Where did the despicable me minions come from? Who are minions really? Minions of Henry III of Valois

The karakurt spider is one of the most dangerous creatures on earth. Despite its small size and non-threatening appearance, the karakurt venom is 15 times stronger than the venom of a rattlesnake and 50 times stronger than the venom of a tarantula. For a horse or camel, a karakurt bite is often fatal.

The karakurt spider is one of the most dangerous creatures on earth

Without prompt medical intervention and professional help, a meeting with a person can also result in death, although such cases are extremely rare. The black spider evokes mystical associations due to the presence of 13 bright red spots on the body and cannibalistic family traditions. Kalmyk shamans use a dangerous creature in some rituals. There is a common belief that karakurts live only in deserts and do not pose a danger to residents of the central and even southern steppe and forest regions, but this is not so. IN Lately The migration of biting “robbers” to the north is obvious, and climate warming has led to the fact that karakurts are recorded in regions where they have never been observed before.

The poisonous karakurt spider belongs to the order of spiders of the family of web spiders from the genus of black widows. Translated from Turkic language The name literally translates as black worm. The Latin name Latrodectus tredecimguttatus reflects external signs- 13 points on the back and the essence of the spider (biting robber). Like the karakurt, which is sometimes called the steppe spider? In terms of size, the spider belongs to the medium-sized arachnids. The size of the male is 4-7 mm, the female karakurt is 2-3 times larger and can reach 20 mm. The body of the eight-legged spider is black, with a pronounced abdomen. Both males and females have red spots or dots on the upper side of the abdomen. A clear pattern is visible on the lower part of the abdomen scarlet color, similar to the outline hourglass. The spot on the abdomen often has a snow-white halo. Adults (males) can be completely black. Karakurt is a predator; it feeds on insects, which it uses a web to catch.

Despite its small size and non-threatening appearance, the karakurt's venom is 15 times stronger than that of a rattlesnake and 50 times stronger than that of a tarantula.

White karakurt, also related to web spiders, has a white or yellowish color. There is no hourglass pattern or spots on the body, but there are 4 indentations forming a rectangle. White spiders are much less poisonous, their bite is not dangerous to people, although the venom of the white karakurt is similar in its toxicological properties and effects on the human body and animals to the venom of the black widow. White karakurts can be found in Russia and neighboring countries, but the main habitat is located further south - in North Africa, the Middle East, and also in Central Asia. Let's focus on the black widow karakurt as the most dangerous representative of the swindlers, which you can meet at domestic resorts.

Karakurts are distinguished by their fertility; in the southern regions there are periodic surges in the birth rate, which entail an increase in the number of casualties among people and loss of livestock. Poisonous spiders in Kazakhstan and Crimea attack dozens of people every year, but serious consequences occur extremely rarely. The female lays more than 1,000 eggs per year, which are placed in a protective cocoon. The newly born spiders continue to live inside the cocoon and emerge from there only next spring. Puberty occurs 2-3 months after the spiderlings leave their original home. Eggs are laid in holes on the ground or in rodent burrows. Fertilization occurs during the hottest months of summer. After mating, the female karakurt eats the male, although there are exceptions - for unknown reasons, the female can either destroy the male before mating or leave him alive after fertilization.

Gallery: karakurt spider (25 photos)

Black widow spider or karakurt (video)

Habitat and biological enemies

The zone of residence of the Karakurts covers the Crimea, the south of Russia and Ukraine, the Astrakhan steppes, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa. When migrating north, spiders reach the Saratov region, Southern Urals and even the Moscow region, but they cannot settle in the northern regions, in winter period spiders die. For living, karakurts choose dry steppe areas and arable lands, wastelands, salt marshes, slopes of ravines, ditches, ruins of abandoned villages, cracks in adobe houses. The spider can also be found in populated areas, on summer cottages, sometimes it penetrates a person’s home. The peak of activity occurs during the fertilization period - June-August.

The natural enemies of karakurts are:

sheep and goats, which are not affected by the karakurt bite;
sphex wasps that inject their venom into spiders, which paralyzes them;
insect riders that lay their eggs in karakurt cocoons;
hedgehogs that are not vulnerable to spider attacks.

Flocks of sheep or herds of goats are used to trample down the nests of karakurts; the Crimean peninsula is thus cleared of poisonous creatures during periods of sharply increased reproduction or when clearing pastures for horses, cows and other livestock. During outbreaks of spider births, they can cause significant harm to livestock, so preventive measures are necessary.

