Zack Snyder: Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

In 2010, Zack Snyder released a CGI animated children’s film, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. Many critics, whether during the film’s 2010 release or more recently, labelled the film 300 for kids. Whether this phrase is meant derisively or not, it is actually instructive, as Legend of the Guardians shares many characteristics with 300. For one, it’s a breathlessly-paced adventure film with slow-motion action, over-the-top heroics, and a straightforward battle between good and evil. More importantly, it is a film obsessed with mythmaking and the power that stories hold over people (or owls, in this case). For all its fantasy adventure tropes and CGI animation conventions, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole has all the formal tics and thematic obsessions of a Snyder film, through and through.

Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga’Hoole examines the struggle between good vs evil through the story of two juvenile barn owl brothers, Soren (Jim Sturgess) and Kludd (Ryan Kwanten), who live high in the branches of a tree in the mythical Tyto Forest. In the earliest moments of the film, their father Noctus (Hugo Weaving), tells them stories of the heroic Guardians of Ga’Hoole, righteous owl warriors from olden times that do battle against the nefarious owls known as Pure Ones. Soren drinks in every promise of the story, but Kludd finds no comfort in these tales of supposed make-believe. He’s too driven by rivalry with Soren and jealousy over his parents’ supposed preference for his brother. When learning to glide from branch to branch under their father, Soren proves a natural glider, while Kludd struggles to control the wind under his wings. His father’s praise for Soren plants a seed of resentment in Kludd, which is given a chance to grow when he and Soren are kidnapped and taken to the St. Aegolius Home for Orphaned Owls.

At St. Aegolius, Soren and Kludd learn that the place is no orphanage, but a prison, and that the Pure Ones are very much real and are enslaving other owls to work their mines and become warriors for their army. The Pure One queen Nyra (Helen Mirren) senses the bitterness in Kludd and chooses him to become a warrior, while Soren is sent to work the mines under the tutelage of the boreal owl, Grimble (also Hugo Weaving). Soren befriends the elf owl, Gylfie (Emily Barclay), and discovers that Grimble is a fellow slave, working for the Pure Ones to guarantee the safety of his family. But Grimble senses promise in Soren and Gylfie and after he teaches them to fly, he confirms the existence of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole and helps the young owls escape, sending them to get help from the fabled owl warriors. In the midst of their escape, Soren encounters Kludd and begs his brother to come with them, but Kludd chooses to stay, accepting that the Pure Ones are now his family.

As you can tell from this in-depth plot description, Legend of the Guardians is packed full of fantasy lore and elaborate world-building. It relies on tropes of the hesitant hero and conjures a world of medieval animal kingdoms that draws on everything from Brian Jacques’ Redwall series to Kenneth Oppel’s Silverwing novels. The film is based on the first three books in a children’s fantasy series by Kathryn Lasky and was intended to spark an ongoing series of films. Thus, it belongs to the literary tradition of children’s fantasy. It was also released in the wake of Avatar (2009) during the 3D cinema craze that included fellow 2010 animated flying simulator, How to Train Your Dragon. Thus, it attempts to tap into several wells of pop culture trends.

For one, it’s an adaptation of a well-liked series and was intended to follow the successful template of the Harry Potter series that saw enormous popularity in translation from book to screen. Similar to how Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) introduces Harry Potter to the magical world of wizards and sees him take his first steps in training to become a legendary hero alongside fellow outcasts, Legend of the Guardians sees Soren (Jim Sturgess) journey to the fantastical world of the Owls of Ga’Hoole and train to become the sort of hero he hears about in bedtime stories. As Harry Potter has Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, close friends and fellow social outcasts, to cling to in times good and bad, Soren has his motley crew of owl friends to aid in his quest, including Gylfie, and then Digger (David Wenham), a jokester burrowing owl, and Twilight (Anthony LaPaglia), the self-styled poet and great grey owl, whom Soren and Gylfie meet while fleeing the Pure Ones and heading for the Great Tree of Ga’Hoole. Each friend conforms to a children’s story character type—for instance, Digger is the oddball comedian, Twilight is the wise and eccentric storyteller. When they meet a soothsaying Echidna (Barry Otto) on the coastal edges of the kingdom, the Echidna makes explicit the conventions by labelling each of them with a generic character title, such as the “Navigator” or the “Poet.”

