In the film A Bug’s Life, we follow the interwoven lives of many species of arthropods--insects, crustaceans, and arachnids. The creators of the film obviously conducted research on arthropods in order to create a somewhat realistic portrayal of these bugs’ lives. There are many times when the structures, behaviors, habitats, etc. of the bugs were exactly what we would expect to see if we lived on their level in the real world, but the creators also at times leveraged reality with fantasy in order to create an enjoyable family film. Use the notes you took during the film as well as other observations and discuss the degree to which the film accurately reflects the zoology of arthropods and the extent to which the film inaccurately portrayed these animals. Be very specific when you writing your response, and be sure to constantly reference the film as you write. Your response should be several paragraphs in length. |
18 Comments
Cammie
11/9/2015 04:21:52 pm
During the movie the arthopods were showed to work as groups like the ants they worked as a colony which they actually do. Ants don't stand up and walk around on there back legs. Ants don't make facial expressions in real life either. Ants are known to work as conformity. They don't work individually so the movie showed the ants working as a colony to get things done. In the movie the grasshoppers are shown stealing the ants food that the ants worked for but in reality grasshoppers are herbivores but ants are hard workers so it did show that in the movie " A Bug's Life ".
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Bailey Lawrence
11/9/2015 04:34:29 pm
"A Bugs Life" portrays the arthropods to have some what human like features. In real life arthropods walk on all six of their legs, and in the movie they were depicted as walking on two of their legs. The ants in the movie were shown as having only two legs and two arms. Which as in real life ants have six walking legs and no arms they use their mandibles to collect food. Although the movie did portray that the ants did have antennae which is the same in real life. The way that Disney and Pixar depicted the social behaviors of the ants were correct. they showed the different tasks that ants have. The movie also did give a prime example of how worker ants that collect food follow a scent path and if that scent is blocked they stop dead in their tracks. Disney and Pixar did do a lot of research to make the movie "A Bugs Life" possible. Although they had to make it a little more humanized for children appeal the bugs in the movie are very realistic in the ways of social and physical structure and behavior and their habitat.
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Sara
11/9/2015 04:36:00 pm
As in the film, ants used a strategy to protect themselves from the grasshoppers. In real life ants use many defensive strategies to fend of the predators that try and harm them. In the film, there is an old queen ant, which it's the same as in real life, ants have a queen until she dies and then a new one comes in their place. Also in the film, it showed how the ants gathered food, but it was mostly correct except they didnt have any kind of machines to help them out, they gathered it by themselves. Even in the film, ants were making telescopes, but in real like, arthropods/insects dont make telescopes. It showed in the film that ants ride on other bugs, but in real life, the only way ants get around is on their pair of legs. According to the film, ants had about 3 sets of legs , for real life, ants do have 3 sets of legs.
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Rickie Stipe
11/9/2015 06:04:58 pm
"A Bug's Life" is an excellent family picture, albeit sort of cliche. It uses the generic "Liar Revealed" trope as a main plot device and that upsets me. But we aren't here to discuss that today. We are here to determine the scientific worth of this piece of media. It is evident that a small bit of research went into this film. However, in order to make an "interesting" family picture, some things had to be altered.
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Gabrielle
11/9/2015 07:49:48 pm
In the film "A Bug's Life," the somewhat realistic portrayal of bugs allows the viewer to become immersed in the film by recognizing behaviors, such as the fact ants live in colonies and a mosquito drinking blood through its nose. However, there are many things that they took artistic liberty on, such as the number of legs an ant has, the social behaviors, and how grasshoppers behave. In nature, the grasshoppers don't take advantage of the ants. In fact, ants will usually eat a dead grasshopper. Also, ants do not get ordered by the queen. The colony only uses her to make more ants and have no one in charge. Another thing is that ants have three pairs of legs, not two, but it is understandable why the creators and animators did this. The less human the something looks (such as the grasshoppers), the easier human find to not root for it. ALSO GRASS DOESN'T EQUAL FIREWORKS.
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Faith Rives
11/9/2015 08:10:48 pm
Throughout the film A Bug's Life, there were many times when the movie aligned perfectly with the real life of a bug. For instance, the ants in this movie live in a large colony which is true in real life. Ants are known as social insects and millions of ants are in just one colony. During the movie, the ants were seen carrying pieces of berries and other food on their backs that were 10X their size. This is true in real life as ants can carry up to 20 times their own weight. Ant colony organization is very important in real life and takes place to a point within the movie. In real life, an ant colony would be slightly more organized than portrayed in the movie. Every ant in real life has a certain job to do and they do it all the time. The queen in the movie does more than what an ant queen in real life would do. Since it is a family film, reproduction wasn't included in the movie but queen ants primarily live to reproduce and that is all they do. In a real ant colony, the queen ant wouldn't be seen as much as she was in the movie. Also, she wouldn't be out giving orders like in the film. She would simply be eating and reproducing. The queen ant is vital to an ant colony because of how much she reproduces. In the movie, the ants run to the ant hill in an emergency situation which rings true in real life too. The troupe which helps out the ants in the movie, consists of a couple insects that are actually predators to ants such as caterpillars and beetles. When trouble would approach the ant colony, an alarm would sound. This happens in real life too except ants send out a chemical that signals a warning to the other ants. At the end of the movie, the ants outnumber the crickets despite their much smaller size. This would happen in real life as well but with a slight twist. Ants will bite and inject chemicals to a predator when they feel threatened. All in all, this movie had many parallels between ants in real life and ants in a family film. A Bug's Life was a great learning tool that helped get the lifestyle of ants across on an easy to understand level.
