After MK witnesses Queen Tara dying in Ronin's arms she somberly offers him her condolences implying she can clearly see the effect her death has on him, but then a few moments later, her reaction to seeing the Leafman is to incredulously ask if they're doing some sort of reenactment...but what would make her think that all of it was a joke if she clearly felt sorry for Ronin for what she just previously believed he was going through?
She was processing the grief before noticing the armor and the change of stature?
Another thing was how she thought it could be a staging or a reenactment, when she'd just seen a woman turn into moss and float away.
Did Tara really have to shrink MK down to Leafman-size before she died? We see that Ronin and his troops were literally circling around her as the magic took effect, so it's not really like she was in any danger of being unprotected in the few seconds before Ronin got to her. Couldn't she have just waited and told him about Nim Galuu?
Well, the boggans probably had their plan in blocking the moonlight all this time. The Leafmen, despite their valiant effort, didn't seem like they would be fast enough to unveil the moonlight to the pod in time. What drove the bats away that quickly was the bat sounds on Bomba's iPod, which MK had him use.
By the time Ronin enters the scene and takes Tara from MK, note that she only has the strength to say two words to him before dying. And just because we see that Robin and his troops were right nearby doesn’t mean she knew that. For all Tara knows, Ronin could’ve not found her body in time, or maybe there were more Boggins in the area that would keep him and his mean busy until it was too late.
Perhaps I missed something, but when MK's father notices the red thumbtack that she left in his map, to show him Moonhaven's location, does he have any reason to conclude so quickly that she put it there? The tack didn't seem to hold any significance to MK anywhere else in the film, so why did he take such special note of it and jump to such a quick conclusion about it?
She must have put it there, because he didn't and she's the only other person who is in his house. There's also the implied turtle, but it can't leave its tank, and Ozzie, but he's a dog and a clumsy one with a foreleg missing so only M.K. could have put it there.
Mayhaps I should've been more specific...When I asked "how he knew", I was referring more to the context in which MK left it than the fact that she left it there, and why it's so quick to change his mind about everything. Seeing tiny people running through his house and vacuuming one of them up, only to find it's his daughter, was what drove him to give up his work out of fear he'd gone mad, but a single thumbtack in a map practically covered with them is enough to tell him his daughter left it there for sure, and that it's worth investigating.
The pin was a long way from the area he'd been searching, which would've made it stand out. He may have decided his search had been a vain one, but he still knew where he'd been doing it, which is why the out-of-place pin warranted investigation.
Even if he was no longer certain of the existence of little people, he'd still feel the need to check out the marked area: for all he knew, MK might've just run off in hope of getting his attention, and left the pin to show him where she'd gone to sulk. Certainly that would be a reasonable thing to do if he'd noticed her abandoned bag by the front porch.
Why did the bee MK first encountered after shrinking move slowly? With larger creatures such as bats and birds being able to move normally in both times, shouldn't it just have zipped past?
The bee only appears to "zip past" because it's living faster than normal-sized humans do - to a Leafman-sized person, it moves at a slower pace.
It probably could've flown a lot faster, on par with the birds, if it'd been in a hurry or threatened. But it was just passing by.
Aside from the odd moment here and there, why does no one seem that bothered by tragic loss?
For Ronin and the Leafmen, it's pretty much their duty to understand that while Tara's death is a huge loss to the forest, they can't waste precious time moping over it and need to work hard to get the pod to Moonhaven safely so that it can choose her successor. As for MK and Nod...Well, the death of a loved one may be a serious thing, but it's not like it's entirely world-dominating and forces you to completely and inevitably change the way you act and behave - once she gets past the whole 'advanced-society-of-tiny-people-living-in-the-woods' deal, MK remains pretty somber throughout a majority of the film, and Nod's independent spirit, slacker attitude, and initial dismissal of personal responsibility and desire to work by himself could just be his own way of coping with his father's death, which also could've occurred some time in the past, meaning he'd have had time to adjust to it.
Why did they keep Ronin alive at the end, instead of having him go be with his beloved Tara? Had that been the case, this would be one of my favorite movies ever. Instead, it was just another average movie that was more style than substance. Why did they choose to have a more conventional, but by no means happier, ending for Ronin?
I don't know how an ending where a character dies would be happier, but one of the themes of the movie could be seen as, "There's more to life than those you've lost." MK manages to reconnect with her father after her mother's passing, and Nod learns to accept responsibility and teamwork as part of living. "Many leaves.One tree." Ronin may have lost Tara, but he still has his leadership of the Leafman, his fatherlike relationship with Nod, and his duty to protect the new queen, the very thing for which Tara gave her life.
So had Tara already known and chosen that little Marigold Girl as her successor before the ceremony, with her actions that day just being icing on the cake; had she not decided yet, with the intention of choosing someone at the last minute; or did she choose someone else initially and then Marigold Girl's actions help to override her previous decision?
Tara was a spontaneous sort of person, and she says outright that she was choosing the pod on the spot, based on which one felt right to her. It'd be inconsistent with what-little we saw of her character for the "fix" to already be in at the other end of the heir-selection procedure.
MK says that Tara's last words were "Bring the pod to Nim Galuu"... but they weren't. They were "So serious".
If this is really something you want to nitpick, maybe she didn't hear Tara's last words to Ronin, as they were spoken very softly. Even if we assume she had overheard them, "Take the pod to Nim Galuu" was still among her last words, even if they weren't her very last.
And they were definitely Tara's last instructions, whereas "so serious" is an observation. MK calling the former her "last words" was a way for the girl to give the queen's final directive the greatest possible weight, not to be literal about it.