As much as Legend of the Guardians conforms to conventions laid out by Harry Potter and other children’s fantasy, it is also indebted to The Lord of the Rings and the dire militaristic tones of Peter Jackson’s movies in particular. For one, it’s set in Australia and taps into the exotic appeal of the land “down under” similar to how The Lord of the Rings presents New Zealand as the fantasy kingdom of Middle-earth. As well, it alludes to The Lord of the Rings, not only in casting Hugo Weaving, but in its visuals and dialogue, such as a flight across the ocean in a snowstorm that recalls the snowy march across Caradhras in The Fellowship of the Ring; a character even yells “We have to find the island” in the exact tone that Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) yells “Gandalf, we must turn back.”

More importantly, Legend of the Guardians presents itself as a story of the battle between good and evil, between the righteous Owls of Ga’Hoole and the fascistic Pure Ones in a natural kingdom where humankind is absent. The Owls of Ga’Hoole are like the elves of Tolkien’s world, living in a hidden, treed oasis that recalls Rivendell and Lothlorien, while the Pure Ones live in an industrialized wasteland of volcanoes and barren earth reminiscent of Mordor. Like Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings films, Soren is taken with stories of the past and his quest is presented as the latest iteration of a story that has occurred and reoccurred over the ages.

Also like The Lord of the Rings, Legend of the Guardians offers opposing visions of power and purpose in the world. In The Lord of the Rings, the Ring promises power, while conversely the Fellowship’s Quest promises freedom. In Legend of the Guardians, the Guardians promise freedom and peace, while the Pure Ones “offer power and purpose,” as spoken by their king, Metal Beak (Joel Edgerton). Of course, being a Zack Snyder film, Legend of the Guardians is not content to imply an archetypal binary; it builds one into the very structure of its storytelling. Soren represents good. Kludd represents evil. The struggle between the two replicates the struggle between the Free Peoples of Middle-earth and Mordor in The Lord of the Rings, or the Spartans and the Persian Empire in 300. 

But where 300 was criticized (and, as I argue, mostly unwarrantedly so) for allegedly containing fascist tropes in its depiction of the Spartans, Legend of the Guardians explicitly sets up its villains as being fascist racial supremacists. It appears that Snyder is correcting for past criticisms and incorporating self-critique into the work itself (something he would do again with Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice). Snyder has declared many times that he doesn’t intend political messages in his films, so it’s unclear whether he is trying to clarify the political readings of his films. But he’s also a savvy entertainer and marketer. Thus, his course-correction has arguably more to do with consumer satisfaction than anything else, as he attempts to make sure that his films cannot be taken the wrong way by skeptical audiences.

The dynamic of Legend of the Guardians replicates the binary between individualistic heroes and a faceless evil empire that’s present in 300. But where the whiteness of the Spartans of 300 was misconstrued as implying racial purity, Ga’Hoole is explicitly shown as a diverse kingdom that favours individuality. For instance, each citizen is assigned duties commensurate to their individual talents, such as forging or fighting. Whereas the Pure Ones, obsessed with genetic purity (as their name suggests), only accept Tytos (the genus consisting of barn, grass, and masked owls) into their ranks, Ga’Hoole welcomes every species of owl. Metal Beak even mentions that “Weakness is for the lower species.” Furthermore, the inhabitants of Ga’Hoole don’t even blanch at the presence of Mrs. Plithiver (Miriam Margolyes), the snake nursemaid for Soren and his siblings, suggesting an openness to other species and a welcoming nature that is absent in the Pure Ones’ kingdom.

The archetypal binary between good and evil, individual and empire, is not the only holdover from 300. Snyder again draws on physical deformity representing moral rot, in Metal Beak’s scared face and horrifying visage—Snyder even seems to repeat a shot from 300 with Metal Beak’s face disappearing into shadow until only his eyes are visible on screen. Legend of the Guardians also shares 300’s distaste for compromising politicians. One of the Ga’Hoole leaders, Allomere (Sam Neill), is presented almost identically to Dominic West’s Theron from 300: a traitor masking his betrayal with notions of placating and self-serving “moderation.” Coming after 300, Allomere’s eventual betrayal of the Guardians is not surprising, but it does clarify that Snyder has a particular distaste for those powermongers that cloak their self-interests in self-styled and ultimately false moderate and principled politics. 

But even more than the archetypes, it’s the foregrounding of storytelling within the film’s narrative that marks this film as a quintessential Snyder production. In the opening scene, Noctus explains to Soren, Kludd, and their little sister Eglantine (Adrienne DeFaria) that “Stories are a part of our culture, our history. We learn from them.” Legend of the Guardians is about which stories you’ll choose to learn from: the good or the bad. Soren learns from the tales of Lyze of Kiel, which his father tells him at bedtime, that courage and bravery are necessary to make the world a better place. These lessons become even more significant when he learns that his mentor in Ga’Hoole, Ezylryb (Geoffrey Rush), is in fact the Lyze of Kiel of the stories. Kludd learns that power is capable of cowing those weaker than you and bending nature to your will. The legends of the Guardians and the legends of the Pure Ones define these two brothers, but they can also trap them, as is shown in the case of Kludd. For Snyder, the story one tells and the story one believes have the power to shape reality, so choosing the right story is of utmost importance.

