151 replies to this topic

[Attica]

Possible spoiler ahead. (kinda / maybe)


I find it interesting that there is a bear in the film, which it would seem is what the person turns into, as bears have always been practically non-existent in Scotland (at least to my understanding.)


On a bit of a side note there is a story in the hagiographies of st. Columcille (Latin - St. Columba .... who founded the Iona monastery) observing a huge "monster". Some people swear up and down that he saw the Loch Ness monster, and others say that he obviously didn't..... and what he saw was probably a bear. Which to him could have been an unknown, or at least unusual, creature.

Of course it was probably a giant woodland fairy


But anyhow. The fact that they made the choice to put a bear in the film is intruiging. Is this coming from a North American sensibility that doesn't realize this understanding of bears in Scotland (which I kind of doubt), or is the fact that they chose to use a bear an important aspect of the story?

Edited by Attica, 17 November 2011 - 10:16 AM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Attica wrote:
: I find it interesting that there is a bear in the film, which it would seem is what the person turns into, as bears of always been practically non-existent in Scotland (at least to my understanding.)

Hmmm, interesting. Hadn`t thought about that before.

FWIW, a quick bit of Googling indicates that bears may have gone extinct in Britain (including Scotland) at some point towards the end of the first millennium A.D., after the Romans left ... but there ARE Scottish fairy tales like `The Brown Bear of Norway`, which concerns a prince who is transformed into a bear by a witch.

[Attica]

Peter T Chattaway, on 17 November 2011 - 09:48 AM, said:

Attica wrote:
: I find it interesting that there is a bear in the film, which it would seem is what the person turns into, as bears of always been practically non-existent in Scotland (at least to my understanding.)

Hmmm, interesting. Hadn`t thought about that before.

FWIW, a quick bit of Googling indicates that bears may have gone extinct in Britain (including Scotland) at some point towards the end of the first millennium A.D., after the Romans left ... but there ARE Scottish fairy tales like `The Brown Bear of Norway`, which concerns a prince who is transformed into a bear by a witch.

Yeah that makes sense. I'll near guarantee that they are playing on some of those old fairy tales.

As someone who came from a family of highlanders that immigrated to Canada at the turn of last century, I've spent some time learning about them, and I expect that to a medieval Highlanders mindset the fact that there were once a small amount of bears which went to extinction, would be a perfectly good reason to make up fairy tales about how these bears were really just humans who had been transformed by witches. I would think that for them everything was a perfectly good reason to make up a good fairy tale.

Edited by Attica, 17 November 2011 - 08:53 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

[Lauren Wilford]

http://tvtropes.org/...elliousPrincess

Hope that the theme will be further explored than it looks like from here. The whole "Oh I'm independent marriage is for wimps!" thing is kind of an easy way to get modern audiences to sympathize with a lead female from a former time... like what they did with Alice's character in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Anyway, I have high hopes still, but they had better do something new with the rebellious princess trope.

I like that she seems to have this cute rapport with her Dad.

[Timothy Zila]

Peter T Chattaway, on 23 February 2012 - 03:54 AM, said:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60secJE8ylU"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=60secJE8ylU[/url]

It actually looks pretty good. At least, it's the best thing we've seen from the film thus far.

I, too, worry that the lead character's desire for independence will be cliched and lack nuance, though.

[Ryan H.]

Eh, still not interested.

Edited by Ryan H., 23 February 2012 - 10:33 PM.

[Tyler]

Why does Katniss Everdeen have a Scottish accent?

[Thom Wade]

Lauren Wilford, on 23 February 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

I like that she seems to have this cute rapport with her Dad.

I liked how they were trading little jokes...I hope to see the relationship expanded in the film.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Well, as noted above, it seems this film will be largely about the relationship between the princess and her mother, which suggests that it is the MOTHER, rather than the father, who is trying to push her into an arranged marriage here. This might make it even MORE of a "women's movie" than it would have been if the princess had been rebelling against her father.

