Deep Blue

[Ace]

Thread Started on May 18, 2005, 12:15pm

This underwater documentary Deep Blue is listed on the IMDB as being narrated by Michael Gambon -- and there are user reviews commenting on it!

And yet when it ran at the NYC Tribeca Film Festival Pierce was listed as the narrator in several places including Variety. I assumed that they just mixed it up with Dolphins so I didn't bother to go see it.

And now this review from Seattle Weekly the Seattle Film Festival which states again that Pierce is the narrator and actually refers to his narration in the review.

The caribou Allison calls "humble perfect creatures" have their marine counterparts in Deep Blue, which is narrated by Pierce Brosnan. Of the fathomless ocean, 007 asks, "Will we exhaust its resources before understanding all its wonders?" Well, sure, as long as there are tuna to catch for our sandwiches and whales to slaughter for our dog food. It's like the oil in ANWR, and the teeming schools of fish swarm into massive balls to avoid predators just like the caribou do to avoid wolves. Under threat, an ecosystem responds in predictable ways. Deep Blue isn't very deep, but it has its grandeur. Even as you wish for Bill Murray to add some droll, non sequitur commentary as in The Life Aquatic, you recall that Jacques Cousteau did have a legitimate agenda beyond his own self-promoting and financing.

So did they change narrators, is Gambon still narrating and the reviewer is looking at his erroneous notes on casting? Has anyone seen this documentary recently and knows who narrates it?

Ace

[Ace]

The Official Miramax Site now has Pierce listed as the narrator and the opening for the film as July 22, 2005:

www.miramax.com/deepblue/

And this review confirms it and that there was also a change from the earlier version from Gambon to Pierce and PG to G:


Deep Blue (2003)
Movie review by Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve

Rating: FRESH (B+)

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly: you'll see both, nicely choreographed.
DEEP BLUE

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Miramax Films
Grade: B+
Directed by: Alastair Fothergill, Andy Byatt
Written by: Alastair Fothergill, Andy Byatt
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, narrator: lots of fish, mammals and birds
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 5/10/05

"Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly," in the words of Magnolia
Hawks, the star of Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern's
1927 musical "Showboat." We've already seen the beauty of
birds in flight thanks to Jacques Perrin's movie "Winged
Migration," who photographs the birds as though he's flying right
next to them. Just as Perrin avoids a narrative structure in his
story, so Alastair Fothergill and Andy Byatt and their twenty
photographers show us not just the fish, but also penguins and
albatrosses representing the bird family and whales and polar
bears as mammals.

The most exotic fact that emerges from the exquisitely
photographed pic is that though the oceans cover three-fourths
of the earth's surface and are home to eighty percent of all life,
more people have gone out to explore space than have
submerged themselves into oceans. The folks with the
underwater cameras are not on display to take our attention
away from the non-human life and, in fact, the only evidence of
human habitation is a submarine that has submerged some five
miles into the deep. Otherwise this is the ultimate water show,
nicely narrated by Pierce Brosnan who remains silent most of
the time to allow George Fenton's music to emphasize the
playfulness of some of the inhabitants but which bellows, even
intrusively, when capturing the most important underwater
drama, which is feeding time. (The drama of big fish eating little
fish would be akin on a human level to murder, which of course
justifies the evocation Fenton's boldest notes from a symphony
orchestra in Berlin.)

"Deep Blue," which is one of a pair that includes BBC's The
Blue Planet series, was five years in the making, taking its
photographers from Antarctica to the Maldives; from Portugual's
Azores to our nearby Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It includes
the wild waters of Patagonia and the surf off the coast of South
Africa's Natal.

The movie opens on playful dolphins, who without human
training show off for the cameras with their swift motion and
repetitive surfing. (This is the sort of action that could be used
by PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,
methinks, to warn against keeping tropical fish housed for their
brief lives in small glass tanks and, given the albatrosses flying
above the dolphins, might give pause to those who clip the
wings of parrots and keep canaries and parakeets in cages.
Recall William Blake's "A robin redbreast in a cage/ Puts all
heaven in a rage.")

A fish has got to eat, and from what we see, without reading a
single article about nutrition on the Web, they eschew Big Macs
and Whoppers in favor of low-fat fish�fresher than you'd get
even around the outdoor marketplaces of Spain's Basque
region or on weekends at Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay.
Dolphins chase sardines, whales go after sea lion pups, while
penguins gather together in temperatures of forty degrees below
zero. We watch a polar cub track closely across the Antarctic ice
with his mom, the marlins zipping along at seventy-five miles
per hour looking for tuna (not the crummy farm-raised kind), and
most dramatic of all, a submarines plunging five miles into the
ocean where there is a complete absence of sun to look at
some of the most exotic varieties of sea life, particularly some
fish equipped as though carrying large flashlights which they
bob on and off with more life than a Duracell battery.