Danger to humans

As a rule, males and young individuals do not pose a danger to humans, since they cannot bite through the skin with their weak jaws, although individual cases attacks are known. Adult females pose a danger, especially in July-August. You can distinguish the female by its color. Males have red spots with white rims, while females have no edging. Sometimes in females the red spots change to yellow stripes. Females have long legs up to 30 mm and significantly larger than males.

The attack happens very quickly. Karakurt attacks only in self-defense. Nature has endowed the spider with such a strong poison so that it can capture the burrows of small rodents, which do not come into conflict with it and immediately vacate their territory. A predator can attack when it first seems to be in danger, so it is better to avoid contact with it. The difficulty in detecting danger lies in the fact that karakurts do not weave their network in classic look. The threads are arranged horizontally, the web does not have a characteristic pattern and is chaotic. Attacks occur most often at night and on vacation, when you can accidentally crush the karakurt or disturb the web.

A spider bite is not painless, but it does not cause much concern. The bite site is marked with a small red spot, which disappears after a few minutes. After the poison has taken effect, the bitten person begins to experience severe pain in the damaged area. Specific psychological and physiological reactions arise.

In the first minutes and hours after the bite, poisoning is characterized by the following symptoms:

strong mental agitation;
feeling of fear of death, panic;
spasms and suffocation;
severe pain in the abdomen, chest and lower back;
feeling that the legs are being taken away;
bluish complexion;
shallow breathing, dizziness;
sometimes cramps of the arms and legs, tremors, vomiting;
increased heart rate, arrhythmia;
retention of urination and defecation;
increased protein content in urine.

After the body’s initial reaction, a person experiences lethargy, apathy, weakness, depression, and sometimes delirium, but severe pain persists. After a few days, a red rash appears on the body. Death is possible in especially dangerous cases with general weakness of the body and lack of qualified medical care, especially if the victim has diseases of cardio-vascular system. If the course is favorable, recovery occurs within 3-4 weeks.

Beware of karakurt (video)

Treatment and prevention

The most elementary and well-known since ancient times method of treating a poisonous spider bite, supported and official medicine, is cauterization. The predator's venom is sensitive to heat and is destroyed when heated, losing its toxic properties. Therefore, immediately, within 2 minutes after the attack, the damaged area must be burned with a cigarette, match or other method. The spider does not have powerful jaws, the bite depth does not exceed 0.5 mm, so immediate cauterization has a strong effect. In any case, you should contact a medical facility as soon as possible.

As special measures, anti-caracourt serum is used, which is administered intramuscularly. The serum relieves the main symptoms of poisoning, and recovery time is reduced to 3-4 days.

The disadvantage of this product is its high cost. In the absence of a special substance, the following is administered intravenously:

novocaine;
calcium chloride;
magnesium hydrogen sulfate.
33% ethyl alcohol;
2-3% solution of potassium permanganate.

The victim must be given water, rubbed with alcohol, and enemas are recommended. Can be used as painkillers universal means: Analgin, Diphenhydramine, Ketanol.

In cases of living in the territory inhabited by karakurts, it is necessary to be careful when cleaning residential premises, especially in adobe houses, and pay attention to the presence of cobwebs in personal areas. When going outdoors, you should follow certain rules:

don't sleep under open air in the habitats of poisonous spiders;
do not come into contact with inside tents;
examine the place where you spend the night or rest, paying attention to holes and natural depressions in the ground, rodent burrows, and if there are any, cover them with earth;
use covering clothing and wear a hat;
periodically, and without fail before going to bed, carefully inspect the tent, sleeping places, clothes, shoes and other property;
use the canopy, tucking it under the sleeping place;
dig around the tent, making a shallow ditch;
do not take off your shoes;
If you find a karakurt, do not touch it; if the spider is on your clothes, shake it off or knock it down with a click.

To prevent the death of domestic animals, the soil is treated with hexachlorane and other poisons.

Attention, TODAY only!

At the beginning of our conversation, I would immediately like to say that over the last hundred years of observation, only 13 (!) cases of death from arachnid bites have been recorded. Moreover, all the victims were bitten by the most terrible spiders - . It is worth noting that those who died from bites had weak immunity and poor general condition of the body.

For a healthy person, spider bites will not be fatal. Of course, individuals of some types of arachnids bite quite painfully, and the bite sites can hurt and itch for a long time, but, nevertheless, this is not fatal.

