Pandas movie rings with Bell
LOS ANGELES — Anyone who has seen Kristen Bell break down in hysterics over a sloth knows her affinity for animals, especially those of the cute and cuddly variety. So when the people behind the new Imax original film Pandas asked The Good Place star if she would consider narrating the documentary, it was a no-brainer.
“I’m not un-secretive about the fact that I’m an animal lover, or an Imax lover to be totally honest with you,” Bell said.
“I think they produce some of the best content out there and I take my kids to the science centre every time there’s a new Imax movie. I just think the patience with which they produce particularly their animal documentaries is kind of astounding.”
Pandas, from David Douglas and Drew Fellman (Born to Be Wild and Island of Lemurs: Madagascar), takes audiences to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China, where scientists are working toward a goal of releasing captive-born pandas into the wild, where only about 2,000 remaining pandas live.
The film, which will be in wide release beginning Friday (it’s playing at Imax Victoria inside the Royal B.C. Museum), focuses in on one, Qian Qian (pronounced Chen Chen), from cub stage to her supervised release into the wild and the people trying to make it happen.
Hou Rong, the director of research at Panda Base since 1994, has raised more than 200 baby pandas during her tenure and hopes that one day their work will help pandas thrive outside of captivity.
In an inspiring display of cross-cultural solidarity, she travels to New Hampshire to observe how Ben Kilham has, for 20 years, successfully raised orphaned black bear cubs for eventual release in the wild.
At Kilham’s suggestion, Panda Base hires American conservation biologist Jake Owens, whom Douglas calls “the Indiana Jones of biologists” to help supervise Qian Qian’s switch from city panda to country panda.
Bell, who got involved later in the process, didn’t get to meet the pandas, but hopes that one day she will. But that didn’t stop her from peppering the scientists with questions, such as how much do they weigh (“150 pounds”), how much do they feel like they weigh (“about 300 pounds”) and what do they smell like (“sweet grass and milk”).
An avid watcher of nature documentaries, Bell said she and her young daughters, Lincoln and Delta, particularly love David Attenborough and the Planet Earth series.
The girls saw an early cut of Pandas and “loved it,” which makes Bell all the more excited for additional kids and families to experience Pandas, too.
“It’s inspiring the next crop of biologists and conservationists,” she said.
She thinks the film will connect beyond animal diehards, too.
“It makes you feel good,” Bell said.
“It’s inspiring, it’s beautiful, it’s adorable, it’s educational and, personally, I think currently the world could use more things that feel good, you know?”