JANE AND THE DRAGON cgi animation from WETA studios NZ
OK I've been watching this cartoon series, from the "WETA" studios in NZ, who've previously worked on projects such as Lord Of The Rings movies. Conveniently during breakfast time on weekday mornings and it seems ok, it looks like they have tried to be more realistic to medievil times than most other cartoons and kids shows to date.
The characters don't wear obvious trousers, which as I understand it from my SwanCon education are a recent invention, so the guys wear 3/4 length type smocks (special name ?). Women and girls are depicted in near ankle length dress.The main character "jane" wears a mini skirt (perhaps in order to flash a bit more leg at the audience I guess ! ) ok I'll let them away with that one, as "poetic licence".
I don't like the characters stupidly thin arms though. They seem to be going for the anorexic look there.
When Dragon takes off he doesn't lift smoothly but in short bursts and I must say this is realistic. Although I can't claim to have seen a lot of dragons taking-off in my time, I used to have large Embden geese, which could fly....to a degree. Plus remembering what I've seen on wildlife docu's of the largest birds, eagles and condors etc
(Dragon's wings are of course impossibly small for such a large body-mass. However we can forgive that aspect on the basis that he is "a magical creature",)
So congrats go to the animators for researching flight characteristics of larger animals. My only amendment might have been to have the dragon springup some, initially using his leg muscles. Although perhaps I'm over-thinking this. . Chickens etc certainly spring up substantially, even unfledged few-day-old chicks can spring upto several times their own body height, the effect is possibly lesser, the greater the mass of the animal.
I remember seeing one of my geese doing a vertical take-off from a standing start, and it didn't 'spring' up, not that I noticed, but the way it gained altitude.........was EXACTLY like the Dragon as depicted in the cartoon.
However I'm going to have to knock off a few points for one minor error in historical facts.Their gardener (named "rake") grows the vegetables for the castle's residents. Recently he mentioned "Runner Beans".
The only bean native to Europe and the Mediterranean and neighbouring Asia.......as far as I know.......was the Broad Bean (Vicia faba). It certainly spread throughout the Roman Empire.
AFAIK, *ALL* other vegetable beans are native to Central and South America.The Runner Bean specifically, is native to southern South America somewherearound coastal Chile iirc. So unlikely to have been in Medievil Europe until well after 1492...... the Greenlander-Vikings might well have gotten to North-Eastern Canada, but I don't reckon they ever got as far as Chile !
cheerio
Cate
The characters don't wear obvious trousers, which as I understand it from my SwanCon education are a recent invention, so the guys wear 3/4 length type smocks (special name ?). Women and girls are depicted in near ankle length dress.The main character "jane" wears a mini skirt (perhaps in order to flash a bit more leg at the audience I guess ! ) ok I'll let them away with that one, as "poetic licence".
I don't like the characters stupidly thin arms though. They seem to be going for the anorexic look there.
When Dragon takes off he doesn't lift smoothly but in short bursts and I must say this is realistic. Although I can't claim to have seen a lot of dragons taking-off in my time, I used to have large Embden geese, which could fly....to a degree. Plus remembering what I've seen on wildlife docu's of the largest birds, eagles and condors etc
(Dragon's wings are of course impossibly small for such a large body-mass. However we can forgive that aspect on the basis that he is "a magical creature",)
So congrats go to the animators for researching flight characteristics of larger animals. My only amendment might have been to have the dragon springup some, initially using his leg muscles. Although perhaps I'm over-thinking this. . Chickens etc certainly spring up substantially, even unfledged few-day-old chicks can spring upto several times their own body height, the effect is possibly lesser, the greater the mass of the animal.
I remember seeing one of my geese doing a vertical take-off from a standing start, and it didn't 'spring' up, not that I noticed, but the way it gained altitude.........was EXACTLY like the Dragon as depicted in the cartoon.
However I'm going to have to knock off a few points for one minor error in historical facts.Their gardener (named "rake") grows the vegetables for the castle's residents. Recently he mentioned "Runner Beans".
The only bean native to Europe and the Mediterranean and neighbouring Asia.......as far as I know.......was the Broad Bean (Vicia faba). It certainly spread throughout the Roman Empire.
AFAIK, *ALL* other vegetable beans are native to Central and South America.The Runner Bean specifically, is native to southern South America somewherearound coastal Chile iirc. So unlikely to have been in Medievil Europe until well after 1492...... the Greenlander-Vikings might well have gotten to North-Eastern Canada, but I don't reckon they ever got as far as Chile !
cheerio
Cate
posted by Catherine Jemma at 10:54 am
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