Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins
| Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins | |
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Region 1 DVD cover
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| Directed by | Chris Barker Mike Slee |
| Produced by | Caroline Hawkins Clare Birks Carole Tomko Mick Kaczorowski Mark Wild |
| Written by | Caroline Hawkins |
| Narrated by | Whoopi Goldberg |
| Music by | Laurent Ferlet |
| Cinematography | Robin Smith John Walters |
| Edited by | Oral Norrie Ottey |
| Distributed by | The Weinstein Company |
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Release date
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Running time
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75 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a 2008 television film created by Discovery Films and Oxford Scientific Films as a prequel to the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. A scripted documentary narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the film details the life of a meerkat named Flower from birth to her becoming the leader of a meerkat group called the Whiskers. The film is based on the research notes of the Kalahari Meerkat Project and primarily uses wild meerkat "actors" to represent those in the story. Shot over two years at the Kuruman River Reserve in Northern Cape, South Africa, the film employed a much larger crew than the series. Some scenes were shot at a wildlife park in the United Kingdom, while others were created using camera tricks and trained film animals.
The 75-minute film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival before its television premiere on Animal Planet on May 25, 2008. While it was praised for its cinematography, for maintaining the depth of coverage of the television series, and for its accessibility to newcomers to the series, it was criticized for not offering anything new to fans. The Kalahari Meerkat Project noted that the film was not completely accurate but praised it overall and recommended against analyzing it. Several reviewers praised Goldberg's narration, but the script was criticized as being too simplistic for adult viewers.
The meerkat Flower is born in the Kalahari Desert on March 15, 2000, to Holly, the leader of a meerkat group called the Whiskers. After an attack by a rival group, the Lazuli, the Whiskers are forced to surrender their territory and move to a new home. A hawk kills Holly when Flower is a year old, and her father abandons the group to find a new mate. Flower's sister Viale becomes the group's matriarch and chooses Youssarian, a roving male from the Lazuli, as her mate. Flower mates with Yossarian's brother, Zaphod, but Viale kills the resulting pups and banishes Flower from the group, allowing her to return later. During a time of starvation and drought, Viale attempts to lead the group across a road to forage. As she crosses, she is struck and killed by a passing truck. As the Whiskers attempt to adjust to the loss of their leader, a snake approaches the group. Flower steps in to lead an attack to drive it off. In doing so, she becomes the new leader of the group. Zaphod returns to the group to be her mate, while Yossarian steps aside and leaves the group. Flower leads the Whiskers back to their original home, and after a brief battle, the Whiskers reclaim it from the Lazuli. At end of the film, an on-screen note describes Flower's death during the third season of Meerkat Manor and the children she left behind.
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