Fairy tales always
portray positivism and values to the viewers especially kids. By watching fairy
tales, kids able to gain positive values and lessons in many aspects. A child's imagination is a dominant and unique. With this
imagination comes a cultural literacy; fairy tales often include different
cultures and ways of doing things. They teach children about cultural
differences, environmental issues in the world to make them understand and use
their creativity and ability while boosting their curiosity to learn new things
and experience new places.
In this reflective essay, I will lay down some important values
and lessons that we can adapt from a fairy tale entitled “FernGully, The Last
Rainforest (1992)”. The most important part is the background and synopsis of
the movie. Secondly, the environmental issues that can be raised from the
movie. Thirdly, the lesson learnt and hopes for the environment protection in
the future.
The Background of
the movie
FernGully is not a typical fairy tale like
normal fairy tales do. FernGully centers around an environmental
theme. “FernGully appeared during the environmentalist movement of the early
1990s.”However, FernGully
depicts fairies’ live and it also
touches the history in which the movie was based off of. The movie takes place
in Australia near Mount Warning; Mount
Warning, a mountain in the Tweed Range the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, was formed from a volcanic plug of the
now-gone Tweed Volcano. The mountain is located 14
kilometres west-south-west of Murwillumbah, near the border between New South
Wales and Queensland. This mountain has a lot of legends and
cultural significance to the Aboriginal people.
The natives of the land believe in the
balance of nature and in these Gods/spirits that help regulate the impact of
humanity on the environment. For the sake of tourism development in early
1990’s, the Australians encourage tourists to climb Mount Warning. However, the
indigenous population strongly discourages it because it is a sacred place for
them. Many years ago the natives of the land used to perform rituals in this
mountain but they are no longer allowed to.
The synopsis of
the movie
“FernGully – The Last Rainforest” is the story of the fairies who
live in a peaceful area in the forest called FernGully which has been protected
for many years by Magi, a wise fairy with strong powers and abilities. Her
granddaughter Crysta is a charming, beautiful fairy and curious nature living
in FernGully, a pristine rainforest free from human intervention. The fairies
of FernGully once lived in harmony with humans, but believe them to have gone
extinct after having been driven away by a dark spirit named Hexxus. Crysta is
the apprentice of Magi, a motherly-figure fairy who imprisoned Hexxus in a
tree. At first, Crysta and the other fairies do not believe on the existence of
humans. One day Crysta explores a new part of the forest and meets Batty,
a bat who claims to have been experimented on by humans, giving him
an obstreperous and unstable personality.
However, fairies refuse to believe him, except for Crysta, who
volunteers to investigate the situation. When she was flying across the forest
outside FernGully, she was attracted by the sound of the “Leveller” and “X”
mark on every trees. Later, she saw Zak,
a young lumberjack whom Crysta accidentally shrinks when she tries to save him
from being devour by a falling tree, though does not know how to restore him to
normal size.
The tree that Hexxus is imprisoned in was accidentally cut down by
Tony and Ralph, Zak's superiors. Hexxus quickly begins to regain his powers by
feeding on pollution. He manipulates the humans to drive to FernGully. In
FernGully, Zak meets Pips, a fairy envious of Zak's relationship with Crysta.
Zak begins to fall in love with Crysta, but hides the true reason that the
humans had returned and his position as one of the workers to destroy the
forest. When the signs of Hexxus's resurrection begin to manifest themselves in
poisoned trees and rivers, he finally admits that humans are destroying the
forest.
The fairies mount an attempt to defend their homes, but knowing
their fight is hopeless, Zak convinces Batty to aid him in stopping the machine
before it destroys them. When Zak makes his presence known to Tony and Ralph,
Hexxus takes over the machine and begins to wildly destroy the forest.
Magi sacrifices herself to give the fairies additional power and a
chance to safeguard their home. She tells Crysta to remember everything she's
learned. Zak manages to stop the machine, depriving Hexxus the source of his
power, but he manifests himself within the oil in the machine and begins to
ignite the forest ablaze. Crysta seemingly sacrifices herself by allowing
herself to be devoured by Hexxus and all seems lost, until he begins to sprout
limbs and leaves like a tree.
Pips and the rest of the fairies rally to the powers they have
been given, which causes the seed that Crysta fed him to start growing wildly.
Hexxus is imprisoned by the newly grown tree at the very border of FernGully
which bursts into bloom. Crysta appears after the fight, having survived her
ordeal and successfully succeeded Magi as a magical fairy. She gives Zak a
seed, begging him to remember everything that has transpired and she sadly
restores him to his human size. Remembering the seed in his hand, Zak promises
to remember his adventure, and buries the seed in the soil before telling Tony
and Ralph that things need to change as they leave the forest behind. The seed
sprouts new growth for FernGully, as Crysta follows Pips with Batty behind her.
Reflection on the aspect of
environmental protection: Effects of deforestation and the danger of pollution
towards the ecosystem.
