i was so excited about watching this untill i found out it was all fake. i've never watched the show but it looks awesome so i figured i would catch up by watching this movie.... nevermind b/c it's "acted out." this not what i want to watch. i wanted to see flower and her clan. re-cutting the show into a movie would have been a great tribute to flower; and it lets the fans reminisce and the newbies (like me) catch up. lame.
shareWhat 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.
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filmbuff: like you I was all excited about the movie as well until I saw it...I agree it was very disappointing...
Dansabato: Unfortunately I feel the movie was an insult to Flower's great memory instead of tribute...because 90% of the events they showed, wasn't Flower's life at all and didnt happen...it was completely false, it wasn't Flower's life...They lied about Petal's death, they lied a little bit about Holly's death, they skipped over Risca (Flower's older cousin who became DF after Holly and was overthrown/evicted by Vialli), they lied about Zaphod and Yossarian (they immigrated from the Vivian group with a group of their brothers not from the lazuli alone...and Zaphod was Vialli's mate first, its was 10% of her remarkable life and 90% of what the writers and producers made up, it would have been sooo much better if they had stuck to the facts...That would have been much more respectful to her memory...
as for Flower not killing any pups that weren't hers...In Tim Clutton-Brock's book about Flower, she killed a litter of Mozarts pups around the time they were filming Season 2 and she had the group abandon a few litters...but the producers didn't want to show Flower in any bad light so it was cut from the show...and also she did not die defending her pups, no she was still pregnant when she got bitten...its all in the book...in fact the researchers weren't even there when Flower went into the burrow the night with the snake...they found out the next morning when she emerged...There is no Liz....the pups that were born at that time were named Burdock, Rhogan Josh, Amira, Squig, Chiriqui, Rufus, Etosha, and Murray....They are a mixed litter born to Ella/Mango, Flo/Parsley, and Petra...When the group re-united a total of 8 females (including Flower) was pregnant...and Axel was adopted by Rocket Dog during the group split but the show rearranged events to further make Flower look like a hero even though she was already consisted a hero and loved by many fans already
Don't get wrong Flower was extraodinary female, but MM did cut most of the footage that would have made her look bad in anyway except for her evicting females...
I'm not trying to be rude but please get your facts straight before yelling at someone else, especially a newbie to the show...and especially when you don't do further research about what you are talking about....You would be surprise at how much of MM is made up storylines and didn't happen
"Look bad"? "insult to her memory"?
Oh please... they are a disparate bunch of Meerkats whose filmed images and actions illustrate a children's story for humans!
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars..." Oscar Wilde
It wasn't at all acted out. If you watched the Making of you'd know that they waited around to find Meerkats doing the things that really happened in Flower's life. Everything was a natural occurrence, it just wasn't really done by Flower.
This is basically a biopic of Flower's (the most famous meerkat in the Kalahari) life. It was not done to be fake. It was done to honor Flower after she passed away.
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Literary Illusions - http://www.literaryillusions.com
That that thing Dominick, it wasn't Flower's life....half the events they showed in the movie didn't happen in Flower's life, about 30-40% of the rest was distorted, changed or cut...Flower lived a remarkable life that would have been more interesting if they had kept to the real facts and thats what I found disrespectful...I wanted to see the true story of Flower's life (even with "stunt" Meerkats) not a made up story...I am a member on FKMP friends burrow and have a chronology of everything that happened to the Whiskers since they were founded and has Flower's entire life story in it....and the information in the friends packages are from the researchers notes.
As for them waiting around to find meerkats doing the things that really happened in Flower's Life (like I said most of that didnt happen)...Most of the Footage was a meerkat named Zorilla...She was born in the Gattaca group and a founder of the real Commandos (Not the Commandos from Season 2 and 3 as they were really the Vivians)...Me and others could tell by her scar above her eye...
Thanks for that information.
This film is presented as a documentary, similar to the TV series it is based on.
In the TV series, most of the animals are who they are stated to be. But in this film, people who watched the TV series know that none of them could be who they are stated to be. People who DIDN'T see the show would be unaware that they are not seeing the actual animals. That's my first problem with it. What would have been so bad about a brief opening statement that this is a re-enactment?
Further, to learn that the events in the film aren't even from the true story of Flower's life is quite disappointing. The film is pretty lame to begin with, but I hate it when filmmakers set out to insult the audience with blatant lies labeled true.
Shame on these filmmakers.
i watched the making of and ive read articles about the show. the makers have admitted to altering the way some events happened because of entertainment and timing issues. i wanted real life. lame.
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