User:FatimaSani21/Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs 2


 * Environmental features:

Regarding the weather patterns, the FLDSMDFR reprogrammed itself to cause a dramatic climate shift. This shift enabled the ecosystem to endure the amount of vegetation that was not originally present in the town of Swallow Falls. With its reprogramming, the machine cultivated this entire ecosystem of living food so the food and animal mutations were brought about. Some of these foodimals were mutations of food and real animals while others were regular food with eyes and limbs. Examples of the latter include strawberries, pickles, an marshmallows. The former's examples consisted of creatures such as bananostriches (bananas and Ostriches), hippopotatoes (hippopotami and potatoes), and flamangoes (Flamingoes and mangoes).

Secondary succession was made possible by the activities of the FLDSMDFR. The community of Swallow Falls was originally populated by humans and ordinary animals but the explosion of the machine in the prequel of this film warranted their relocation. The town experienced an environmental disturbance brought on by the FLDSMDFR. Due to this, the communities in and ecosystem of Swallow Falls changed over time. New organisms in the form of foodimals were produced by the machine and consequently colonized the environment as their own habitat. The shift of the ecosystem also induced a drop in the barometric pressure in Swallow Falls. This occurred prior to storm and caused bugs like Mosquitoasts to bite Flint repeatedly.

Part of the FLDSMDFR'S reprogramming is not only repopulation of the environment but also reproduction on behalf of the foodimals' earlier generations. The foodimals do not visibly participate in activities leading to reproduction. The FLDSMDFR contributes to the new ecosystem by producing offspring as well as serving as its source of energy. In the film, certain species of foodimals would be produced in multiple quantities successively such as the infant marshmallows. Organisms like pickles and strawberries, on the other hand, were produced individually. This process of external reproduction was probably inspired by the concept of abiogenesis. The film depicts life being produced by matter that is not living.

A great problem the film had was with the time-scale flaw. The rate at which events occurred were typically inaccurate with regards to a real-world setting. An instance of this is when the FLDSMDFR is detached from the green vines connecting it to the environment. As this took place, all plants in the landscape lost their energy source an began to die in a short amount of time. While water shortage can make a tree more vulnerable, it would take much longer for plants to start dying in times of drought and no water accessibility. In a real-world setting, the organisms would not instantly wither as portrayed did in the film.


 * Species Interactions:

As food animals in the movie are completely unrealistic, they share many characteristics with real animals. When threatened by humans, small foodimals appeared more skittish, tending to hide and run, while big animals defend themselves and attack humans. When Flint and his friends first return to Swallow Falls, their first contact was with a living strawberry named Barry. Barry was a small, skittish creature the size of a volleyball. He appeared scared of Flint and ran into hiding until Sam Sparks showed him that they meant no harm. Their next encounter with a foodimal is not so pleasant. They come across a Tacodile and the creature instantly attacks them, pushing them to defend themselves. Once they reach safety, Sam Sparks realizes that the creature was a mother attempting to protect her babies from potential danger. Big animals such as the Tacodiles and the Watermelophants care for their children, which is an adequate behavior for big animals. They were simply exuding behavior of k-strategists. Their display of maternal instincts is accurate in depicting methods of parenting employed by real-life organisms such as elephants, pandas and whales.

The community engagements of these foodimals within this altered ecosystem are similar to that of actual animals. An example would be bananostriches, hippopotatoes and flamangoes sharing a watering hole as their main source of water. As each of their populations represent a community within the ecosystem, it is inevitable for them to share aspects of their habitats with one another.

While all of the food animals had a similar size to their real counterparts (hippos and elephants were one of the biggest, toads and mosquitoes were relatively small), cheesespiders in the movie were unrealistically huge, they reached sizes that no spider could ever reach. Another unrealistic feature they had was the ability to throw webs of cheese as a weapon. While real spiders are able to produce webs and build their habitats, they are not able to launch spiderwebs as displayed in the movie. The only exception which serves as a real-world parallel is a spider species known as Ground Spiders. These organisms have specific adaptations that allow them shoot silk-like webs, as depicted by cheesespiders in this film, to immobilize their prey.


 * Environmental Justice:

Instances of environmental injustice are portrayed in this sequel. Chester V, the main antagonist of this film, is a famed inventor and cherished mentor of Flint Lockwood. Due to his lies and deceit, Flint and his friends are originally led to believe that the foodimals are harmful creatures that should be exterminated. These are all part of his plans to harvest the foodimals and exploit them as profitable resources. Chester V intends to sell them to companies across the world to feed his greed. As the only producer of such a commodity, his profit margins will quantify despite the harm that will befall these living creatures. This aspect of the film highlights the callousness brought on by greed and how organisms that utilize resources can also be used and distributed as a resource themselves. At the expense of foodimal communities in Swallow Falls, Chester V neglects the rights of these living creatures to pursue his own personal interests.