Where the Wild Things Die

I was disgusted at that. this is from disney. Polar bears are going extinct because of us! And those filmakers can just watch what our (and their) outcome has done. Starvation is a horribly painful way to die. You think because of the declining population of polar bears and for the good of their kind we could have thrown it some fish. I understand if polar bears were fine population wise, but if you have the chance to help the dwindling species, that we are anyways trying to save why dont you. I just dont get it. The movie sucked because of that. And this is not because im some animal loving tree-hugger im finee with the cheetah catching and slowly killing a baby gazelle (though i question if its appropriate to show on a disney film anyways). This is not bambi, a make-beleive deer mother dying is totally different, then seeing this poor polar bear get lost out in the ocean (because of global warming) exhausted and starving but just making it to land, giving it hope, only to slowly starve beside a abundant food source. This movie is awful and I would never show it to children. If i saw it when I was younger I would be in tears and thinking about it for days on end. We all already know these things happen everyday we don't need to see it. They should also put a warning for these scenes for parent's sakes.

my god - mrs chastain -- i just had this VER SAME EXPERIENCE last night at this ridiculous, irresponsble movie !

i took my daughter to see it, and was just disgusted at the choreographed slaughter of every baby animal in the story thread. my 8 year old sobbed, and by the 4th (murder) of the baby elephant - i jumped up and stormed out - announcing to the darkened theatre that this film needs to be boycotted by parents everywhere. others started getting up to leave. sobs could be heard from every corner of the place.

shame, shame, shame.

-stephanie lisa tara
san francisco

As an educator of young children (5 /6 year olds) this film was very disappointing to me and others who attended the premier with me. Although rated 'G,' and the trailer IS spectacular, I would urge parents of young children to refrain from taking them to see this movie and I would not promote this film by showing the trailer to a class of young students, although we have been sent links to teaching materials from Disney. In the film, we watch as a polar bear "Dad" (as called in the film) lies down on the snow to die of starvation, unable to retrieve food for the "Mom" and her "Babies"; a young elephant "baby" is separated from "his" mother and we watch from a distance as he is left wandering alone in the barren desert to starve; a cougar chases down and kills a baby animal separated from "her" mother by biting the "baby's" outstretched neck (while we watch IN SLOW MOTION); we watch a small seal's head bobbing peacefully through the arctic water and then watch as a great white shark leaps repeatedly into the air with the seal protruding from its jaws; an entire pride of lions chase, mount and clamp their jaws onto the back of an elephant as the elephant tries to run and shake them loose ..... in this movie, the advertised epic story of great animal migrations is really secondary to the theme of predatory animal behavior and the 'food chain.' While there is no doubt that these are daily occurrences in the wild, and that predatory animal behavior is a worthy study for the older student, this film was certainly not the "G-rated story about three animal families" that it purported to be. The exception being that instead of the animals being called "male/female of their species," throughout the film they are called the "Mom, Dad" and " Baby!" Disney 'personified' the animals by using that nomenclature throughout the film, endearing the animals to the young child and then explicitly showing the animals being killed.

The awe-inspiring trailer and the 'G' rating are absolutely deceptive for those parents seeking another "March of the Penguins" epic nature tale to share with their young children. The much-anticipated first Disneynature film was a PROFOUND disappointment to many.

Unfortunately, I took my entire Troop to go see the Earth movie Saturday. It is rated G
There is NO Way this movie should be rated G!! It should be PG at the very least, and I would think PG-13.

I thought it was about how people affect the Earth, and the affect that has on the animals. WRONG!!

It is about nature and the circle of life. Well, some idiot at Disney decided that nature and the natural circle of life are rated G.

After 30 minutes, 4 of my girls were crying, me and 2 others were trying not to, so we left.

It shows Explicitly, predators hunting down and attacking their prey.

The wolf chasing down and catching the (baby) antelope. The baby antelope just stops running and sits down when the wolf catches up to it. Then the wolf sits down to. And that's all you see, it cuts to a different scene.......one girl started just sobbing, another teared up, one crying, and me trying not to tear up.

The cheetah chasing down a gazelle (or something similar) and it shows it attacking this time...in slow motion...frame by horrible frame.... of the attack up until the point where it puts it's mouth on the gazelle's neck..\
Luckily, before that started to happen I said 'okay, cover your eyes girls'...

{and at this point i'm thinking...hmmm, maybe we should go...}
It got worse....

just before this point....the girls covered their eyes and started shrieking.....At the point where 15 lions were attacking...hanging on to the side, biting and clawing the elephant, we got up and left.

