Disney’s requisite DisneyNature release this year is Tiger. Clearly, this is about the diminishing White Rhino population. These titles are always so vague. Like, what is Chimpanzee about? Is Bears an LGBT movie? Kidding aside, if you have the desire to sit down and watch a tiger not know she’s being followed by a camera crew, and given some random name to help us narratively through the feature, then this is your game.
For me though, I’ve felt almost exactly the same about every single one of these. Pretty much, they all land at a B, or B-ish. I can’t say my world has been rocked by any of them, and they all seem fine. I think this might be my first with audio description, and since most of these Disney Nature releases are aimed at kids, we have a very pleasant kid friendly narrator in Rachel Marcus who blends with the built in celebrity narrator of Priyanka Chopra-Jonas. I’ve never heard it so delightfully described the killing of another animal by a predator, and then feeding upon that narrator. Rachel is so upbeat about it, it’s actually a little scary.
IOUTA (I still don’t know if I’m getting that company right), who has started picking up narration at Disney. They also do the narration for Renegade Nell. The description is fine, considering we’re following the same tigers, who are given random names to help us follow them better in some cooked up narrative. That makes it easier on the writer of the audio description, since they don’t have to try and describe nearly indistinguishable differences between four Tiger cubs.
If you like this kind of thing, this is probably something you’d enjoy. Unless you are just suddenly feeling a need to get in touch with nature, I’m not sure why anyone would be randomly interested in a nature documentary who hasn’t watched one before. you either know what you are in for, or you don’t. My entire purpose is just to let you know that Rachel Marcus does a good job, and keeps even the most graphic parts of the film feeling incredibly upbeat.
I hope Rachel makes a name for herself of describing incredibly difficult to watch scenes, but for kids.
Final Grade: B