Thus, Legend of the Guardians offers moral instruction in its stories. You can be like Soren and choose goodness, agency, and sacrifice, or you can be like Kludd and give into your fears and lose your identity in the process. To communicate the dire nature of this choice, Snyder is careful to show the brutality of the natural world in the film. Owls are predators, and even in the opening scene we see how they live by killing rodents. But the film does not present them as only predators. In Ga’Hoole, they are encouraged to be creative and maintain peace in the natural world. The Pure Ones, however, train owls to be nothing but predators, stripping away their other attributes. In the end, as seen in shadow in the epilogue, Kludd is transformed into nothing more than a duplicate of Metal Beak, another individual who has allowed his inward pain to manifest outwardly, shaping his physical form and ruining the world around him. Look no further than his enslavement of Eglantine for proof of the depths of his moral evil. Snyder posits that a morally good story is what is necessary to avoid the pain that manifests in Kludd and the Pure Ones. It’s the story as embodied by Ezylryb and taught to Soren in lessons and on the battlefield.

But it is not a simple lesson and it is not as simple as many storybook tales. Snyder makes Ezylryb his mouthpiece in the film, allowing him to communicate the lesson that is so important to Snyder throughout his work. Snyder believes that stories and myths are essential to forming our values, but he also understands that stories only attain power through action: you have to act on the lessons learned to prove the lesson as valuable in the first place. As well, there are consequences to actions and sacrifice always is necessary to do what is right. An hour and two minutes into the film, Ezylryb lectures Soren on the harsh realities of heroism:

Fancy it must be hard meeting your hero and seeing that he’s real, and not a myth.… What did you expect? Some Tyto with gleaming armour and battle claws? The moon rising behind him?… Well this is what it looks like when you’ve actually fought in battle. It’s not glorious. It’s not beautiful. It’s not even heroic. It’s merely doing what’s right. And doing it again. And again. Even if someday you look like this.

Ezylryb is referencing his war wounds and dead eye in his comments to Soren, making plain the physical and mental cost of war. It shows that both he and Metal Beak bear the physical marks of war, but where Ezylryb bears his wounds as reminders of the sacrificial cost of doing what’s right, Metal Beak allows them to warp him and make him less than a full person. As Ezylryb makes clear, stories are important, but they only point an individual in a direction: it is up to the individual to take the bold step in that direction to make the lessons of the story come true.

When Allomere pushes against the Guardians going to war and challenges the aging Ezylryb on whether he would be willing to sacrifice himself if what Soren has told the Guardians is true, Ezylryb rises to the challenge: “Of course I’d fight. What other course is there to take?” Ezylryb is willing to sacrifice in the name of the values he stands for, and sacrificial action is what is necessary to save the day.

Kludd demonstrates the opposite, refusing to sacrifice himself and craving only power. He’s eventually consumed in flame, a metaphor for the hate that burns within him. For Snyder, redemption is not a given. Despite Kludd being Soren’s brother, the film doesn’t offer him special status or warp the narrative to give him a redemptive safety valve. Instead, he suffers a fate similar to Scar’s in The Lion King as he falls into the forest fire instead of surrendering and accepting Soren’s help. Kludd’s fate is proof to Ezylryb’s words about the harshness of reality: stories are useful in teaching lessons about life and pointing individuals in the right direction, but they require real life action to be made meaningful. Legend of the Guardians demonstrates Snyder’s belief in sacrifice and the physical cost of moral action. Considering that Legend of the Guardians is a children’s film, this counts as a weighty lesson. 

In fact, it’s a shockingly dark film for children. The content is often dire, from Kludd’s enslavement of his sister to the brutal violence in the climactic battle. Some children will likely find the film’s seriousness thrilling, as the film plays as counterprogramming to so much children’s entertainment that is pandering and unserious. But there’s no doubt that other children may also find the material too intense for their tastes. Even when working in a children’s genre, Snyder doesn’t pull his punches.

The film’s fixation on legendary stories and the sacrificial cost of heroism mark it as a true Zack Snyder film and not some work-for-hire animation gig. But it’s the formal approach that is perhaps even more obviously Snyder-esque than the themes. From the opening credits, which show an owl swooping through clouds in speed-ramped slow motion, you can tell that the film bears Zack Snyder’s authorial vision. The production was not as high-budget as the typical Pixar or Disney film, so it lacks the technical perfection of a film like Wall-E (2008), but it looks good and avoids an uncanniness in its photorealistic approach to owls.