Very cute spider

Spider Biology

Before we begin to describe the types of the most terrible and beautiful spiders in the world, let us remind you what they are like animals, what their biology is. The order of spiders numbers more than forty thousand species, of which almost three thousand can be found in the territory of the former Soviet Union. However, all these species are similar both in appearance and in body structure. They have a lot in common in their lifestyle, nutrition and reproduction.

Appearance and body structure

The bodies of all spiders consist of two parts: the cephalothorax and abdomen, which are connected by a thin tube, also called a “stalk.” On the cephalothorax in front there are small processes: chelicerae and pedipalps, and on the sides there are four pairs of walking limbs - the legs themselves.

Chelicerae are jaw appendages on the sides of the spider's mouth that help capture prey. The pedipalps perform the functions of taste and olfactory receptors; in sexually mature males they are also conductors of seminal fluid.

In the belly of spiders there is a heart, gonads, and a spinning apparatus that produces secretion for knitting webs.

Nutrition

All spiders are predators, with the exception of those that feed on plant leaves. Most spiders use webs to hunt insects and other animals, but some species hunt in ambush mode, this is one of the most major representatives spider kingdom.

The spider feeding process itself looks like this:

The spider injects poison into the body of a victim captured in one of these ways.
When the victim dies, digestive fluid is injected into its body.
After some time, the insides of the killed animal are digested, and the spider sucks out the resulting food.

This process is called external digestion.

Growth and shedding

The body of a spider is not capable of stretching, therefore, throughout its life, a growing spider increases its body due to molting, after which the exoskeleton of the insect increases. New chitinous cover appears in spiders 5-10 times during life cycle depending on the type.

Reproduction

Male spiders are much smaller in size than their female companions and in many species, after mating, they are often eaten by female companions. They, in turn, weave cocoons from the web, where they lay eggs. Often the female wears such a cocoon on herself for a long time until the babies gain enough strength to develop independently.

Now we have come to the most interesting part; in this chapter we will present the most terrible spiders with a description of the species. However, they are also interesting for study and simple contemplation.

Tarantula Goliath

Living in the tropical forests of the South American continent, goliaths are able to feed on small hummingbirds, for which they received the name -.

Goliath belongs to the tarantula spiders, in Latin it is called Theraphosa Blonde. This is the largest known spider. The length of its body reaches nine centimeters in females, and its leg span is twenty-five.

Living in the tropical forests of the South American continent, goliaths are able to feed on small hummingbirds, for which they received the name tarantulas.

The smallest spiders belong to the species Patu digua, their length barely exceeds a third of a millimeter.

Peacock spider

It's hard to believe that this undeniable beauty is only five millimeters in size. It must be said that not a single lady from the spider kingdom can resist such a gentleman, because in addition to his elegant appearance, he shows his chosen one a truly charming dance. You can see it at the end of the article.

Six-eyed sand spider

This . Its venom is often equated to the venom of a black widow in terms of concentration. Sand spiders live in southern Africa, but some representatives of this genus have been spotted by biologists in South America.

A distinctive feature of this species is its crab-like body size and hunting method.

Sand spiders hunt by camouflaging themselves in the sand, with which they blend in due to the light brown color of their body. Their victims are not only insects, but also quite large scorpions, although the body size of the spider is not at all outstanding. Females rarely exceed a length of one and a half centimeters.

Agitprop Spider

The beautiful spider also has the following names: “striped hunter”, “wasp spider”. This representative of the spider family even lives. With his appearance, he warns that he has a certain supply of poison and it is unsafe to contact him.

Dolomedes

A notable feature of this spider is its life on the shore of a reservoir and its ability to hunt while gliding along the surface of the water. Some biologists claim that dolodemes are capable of staying under water for up to forty-five minutes.

The size of the fringe hunter (its second name) reaches two centimeters, but it is capable of feeding not only on insects, but also on tadpoles and even small fish.

Wall tegenaria

A rather rare representative of arachnids is considered one of the largest spiders in European countries. Its dimensions reach fifteen centimeters in the leg span. Tegenaria lives in rocky caves, and can also take a liking to old ones stone buildings and buildings.

This spider does not know how to weave a cocoon around its prey, but it does not need to. The fact is that wall tegenaria knits such a loose web that victims literally drown when falling into it.

Tarantula

Now let's talk about spiders, which are on everyone's lips not only because of their terrible beauty, but also because of their unusually sonorous names. We are, of course, talking about the tarantula and karakurt. Let's start with the less poisonous and dangerous.

