Decided film: Rio2
Quotes:
1, Director Carlos Saldanha has said he hoped the movie would raise awareness of the challenges for the Amazon Rainforest. “It’s one of the most important forests and ecosystems in the world. We all need it. And thankfully it’s still really intact in most of it, which means there’s still a chance. So if there’s a chance to protect it, don’t wait until it’s too late to rebuild it. Protect it now if you’re going to do it at all. I think those messages are very important to show to kids and we do it in a very fun way, and we do it with characters that are funny. We do it with personal stories and with music and we have a lot of fun. But if the kids walk out with this information in the back of their heads and they come out of it with this idea to do their own project on the Amazon and they want to find out more about it, who knows what can happen? Maybe we’ll hear of someone who was inspired by a movie way, way, way back when and is now helping to protect that.”
2, “I think even in Brazil the people don’t know The Amazon. I didn’t know The Amazon. For them it was just a far off jungle that’s out there where no one can live. It’s almost like a big blank space on the map. The people don’t look beyond their neighbourhoods or beyond their towns, and that’s one of the reasons why The Amazon hasn’t been protected as much, because people just don’t care”, “In actuality, it’s EVERYBODY’s home. It’s one of the most important forests and ecosystems in the world”
3, Carlos said to the Geographic National – “I wanted [to feature] the rarest bird,”. “The Spix’s macaw truly is the rarest.”
Review:
Rio2 is a 3D animation film produced by Blue Sky Studio, it is the sequel of Rio and directed by Carlos Saldanha. The content of the story continues the adventure story of the blue Spix’s macaw couple from the previous movie. Blu and Jewel, along with the help of their best human friends, ventured in to the heart of the Amazon rainforest in search for the other’s of their kind. In this sequel, Blu and Jewel have married and established their own family with 3 children living in the Rio city. A series of sucessful investigations allowed Linda and Tulio to discover evidence for the existence of other Spix’s macaws somewhere deep within the Amazon rainforest. Inspired and confident with the information, Blu and Jewel started a journey with interesting but unexpected events which made them met up with Jewel’s long-lost parents who reside in a tribe formed by groups of their own kind (fig 2). The story of Rio2 not only emphasize the warm reunion life of Blu and Jewel’s family between urban and life of wild, it also delieverd messages of environmental protection for the audiences showed from the protest against the rainforest’s destruction through the perspective of the near extincting Spix’s macaws (fig 3). It demostrated the importance of the rainforest, which played a vital role in the aspect of providing a safe home for the animal’s survival and also to keep the rainforest maintaining the earth’s ecosystems.
The film was released by 20th Century Fox in 2014, and successfully won a significant box office recorded of nearly $0.5 Billion. The voice stars are still performed by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway for Blu and Jewel (Sha, 2014). The director Saldanha, was born and grew up in Rio and moved to New York to complete his MFA degree. During his time living in Rio, Saldanha enjoyed feeding those colorful macaws flying around his home and always wanted to make a movie that belongs to Rio and the Amazon. However, Saldanha didn’t really visited the rainforest in person until the beginning for the development of the movie. Saldanha took his family and team on an adventure in search for the inspiration to experience the perspective of the animals for the casting of the film. They explored the real Amazon and visited various other cities in Brazil for the making of the abundant story for Rio2. This journey has enabled the team to anchored a creative story for the estbalishment of the characters while also addressing their personality and roles to play in the process. The Amazon experiences provided the team with inspiration that formed the colors of the rainforest, leading them wtih the configuring of frame to frame appearances and of course, the fantastic music and songs created and associated for the entire movie (That Shelf Staff, 2014). It is obvious that Saldanha couldn’t erase the evil in Rio2, as the smugglers remained as a source of danger for the protagonists with the intention of revenging and capturing the Spix’s macaw family as their trophy. In order to allow the audiences to experience the tention while they’re watching the movie, the evil is stronger and empowered to surround both you and me. However, they’re always distint to lose despite the difficulties for the justice to fight against.
Saldanha made Rio2 and raises the most serious environmental issue trying to convey a clear message to all the people in the world that we, as human, cannot live alone without the rainforests. “….I think even in Brazil the people don’t know The Amazon. I didn’t know The Amazon. For them it was just a far off jungle that’s out there where no one can live. It’s almost like a big blank space on the map. The people don’t look beyond their neighbourhoods or beyond their towns, and that’s one of the reasons why The Amazon hasn’t been protected as much, because people just don’t care because it’s not their home. In actuality, it’s EVERYBODY’s home” (Saldanha, quoted in Bennett, 2014 pg 172). Saldanha said in the Rio2 promotion interview to the journalist that deforestation is the key element of evil. Rio2 is not just about Rio and the Amazon to fulfill Saldanha’s vision. It warmed up people’s mind by looking after those who loves and cares for you, while also awakes people’s conscious to respect nature and wild life about the fact that all beings are connected with each other’s in this world. If you are a fan of jungle adventures and if you love animals, Rio2 is surely the film you can’t miss out.
References:
ANGOR UNIVERSIT, EurekAlert (2021). Amazon rainforest could be gone within a lifetime. Available at: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/bu-arc030920.php. (Accessed: 2021/02/23)
Bennett, Tara (2014), Featuring a Carnival of art from Rio to Rio2,1st edition, Titan Books:Titan Publishing Group
Blue Sky Studios, 20th Century Fox (2021) About Rio Available at: http://blueskystudios.com/films/rio/#
(Accessed: 2021/02/16).
Blue Sky Studios, 20th Century Fox (2021) Our Story Available at: http://blueskystudios.com/our-story/
(Accessed: 2021/02/16).
Butler, Rhett A (2020). How can we save rainforest? Available at: https://rainforests.mongabay.com/kids/elementary/601.html#content (Accessed: 2021/02/18)
CuudlyNest (2020). 7 things you can do to save the rainforests. Available at: https://www.cuddlynest.com/blog/7-ways-save-world-rainf HYPERLINK (Accessed: 2021/02/18)
Drake, N. (2014), Parrot Who Was Among Last of Its Kind, Said to Have Inspired ‘Rio,’ Dies Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140629-spix-macaw-presley-rio-parrot-brazil-science (Accessed: 2021/02/17)
Sha, Z. (2011). Countdown to Rio+20 featuring Rio the Movie. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/desa/countdown-rio20-featuring-rio-movie (Accessed: 2021/02/17)
That Shelf Staff (2014). Interview: Carlos Saldanha. Available at: https://thatshelf.com/interview-carlos-saldanha/ (Accessed: 2021/02/17)