And there was some really awful treatment of a bird in it.
A cockatoo. Some variation on a sulphur-crested cockatoo. Not a lesser, like B. More like this one, a bigger cousin native to Australia (Cacatua galerita), photo from Wikipedia Commons:
In the movie, one of the main characters, in a "if you love something, set it free" moment, takes the big cockatoo to the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and lets the bird fly off.
There are so, so many things wrong with that scene, two of the big ones being:
- Cockatoos aren't native to the Pacific Northwest; and
- Most birds raised in captivity don't know how to survive in the wild.
In other words, it is likely that if that character's fit of weepy sentimentalism had been a real-life moment, it would have been a death sentence for the bird.
Look, I don't think movies have to be completely realistic to be good. But releasing a non-native pet parrot into a wilderness situation is beyond unrealistic... it's inappropriate. A pet parrot is raised to be imprinted to people (unless it was wild-caught, which is a completely different story). If you live with a pet parrot who was hatched into a human environment, as the human part of its flock it is your responsibility to provide for the bird in a human environment. If you don't want to do that, it's your responsibility to find someone who is willing.
(And yeah, I understand that there are people in the world who believe that no parrot should be a pet - all parrots should be allowed to be free in their native habitats. More power to them. My point here is that once that human-bird imprint has been made, it's really difficult to unmake.)
I was mortified by this scene, and even more mortified that the writers/producers/director apparently didn't question it as a plot point. Not just because it's an irresponsible act, but because a) it didn't do much to advance the story and b) it made some of the characters even less sympathetic. I turned off the DVD.
The parrot I live with, Bernini, was sitting with me on the couch. I took the DVD out of the player and told her that we would never make her fend for herself in the wild... even if she sometimes sorely tempts us with her bratty behavior.