Many have heard the story of how the Tarantella dance was born, which you supposedly had to dance to neutralize the poison after being bitten by this spider. Alas, it turned out to be just a beautiful legend.

However, the size of the tarantula, its leg span up to thirty centimeters (!) and its appearance can terrify any person, even those who do not suffer from arachnophobia. What are his eight terribly beautiful eyes worth?

Tarantulas do not weave webs, but hunt at night on everyone who, as they say, is shorter, crawling to the surface at night from their deep burrows.

Karakurt

The famous and most poisonous spider in the world is the karakurt, or black widow. It received its second name because the males practically do not survive after mating. The karakurt also lives in the southern part of our country, which is especially annoying for people with the beginnings of arachnophobia, and the poison of this representative of the arachnids is the strongest.

But even the black widow does not feed on anything other than small insects and arachnids, and can bite a person in response to a perceived danger.

Advice! There is no need to be afraid of a karakurt attack, the main thing is to notice it in time and get around it, and not try to destroy it.

Instead of a conclusion

They are so diverse: scary and beautiful at the same time representatives of a huge family of arachnids. Looking at photographs of individuals various types spiders, you can’t help but be amazed at the diversity and charm of nature. Even such seemingly dangerous creatures can be so beautiful!

In the midst summer holidays In 2010, the cartoon “Despicable Me” was released. The picture told young viewers about a supervillain who had to become an adoptive father for a while, which is why he changed and became kind. The main idea of the cartoon, however, was the funny assistants of the main villain - “minions” (from French - servant).

Thousands of little yellow men speaking an incomprehensible language immediately attracted the attention of the audience. As a result, Despicable Me got a sequel, the minions became a brand, and on July 9, 2015, a spin-off of Despicable Me, dedicated to the minions themselves, was released in Russian cinemas.

It would seem that what could be harmful about little funny people? But if you think about it, the “minions” brand itself and their history are full of very ambiguous hints and meanings. Let's figure it out.

Who are the minions?

If in the first cartoons it was not yet clear who the minions were and where they came from, then the trailer for the new full-length film provides answers to these questions: according to legend, minions have been on earth since time immemorial, starting at least from the era of dinosaurs. Since the trio from Despicable Me also participated in the events of the 17th century, it becomes clear that they are immortal. Wherein, they live only for one purpose - to serve the villains. Without submission to the villain, the minions become depressed. They find the most evil one and entrust themselves to his leadership, serving him faithfully until he dies, then they look for the next one. They cannot be called a people, because minions do not have children, old people, or women. And now we invite you to watch the trailer for the new cartoon.

What was shown in the trailer?

The trailer is quite telling. In addition to what we already know about minions, we were also shown in three minutes: several deaths in a row (0:50-1:20); dressing the minions as a woman with a prominent bust, which she showed off to a passerby (2:29); a minion dressing up in a women's swimsuit (0:36); a mustachioed father of the family in a bright red dress and makeup (1:50); mocking a sick person and hitting him in the groin (2:19); a colorful demonstration of a torture chamber and a game with a gallows (2:56); a minion in a thong (3:13) and a minion kissing what he perceives to be two women in a jacuzzi (3;16).

But the most impressive thing is not even that the main characters children's cartoon portray either boys or girls and consciously serve evil, but the fact that they are shown as positive, cheerful and funny characters, from which children will certainly want to take an example.

It is already known from previous cartoons that minions not only commit evil, but also do good. Throughout their entire existence, they helped the villains of all eras, but accidentally served as the reason that the villains most often died: they burned Dracula, shot Napoleon. They fight, and then they perform cutely at the wedding, funny eat ice cream and go to steal the moon.

They obeyed the villain and showed great delight in his villainous plans, and later admired his plans to save the world with the same delight. Try reading this to-do list to your child, and then ask a question that often torments children when watching movies and cartoons: are minions good or bad, kind or evil?

A child will not be able to give you an answer, and it will also be difficult for an adult to decide on this issue. Thus, in the child’s psyche, and the cartoon is intended for an audience of “6+”, the concepts of good and evil will be blurred. You can be a sweet and funny hero, but fight for a banana with someone you’ve known for many years, take what belongs to others and help the villains.

