Movies

Strange World – Trendy

November 23, 2022

Film critic

You could say it was a shocking discovery.

Pando – the plant discovered by the famous Clade family in the most remote and cold regions of Avalonia – literally zaps anyone who picks one of its pungent green berries. But while electric fruits make a bad snack, they are a really nifty source of energy. And it changed almost everything.

After all, it’s not like Avalonia can import coal or oil from foreign countries to keep its lights on and its hovercraft moving. To the knowledge of its inhabitants, there are are no foreign lands. The only land they’ve ever known is, well, Avalonia, surrounded by towering mountains that no one has ever been able to climb or cross. And the whole country was done without lights and hovercrafts for all its candlelit history.

Jaeger Clade would have been great if pando had never been discovered, if we are honest. Avalonia’s greatest explorer wasn’t looking for a mamby-pamby plant when he and his fearless team ran through the thing. He was going to do what no Avalonian had ever done. He was going to climb his mountains and see what was on the other side.

But Searcher Clade, Jaeger’s son, spotted the berries and argued that they should take them back down the mountain. Why, they may well reshape Avalonia’s future, Searcher explained.

“Seeker, we are explorersnot gardeners,” Jaeger said.

And then Searcher had the audacity to tell Jaeger that he is not an explorer. He never wanted to be an explorer. And this plant could have an impact on Avalonia way more than a small climb in front of impassable mountains. And then, as if to upset him, all the other members of Jaeger’s fearless team agreed.

So that snowy day, father and son separated: Jaeger went into the mountains and disappeared. Searcher took the plant to Avalonia and, indeed, changed the world. Well, of course, the plant did the job. But still, Searcher pulled out a nice statue of it, right next to one of his complicated pops.

It’s 25 years later now, and Searcher has put its exploration stuff in the closet. Instead, he works with a rake and a hoe. Searcher and his family (wife Meridian and son Ethan) are now farmers, one of many Miracle Crop cultivators.

But now it seems there is something wrong with pando. He is dying, eaten away by a strange disease. Avalonia President Callisto Mal says every crop in the country could be infected within a month.

But Callisto has a plan: if they can get down below Avalonia – where Pando’s roots flow to what is said to be the central heart of the plant – maybe they can figure out what is killing pando and figure out how to fix it.

Oh, yes: Callisto said “they”. She wants Searcher to dig up his explorer failures and come up with them. Nobody knows more about Pando than him, after all.

Son Ethan wants to come too. But Searcher insists that would just be too dangerous. He still has terrible memories of climbing impassable cliffs and crossing impassable rivers with his own father. He’s not going to hurt Ethan like he did.

“I won’t risk your life,” Searcher told his son. “Never.”

What if Ethan, 16, wanna risking his life ? And if he is not cut out to be a farmer? What if there was a bit of Jaeger hidden in him?

What if Ethan decides to sneak aboard Callisto’s hovercraft? Would you be… shocked?