There are many similarities between
Australia’s history and the film FernGully. FernGully depicts humans as the
destructive settlers of Australia. The movie highlights the greediness of
humans and how humans understand the importance of ecosystem or the lives of
other living beings. Well, sadly they failed to think about the effect of their
acts as accordingly. The early settlers of Mount Warning heavily
destroyed the wildlife around there for many years. However it was lucky that
the government (humans) finally realized the effects and decided to turn Mount
Warning and the land around it into a national park.
Based
on the history, the settlers that began to inhabit Australia caused a lot of
destruction to the environment. They use machines and levellers to destruct all
the trees and cut off the wildlife which affected the ecosystem and limited the
resources for the indigenous people, who are the original people that inhabited
Australia. The fairies in FernGully
represent the indigenous people that live originally in Mount Warning area. The fairies were too naive as to
think that the settlers (humans) would lead them to destruction (that somehow
can be true). This movie is also based off of Aboriginal beliefs. They
believe that the legend deals with a spirit that is destructive but regulates
the balance of nature.
The
negative impacts of deforestation cannot be measured in one day but can be seen
instantaneously. It destructs the nature and habitat of the living things, left
them either suffering or dying. Unplanned property development can be the major
cause of the extinction of many valuable creatures years ago. This effects can
be seen in the movie when the humans start to do the deforestation work and cut
down all the trees in the forest to create more space for living. Humans mark
“X” and randomly cut down the tree without considering the types, shapes and their
importance towards the ecosystem.
While
deforestation is a major factor that contributes to the loss of habitat in
FernGully, pollution is also a contributing factor. Instead of the typical
trash on the ground example, pollution is demonstrated in the form of the
antagonist known as Hexxus. The environmental consequences of sudden rapid
industrialization have resulted in various incidents of land, air and water
resources sites being contaminated with toxic materials and other pollutants,
threatening humans and ecosystems with serious health risks. Pollution can be
considered as direct or indirect change in any component of the biosphere that
is harmful to the living components and in particular undesirable for humans.
Super-duper fine pollution particles are so small that they can enter the blood
stream, travel to the brain, and damage the blood-brain barrier, which can
cause neuro-inflammation. Inhaling poisonous air is as hazardous as smoking. It
is not only the humans who are affected from this polluted environment but also
the animals.
Moreover,
the development by the settlers do not only left Aborigines limited in
resources but they had to resist being colonized. Colonization greatly impacted
their culture, religion and beliefs. Since nature is part of their soul, this
should be protected in order to make sure that the beliefs and practices will
be streamed down to the next generation.
Conclusion:
There
are a lot of things that I can adapt from this movie. We have to understand that
people are so greedy, they will do everything even the one that can endanger
other people just to get what they want. I believe that we cannot stop the
property development and industrialization, however, we should balance this so
that it can be beneficial not only for human but also for the other creatures.
Moreover, environment is something that we have to protect, in this movie we
can see that the fairies are struggling themselves just to make sure that
everyone is safe and their home are free from danger. Some people will take
environment issue lightly as they do not understand the importance of having
green forest around us. Obviously the forest provide necessary amount of oxygen
to us (if people ever learned science in their live). Every individual owns
certain responsibility of maintaining few points such as not throwing garbage
all around, growing trees, using public transport instead of their own. We must
shun excessive consumption and avoid careless and deliberate disposal of
post-consumption waste resources which could otherwise be recycled and
would led to pollution control.
Other
than that, we have to understand that we are not the only creature that has
been created by god to live in this planet. We have to consider other creatures
as well such as animals or even spirits that we can’t see. Pollution on the
other hand can be very significant cause of health issues. Pollution
happens due to the release of both tangible and intangible contaminants. These
can be released naturally or by humans themselves accidentally or deliberately.
In fact, more than 200 million people are affected due to toxic pollutants.
The
increase in the pollution level over the years by human and natural causes has
caused severe damage to the earth’s ecosystem. There a lot of negative impacts
of this pollution to our habitat, lifestyles and everything on earth that is
being adversely affected. Though natural causes cannot be stopped, but human
beings’ accidental and deliberate actions can easily be stopped.
Future hope for the
environment:
After
watching this movie, I really hope that people can consider the nature before
they take any further action for the development of the property. They should
consider the short term and the long term effects of the deforestation and the
development. The Government has to play the major role in adopting of clean and
low waste technology, reusing and recycling, environment audit and pollution
monitoring activities of the industry so that it will comply with the law that
has been stipulated. The Government in order to evade pollution has encouraged
industries to regard ‘pollution’ as an economic problem and take reasonable
actions to control the release of polluted/toxic/harmful gases at their end.
They need to understand the implication of such act towards the ecosystem.
With
the rising rate of pollution over the years, there is a worrisome increase in
the rate of human diseases, and death rate of humans, various animals and
plants on earth. People on the other hand should work hand in hand to spread
the knowledge and spirit to everyone. People should understand the important of
nature and do not just sit still and become the major cause of such
destruction. Well, enough is enough, we have to put a stop on this environmental issue for the
benefits of our future generation.
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