Bad Natural History

[urbpan]

Okay, so when you watch a movie with animals acting like people (you know, talking and such), you must suspend some of your disbelief. I'm okay with that--it has been this way since Aesop.

But these days the filmmakers are mixing in lots of actual Natural History with animals acting like people. For example the fish in "Finding Nemo" look (and to some degree behave) real, but they don't eat one another. In "Antz," there are both male and female worker ants. (This movie, which I am only halfway through, is the reason I'm posting. There's an awful lot that I could say, positive and negative about it, but I need to finish it, and I probably have to watch "A Bug's Life" for comparison, and the go see "The Ant Bully," too.) Even the bug scene in "King Kong," while exciting, is laughable from a Natural History standpoint (beyond even the bugs' great size--I'm talking behavior).

I want to know this, from you all:

At what point does faulty Natural History interfere with your enjoyment of a movie?

Comments

[cowpewter.livejournal.com]

OMG yes, that trailer hurt my head. WHY do all the 'male' cows have cow boobies!?! Would it have been that hard for them to just give the cows smooth stomachs? In fact, wouldn't it have been easier to create the 3d models that way? Is there some drastically important reason they have to have udders? Is it a dairy farm? Does a movie about talking farm animals have to be that specific as to what kind of farm it is? Did they only do it so they can include some sort of *horrible* milking gag that will now be even more horrible because they are boy cows? If they ABSOLUTELY had to have dairy cows, couldn't they have made the protagonist female? You can have rebellious coming-of-age stories with female protagonists too.

I'm terrified to see that movie, but I know it's going to be like a trainwreck - I won't be able to look away, just for sheer masochistic curiosity.

[pipu.livejournal.com]

Yes yes and more yes.