And one more thing - the word “minions,” as already mentioned, comes from the word “servant,” and their unquestioning submission to the villain, who in one situation may well be engaged in the production of murder weapons, and in another - ice cream, only confirms this name. They are servants, created only to serve, they wear work uniforms, they do not think about orders and only in the evening allow themselves to go about their business, which most often is fights, bad jokes and bullying each other. Isn't this the same image? typical representative consumer society, which is actively imposed on us by modern Mass culture, who came from the West? Identical creatures that have neither own opinion, neither the meaning of life, nor any moral qualities and wanting only to serve.

Now let’s ask one more question: what gender are the minions?

Judging by their names, the main characters - Stuart, Bob and Kevin - are clearly men, in to a greater extent They also have masculine character traits. Sometimes they even “fall in love”: in the cartoon Despicable Me 2, Minion Stewart fell in love with a woman. However, the authors deliberately often focus on the fact that, if desired, the minions can be a girl.

In the new trailer, the minion comes out of the water and, seeing that everyone is wearing swimming trunks and he is not, in fear he rushes into the water and comes out of it wearing a bra (0:36). Having received a blow to the groin area (2:23), the minion is at first surprised, and then simply laughs, demonstrating that he is not hurt at all.

The authors clearly make it clear that the minions are bisexual; if they wish, they can be both a boy and a girl, as they wish, as it suits them. Let us remind you once again that the main target audience of such cartoons is children, and it is in their consciousness through such images that the idea is implanted not only about tolerance for perversions, but also that changing your gender is absolutely normal.

The minions were first introduced to viewers in the summer of 2010. It was then that the animated film came out on the big screens Pierre Soffine And Chris Renaud"Despicable Me ". Since then, the creators of the cartoon could not get enough of the delight the antics of the yellow-headed mischiefmakers caused in the audience.

After the first and very successful experience collaboration the producers suggested to the screenwriter Brian Lynch write a short film script Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem 3D" The film aroused such genuine interest that themed attractions based on its plot were opened in the amusement parks Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood. When creating the world of the Minions, Brian Lynch (who has many years of experience creating comics) imagined himself in the shoes of each of the characters. When he created attractions in amusement parks, he constantly recalled all the scenes with the minions from the films Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. To do this, he revised it many times full-length movies, as well as short films about the minions that were released on DVD.

“The voices of the minions in your head can be scary for some, but in my case they only helped,” Lynch laughs. “Luckily, Pierre voiced the minions, so when I had a question about what the minions would do in a given situation, he had the answer.”

Working on the characters' dialogue was much more difficult than writing about their adventures. “The difficulty was that the three main characters do not speak English at all,” continues the screenwriter. “Despite this, Pierre described exhaustively what they were trying to say.”

Given the popularity of the attractions, the producers invited Lynch to write an independent story about the minions, which would take its rightful place among other films in the Despicable Me franchise. This is how the prequel “Minions” appeared, which, in fact, tells where the minions came from and what path they took before they began to serve Gru.

Coming up with original story, which could happen with the Minions, Lynch started from what has bothered the audience from the moment they first met the yellow-headed kids: where did they come from and how did they live before they met Gru?

“It’s breathtaking when you think about what the minions had to go through in this huge, cruel world,” says the screenwriter. - In the first two films, Gru took care of them and protected them in every possible way, more like a father than a master. The minions are looking not only for an insidious ruler who would inspire them to do all sorts of dirty tricks, but also for a family they could become a part of. In our film, they don’t have such a family yet, and the minions are just trying to figure out what they really want.”

Screenwriter Brian Lynch explained what attracted him to this project and why he decided that the prequel should take place in 1969.

“In each of us there lives a little minion,” says the screenwriter. - In some, his presence is visible to the naked eye. Viewers so often asked us questions from the series “who are the minions” and “where did they come from” that we decided to answer them in a rather unusual format - by making an independent film about these cute heroes.”

Minions emerge from Gru's shadow

“While working on this prequel, we asked ourselves a question that has been keeping us awake for a long time: “Where did the minions come from?” - admits the cartoon producer Chris Meledandri.

“We didn’t want to make a movie about minions; the minions themselves demanded it,” the producer laughs. - Hundreds of professionals worked on the Despicable Me franchise, and I am proud that fate brought me together with such talented people. When work on the film “Despicable Me 2” was completed, we were not without surprise to discover that many animators simply could not stop and drew more and more new stories about minions.”

