sequences, though most are edited differently, and features previously unseen footage.
''Earth'' was directed by
Alastair Fothergill
Alastair David William Fothergill (born 10 April 1960) is a British producer of nature documentaries for television and cinema. He is the series producer of the series ''The Blue Planet'' (2001), ''Planet Earth'' (2006) and the co-director of ...
, the executive producer of the television series, and
Mark Linfield
Mark Linfield (born 6 June 1968) is a British writer, producer and director of nature documentaries for cinema and television. He is best known for his work with the BBC Natural History Unit as a producer of two episodes of the television series ...
, the producer of ''Planet Earth''s "From Pole to Pole" and "Seasonal Forests" episodes. It was co-produced by
BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including '' ...
and Greenlight Media, with Discovery providing some of the funding. In North America, the film was released by
Disneynature
Disneynature is an independent film studio that specializes in the production of nature documentary films for The Walt Disney Studios. The production company was founded on April 21, 2008, and is headquartered in Paris, France.
The company's n ...
, and was one of the first films under Disney's recently formed nature film label. The same organisations collaborated on Fothergill's previous film, ''Deep Blue'' (2003), itself a companion to his 2001 television series on the natural history of the world's oceans, ''
The Blue Planet
''The Blue Planet'' is a British nature documentary series created and produced by the BBC. It premiered on 12 September 2001 in the United Kingdom. It is narrated by David Attenborough.
Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on t ...
''. The British version of ''Earth'' was narrated by
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors ...
and the US version was narrated by
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in America ...
.
''Earth'' was released in cinemas internationally during the final quarter of 2007 and throughout 2008. With total worldwide box office revenue exceeding
$100 million, ''Earth'' is the second-highest-grossing nature documentary of all time.
A sequel, titled ''Earth: One Amazing Day'', was released in the United States on 6 October 2017. It made its world premiere in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
.
Plot
Over the course of a calendar year, ''Earth'' takes the viewer on a journey from the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
in January to the
South in December, 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 bush elephant and
humpback whale
The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hu ...
.
Starting in the high
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
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
The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the fami ...
colony but is too exhausted to make a successful kill. He dies from injuries sustained in a walrus attack.
African bush elephants are filmed from the air as they negotiate a
dust storm
A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transp ...
in the
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa.
It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal d ...
. 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 and scavenger
white-backed vulture
The white-backed vulture (''Gyps africanus'') is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is the most common vulture species in the continent of Africa.
Description
Preening at ...
s. 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
The Okavango Delta (or Okavango Grassland; formerly spelled "Okovango" or "Okovanggo") in Botswana is a swampy inland delta formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough at an altitude of 930–1,000 m in the central part of the en ...
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
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referr ...
. There is nothing here for the mother to eat, so she must guide her calf on a journey south to the rich feeding grounds near
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
, the longest migration of any marine mammal. En route, they navigate dangerous seas where
great white shark
The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocean ...
s are filmed breaching as they hunt.
Sea lion
Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...
s, and
sailfish
The sailfish is one or two species of marine fish in the genus ''Istiophorus'', which belong to the family Istiophoridae ( marlins). They are predominantly blue to gray in colour and have a characteristically large dorsal fin known as the ...
and
dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
s 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
Krill are small crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea, and are found in all the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian word ', meaning "small fry of fish", which is also often attributed to species of fish.
Krill are consi ...
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 duck
The mandarin duck (''Aix galericulata'') is a perching duck species native to the East Palearctic. It is medium-sized, at long with a wingspan. It is closely related to the North American wood duck, the only other member of the genus ''Aix'' ...
lings filmed jumping from their tree hole nest,
Arctic wolves
The Arctic wolf (''Canis lupus arctos''), also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra of Canada's Queen Elizabeth Islands, from Melville Island to Ellesmere Island.https://ecor ...
hunting
caribou,
cheetah
The cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus'') is a large cat native to Africa and central Iran. It is the fastest land animal, estimated to be capable of running at with the fastest reliably recorded speeds being , and as such has evolved specialized ...
hunting
Thomson's gazelle
Thomson's gazelle (''Eudorcas thomsonii'') is one of the best known species of gazelles. It is named after explorer Joseph Thomson and is sometimes referred to as a "tommie". It is considered by some to be a subspecies of the red-fronted gazell ...
,
elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...
s charging at
white-backed vulture
The white-backed vulture (''Gyps africanus'') is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is the most common vulture species in the continent of Africa.
Description
Preening at ...
,
birds of paradise
The birds-of-paradise are members of the family Paradisaeidae of the order Passeriformes. The majority of species are found in eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and eastern Australia. The family has 44 species in 17 genera. The members of ...
displaying in the
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...
rainforest,
Adelie penguins Adelie or Adélie may refer to:
* Adélie Land, a claimed territory on the continent of Antarctica
* Adelie Land meteorite
Adelie Land is a meteorite discovered on December 5, 1912, in Antarctica by Francis Howard Bickerton (1889-1954), a membe ...
in the Antarctic and
demoiselle cranes on their autumn migration across the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...
.
Themes
The narration is woven around the theme of anthropogenic
environmental change Environmental change is a change or disturbance of the environment most often caused by human influences and natural ecological processes. Environmental changes include various factors, such as natural disasters, human interferences, or animal in ...
. The three species it features are used 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
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
as early as 2030.
Global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
is also disrupting the planet's
weather system
In meteorology, a low-pressure area, low area or low is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. Low-pressure areas are commonly associated with inclement weather (such as cloudy, windy, with possible ...
s 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
Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucia ...
on which humpback whales and most other sea life depend. The film 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 five years. With a budget of $47 million, the film was the most expensive production in the history of documentary filmmaking at the time, later to be surpassed by ''
Oceans
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the worl ...
