MOVIE NEWS: Turtle: The Incredible Journey
Imagine if human babies instinctively ran from the hospital as soon as they were born. This would be weird, right? What if instincts told them to run halfway around the world only to return years later to the exact same hospital in which they were born? This would be even weirder.
Strangely enough, this is what life is like for loggerhead turtles, the subject of the new movie Turtle: The Incredible Journey. The movie follows a female turtle on her 25-year (!) migration. It begins and ends on a beach in Florida, and has stops in several places, including the Caribbean and the coast of Nova Scotia.
I saw the movie this weekend as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, and you’ll be able to see it soon at a theatre near you (hopefully). In the meantime, here are a few observations about the movie:
1) Turtle looks, feels, and sounds like a documentary, but it’s not a documentary. The filmmakers got tons of footage of real turtles, sharks, whales, and other sea creatures, but because the loggerhead turtle’s migration is so long they couldn’t follow a particular turtle along the whole thing. Instead, they found several turtle “actors” to play the part of the lead turtle. Pretty creative, huh?
2) This isn’t so much an observation as a declaration, but here goes anyway: turtles are awesome. They’ve been around for more than 200 million years and managed to outlive the dinosaurs. It’s probably true what they say: “Slow and steady wins the race.”
3) A couple more turtle facts: they’re born buried in the sand, and dig for three days (!) to reach the surface of the beach. A loggerhead hatchling is the size of the palm of a kid’s hand. It grows to 6,000 times that size by adulthood.
Overall, I really enjoyed Turtle. I found myself caring about the turtle as she came across a ton of obstacles on her journey: currents, predators, humans, the changing climate, and so on. Also, as you might guess, the movie has a lot to teach not only about turtles, but about the ocean and other creatures as well.
If you’re a fan of movies like Earth or March of the Penguins, give Turtle a try!
Craig, owlblog@owlkids.com
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looks cool. cant wait to see it!
i love animals, so i want to see it… but are there any sad parts? cause i just watched earth and practically cried….i hate when animals die :(… but the rest of earth was ammmmaaaazing! wow
Hey guys! Thanks for the comments. I don’t want to give too much away, Aaren, but there are far fewer sad moments in Turtle than in Earth. It’s a bit hard to watch when the turtle’s in trouble, but the movie teaches us turtles are pretty resilient!
Sounds COOL!!!!!!
Ya i didn’t even finish watching planet earth because I became so depressed
earth is boriiing oh i might go to china for a month my friend went to china for 2 months and 10 days, the whole summer vacation
i am sad of the polar bear and deer caibou too
Looks cool. Maybe I’ll try to persuade my parents to see it. Also I have a friend who’s crazy about the envirment. Maybe I’ll send the link to her.
i know this has nothing to do with this but when i was visiting my cousin she said she was on the owl think tank. What’s that?
I like turtles………..
once i saw one in the ocean when i was 6. Or maybe i was 7…….. nope, i was 6.