I haven't seen this film (though it sounds good just cos it sounds so bad, lol)... but isn't it possible for orcas to be cruel? Aren't they even more intelligent than apes?
I once saw a documentary showing orcas killing a bigger whale and then leaving it mostly uneaten... also playing with a seal before killing it.
I thought of those two examples as soon as I read your first sentence. Presumably you have seen the same footage as me.
1) A gang of orcas bullied a mother whale (can't remember the species, but a large one) and her very young calf. The mother tried her best to protect the calf and to flee, but the orcas wouldn't give up. Eventually the calf tired so much that it couldn't swim any more, and then the orcas attacked it, eating just a portion of its face. Obviously they did this for sport, not for food.
2) The orcas sliding up on the beach to catch seals on land. Which would be fair enough if it was standard predator/prey procedure, but as you say, they then played with the seals they caught, most notably batting them around with their tails. Again this was unnecessary for the purposes of eating, so was only done for fun.
Were these two examples of sadistic fun? Do they have the intelligence for such character traits/flaws? i.e do have an empathy for the intelligence and life of other creatures? Or was it akin to a cat playing with a mouse?
You don't watch David Attenborough, by any chance, do you? ;)
It just strikes me as odd when some people say that whales are harmless and yet so cleverer than primates... I've always thought intelligence/empathy are the ingredients for sadism, just as in humans.
Regarding the mother whale, that was awful! The fact that neither orca nor whale has claws and live underwater makes the killing sound all the slower and more painful.
Well, I'm sure the orcas could have killed the calf fairly quickly with bites, but apparently that was not their intention. And yes, a very long and drawn-out death, especially as the mother's bulk and lack of "weapons" left her with the sole option of trying to flee.
shareThe footage of orcas killing the whale mother and child was probably just a training exercise. Like many animals, the mature/older orcas in the pod where simply showing the younger how to take down a particular pray (it wasn't an attack for food which is why the whales were left uneaten).
Although i know some commercial documentaries like to project a darker side on these types of events, usually to juxtapose it with darker human traits, there really isn't proof of that ..but its makes for good tv :)
Playing with their prey before killing it is not cruelty, but a means of training their young how to hunt and kill. A mother cat does the same thing with a mouse, demonstrating to her young how and where to administer the fatal bite to the prey.
Why do you think the movie sounds so bad. The story line is very good as well as the acting. I found it to be a very good movie.
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