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Billy Thompson
11/9/2015 09:57:46 pm
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11/9/2015 10:43:18 pm
Many Disney movies tend to stray away from reality in order to present fanciful tales that attract the attention of children and families. Despite false images presented in movies like Pocahontas and Mulan, A Bug’s Life actually displays a moderately accurate reflection on the life of many different species of insects, crustaceans, and arachnids. Although some facts were flawed, the overall concept of the movie is relatively true.
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Brandon McGee
11/9/2015 11:13:28 pm
The movie showed a animated but very true based outlook on the life of an ant. It showed how they collected their food and if everything isn't in the right structure the ants were nervous to keep going. It showed predator prey relationships. The grasshoppers were dominate over the ants but there was other insects that was dominate over grasshoppers. The most dominate predator through the movie was the bird
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Jesse
11/10/2015 08:02:56 am
The movie "bug life" was made by Disney to entertain children, with the movies purpose established it becomes easier to understand the inconsistencies between the real and fictitious examples of Insect anatomy.Disney did not want to portray insects in a way that presented them as aggressive territorial and sometimes, overtly violent. These characteristics are found to be boring to children as well as abjectly cruel by parents. thus, Disney portrayed its insects as peaceful and harmonious.
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Blake Johnson
11/10/2015 08:03:52 am
The movie a bugs life was a very interesting movie. It showed what bugs really do and some things that they wouldn't do in real life. A bugs life showed that ants live in colonies and work together to gather food and to take care of there ant hill. It shows what kind of environment they live in and how there are thousands of ants in one colony of ants. It also showed how grasshoppers can fly and that they eat seeds and stuff. It also had some fantasy stuff in it which made it more entertaining to watch. The bugs could all talk and they had human like personality traits. The bugs in the movie all came together at the end to work together to defeat the grasshoppers and that wouldn't happen in real life. The bird in the movie was realistic though because it didn't talk and it acted like a bird. In real life though ants wouldn't make a fake bird to scare grasshoppers and that made it more of a comedy. This movie was interesting and it showed some of what bugs would do and some of what they wouldn't do.
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Meshi Escalona
11/10/2015 08:20:25 am
One of the most obvious inaccurate details in this movie, is the fact that the arthropods speak the complex English language. We know for a fact that arthropods do not have vocal cords. Most insects create noise by rubbing their appendages together. For example, some arachnids (such as spiders) create noises by rubbing their mandibles together.
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11/10/2015 08:28:11 am
The directors produced this film to be fun and accurate. No child wants to watch a documentary. The directors had a few facts in the movie but the entire point was to make something fun to watch and not bore people. It shows the ants social network. It shows metamorphosis. It displays exoskeletons.
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tapanga
11/10/2015 09:24:35 am
In the movie A Bugs Life it shows us how the ants work and how they act about things. It also shows us different bugs like a flea, lighting bugs, stick bug, lady bug, caterpillar, spider, butterfly, a mantis, and grasshoppers. The movies shows us how the grasshoppers treat the ants and then the ants tell the grasshoppers to leave them alone. And that the ants make a bird to scare the grasshoppers because all of them are scared of bird. But the other bugs that come to help are really not good at fighting but they can put on a show and that's all they were doing.
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Hanna Bowles
11/10/2015 12:08:05 pm
Arthropods in A Bug's Life and in real life have differences and similarities. Some similarities are the number of the grasshoppers legs, joints, body movements, prey, and habitat life (environment). All insects have six legs;however, in the movie the ant's had four legs, but the grasshoppers had six. They all moved like they are suppose to except for facial movements. The ant's mentioned the line. They make a special line so the ant following the first knows where to go. Their habitat are the same as in real life. The ants had a ant hill and they were around trees. Some differences were facial movements, The restaurants, the Queen.
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Doniesha Johnson
11/10/2015 01:10:33 pm
In the movie a bugs life several things were accurate and several were not accurate some realistic things that we saw in the movie that ants really do is pick food that is relatively bigger then it is and also carry's the food back using pheromones to help get back to the ant hill. Another realistic thing is that if the Queen be died the colony would be lost they would live for a few more years but would eventually die off they relatively need a Queen to survive. And it would be more advantageous for a Male praying Mantis to have a relationship with a female Gypsy moth because female praying mantis like to eat their partners Also the Queen Ant and the princess ants had wings this is another realistic thing that happened in the movie . Some unrealistic things that happened in the movie were the ants and the grasshoppers were walking on two legs which is not true they generally have more then just two legs , they were also talking and in the movie the ants flick strayed from his ant hill ants usually do not stray from the ant hill so this was very uncommon. We can infer that the writers definitely had to study the insects they made the film about but they also had to add things in to make the movie a generally interesting and funny movie.
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Cameron Palmer
11/12/2015 08:15:14 am
Pixar is no stranger to making ecstatic films, however i'm quite impressed with their keen research as well. There are many points in the Pixar Film "Bugs Life" that shows precisely bugs behaviors. An example would right at the start of the movie where a leaf blocked the pheromone trail and the harvesting ants couldn't move.
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Adam Naylor
11/12/2015 08:32:07 am
The creators did quite a good job connecting with reality but did make a lot of changes. To start with they made the ants have two pairs of legs but they have 3 in reality. The grasshoppers were right though. They probably did that to make the ants look more human. They also gave them eyes in the movie though they only use antenna and pheromones to sense and communicate. Their society is as we would expect in reality. There would be one queen and the queen would choose and groom her successor. The ants would be scared to leave the colony because they would be leaving their home.
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