No movie springs from a vacuum. There are always influences from past examples of the genre, from the previous work of the filmmakers and stars, even from similar films that don’t quite work. If you want to understand where a movie is coming from, take a look at where it’s coming from.
In Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, an adventurous young owl leaves his farm on Tattooine to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom before Zeus releases the Kraken. This flick sprang from (among other films):
• Happy Feet (2006), in which the flightless penguins of Antarctica are stranded even as their land melts away under them, but they sing and dance a lot anyway.
• Paulie (1998), the delightful flick about a lost talking parrot on a quest to find the little girl who loves him and the trouble he gets into along the way.
• The Birds (1963), Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror flick, for feathered friends are less pleasant — downright evil, in fact.
• 300 (2007), for more action warfare from director Zack Snyder, though here the slo-mo battles take place amongst people, not avians.
Where to buy:
The Birds [Region 1/U.S.] [Region 1/Can.] [Region 2]
Happy Feet [Region 1/U.S.] [Region 1/Can.] [Region 2]
Paulie [Region 1/U.S.] [Region 1/Can.] [Region 2]
300 [Region 1/U.S.] [Region 1/Can.] [Region 2]
