'Arctic Tale' 'Documentary' Scripted; Tricks Kids Into Worrying About Global Warming

July 26th, 2007 1:18 PM

Environmentalists are targeting kids and using deception to get their message out. Anthropogenic global warming evangelists and wildlife filmmakers, Sarah Robertson and Adam Ravetch, made the upcoming live action “Arctic Tale” because as Robertson told the LA Times, "Global warming to a lot of people is statistics...What we wanted to do was put a face on climate change."

OK, so there's the goal, now how to accomplish it? Adults ask all of those pesky questions, but children's minds are easier to mold and manipulate. During the credits, the filmmakers came right out and showed their cards, using kids to shill for AGW and convince their parents to change their evil habits.

The expected tugging of emotions was turned into a shell game by the way the movie was created. “Arctic Tale” is sold to the public as a heartwarming movie that follows a polar bear and a walrus through their first eight years of life. The problem is, they're not real, and the alarming story about their environment was crafted by scriptwriters (emphasis mine throughout):

Seela and Nanu are composites of several animals Ravetch and Robertson recorded over a decade while working in the Arctic, freelancing for BBC TV and National Geographic TV, among other outlets.

The animals' adventures were then crafted by editors, sound designers and a team of screenwriters who milk each sweet, funny and harrowing moment for maximum drama.

Three Hollywood scribes helped shape the film's emotional beats. Linda Woolverton, a Disney screenwriter who wrote "Beauty and the Beast" and co-wrote "The Lion King," helped craft "Arctic Tale's" narrative. Mose Richards, who wrote for Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a dozen Imax films, incorporated the nature science. Kristin Gore — yup, a daughter of you know who — has written for "Saturday Night Live" and "Futurama," and contributed the film's jokes.

Playing up the whole image of Al Gore's melting ice floes and drowning polar bears, the movie, which has garnered bad reviews, used what the Times called “crafty editing” to dramatize the “babies' attempts to survive a melting habitat.”

Ravetch explained their motivation to the LA Times:

"The climate issue changed us," Ravetch said. "We were on this island staking out this situation and the ice was coming back later and later in the year. We had the nuts and bolts of the story, but the climate change shifted it. That's when we felt a real responsibility to covering it in our movie."

Robertson herself revealed to MovieWeb.com that she deliberately targeted children to push the AGW agenda:

We're using the animals as a metaphor, really, for human beings, especially young people, to be inspired by the animals and see they can take initiative and they can take the bold steps that are going to be necessary for us to change the way we live; in response to climate change.

The end of the movie shed the pretense of just good fun and hit the audience with the real purpose—using kids to manipulate their parents. The Times stated, “as the credits roll, children describe ways the audience can help stop global warming, like turning off the lights, using less water and making their parents buy hybrid cars.”

This movie is just another in what looks like a long-term trend of activists trying to influence society through children's entertainment. Now instead of just making a live-action “March Of The Penguins” or an animated “Happy Feet,” Hollywood has decided to mix them and pass it off as a legitimate documentary to those members of the audience who didn't read the few reviews and interviews that mentioned the deception.

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