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''Earth'' is a 2007 nature documentary film which depicts the diversity of wild habitats and creatures across the planet. The film begins in the Arctic in January of one year and moves southward, concluding in Antarctica in the December of the same year. Along the way, it features the journeys made by three particular species—the polar bear, African bush elephant and humpback whale—to highlight the threats to their survival in the face of rapid environmental change. A companion piece to the 2006 BBC/Discovery television series ''Planet Earth'', the film uses many of the same sequences, though most are edited differently, and features previously unseen footage. ''Earth'' was co-directed by Alastair Fothergill, the executive producer of the television series, and Mark Linfield, the producer of ''Planet Earths "From Pole to Pole" and "Seasonal Forests" episodes. It was co-produced by BBC Natural History Unit and Greenlight Media, with Discovery providing some of the funding. It was also the first film released under the Disneynature label. The same organisations collaborated on Fothergill's previous film, ''Deep Blue'' (2003), itself a companion to his 2001 television series on the natural history of the world's oceans, ''The Blue Planet''. The British version of ''Earth'' was narrated by Patrick Stewart and the US version was narrated by James Earl Jones. ''Earth'' was released in cinemas internationally during the final quarter of 2007 and throughout 2008.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=IMDb.com )〕 With total worldwide box office revenue exceeding $100 million, ''Earth'' is the second-highest grossing nature documentary of all time.〔 A sequel, titled ''Earth: One Amazing Day'', is scheduled for release in 2017. ==Plot== Over the course of a calendar year, ''Earth'' takes the viewer on a journey from the North Pole in January to the South in December, revealing how plants and animals respond to the power of the sun and the changing seasons. The film focuses on three particular species, the polar bear, African bush elephant and humpback whale. Starting in the high Arctic in January, as the darkness of winter gives way to the sun, a mother polar bear is shown emerging from her den with two new cubs. She needs food and must lead her cubs to her hunting ground on the sea ice before it begins to break up. By April, the sun never sets, and by August all the sea ice has melted. The mother and cubs have retreated to dry land, but a male polar bear is trapped at sea and must seek out land by swimming. He reaches an island with a walrus colony but is too exhausted to make a successful kill. He dies from injuries sustained in a walrus attack. African bush elephants are filmed from the air as they negotiate a dust storm in the Kalahari Desert. June is the dry season and they must follow ancient paths passed down through generations to reach watering holes. A mother and calf are separated from the herd in the storm but manage to reach shelter. The matriarch leads the herd to a temporary watering hole, but they must share it with hungry lions and scavenger white-backed vultures. The lions are shown attacking a solitary elephant at night, when their superior vision gives them the upper hand. The herd times its arrival at the Okavango Delta to coincide with seasonal floodwaters which transform the desert into a lush water world. A humpback whale mother and calf are filmed from the air and underwater at their breeding grounds in the shallow seas of the tropics. There is nothing here for the mother to eat, so she must guide her calf on a journey south to the rich feeding grounds near Antarctica, the longest migration of any marine mammal. En route, they negotiate dangerous seas where great white sharks are filmed breaching as they hunt. Sea lions, and sailfish and dolphins combine to bait a shoal of small fish. By October they enter polar waters, and by December the Antarctic sun has melted the sea ice to form sheltered bays. Here, the whales are shown feeding on krill by trapping them in bubble nets. The stories of these individual creatures are woven into the film alongside a great many additional scenes. The supporting cast of animals include mandarin ducklings filmed jumping from their tree hole nest, Arctic wolves hunting caribou, cheetah hunting Thomson's gazelle, elephants charge at white-backed vulture, birds of paradise displaying in the New Guinea rainforest, Adelie penguins in the Antarctic and demoiselle cranes on their autumn migration across the Himalayas. Time-lapse photography is used to show the blossoming of spring flowers, seasonal changes to deciduous forests, clouds sweeping up Himalayan valleys, and the growth of jungle spores and fungi. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Earth (2007 film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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