I wish only that Brosnan, or subtitles, would have given us the
location of each journey, perhaps even a shot of some of the
people who live nearby for a human touch. One of my
colleagues, the wonderful British online critic Rich Cline, advises
that one version of "Deep Blue" featured Michael Gambon as
narrator and that because of the animal violence was rated PG
as opposed to the American entry which is G-rated. Surely five-
year-olds in the audience would not have nightmares over
undersea dinner time!

Rated G. 90 minutes � 2005 by Harvey Karten

[Ace]

The Official Miramax Release Blurb:

Release Date: July 22, 2005
DEEP BLUE

Directed and Written by: Alastair Fothergill
Andy Byatt
Produced by: Alix Tidmarsh
Sophokles Tasioulis
Composer: George Fenton
Narrator: Pierce Brosnan

DEEP BLUE is an innovative motion picture experience that takes audiences on an epic, emotion-filled voyage through the last great frontier on earth: the ocean. Diving into the unexplored liquid space that exists just beneath the surface of our planet, DEEP BLUE explores awesome realms where humans, and especially cameras, have rarely dared to go: darting with lightning speed through fierce schools of sharks, riding over stormy waves with massive killer whales, fighting for survival with families of polar bears and seals, and even plunging into pitch-black chasms that are home to wild, alien-like creatures so rare they have never been seen before on film. Recounting the amazing stories of wildlife in its untouched state, the result is a visual and musical event that viscerally evokes the wonder, power and drama of the deep blue sea. DEEP BLUE is narrated by popular star, award-winning actor and passionate environmentalist Pierce Brosnan, and features a score that matches the grandeur and wildness of the oceanic world written by five-time Academy Award nominee George Fenton. From the creators of the acclaimed series "Blue Planet", DEEP BLUE brings you never-before-seen underwater footage. Directed by Alastair Fothergill and Andy Byatt.

[Ace]

The Official Site. It's the UK/France version so it has Gambon in the info and trailers etc.

www.deepbluethemovie.com/content/home.html

[Ace]

Sparkling

« Reply #7 on May 22, 2005, 12:44pm »

Just to make sure: This PB version goes to the cinemas, but has not yet been released on DVD, right? Is it only US, or will it also be released elsewhere?

I'm looking forward to this. I enjoyed Fenton's score for Grey Owl, and PB narrating is always great. For me, it makes up for never getting to see Dolphins.

[Ace]

Yes, the PB version hasn't hit US theaters yet and isn't out on DVD. The non PB narrated versions I believe have already released in cinemas and reached DVD in various parts of the globe so I don't think the PB version will be released in those places except as imports.

Have you never seen Dolphins on DVD?

Ace

=================================================

Sparkling:

« Reply #9 on May 22, 2005, 1:20pm »

No, I have never seen Dolphins. I can't find it on DVD anywhere where it's possible for me to buy it.

As for Deep Blue, the soundtrack and the DVD are available. Though it is definitely non-PB, naturally. I guess I'll have to wait and see whether I'll get a chance to buy the PB version or not.

[Ace]

Sparkling « Reply #10 on May 22, 2005, 1:39pm »

Found the official poster:

There's a downloadable bigger version of it on the official site, as well as a nice screensaver. That is, it you like fish swimming around on your monitor.

www.deepbluethemovie.com/content/screening/deepblue_quadart.jpg

[Ace]

Some really great photos here:

outnow.ch/Media/Img/2003/DeepBlue/

[sparklingblue]

www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=BVD048990

Has anyone bought this? I'd like to know if it really is Pierce's narration on the DVD before I buy it.

[Ace]

DVD Basen: Deep Blue lists DVD reviews for the Region 1 release -- and a quick scan shows it is indeed the PB narrated version.

Does DDD now ship internationally? If so I'd wait for their 20% off sale in Nov.

I haven't bought it yet because the price is a bit high for a documentary for me and it's been said the narration is rather sparse.

[sparklingblue]

I have seen it on television here in Germany (bizarrely PB's German dub voice was doing the narration ). Yes. the narration is indeed rather sparse.

I haven't checked whether DDD ships internationally. Maybe I should. I just assumed they would. I checked out their site and found so much lovely PB stuff that I do not yet own and then I got a little carried away.

Thanks for the tip-off about their sale. I might wait until then, at least with some of the pricier DVDs. Still, I marvel at the bargains you can make there compared to amazon.