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Now, the NY Times had a feature about how the new Dreamworks animated film, Madagascar, went to great lengths accurately recreate New York City, such as looking at blueprints of Grand Central Terminal. And Gothamist does think those scenes look amazing - as well as how the animators depicted the Central Park Zoo. But one thing Gothamist feels we need to point out about the film, which is about the Central Park Zoo's zebra, lion, giraffe, and hippotamus getting involved in various wacky antics in the city, and then ending up shipped to Madagascar, is that the Central Park Zoo, as wonderful as it is, doesn't actually have a zebra, lion, giraffe or hippo on its property.
There are definitely penguins (who are the bad boys of Madagascar), not to mention polar bears, monkeys, seals and lots of birds, plus many petting zoo animals. For zebra, lions, giraffe and hippos, you have to go to the Bronx Zoo or some New Yorkers' apartments. And we're not even going to go into how the animals at the Central Park Zoo don't talk. But Gothamist is very excited to see how the animals navigate the subway!
The animators for the film also used the wonderful Miroslav Sasek book, This is New York, as inspiration for the film.
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congrats to the team for their attention to detail. its nice to see an effort to build realism into this fliq. there is nothing more annoying then seeing movie depictions of our city that are totally wrong.
Anyone else think this movie was inspired by Nick Park's Creature Comforts short?
It would have been much cooler for the them to use the Golden Lion Tamarins! Or the Silvery Marmosets. Now they are cool.
What's the point of getting a building exactly right if they're so lackadasical about the animals from the zoo? It's not like architects are going to say "Wow, GCT is just like in 'Madagascar'", but if the movie is a hit I imagine little kids are going to be disappointed that there's no hippos in the zoo.
Your statement that Dreamworks went to great lengths to accurately recreate New York City made me think that that is how I feel about Woody Allen movies (of which I am a big fan).
Then in this paranoid world one will have to ask the question; at what point does going to great lengths to accurate recreate grand central becomes a security risk?
Speaking of attention to NYC detail, was anyone else really annoyed by the subway scene in Spiderman 2?
hey gothamist, i think you're missing an "a" in madagascar.
I wonder if they recreated the Dr. Zizmor ads for the subway scenes.
if they stay true to any details about the central park animals then i hope they made the "bad boy " penguins gay!