[Timothy Zila]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-b8fwckENA&feature=player_embedded"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-b8fwckENA&feature=player_embedded[/url]

I like the imagery/editing here a lot, but the music? Sounds an awful lot like Celtic Woman.

Thoughts?

[Attica]

Timothy Zila, on 27 February 2012 - 08:15 PM, said:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-b8fwckENA&feature=player_embedded"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-b8fwckENA&feature=player_embedded[/url]

I like the imagery/editing here a lot, but the music? Sounds an awful lot like Celtic Woman.

Thoughts?

Well. It gives more indication of a fun interaction between father and daughter. The music doesn't work but I suppose I can see why they would want to have Celtic contemporary music to help sell the film. Some of the new imagery in the trailer though is wonderful.

Edited by Attica, 28 February 2012 - 08:05 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

More footage, more plot twists -- it's the Japanese trailer.

[opus]

Anyone else starting to get a Beauty and the Beast vibe? Let's just say that I won't be at all surprised if that's the direction the movie takes.

[Peter T Chattaway]

With subtitles!

[J.A.A. Purves]

Timothy Zila, on 27 February 2012 - 08:15 PM, said:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-b8fwckENA&feature=player_embedded"]http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded[/url]

I like the imagery/editing here a lot, but the music? Sounds an awful lot like Celtic Woman.

Thoughts?

Attica, on 28 February 2012 - 12:58 AM, said:

Well. It gives more indication of a fun interaction between father and daughter. The music doesn't work but I suppose I can see why they would want to have Celtic contemporary music to help sell the film...

The music, as it turns out, is just a snippet from a song by Julie Fowlis. Fowlis (who is Scottlish) is distinctly different from Celtic Woman (who are Irish). She's far superior, in my biased opinion, to any "Riverdance for the voice" and has focused on older folk music as opposed to the generic stuff.

[Attica]

Just for the record. My thoughts were coming from the idea that the music didn't fit the trailer, not that I didn't like her song. Of course she probably would have composed the music for the film and not really the trailer, so even if the music doesn't have quite the right fit with the trailer this doesn't necessarily mean that it won't sound fine in the movie.

I like Julie better than Celtic Woman as well. She's a little more traditional it seems.


It's kind of cool that she went to the Hebrides and studied Gaelic Psalm singing. The Hebrides is a beautiful area, as can be seen here.





It's interesting to note that the Carmina Gadelica (a book full of poetry and songs taken from mostly Hebridean people in the late 1800's) makes mention of Christian folk singing in different tones than normal. It's not widely known that the early medevial Catholic Church changed the tones of music from the tones that were used by the Hebrew people and the early church (I'm not sure why they changed it). There is some speculation that people in the Hebrides and possibly other fringe Gaelic areas of the British Isles had retained the old musical tones.

Edited by Attica, 06 March 2012 - 09:47 AM.

[Jeremy Ratzlaff]

I've always disliked how animated features seem to rip each other off. The subsequent releases of Finding Nemo and Shark Tale come to mind, as well as the barrage of African animal films (Madagascar, The Wild) and penguin films (Happy Feet, Surf's Up), etc. When I first watched the trailer, I was like "great... now Pixar's trying to recreate the success of How to Train Your Dragon."

[andrew_b_welch]

Jeremy, on 07 March 2012 - 03:30 PM, said:

I've always disliked how animated features seem to rip each other off. The subsequent releases of Finding Nemo and Shark Tale come to mind, as well as the barrage of African animal films (Madagascar, The Wild) and penguin films (Happy Feet, Surf's Up), etc. When I first watched the trailer, I was like "great... now Pixar's trying to recreate the success of How to Train Your Dragon."

I felt that way at first, but with every new ad and clip, I'm feeling more excited about what it could potentially be. Those cutesy little growling bears still both me a little, though.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Jeremy wrote:
: When I first watched the trailer, I was like "great... now Pixar's trying to recreate the success of How to Train Your Dragon."

Well, if it's any consolation, Pixar did pull the plug on Newt because they were afraid it would be too similar to Rio.