Furthermore, it demonstrates a brilliant use of light and shadow, similar to Snyder’s work in 300. In fact, considering how much of 300 and Watchmen are CGI, it’s an obvious step for Snyder to forego real people completely and make an entirely animated feature. Snyder demonstrates a joy in the freedom of the digital camera that is most manifest in the many flying sequences. When Soren and Gylfie escape from the Pure Ones, they whisk through the air and the camera delights in showing them adjusting to the wind and soaring through clouds. Soren asks Gylfie, “Does it feel like you thought it would?” She responds, “No, it feels much better.” Gylfie simply verbalizes Snyder’s enthusiasm for the film’s aerial cinematography. 

In the film’s climactic battle, Snyder reconfigures aerial dogfights, replacing planes with owls. But Snyder doesn’t even save his extreme slow-motion and starkly lit tableaux approach for the film’s climax. When the Guardians appear in the snow storm over the sea to save Soren and his compatriots, Snyder slows the speed to an almost frame-per-second rate, allowing us to stand in awe of the Guardians cast against the snow and lightning—it’s similar to Superman’s miraculous appearance above the waters of a flood during a key montage in Batman v Superman. Despite Ezylryb’s comments about heroism not looking glamorous, Snyder indulges in a truly heroic depiction of the Guardians making their entrance into the film, using every lighting and frame-rate tool at his disposal to emphasize their majesty. The fact that the king and queen of the Guardians are snowy owls, the most magnificent of the owl species, adds to the effect.

Snyder returns to this super slow-motion during the film’s climax when Soren flies through the forest fire to save the Guardians from Metal Beak’s magnetic trap, which affects owl’s gizzards through a metal alloy harvested by his slaves. As Soren glides through the fire, Snyder’s camera shows every wisp of wind and ember burning on screen, the choral notes of David Hirschfelder’s world music-influenced score thrumming over the visuals. Snyder’s preferences for slow-motion and elaborately choreographed action scenes lend naturally to aerial scenes of flying, which makes Legend of the Guardians about as visually stunning as children’s animated features get.

The action scenes are also reminiscent of 300, with slow-motion shots of talons scraping talons and aerial battles backlit by the setting sun. There’s a smoky, shadowy glow to scenes in the Pure Ones’ kingdom, while scenes in Ga’Hoole seem to take place in a perpetual golden hour. Seeing as the film is for children, there is not much blood or death on screen; Snyder chooses to imply more than he shows, depicting feathers shorn from wings or a helmet falling to the ground instead of actually showing the killing blow on screen. But Legend of the Guardians is still quite violent for a children’s film. It makes clear the physical cost of heroism and the need to do battle against enemies. The tone is not always consistent—there’s a musical montage midway through that would be more at home in Happy Feet (2006), which was also produced by Village Roadshow Pictures, than in a typical Snyder feature—but such is the nature of a feature aimed at children in the 2010s.

There’s no mistaking Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole for Snyder’s most profound or impactful feature. It has a breakneck pace and often uses fantasy conventions as an excuse to elide character development or jump to the next conflict in the narrative structure. But considering that it is a film adapted from three popular children’s books and tapping into the dominant styles and storytelling of the time, it’s somewhat amazing that Snyder is able to lend the film such a distinctive vision. When the film draws to a close and we see Soren telling a story to young owlets at the Great Tree of Ga’Hoole, inspiring them with tales of his heroism much as he was inspired by tales of Ezylryb, it’s impossible not to think of the ending of 300 with David Wenham’s Dilios inspiring thousands of Spartan warriors to fight the Persians. 

Snyder understands the power of a heroic narrative and he uses the inherent moralistic nature of children’s storytelling to make a self-conscious statement about stories and how the tales we’re told shape the actions we take. It’s simply another example of Snyder bending conventional genre material to his specific thematic obsessions. Or put another way, as Soren says in voiceover, “As it was in the old ages, so it is in the new.” Even when presenting a film in a new form, Snyder is a director with as distinctive a vision as exists in modern Hollywood.

7 out of 10

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010, USA/Australia)

Directed by Zack Snyder; written by John Orloff and Emil Stern, based on Guardians of Ga’Hoole by Kathryn Lasky; starring Helen Mirren, Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Emily Barclay, Abbie Cornish, Ryan Kwanten, Anthony LaPaglia, Miriam Margolyes, Sam Neill, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham.

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