Tom Hanks's New Movie "Here" & the Deep History of Your Front Yard: From T-Rex and Griffinflies to Rabbits and Honeybees
Knowing that Everything Has Evolved Provides Us With a Deeper Understanding of the World
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The upcoming Robert Zemeckis movie “Here,” written by Eric Roth, and starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, provides a fixed, single-camera view from the same spot in middle America, spanning several generations and even extending across different geological periods. Zemeckis, Roth, Hanks, and Wright first worked together on Forest Gump, which also was a similarly time-busting, filmmaking novelty that also portrayed the American experience across different decades. What sets Here apart, however, is that while the background continues to change as the generations pass, even showing scenes from the Cretaceous, the camera never moves:
The new movie—and especially the trailer that includes scenes of dinosaurs—reminds me of one of my first posts on Substack, “The History of Your Frontyard,” in which I describe the deep history of a typical American yard, which is also similar in biogeographical history to much of Western Europe. Specifically, I explain the origins of most of the well-known plants and animals that currently reside in or might pass through a local suburban neighborhood. I also describe the plants and animals that had lived here in previous geological eras—all the way back to the first land creatures.
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