No spoilers, unless you count me mention the various species of owls depicted (nothing about the characters).
We went and saw Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole 3D today. I loved it! I mean, animated owls, 3D, and did I mention the owls? Yeah, my type of film.
However… Did they have to give the Barn Owls yellow eyes? I mean, have they even seen a Barn Owl? Sure, they might look black from afar, but they’re really a lovely shade of brown, and they could have easily given the owls a lighter shade of brown to make them more expressive. Barn Owls with yellow eyes… bah!
Also, while I think it’s really nice that they didn’t make me sit through a whole film listening to grating American accents, and while I do like British and Australian… I don’t know, some research to where the various species actually live would have been nice. I mean, there are no Great Grey Owls, Burrowing Owls, or Elf Owls (among others) in neither Australia nor the UK. So why on earth would they have British or Australian accents? Yeah, I don’t get it either. And I know this is a fantasy film, but since they’ve obviously decided to make the owls the type of species that we have here in the real world, and made a pretty good job of making them look good and easily recognised, it really distracted me. Annoying.
I first thought they were being really stupid giving American Barn Owls Australian accents… but according to Wikipedia the Australian Barn Owls are darker than the British (shows what I know, eh), so I can easily buy them being Australian. Though the British ones are prettier, I love the really light sandy grey colour.
Also, I wonder how long the time span is supposed to be. Because if I remember correctly the Barn Owl baby doesn’t look and hour older at the end of the film compared to the beginning. And they grow like mad. Did you know that when an owl is about 16 weeks, it’s as large as it’s gonna get?
Also, and this makes me laugh, the Screech Owl (a Whiskered Screech according to Wikipedia) was WAY too big. They’re like the same size as a Burrowing Owl. *laughs some more*
All this said, I did love the film. I don’t really care about the plot at all (I’m in it for the owls and the 3D), but while I can understand why others may find it lacking, I thought it was decent enough.
And the owls were amazing. The Burrowing Owl? SO COOL. And so well done. I’ve got a few other gripes, like how would the helmet stay on a Great Grey’s head like that? They’ve got like the tiniest heads ever and it’s all just fluff around it, so either the helmet would have to be super light (and probably not very protective) or he’d just need a teeny tiny helmet because it squashes the fluff completely. Oh well. For some reason I find this harder to swallow than the fact that an owl wouldn’t be able to hear anything with a helmet on, and thus wouldn’t make a very good warrior.
Oh, and all of you that think owls make lousy warriors? Have you seen an owl? Have you seen their talons? Did you know that the European Eagle Owl can catch young deer?
To sum it up: if you’ve got a 3D cinema nearby and like owls, go see it. If not, wait until it’s out on DVD.
