Maya The Bee [DVD]

My Two-year old girl loves this movie. The first thing that happens with the opening credits is my daughter says, "ooohhhh, pretty colors." It is not made by Disney and it does not offend me. Therefore 5 stars. She watches it every 3 days or so, and we started watching the TV series on Netflix as well.The Maya The Bee story is over 100 years old. It came out of a German children's book, and has been made into an anime, video games, a TV series, and another movie among other things. This movie re-imagines the Maya the Bee story and starts at the beginning with Maya emerging from a honeycomb, which is just as well for me (and I assume most other people from the USA) who were previously unfamiliar with the story. The story is pretty simple, Maya is too adventurous for the other bees and gets into trouble for wanting to do things that bees never do - including hanging out with other bugs, staying overnight in the meadow, and paying enough attention to the super-obviously evil chancellor to discover that the chancellor is seizing control of the hive by stealing the royal honey and blaming it on the hornets. Ultimately she saves the day with her friends, stopping a war with the hornets by showing the bees and hornets they can work together.I have a lot of little issues about this movie, but at its core, it is a kids movie that is fun and inoffensive. It does not cleverly make a lot of jokes for adults. The one song in it is really poorly integrated and superfluous. Outside of the one song that is quite strange, the movie is ported into the English language very well. You really can't tell that it was originally German (compared to Masha and the Bear for example, which is culturally weird and has terrible lip syncing issues). The animation is done very well, and it is a pretty movie. The message of the movie seems to be 'be yourself and you will fit in better,' which seems contradictory. There is one really funny part with some goofy Ants, which I wish they would have spent most of the movie focusing on. There are several mildly scary parts, and my daughter used to hide behind the couch during several parts of the film, but the movie does reveal that the scary things are actually misunderstood not-scary things. My daughter understands this now and isn't bothered by the film, but if you have a really spook-able little one, you may want to pass for a while.One thing that I really do appreciate is that this movie does not come out of Hollywood or Disney/Pixar. Most children's media has some kind of packaged morality (including this movie), and I worry about and control what my kids watch. Also, I fear that Disney is too powerful and sort of monopolizes good little girls firms. This movie was well done and I hope that other media companies can come in and compete in the little girls movie space.

Both my kids, ages 2.5 and 4, love this movie. It's been in high rotation for a month, and still keeps their attention longer than most movies. The story is simple, about a bee who's just not like the rest. She's curious, exuberant, and bucks all behavior expected of a "good" bee. Maya is easy for my kids to identify with; she expresses confusion and frustration over trying to conform to established social rules, even though they might not make sense and don't align with natural inclination. Children aren't born with knowledge of arbitrary social expectations, and understanding why those rules are important, or even why they exist at all, isn't as clear to them as the barking adults who've accepted status quo as categorical truth. Luckily, Maya finds encouragement from a grown up bee who's reminded of her own penchant for self-discovery, long suppressed under the weight of being the leader the hive needs. The conflict resolution at the end of the movie is as cheeseball as any other children's movie, delivering a feel-good "everything will work out if you just bee yourself" celebration. Which I agree is more appropriate than a more realistic, "you're going to struggle to be understood for your entire life" kind of ending.

My class loved it! The best part about this movie, is that it didn't make it big in the US, at least not in my part. My kids watch the same thing over, and over, and often loose the wonderment of movies. This was new and intriguing to them. It was a great end to our unit on pollination and perfectly worked with out classroom culture discussions as well. Maya is a strong female lead, empowered by her sense of adventure and questioning of the status quo, and this was a great type of person, er bee, to bring to my children. It really did tie into a lot of possible subject explorations! I often found myself watching and laughing with them. I don't do many movies in class, but this one was a great example of leadership, character, and insect habitats.

This movie is definitely a great story to depict how people go to war with very little proof, propaganda, and stereotypes. I felt like Maya was a picture of Julian Assange the founder of wikileaks who uncovered all these lies and brought them to the surface. There is so much political allegory in this movie. Some people will do anything to get to power and would even be willing to lie to their own people to get it. Like most of the bugs in the end of the movie, we all truly desire peace on this earth to live in harmony.

I didn't get to watch the whole movie all the way through but enough to know that it deserves 10 Stars in that my little Boys really liked it and I myself cant' wait until I can watch it in full from the beginning.Now you know Maya the Bee Movie is a GREAT Movie if this Mother of 4 and Grandmother of 1 is totally excited to get to watch it in full.So for it is very Cute.So far and even educational for my little guys (ages 4 and 5) They are all into how Bees live, what they do and the pollen.So it was cute for them to see it in a cartoon after us reading and learning alot about our Friends the Bees. Especially after the Bees set up shop in the outter wall of our Building a while back. :0)

This was an all around great movie. Great for any age. Had an enjoyable amount of puns and bee jokes. We learned friendship is important overcoming fears to help others is worth it. You will learn the value of helping others, and that we all have a place and a role in this life. Sometimes there will be bad people, that are greedy and desire undeserved power. If we all work together to do what is right, life will be much more satisfying. There were a few places where the lines jumped unnaturally fast to the main point,but the majority of the movie was well paced. Totally worth the time to watch.. oh and the accents... bravo.