The Vine: February 3, 2016
LucasFilm
I’ve just watched The Revenant and there’s a scene where Leo climbs inside a dead animal for warmth.
I am sure I’ve seen that in another movie but cannot remember any more details.
I wondered if any Vine readers could help?
Thanks
Steph
Dear Steph,
Let me just assure the readers who are like, girl, you are being punked right now — I thought of that, because before The Revenant, That Scene from Empire Strikes Back was the go-to reference for desperate measures taken in extreme cold:
But my sister-in-law has never seen any of the Star Wars films, ever. She gets some of the references, because she’s lived in the world, but the term “tauntaun” would probably mean nothing to her and she wouldn’t know the answer to this either.
So, Steph: I don’t know what other films used it, but it’s in ESB for sure. Or I am being punked, in which case enjoy the magnets. Hee.
Tags: Ask The Readers Leonardo DiCaprio Mark Hamill movies The Empire Strikes Back The Revenant
You are not being punked! I am one of the few cinema fans who has not sat through a whole Star Wars movie… Please help! It’s still really bugging me
And Mythbusters said that scene from Empire was plausible.
In Rob Roy Liam Neeson hides from the redcoats inside a drowned cow, but not for warmth.
I read a book or story once where a child does something similar, perhaps in a bison? The concept remains vivid in my memory, but not the source, sorry!
In the Icelandic film “Of Horses and Men” has someone sheltering inside a (dead) horse
It’s also a big backstory deal in an early John Irving novel, The 158-Pound Marriage.
Or you saw the parody with Brian and Stewie. Or the Venture Brothers one. Or…
In the Jack London story “To Build a Fire” he crawls inside his dead dog to keep warm. Don’t know if there’s a film version of this.
The AV Club covered this recently, although the examples are not all films and some of them are a bit tenuous.
http://www.avclub.com/article/i-thought-they-smelled-bad-outside-8-times-charact-231111
There was a scene in Seraphim Falls, with Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, where one hid inside his dead horse, though that was for deception rather than warmth.
There’s a relevant tvtropes page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=ezssdr69i2446rpygdjvyjvg
@Georgia – I’m quite sure the dog survives in “To Build a Fire” – the story ends with the dog making it to a human settlement. I think the man did intend to kill it and warm his hands inside its corpse, but wasn’t able to.
If Liam (in Rob Roy) didn’t take the chance to ask “How now, drowned cow?” then I don’t understand anything in the world.
@attica, ditto.
@Wehaf: You’re probably right. I read that story once 20 years ago and hated it, so my attention to detail was probably lacking.
Hi Steph — Sars is right, it’s from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It’s such a trope in popular culture now that ThinkGeek sells a Tauntaun sleeping bag for kids.
{Fun fact: ThinkGeek originally put that up on their website as an April Fool’s joke, but then got so many orders that they actually went to George Lucas and got his permission to manufacture and sell them.}
@ Georgia and Wehalf — Behalf is right, the dog survives in “To Build a Fire.” I believe he does try to kill the dog for warmth but can’t manage it. (Unless there’s a second dog? I don’t think so.) I remember the dog’s survival because I hated the main character so much; I was rooting for the dog.
But it was the first thing I thought of with this question — I wondered if a film version had been done and the story tweaked.
*Wehaf, sorry. Attack of the auto-correct, or just me on auto-pilot, since I spelled it wrong two different ways. Ack!
@Georgia, @Wehaf, @MizShrew
Re: To Build a Fire: he planned to kill the dog, but his hands were too numb to hold the knife. The dog survives and leaves to look for other people to provide food and shelter. Gruesome story, yes. Good for teaching people about hypothermia, though.
For those who want to repeat the horror, the story can be found here at Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2429/2429-h/2429-h.htm#page47
@Cat_slave
By “repeat the horror,” do mean the contents of the story, or the experience of reading it? Glad to know the dog lived. Damn, I hated that story.
Why didn’t Han Solo enjoy the tauntaun dinner?
It was lukewarm.
There is a scene in the Swedish epic “Invandrarna” (“The Immigrants” – based on the novel series by Vilhelm Moberg) where the father kills & excavates the family’s only ox in order to save his son from a blizzard…
Steph: If you’ve seen any of Empire Strikes Back, that’s likely where you saw it. You wouldn’t have needed to see the entire movie — the scene is about 15 minutes in. It’s one of those things that’s SO well known it’s parodied and referenced in so many other movies and books that you don’t even have to have seen the movie to remember the reference.
@rick AUGH
Re: Brian and Stewie version, which takes place in the desert:
“What are you doing?”
“Wiping off my feet, I don’t want to track any sand in. Once you get it in there you can’t get it out.”
I hear that last bit in Stewie’s voice in my head so. many. times. in such random instances.
Also @Cora beat me to the Tauntaun sleeping bag. Thinkgeek is the best.
@OneoftheJanes Yes…158-Pound Marriage. Loved that book but the reference is still so disturbing.
To the best of my knowledge, the first (fictional) occurence of this not-so-common type of life support is in the 1956 novel by Swedish author . The novel is part of the 1972 adaption for the screen, .
In the introduction to the , Roger McKnight writes:
“The chapter “Starkodder the Ox” also illustrates how Moberg combined historical knowledge with his literary imagination. In an 1849 issue of the Minnesota Pioneer, Moberg found a true story of a settler, caught in a snowstorm, who killed two oxen and placed his dying sons in the warm carcasses, only to see the boys freeze to death anyway (ref. 5). Karl Oskar performs the same action with Starkodder in an effort to save his son Johan.”