Amid the buzz surrounding Earth Day and a week of hyper-awareness of our planet and the changing climate we are living through comes Earth, a new movie from the first new Disney-branded label in 60 years: Disneynature. It is a beautiful piece of film that offers an intimate look into nature and how three animal families in particular struggle to survive in the ever-changing environment around them. Told through the eyes of the creative team behind the extremely popular Planet Earth series and through the voice of none other than James Earl Jones, it is a stunning portrait of the tremendously magnificent world surrounding us.

The footage taken from all corners of the earth and used throughout the film is truly breathtaking. The beauty of our planet is a kind that sometimes goes beyond descriptive words and the film really does let the pictures paint a thousand words. It opens in the arctic winter, not far from the North Pole. The scene is completely pitch black. A male polar bear runs across the thick ice, hunting for food in what seems to be eternal darkness. His family is tucked away in a cave, awaiting spring. Slowly the sun peeks over the horizon, bringing life and hope and also new challenges that have not existed in recent years. The planet is warmer and ice is melting faster than it used to. As the rest of the polar bear family emerges into the light, the brand new cubs are going to face a very difficult year ahead of them as they hunt for food while the ice melts away underneath them, ever sooner than expected.

Traveling south, the next family is hard at work making its way across a barren desert to find fresh water in the midst of a dry season. The elephant mother and her young newborn calf are joined by an entire herd of elephants as they migrate toward a delta that promises water and relief from the parched landscape surrounding them. As they travel they face huge dust storms that confuse and separate them and ultimately slow them down. They are forced to break for the night near a small oasis of fresh water. Unfortunately they are not the only ones who are taking advantage of the water. As night falls a pride of hungry lions surrounds them, seeking out the young weak members of the herd. They will be lucky to survive the night to continue on their journey to the delta that promises true rest and water.

Moving finally from land to sea, the third featured family, a humpback whale and her calf, are enjoying the pristine, warm waters near the equator. The newborn calf is learning how to swim, using the support of his mother to return to the surface to breathe. The waters are calm and provide an excellent environment for bringing up young, but pose a significant problem to the mother whale. There is no food for her here. She is feeding her young one 600 quarts of milk a day and is slowly starving in the process. She and the calf eventually embark on the longest migration of any marine mammal and travel 4000 miles to the southern waters of Antarctica, rich with food and nourishment for the whales.

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