ZooScope

Tag: Dove

  • Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!. Dir. By. Peter Lord. Columbia Pictures. 2012.

    Aardman never shy away from the ludicrous. So when a crew of incompetent pirates endeavour for protagonist The Pirate Captain to win the Pirate of the Year Award by relying on the commercial value of his prized dodo companion Polly (who should have been extinct for 150 years and is believed to be a parrot)…

  • Howl’s Moving Castle. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli. 2004.

    There is a surprising lack of non-human animal representation in Studio Ghibli’s 2004 film Howl’s Moving Castle, despite an overarching theme which frequently pits an idyllic pastoral version of Japan against a threateningly industrial one. The major depiction of human-animal relations is that of secondary protagonist Howl as he gradually transforms into a bird-like creature…

  • Shrek 2. Dir. Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, and Conrad Vernon. DreamWorks. 2004.

    The second film in the Shrek franchise, Shrek 2 focuses on a pair of ogres, Shrek and Fiona, and their life as newlyweds: it’s time to meet the in-laws. Fiona’s human parents, King Harold and Queen Lilian, are unpleasantly surprised by the fact their daughter and her husband are ogres, and their marriage has a few magical…

  • The Wild. Dir. Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams. Buena Vista Pictures. 2006.

    The Wild YouTube video of the film’s theatrical trailer: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE3mEgqqlCM> ‘Start spreading the newspaper.’ Disney’s 2006 animation, The Wild, by first-time director and ex-special effects artist Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams, is a family comedy film centred on a group of zoo animals: Samson the lion, Bridget the giraffe, Nigel the koala and Larry the anaconda. Along with their…

  • The Wild. Dir. Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams. Buena Vista Pictures. 2006.

    ZooScope ZOOM: The Wild  Above: ‘This isn’t Happiness’ – 07/04/2014 front cover illustration of The New Yorker by Peter DeSeve shows a vegetarian lion eating salad whilst looking distractedly at a zebra. Living in a world of cultural ethics clearly has its difficulties for a wild predator. Image from https://uk.pinterest.com/kmeyer/peter-deseve/ ‘The core paradigm of many narratives engaging…

  • The Prestige. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros.. 2006.

    Synopsis The Prestige (2006) is a film directed by Christopher Nolan and based upon an adaption of Christopher Priest’s 1995 novel. The film is set in twentieth century London and follows the lives of two rival magicians, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and their competing struggle to claim ownership of the most…

  • Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Warner Bros. 1982.

    Dystopian L.A. 2019 Blade Runner (1982) takes place in a futuristic and dystopian Los Angeles. Heavy industrialisation has caused great damage to Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystem, wiping out most of the planet’s animal species. ‘Replicants’, androids visually identical to humans, are engineered to perform manual work on off-world colonies. Their use is banned on Earth, where…