I’m probably a little slow about this, but I finally saw Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole last night. (There’s something to be said for being patient and cheap.) I didn’t think the movie was bad, but not great.

I had some issues with it though. Why did the guardians live so far away while Soren’s family could have been with them? At the end of the movie, Soren’s parents show up as if they knew what he’d been up to and it didn’t seem to be a big deal for them to get to the guardian place. Then there’s the old guy who did the training. I have to think that every first grader would see the Star Wars storyline of the young warrior being trained by the gristled veteran who encourages him to trust his “gizzard”. The kids must have been shouting at the screen, “Hey! That’s what Luke had to do to take down the Death Star!” Nothing new there, just a repackage.

And what’s with those names? Soren is the only name that I understood. All the other names sounded like the owls burping. It probably worked better in the book, but I’m sorry, for a movie, it just didn’t work at all. In fact, I have to think that the book is a much better experience  than the movie. It probably explains a lot more of what we were supposed to understand. Like, what was all the metal bit magic about? It was bad, I get that, but there was no explanation of what it was. And how does an owl fly through a fire storm with getting singed AT ALL? Oh yeah, he trusted his gizzard.

Yes, yes I know that it was PG rated and the first graders aren’t poking at it like I am, but I like the idea of giving kids excellence, not just entertainment. An entertaining story will keep them interested until the next one starts. An excellent story will stay with them forever. As adults, they will think back to that experience and remember how it effected them.

What did I like about the movie? The animation was spectacular. I don’t know how they do it, but animation seems to get better and better all the time. The ocean waves and fire and lightness of the feathers was entirely realistic. I loved how good it looked. CG is amazing.

I’ll probably pass on the next Owls of Ga’Hoole movie, because it looks like it was set up for a sequel, but I wouldn’t mind reading the book.