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On Tuesday evening, just after I got back from the movies, I saw the infamous “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid” video. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
The footage looked realistic enough. Far superior to Birdemic, at any rate. But there was something off about it, especially what seemed like the common trick of shooting something surprising at a distance, dropping the camera, and bringing the viewer back to the action with a close-up meant to hide the seams between fantasy and reality. Being that the movie I just went to see was The Hobbit – the climax of which features giant eagles that come to the rescue of the story’s imperiled heroes – I settled with making an unoriginal crack about the video and called it a night.
It didn’t take long for experts to debunk the film. The eagle didn’t appear to be any identifiable species, and, more importantly, there were various aspects of behavior and lighting that just didn’t make sense. Within a few hours, the digital animation students who created the video stepped forward...
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