Janet Healy, with whom Meledandri has worked on all the films released by the Illumination studio, explains why the minions are so loved all over the world: “All viewers, regardless of nationality and age, are touched by how unusual the minions are, childish, sincere, expressive and invulnerable. In addition, they do not age and do not speak any known dialect. "A lot of people wanted to see them in their own movie, and we were eager to do a Despicable Me prequel that explores who the Minions are and where they come from."

Minion character

According to Meledandri, the minions were worthy of their own picture not only because they appealed to the audience, but also because of the duality of their nature. “They’re not just adorable,” explains the producer. - They are attracted by the fact that they are overwhelmed by diametrically opposed feelings. On the one hand, they strive to serve evil, and on the other, their true nature makes them kind and sympathetic. In each of us there is a similar struggle between Good and Evil.”

The minions are eager to serve the villain. “The concept of “home” for minions is not a specific place,” says the cartoon director. - It's Gru! In all the films of the Despicable Me franchise, we have seen that Gru is the unstoppable master of Evil, and the minions are enthusiastically ready to carry out any order of their master. He trusts them, and a very warm relationship develops between Gru and the minions. Ultimately, their goal, which they pursue in the film "Minions", is to find Gru and get into his service."

Brian Lynch needed to select only three minions who would become the main characters new history. The screenwriter describes how he saw the characters' personalities: “Despite the fact that they often give each other cuffs and slaps on the head, any of the trio is always ready to stand up for each other. Kevin - big Brother, and if he had not been there, the other two would have disappeared long ago. Stewart has a spirit of youthful rebellion. By and large, he doesn’t care about the goals of the mission: the main thing is to hang out to his heart’s content, listen to music and flirt with girls. Bob represents innocence with a childish broadness with open eyes. He is always ready to help, although at any moment he can be distracted by bright light, a TV screen or a teddy bear lying on the ground.”

However, it cannot be said that the heroes are connected by brotherly love. “They had to constantly argue and quarrel. Each of the heroes has his own thoughts and ideas, not similar to the thoughts of others. Everyone had to prove themselves in one way or another.”

Lynch can rightfully be considered an expert in the field of “minionology.” However, given that the main characters of the film communicated mainly through gestures, he realized that he would have to rely on the talented animators Soffin and Balda for everything. It was up to them whether the audience could understand what Kevin, Stuart and Bob were saying.

“A lot of the jokes in the film are slapstick,” Lynch explains. - Minions perfectly convey their emotions by moving their eyes... well, or their eyes, if we're talking about about Stuart. Therefore, it helped me a lot in my work that I could call Pierre and ask him: “How will the minions react to this or that? What word would they use when they were scared?” We figured out a lot by trial and error. Often I would write in the script something like: “If we understood what they were saying, they would say...” Then Pierre would take his place in the recording studio and say a word in Mignon dialect.”

The Pierre Lynch is talking about, the filmmaker who knows more about Minions than anyone in the world, is director Pierre Soffine. He worked with Chris Renaud on the films Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. The sequel earned Illumination an Oscar nomination. Soffin always wanted us to take the minions seriously, but also laugh heartily at their antics. The director says, “There is no specific audience for this film. It will be of interest to literally everyone, without exception. Accordingly, we tried to make it funny for everyone - the jokes had to be ambiguous. This is the magic of animation. You can express anything through the character’s body movements.”

For Soffin, the minions were identified with the heroes of silent films. The director says: “If you look at the history of cinema, the first films were completely silent, and such masters of comedy as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton played on the screen. They were the best storytellers imaginable. I showed my kids the movie "The Gold Rush" and they literally fell in love with it. During the entire 80 minutes of the film, the actors did not say a word, but the visuals attracted attention. Everything was verified down to the tenth of a second and understood without words. Minions are somewhat similar to the heroes of films of those years. "Minions will be a worthy legacy of silent cinema, except for the gibberish in which the Minions communicate."

Most of the film is dedicated to three worthy representatives of the Minion community. Therefore, the fact that all three were voiced by one of the film’s directors was very helpful in working on the film. The minions speak an incomprehensible dialect consisting of words from different languages, but coupled with very eloquent gestures, they can easily communicate with each other, and the meaning of “what was said” will be clear to the audience. Director Pierre Soffin set himself a single goal - the intention of a particular speaker should be obvious to the audience. An important role was played by the melody of the phrase and intonation of the voice, the meaning of what was said faded into the background.

