Bee Movie

Alright, so. I just finished watching the Bee Movie.

Now, it's important to understand that I am a huge fan of Pixar and their movies. The Bee Movie was made by Dreamworks.

I just wanted to say that after the movie was finished, I considered how it did as a Dreamworks film, in my opinion. Overall, I thought it was well done. They did a good job and it was nice to hear a different story for once in a while.

With that being said, I have a few criticisms. For graphics in the look of humans, I think Pixar still wins that one easily.

I don't know. Ratatouille is my favourite movie, so in my mind I'm thinking to that. But I've seen it so many times. It's not fresh in my mind. That story isn't new to me anymore.

Considering those two movies however, the Bee Movie and Ratatouille, I have a few things to say.

After coming out of the theatre for the first time after watching Ratatouille, I was crazy about it and couldn't stop talking about it. (That was the movie that got me crazy about Pixar, so there was no bias in that). That same enthusiasm hasn't returned to me after watching the Bee Movie.

I also think that Ratatouille is more realistic in several ways. One, if you've never noticed, the mice and people never actually verbally communicate in Ratatouille. I applaud the animators of that movie for their skill in expression and creativity in communication. The bees clearly talk with people as people talk with people through out the Bee Movie, and I was a bit disappointed by that.

Second, consequences. Ratatouille had consequences that were more clearly connected to their cause. Remy steals some food from the kitchen and lets Emile have some. Emile brings friends, and eventually the whole colony. This leads to a breaching of trust between Linguini and Remy.

In the Bee Movie, after the bees win their case in court, it seems like the consequences are very lumped. Let me explain myself, it was like one thing after another was thrown at you. Kind of like this: all the honey was taken off shelves, all the bees quit work with no resistance because they had so much extra honey, there was no pollination and nearly all vegetation on earth ceases to thrive because of that. All within a matter of days. Am I making a point there?

Thirdly, and this one may vary with your taste, but in my opinion Ratatouille used a larger colour palette, if you will, in terms of music. They used more instruments available to them to create emotions within the audience. And the one song they used with actual words was created for the movie. Look up Le Festin on youtube. It's a French song, and I know a bit of French so it has more value for me than others. But I was watching the commentary of their movie in the bonus features (or maybe a video on youtube a while back, I can't remember) and one thing they were proud about was that the song was not translated into an English version, or any other language for that matter, but kept it's original language. I thought that was a good point because the setting of the film does take place in France and so it was true to its context.

In the Bee Movie, they used songs that were already written to make an attempt at accomplishing the same thing. I'm not sure what they're called but the they used the songs that started with "Honey, honey" and later on the one that starts with "Here comes the Sun".

Lastly, Ratatouille is a much more creative movie title than Bee Movie. You've gotta give that one to me at least.

This may sound like I've just been bringing down the Bee Movie a whole lot, but honestly it was refreshing and I enjoyed it. And I apologize for talking about Ratatouille as much as I did. That was an accident.

Also, please realize that these are only two movies. I wasn't impressed at all with Flushed Away, and I haven't seen Kung Fu Panda yet but I have high expectations for it when I do.

(And thanks for letting me borrow the movie, you know who you are)

Dang it! I've forgotten what else I was going to say. So that's all!

OK, actually I've just remembered. My favourite lines from the Bee Movie are

"We can make a suicide pact"
"How are you going to do that?"
"I'll sting you and you step on me"
"That only kills you twice".

- Pineapple