BJ's Movie Reviews - Microcosmos

[gemfyre]

I was a bit concerned when the opening credits were all in French. Was the narration French or English? If it was French would it have subtitles? Turned out the narration was English. There was very little of it and none of it was needed.

It was helpful that I could ID most of the bugs and flowers and knew what was going on in 99% of the scenes. That always helps when you don't have narration to explain that the stuff the ants and drinking from the aphids' butts is honeydew or that the spider is building a bubble nest to lay it's eggs in.

Hillarious scene involving two snails mating to opera music. And one of a scarab beetle pushing a seemingly massive stone up an incline. And the wasps got me wondering... why hexagons? Both wasp nests and honeycomb is hexagonal. And cooled magma also tends towards hexagonal formations. What is it that makes a six sided shape so common in nature?

Ah yes, and they also had footage of a wasp and an orchid. Thank you, thank you.

There's much much more to say about this movie but I couldn't remember every single scene. It's just a really spiffy film to look at and even better if you know what's going on.

Comments

[sassamifrass.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the hexagon is a very stable shape? I know cylinders are one of the strongest shapes, hence our buildings being suported more often with cylindrical shapes rather than say, pallalelogrammy ones. I wish I knew more appropriate words ^~; Doesn't explain the lava though... I'd need a physisist to do that one :)

Re:

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

The lava cools that way because of how the crystals form, which leads me to another 6 sided figure. Snowflakes and crystals.

It's something in the way the molecules set themselves out. That I know. :)

Re:

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

miminal packing complexity :)

and the beetle was a dung beetle. I'll let you guess what the 'stone' was :)