If you or your children have no problem with Planet Earth shows, or can handle 'the circle of life' type of stuff, then I'm sure you'll have no problem.

However, Disney is absolutely crazy to rate this G.

Well I am a kid. I will not see this movie because animals dying is a very depressing thing for me to hear and even worst see. I agree that this kind of thing(the movie) does help show us we need to change if we want to see change, but do you really think that this movie, whidh will not even be seen by everyone, actually make a change great enough to help?
I mean common, this is supposed to get us as a world to stop being selfish and go green. That would be one thing but is it really helping that there are people willing to tell us to do something when they can go around filming animals dying and just watch it and not do anything about it? Now that shows how good of a world we really are. So I hope these people get big problems from parents and the press because I think what they did is wrong.

I'd be interested to see if the children I know, the ones who are living on farms in rural Pennsylvania, would have a different view on the movie. These kid see farm cats and kittens die every other week, see favorite horses buried with the bucket -loader in the back field, and eat the chickens, goats, pigs, and steers that they raise themselves. Perhaps this movie was disturbing to a protected child raised on Baby Einstein and Dora but if it was, than the movie presents a teachable experience. "Yes, the animal died, happens all the time, people too. Yes to mommies and daddies and to you too some day."

My first clue in trailer that this nature film was actually about nature was the opening shot of the shark leaping out of the water with a seal dangling from its mouth.

Maybe they were just playing tag.....

The problem is not with the movie itself, but with the marketing and G rating. Of course bad things happen in the wild and kids should learn that, when they are ready. However, Disney is marketing this movie as a cute and cuddly story about animal families, which is false advertising. The movie graphically depicts (even without the actual blood) animal deaths. And it's relentless. Scene after scene depicts animals in grave danger. That along with the giant screen and digital sound can be too much for a lot of kids. Parents should be able to rely at least a little on the ratings system or the whole thing is pointless.

When I read "Little Women" as a child, I cried more about the death of Beth's canary through her neglect than about the death of Beth herself.

When I was a child, I was terrified by the dragon that ate Buddy Hackett in "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm." I hid my face in my aunt's lap so as not to see. But I was always happy that I gpot to see the rest of the movie. Years later, I couldn't watch the shark eat Quint in "Jaws" and had to avert my eyes. Should Spielberg have cut that bloody spectacle because some viewers might be squeamish? No - it was an integral finale to the film's development. A good filmmaker lets the audeince decide for themselves how much they can stand.

Apparently the little girl in the seat in front of you knew her limits of what she could stand to watch. There are certainly other children who will not be so affected.

But at least Disney is treating them as thinking people that can make up their own minds, rather than passing judgment to protect all children from the truth of nature. That's more than the author would seem to advocate.

Last week, my young daughter saw one of the neighborhood cats holding a mouse in its mouth. She noticed the mouse was still jiggling...
After years of sweet, fuzzy, sometimes ridiculous talking animals and negating was nature really is about, a reality check is long overdue. Kudos for Disney to get education back on track.

I think it's good death gets back into the mainstream culture. Some of the children's tales, before they were dumbed down in the last 20 years or so, were really scary. Evil withches boiling children in cauldrons alive, anyone?

I mean, living things do die (and, yes, living things do have sex too - but that's better be left for a little later). I mean, how can one vale anyone's life without the concept of "death" or "disease"?

As a seven-year old, I was horrified at Walt Disney World of the WIcked WItch from Snow White. I also remember being frightened by certain Disney movies. These were all fictional characters that scared me so much.
I have struggled as a primary school teacher with decisions about certain books to share. In one book, a squirrel is captured by an eagle, but is later freed. However, another book is about a cat capturing a bird. The bird does die. I have decided to share these stories with my students because these are the facts of life. Animals subsist on other animals. While it is upsetting to witness, there is just no way to sugarcoat these facts. My students have not been overly upset about these stories. They seem to understand that in order to eat, sometimes animals eat other animals.

American children need to see that life isn't always fair or idyllic. Look at American universities, we have young adults ill-equipped to handle the concept that they might not get an A or B in upper-level courses. They sit and moan about how its unfair that their professor doesn't give them extra credit points. I don't know these students childhood, but I imagine they would have benefitted from being mildly upset in films such as these, so they'd learn that sometimes life doesn't go your way. If we want a generation of whiny babies, hide the truth from them.

Maybe people ought to think before reproducing offspring. Do you reproduce for quantity purpose or quality purpose. The child understood very well the Nature of the Beast of Earth. Daddy ought to fill in how to survive. In our present day world,95% of people send into the wild would not know how to survive. Earth is a very good movie that touches the Reality Check.