Turtle: The Incredible Journey

source: Turtle: The Incredible Journey

I was able to watch this film via Netflix streaming video. Miranda Richardson is the narrator. While she has a very pleasant voice, I cringed every time she said "further" to describe the little turtle getting "farther" from some point. But she was probably just following the script written for her. The film is a product of a conservation organization, so it has a natural slant, but I did not find that objectionable. In fact I think it is a very noble, worthwhile cause, to help preserve our natural balance of wild creatures. This film mostly shows the positive side of the life cycle of the loggerhead sea turtle. From other films we know that quite a large percentage of hatchlings are eaten during their first minutes of life. But the film follows one that survives, a female. It takes us to sea as the young turtle makes its way from the sands of eastern Florida to relative safety, a mass of sea weed that is also the refuge of many other small creatures, some of which become loggerhead turtle food. Over about 6 years it survives in the North Atlantic and grows then makes its down to the Caribbean, where it will spend another approximate 15 years to grow and mature, then mate and return to Florida to its birth beach to lay her eggs. The film makes the point that had the small turtle arrived in the Caribbean earlier in life it would not have been large enough to survive. That some mysterious wisdom inherited from her ancestors guided her to follow the path that she did. Very good film, everyone with an interest in our natural world should see this.

Based on the true story of the loggerhead turtle(Caretta caretta), The Incredible Journey is a beautiful documentary about the demanding,arduous and sometimes grueling journey of a sea turtle over the course of more than twenty years.The movie starts with the hatchlings born on a beach in Florida. The narrator tells us that turtles lived on land 200 years ago.However,when dinosaurs came they became creatures of the tides and currents. However land did not want to let them go and demanded payment.After about a journey of 25 years every female turtle must return to the beach where she was born under the sand and dug her way into the surface in three days. A journey that starts with no teeth and no defenses but with merely the indomitable will to live, a baby turtle must hurry to the sea which is just forty meters away.Unfortunately the beach is a great divide where half of the hatchlings will be perished in just an hour. The heroine of this documentary makes it into the sea on time. She swims to the Gulf Stream all the way to the frozen north, fights the doldrums when her seaweed is captured by an eddy,she faces up with her dangerous travel-mates like the blue shark and she tries to be one in ten-thousand to survive this ordeal and continue her circle of life. It's apparent that the makers of this film put a lot of work into this project. It must have taken a great deal of work to follow a turtle all along the way but somehow I don't think this documentary had that special "je ne sais quoi",the intangible quality that makes it stand out among the genre. If you have seen lots of documentaries and if you are an aficionado of the genre you may not find it sui-generis.Moreover,the voice-over narration (Miranda Richardson) does not really sound like one you would hear in a documentary. I mean,when you hear a voice like "David Frederick Attenborough" you will know you are watching some natural history program. Yet again, the movie is quite a serious work for our world in which the numbers of these turtles are decreasing in spite of the conservation efforts. It gives us hope for the future of these animals and it deserves to be watched.

My 3 and 5 year saw this movie and we all loved it. I am very excited that it is being released in 3D next month, We will definitely go see it in 3D. Great movie! I am very impressed that the movie is now associated with Sea World and will be jointly released with Hanover House. This movie really promotes environmental awareness and does a great job discussing how important it is to protect our oceans. With the big oil spill in the gulf of Mexico, a movie like this will remind all folks Who watch it just how important our oceans are to our planet and humankind. Turtles the incredible adventure is going to have a big impact Internationally now that BlackStone/Sea World Parks is partnered with target development/Hannover House.

This movie is about a Loggerhead Turtle, yet the narrator anthropomorphizes the motivations of the turtle and all other creatures over the course of the entire movie. As people, we have emotions like hate, jealousy, and revenge. Animals don't. In the movie, they describe a behavior of the turtle as "revenge" but actually the turtle is simply eating, and, as an animal, has no sense of revenge. Also, all predators are described as "bad." They play scary music when a predator is on screen, and use terminology that imply that being a predator is a bad thing, when actually Loggerheads can be rather predatory, yet they don't play the scary music then. As the summary notes, the camera shots are very, very good. But they cannot help a horrible script. There are many much better movies about the ocean, and about sea turtles, and this one should be pretty low down on the list.

This film really deserves much more than the scarce attention (half-hearted distribution?) it's received; and the only other review currently here really doesn't do justice to its specific strengths. Apart from top-tier cinematography - even avoiding some of the over-production of Perrin & Cluzaud's (admittedly stunning) Oceans http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765128/ - what's special about this film is how it's been written, so both the way the story unfolds visually, and the narrating commentary. It's unusual to find a film that shows such attention to its poetic framing, and in this case, especially because it's ostensibly still just a documentary, your involvement is that much greater. So: this subtly crafted documentary absolutely possesses a special je-ne-sais-quoi, and was a memorable joy to watch together with our young kids. It's a real shame the distribution hasn't been up to scratch.

Turtle: The Incredible Journey