(from my journal...)
"Ratatouille"
Saturday, July 7, 2007


Movie theater sign near the Smithsonian American Art Museum...

Both of our movie theaters are showing this film. Normally, I like to patronize the one in Old Town, because I like it better, (and they have gourmet smoothies in addition!) But their first showing wasn't until 11:45am. The competition had a showing at 9:30am. Yuma really gets wretched in the summer the more it nears the afternoon. Both Julia and I like to minimize heat exposure, so we went to the competion. (Oh, yes, I like to support 'Main Street', as sings James Taylor in another Pixar/Disney movie Cars, but not at the cost of unnecessary baking.)

Oh, "Ratatouille" is a sheer delight! We adored it. Rémy the rat with ambitions to become a chef won our hearts. The animation is extraordinary. Even the smallest details have been lovingly crafted. For instance, "the filmmakers created over 270 pieces of food in the computer. Every food item was prepared and styled in a real kitchen, then photographed for reference and eaten." (according to the movie website)

I can't help but wonder if the film creators weren't inspired by our earliest mammal ancestor, "Morgie":

Brass model at National Natural History Museum:
Morganucodon oehleri, 210 million years ago
"Morganucodon was only 10cm (4 in) long. But a close relative of this tiny creature was the first mammal on Earth. Its DNA was passed on to billions of descendants- including you."

Rémy the rat tells his brother he doesn't want to just be a rat, he wants to evolve into a creature beyond the basic rat instincts. And so he does.

Going back to that first rat-like mammal, most of the fossil remains of the 'Morgies' are in Wales and in the Yunnan Province in China. There's abundent examples, but there are no complete skeltons. The artist who created the model had to work with the paleobiologist:

"Staab fashioned a skeleton from clay. Next, just as in a forensic reconstruction, he layered clay muscles over the bones, then added clay "skin" and sculpted it to look like fur. After Staab sent pictures of his Morgie off to the Smithsonian, Behrensmeyer asked him to make the head a bit bigger to reflect a large brain in relation to body size, one of the defining characteristics of mammals. She also recommended that Staab enlarge Morgie's eyes, because Morganucodon probably was nocturnal and needed highly sensitive eyes for effective hunting. And she asked him to add hair to the tail.

After a bit more back and forth, the clay model finally satisfied both artist and scientist."
(from http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2003/november/around_the_mall.php.

I enjoyed Googling about Morgie and Rémy, and had lots of fun learning things about both. I discovered there is even a trailer for the movie with Japanese subtitles:

I wouldn't be surprised if this movie is eventually made into many subtitled versions, one of them certainly in Chinese that those in the Yunnan Province would understand. As the movie theater with the huge Ratatouille spread is in Chinatown, everything there has Chinese 'subtitles'. Note the McDonald's sign below the large image:

But Rémy would not be found there, oh no!

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