Minion language

Since Minions have lived on the planet since time immemorial and have roamed the world extensively, the etymology of the Minion language is a mixture of almost all other languages. Why is that? Because they served a variety of villains and tyrants of the Earth. The minions' language also has basic Egyptian, which they adopted from the pharaoh; and the refined French they learned from Napoleon; and the Transylvanian dialect learned while serving Count Dracula; and the simplest cries and roars that the first Homo sapiens used to communicate. Soffin had to carefully select the words and tone of his voice so that Kevin, Stuart and Bob could be easily distinguished from each other.

Soffin spoke about his role in creating a language that all viewers, including the youngest, could understand: “I voiced all the minions in the film, and whenever I needed to come up with a word to express a particular emotion, Indian and Chinese restaurants helped me menu. In addition, I know a little Spanish, Italian, Indonesian and Japanese languages. So I had plenty of inspiration to invent new words. I just chose another word that didn’t fit the meaning at all, but sounded very melodic and appropriate to the situation.”

Meledandri had his own vision of the director's unique approach to work: “Pierre will probably say that the language he invented is complete gibberish, but I have my own theory. I've watched him work over the course of three films, and I'm starting to pick up on a linguistic pattern. I am sincerely convinced that he creates new language. He, of course, will deny everything, but I am sure that this is actually true. Over time, all viewers who watch the film will begin to understand this language.”

Meet the main minions - Kevin, Stuart and Bob

Kevin, Stuart and Bob are similar to their Minion counterparts in many ways. Therefore, the filmmakers needed to emphasize the individuality of the main characters not only in their appearance, but also in the style of their communication. According to Healy, unique character traits and others distinctive features(besides the implicit visual differences) minions began to acquire only when creative Group Illumination studio began work on the film.

“At first it was difficult for us, since the minions always stayed in a group, and among the character traits we could only highlight the obvious: impatience, immaturity and inertia,” explains the producer. “It wasn’t until we picked three characters out of the crowd and tried to follow them that we realized how to make our characters unique, how to show what each of them was thinking. Pantomime and various sounds helped us a lot with this.”

Meledandri describes the characters: "Kevin is the eldest of three brothers and he desperately wants to be a hero. Bob is the youngest of them, an analogy can be drawn with Agnes from the Despicable Me films. He loves everyone and everything - a very happy baby. Stewart has a rebellious personality reminiscent of youth transitional age. By the end of the film, you may get the feeling that the three characters represent a small family."

Kevin is a kind of elder of the Minion tribe. He is filled with exclusively noble intentions. There is a sense of responsibility and sometimes even inflexibility in his voice. He is always able to reason with his younger comrades and return them to the right direction if they have lost their way or got into fights over a trifle. Stuart seems to not give a damn about anything, his usual reaction to any initiative is “Come on...” He goes with the flow and does not want to get involved in any kind of mess (unless, of course, he caused it himself). Bob's voice is more like baby talk. He is cheerful, energetic, but he is clearly frightened by the upcoming adventure - he often sighs and groans.

According to director Kyle Balda, three prominent representatives minions were revealed to the animators from new sides directly while working on them. “When you go through the storyboard sheets, you start to understand who Kevin, Stuart and Bob are,” he says. - It’s enough to use your imagination and you can imagine what, say, Bob would do in a given situation. All that remains is to let him do what already seems obvious and watch what happens next. It is not necessary to always control the characters, force them to do what they need to do according to the script. Sometimes it’s useful to experiment, improvise, give the characters freedom of action - something interesting can turn out.”

Balda, with a smile on his face, notes that if the minions could comment on the work on the film, he knows exactly what they would say: “Stuart would certainly want more close-ups with yourself, your loved one. He would constantly get right into the lens, steal lines from other characters, in a word, pull the blanket over himself. Bob would run around the site with delight, never tired of being amazed at everything he saw - from the lighting fixtures to the firecracker. Most At the time he would not have understood what was happening at all. And Kevin? Well, Kevin would take the job very, very seriously.”

It was very important to the filmmakers that Kevin, Stuart and Bob's journey be not only funny, but also international. Meledandri notes: “As the plot develops, not only eras change, but also geographical locations. The plot takes the characters from New York, Orlando and Australia to China, India and London. There's a lot going on in the UK capital."

Back to the 60s

Directors Kyle Balda and Pierre Soffin knew that since the film was set in the 1960s, there had to be visual evidence to support it. For the film Minions, he developed a unique animation style reminiscent of 60s cinema. So viewers can prepare themselves for the fact that they will see something on the screen that they have not seen in any other cartoon.