''. Principal photography began in 2004 and was completed in 2006.
Release
The movie's tentative title was titled ''Planet Earth'', the same as the TV series. In February 2005,
BBC Worldwide pre-sold distribution rights to the movie to
Gaumont in France, Wanda Vision in Spain, and Frenetic Films in Switzerland.
On February 13, 2007, it was announced that
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...
had acquired US, UK and Australian distribution rights to the movie. Outside of those territories, additional companies who acquired the movie included
Universum Film
Leonine Holding GmbH, LLC, formerly Tele München Group, LLC (German: Tele München Gruppe; TMG), is a media company based in Munich.
The activities of Leonine include trade in licenses, investments in television and radio stations and distributio ...
in Germany, GAGA Corporation in Japan, and Audio Visual Enterprises/Prooptiki in Greece. After this initial acquirements, ''Earth'' received its world
premiere at Spain's
San Sebastián International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival ( SSIFF; es, Festival Internacional de San Sebastián, eu, Donostia Zinemaldia) is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of Donostia-San Sebastián in September, in ...
in September 2007. It was released across Europe in the fourth quarter of 2007 and early 2008 to much success.
For unknown reasons, Lionsgate never released the movie in the US as originally intended, and in April 2008, it was announced that the North American distribution rights to ''Earth'' was acquired by
Walt Disney Studios. Disney announced that the movie would be released under their then-new
Disneynature
Disneynature is an independent film studio that specializes in the production of nature documentary films for The Walt Disney Studios. The production company was founded on April 21, 2008, and is headquartered in Paris, France.
The company's n ...
film unit, which would specialise in natural history documentaries for the first time since ''
True-Life Adventures
''True-Life Adventures'' is a series of short and full-length nature documentary films released by Walt Disney Productions between the years 1948 and 1960. The first seven films released were thirty-minute shorts, with the subsequent seven films ...
''. The film was released in the US on 22 April 2009, with
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in America ...
narrating in place of
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors ...
.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, formerly known as Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. until 2007, is an American film distribution studio within the Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. It ha ...
also acquired distribution of the movie in Canada and Latin American countries as well.
Regional differences
In addition to replacing Patrick Stewart with James Earl Jones as a narrator, the U.S. version uses a more dramatic soundtrack and runs only 90 minutes, compared to the original cut's 99 minutes.
Reception
Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reported that 87% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 91 reviews, the second-highest score of all the Disneynature films (behind ''
Monkey Kingdom
''Monkey Kingdom'' is a 2015 American nature documentary film directed and produced by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill and narrated by Tina Fey. The documentary is about a family of monkeys living in ancient ruins founded in the jungles of ...
'', which has a score of 93%), with an average score of 7.2 out of 10. Its consensus stated: "With its spectacular and extensive footage, ''Earth'' is both informative and entertaining." Another
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
,
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, gave an average score of 72, being a generally favourable review, based on 26 reviews.
Box office
On its first day of release in the US, ''Earth'' opened at #1, grossing $4,023,788 from 1,810 theaters. For its first weekend, it opened at #5, grossing $8,825,760, as well as $14,472,792 over the five-day period. Despite dropping to #7 the next weekend, taking in $4,340,235, it took in $12,017,017 over the previous week (including Sunday), and ending up with a two-week total of $22,004,284. It closed on July 30, 2009 after 100 days of release, ending up with a final gross of $32,011,576, making it a modest success in the US.
''Earth'' picked up an additional $76,931,115 at the international box office. It took over $30 million in Germany alone, 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 amassed less than
£75,000 in ticket sales.
In January 2008, the Japanese version of ''Earth'', narrated by actor
Ken Watanabe
is a Japanese actor. To English-speaking audiences, he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in '' Letters from Iwo Jima'' and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in ''The Last Samurai'', for which he was nomi ...
, 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 ($18.5 million), making it the most successful documentary there of the last 10 years.
Its worldwide total of $108,942,691 made ''Earth'' a commercial success and placed it second on the all-time list of highest-grossing nature documentaries, behind ''
March of the Penguins
''March of the Penguins'' (French ''La Marche de l'empereur'' ; ) is a 2005 French feature-length nature documentary directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The documentary dep ...
''.
Sequel
On 6 October 2017, a sequel, ''Earth: One Amazing Day'' was released. The film was narrated by
Robert Redford.
Further reading
Nature filmmaking: Ready for their close-upfrom ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
''
Screen giants of ''Earth'', the year's biggest filmfrom ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
''
''Earth'' press bookfrom the Greenlight Media website
References
External links
* at
Disney.com
disney.com is a website operated by Disney Digital Network, a division of The Walt Disney Company, that promotes various Disney properties such as films, television shows, and theme park resorts, and offers entertainment content intended for child ...
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Earth (2007 Film)
2007 films
2007 in the environment
2007 documentary films
American documentary films
British documentary films
BBC Film films
Lionsgate films
Disneynature films
Discovery Channel original programming
Documentary films about mammals
Documentary films about nature
English-language German films
Films scored by George Fenton
Films about elephants
Films about polar bears
Films about whales
Films directed by Alastair Fothergill
Films directed by Mark Linfield
Documentary films about Antarctica
Documentary films about Africa
Documentary films about the Arctic
Documentary films about Asia
Films set in Botswana
Documentary films about Oceania
German documentary films
British independent films
German independent films
Planet Earth (franchise)
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
2000s British films
2000s German films