"Unlike with the Meerkat Manor series, the film does not actually depict any of the real Whiskers meerkats. Untrained "meerkats actors" play the role of Flower and her family, with the camera crew searching out appropriately aged meerkats, then following them until the meerkats acted in a way that was needed for the film. Flower herself is depicted by approximately eight female meerkats."
shareUnfortunately, they couldn't really expect to fill an entire film with the real Flower, even though she probably fills plenty of footage at those ages. I think that they did a good job, though, and consider it a decent tribute to the matriarch of the Whiskers clan (at least film direction-wise).
sharelame. i tivoed this movie and was going to watch it but nevermind. i dont want to watch a fake flower and scenes "acted" out.... i wanted the real thing. i've never seen the show so it would have been all new to me if they had just chopped up the series into a movie; and it probably would have been nostalgic for fans of the show; not to mention a sweet tribute to flower. lame. lame. lame. best way to describe this.
shareI loved the movie, but after it was over they showed the "Making Of" documentary and explained that all the meerkats in the movie were actors. It was terribly disappointing. I thought that it was all old footage of Flower and the Whiskers edited together to tell the story of her life.
But anyway, if you've never seen the show I would highly recommend checking it out. The first two seasons are out on DVD and season three comes out in a few weeks.
I posted this on another board, but it seems to apply here too.
What you want is called a "Clip show" or a "recap." It would not be a good tribute to Flower, and unfortunately, even though they were studying the meerkat family beforehand, they didn't start filming until after a lot of her life had happened. Without a time machine, they can't get actual footage of her beginnings.
That's the thing... It's not a documentary, it's a movie. A bio-pic. A fictionalized account based on a true story. Besides, if you hadn't looked it up on the internet, you wouldn't even know it wasn't real.
So, you don't like movies like "Ray," "The Queen," "Walk the Line," "Evita," "The Miracle Worker," or "The Diary of Anne Frank?" Because those are some of the best movies I know of, and they're "Fake" and "Acted out." Just about every fictional or "based on a true story" film is.
But if that didn't convince you, they didn't train the Meerkats at all, they just filmed them doing their thing and took clips that fit the script.
If they had footage of her actual life, they could have made a whole season out of "Meerkat Manor: Origins" and had a whole season about her growing up and her rise to the head of the family, but instead they decided to make a tribute to her, getting the most talented Meerkat actresses to play her.
So no, not lame. Using footage from the show wouldn't reveal any new information. If you want to "Catch up," go read an episode guide or watch reruns. But this movie wasn't for reminiscing or catching up, this is a tribute to Flower's life, and it would be an insult to her memory to just make a clip show movie.
And this post is an insult to her, too. You appear to be the kind of person who thinks that "Star Wars: Revenge of the sith" should have just been clips from the first three movies, not telling how the character came to be, but instead telling fans what they already know happened.
The movie wasn't about getting new audiences, It was for the old ones. This is a meerkat who didn't kill pups just because they were another mouth to feed, who put her family first, and died defending her pups. This was a Eulogy. Watching this with no knowledge of Flower is like reading a stranger's obituary. I understand that it's an interesting concept, but I warn anyone who has no emotional investment in flower that this movie will have no impact on them. So it's not for "newbies" to "Catch up" so they'll have an interest in the show, it's for people who already have an interest in the show to learn about Flower's early years.
So please, don't call it "Lame" just because it doesn't give you an excuse to start watching the show. Just watch the show if you want real footage, this is a movie. Not a documentary. It does exactly what it says on the tin, so if you don't like it, don't watch it.
I'm afraid that many viewers of wildlife documentaries don't realise that all such wildlife "Stories" are works of fiction; in this film, as in so many others, a combination of studio shots, film trickery and multiple animals playing the "roles" of the lead "characters" are employed to tell a story.
To film such a tale by following a single, or set of subject animals in their natural state is impossible.
The important thing is that all behaviour shown should be consistent with the natural behaviour of the subjects in the wild.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars..." Oscar Wilde
This is part of the rot at the heart of documentary filmmaking today, this idea of cutting corners for convienence, at the viewer's expense. I know honor is an out-dated idea, but let's bring it back.
What's truly important in a documentary is:
* all claims are actually true, with supporting documentation
* all re-enactments are clearly labeled as such, while they are on screen
* all fictional or speculative elements are clearly labeled as such, while they are on the screen
If you don't have that, you don't really have a documentary. You have a wasted opportunity.
These are not difficult requirements to meet. To my knowledge, the TV series only failed to label re-enactments (the Vivian group, for example) but stayed true to the events and story of the Whiskers' lives. But this film apparently throws all the rules out the window.
Nobody forces filmmakers to make a documentary. They could make a "true story" or live-action fiction. But greedy filmmakers can cobble together a bunch of unrelated footage, string it together with a fictional story, and pass it off as a "documentary" to an unsuspecting public, who mostly don't have the resources to fact-check it. Indeed, they're paying to SEE the facts, in the film.
This story was sold to viewers enitrely on the basis of Flower's identity, and you can see from many of the comments that people bought it.
Shame.
I know this topic was made a long time ago but no the scenes in the movie were not of Flower...for one reason...there is no footage of the meerkats (except for one previous documentary filmed there earlier)...The researchers never filmed the meerkats until Caroline Hawkins contacted Tim Clutton-Brock about making a show about their meerkats in 2004 (the year season 1 takes place)...so there is no footage of young Flower in existance (this is briefly mentioned in Tim Clutton-Brock's book). Instead they went through the footage that they have from the Whiskers, Lazuli, and other groups since 2004 and tried to find footage that was similar to the past events...I was more upset that they got some important events wrong, then they didn't have footage of Flower when she was little..
one important thing they got wrong is when they said that 2 lazuli males, Zaphod and Yossarian immigrated into the group...Zaphod and Yossarian aren't Lazuli males, they are from the Vivian group and they joined with a few of their brothers (Basil, Izit, Genghis, Alexander, Govinda and Phooey and were joined by some more brothers the next day) and that Zaphod wasn't the first of the Vivian males to become Dominant Male of the Whiskers after they immigrated in...Everyone should read Tim Clutton-Brock's book, it gives more accurate information than the movie does.
Yeah, I was disappointed. First, because I thought it was originally planned for the theaters so I don't know why they call it a "motion picture event" for tv. Second, a lot of it is false. According to the book, a lot doesn't add up, just like the show. And third, I thought they (the researchers) had years of footage and would have used that. Instead, you are right...a fake Flower. Although a beautiful one as well. Nonetheless, I still loved it 'cuz I love those little critters. I just wish I had all the answers instead of more questions.
share[deleted]
I remember reading on the net somewhere that the part of Flower was played by only one Meerkat, her daughter Rocket Dog.
share[deleted]
"I remember reading on the net somewhere that the part of Flower was played by only one Meerkat"
What you read is incorrect; Flower was "played" by about eight different Meerkats.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars..." Oscar Wilde