Soffin and Balda emphasize that they have never tried to copy previous films in the Despicable Me franchise. Instead, directors took inspiration from them. From the color palette and lighting to the locations, Minions is a film unlike any other. The charm of the film was given by the era in which the action takes place. The directors especially liked the style of architecture and fashion of the 60s, as well as general atmosphere the time in which Kevin, Stuart and Bob find themselves. A different life was beginning for the minions - the era of a new mistress, as stylish as she was insidious.

According to Balda, the fact that the minions find themselves in New York and London in the 1960s was very encouraging for everyone. film crew: “We loved for so many reasons that the film was set in the 60s. We could experiment with musical accompaniment and color palette, characteristic of that time. The minions spent decades isolated on South Pole. So for them New York seems like some kind of incredible metropolis. They have never seen skyscrapers, never met so many people, they have no idea what a crush and a crowd are. When we started working on '60s London, we aimed to make the city more fantastical - from the design of private cars to the infamous double-decker buses. Perhaps it turned out to be even more modern than real London.” As a result, the animated film “Minions” itself resembles a feature film from the middle of the last century.

Although cartoon "Minions" has long ceased to make noise in cinemas, the growing popularity of these cute creatures is still gaining momentum. They will be released on DVD and Blue-Ray in December. In addition to their own film, they now have two of their own games for mobile devices, one of which was released recently and received more than 16 million downloads in the first month. The number of things with minions is beyond counting. And the cartoon of the same name ended up in long list(Long list), from which 5 Oscar nominees will be selected. Not to mention the mother and child dressed as minions for Halloween. In a word, minions– this is a real yellow madness that has swept the entire planet.

Who are minions

Minions are small yellow creatures that communicate in their own language. special language, reminiscent of muttering. The essence of their life is to serve the most disgusting villain they can find. They existed at the dawn of the formation of life, starting with single-celled organisms and ending with their own modern look, formed during the era of dinosaurs. Their favorite food is bananas, followed by apples and papaya. They can have 1 or 2 eyes and a total of 5 types of hairstyles. Let's dive deeper into the history of the creation of these amazing characters and learn some interesting facts:

It is known that when creating minions, the authors were inspired by creatures from Star Wars - “Jawa” and “Oompa Loompa” from the movie “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.
They were created with the goal of balancing Gru so that he would not seem too scary villain. It seems they have exceeded their goal.
It was originally planned that the minions would look entirely human, but due to budget constraints they had to be greatly reduced and the concept changed.
According to one of the film's directors, Pierre Coffin, the number of minions is 899 and does not change.
Despite this, they only have 5 hairstyle options, including no hair for Bob.
Minion Bob has heterochromia. Different colors of the iris. It occurs in both humans and animals, indicating a heterogeneous concentration and distribution of melanin in the eye shell.
In 2015, the Minions became the official mascot of Universal Studios.
includes words from English, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Indian, Japanese and some other languages.
The Minions have their own attraction at the Universal Studios amusement park in Hollywood. There you can undergo training and become a real minion.
Minions grossed nearly $1.2 billion at the box office, setting several world records in the process.
They were also included in the long list, from 16 cartoons from which 5 contenders for the Oscars will be selected.

As we can see, these characters were carefully worked out. It is not surprising that they arouse such genuine interest. If you want to know more interesting facts about minions, you can go.

Now you know more about who are minions, but, most likely, you continue to be tormented by the question of why they are so popular.

Minions from Despicable Me

For the first time, we saw these creatures in the first part of the cartoon “Despicable Me”. From that moment on, they became on a par with the main characters, although, in fact, they are minor characters. The second part of this cartoon just developed its success, and the release of the “Minions” film was already awaited with great impatience.

The main features for which we love minions are, of course, humor, easy attitude to life, childish naivety and a very cute appearance. These characters have won the hearts of millions of adults and children in almost all countries of the world. They are guaranteed to lift your spirits and never let anyone get bored.

Minions from Despicable Me- This best friends for kids. Kids don't want to let out bright yellow ones Stuffed Toys from their hands, going to bed with them. And based on the cartoon “Minions,” a lot of children’s printed products were published, such as coloring books, books with stickers, albums for appliqué, and much more. Stores are increasingly filled with products depicting these characters, and we, in turn, are looking forward to the release of the next part of Despicable Me so that we can meet our favorite characters again on big screen. The only question is now how to hold out until the summer of 2017, when the third part of “Despicable Me” will appear on the screens?