Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins (2008)
- Directed by
- Mike Slee
- Genre
- documentary film
- Country
- United Kingdom, United States
- Runtime
- 1h 16m
- Rating
- 6.6 of 10 from 7 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
This documentary follows a meerkat named Flower from her birth to her rise as the leader of the Whiskers meerkat group. It uses wild meerkats and narration to tell her story based on real research notes.
lightheartededucationalanimal-focusednarrator-drivenfamily-friendlynature-orientedobservational
What happens
Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a 2008 television film created by Discovery Films and Oxford Scientific Films as a prequel to the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. A scripted documentary narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the film details the life of a meerkat named Flower from birth to her becoming the leader of a meerkat group called the Whiskers. The film is based on the research notes of the Kalahari Meerkat Project and primarily uses wild meerkat "actors" to represent those in the story. Shot over two years at the Kuruman River Reserve in Northern Cape, South Africa, the film employed a much larger crew than the series. Some scenes were shot at a wildlife park in the United Kingdom, while others were created using camera tricks and trained film animals. The 75-minute film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival before its television premiere on Animal Planet on May 25, 2008. While it was praised for its cinematography, for maintaining the depth of coverage of the television series, and for its accessibility to newcomers to the series, it was criticized for not offering anything new to fans. The Kalahari Meerkat Project noted that the film was not completely accurate but praised it overall and recommended against analyzing it. Several reviewers praised Goldberg's narration, but the script was criticized as being too simplistic for adult viewers. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
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Planet Earth II (2016)
Meerkat Manor (2005)
One Life (2011)
Dynasties (2018)
The Year Earth Changed (2021)
Nature's Great Events (2009)
Earth: One Amazing Day (2017)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.