Rating: 
Summary: A Great Movie
Review: Probably the best documentary I have ever seen, along with Walking with Dinosaurs. The animation was spectacular,like its predecessors. But there were two faults. I noticed that very often you see the same shot 2 or 3 times. I personaly think thats cheating. Also, when it aired on the Discovery Channel, It was over an hour shorter than WWD, partialy due to the short "Fact" sections. I havnt seen it on home video, but with Christmas and my birthday approaching I might get it. Maybe these problems will be fixed. Even if they arent, it is definatly a 5 star program that I strongly request, especialy if yu are a prehistory lover like me.
Rating:
Summary: In my view, even better than Walking With Dinosaurs.
Review: The team at the BBC got it right-there is another series of invigorating 'big animal' natural history stories AFTER the dinosaurs went extinct-the radiation and development of the mammals. This DVD series covers the early expansion of mammals into vacant ecological niches left by the disappearance of (most) of the dinosaurs-from early cat-size horse ancestors, to big carnivourous flightless birds, to giants in the sea (carnivorous whales 18m long), to giants on the plains-eg rhinos trying to be giraffes (up to 6m at the shoulder), elephant ancestors (up to 4m at the shoulder), giant pig-like ancestors, giant carnivorous hoofed animals (Andrewsarchus-about 2m at the shoulder), the sabre tooth cats (smilodon-about 1.2m at the shoulder-bigger than the modern tiger), upright small primates wandering the African plains (australopithecus-about 1.4m at the shoulder), mammoths (about 3m at the shoulder) and eventually a 'big' primate-man (about 1.7m at the shoulder). There are two DVDs in the set, 1)-the 6 part series, and 2) 2 40 minute-long documentaries, which for those who want deeper analysis, are better than the series. These documentaries take us to the famous fossil site of Messel in Germany, the Sahara desert, Ethiopia, South Africa, and various other locales, with background rationale explained as to various aspects of the series. Most of the stories are indeed based on scientific research-for example the lake beds at the famous fossil site of Messel in Germany appear to have been anoxic-and there is evidence of sudden unusual extinctions which have been surmised to be due to mass releases of carbon dioxide (episode 1). Other examples are leopard teeth marks found in skulls of australopithecus-(episode 4), mammoth kill sites adjacent to ancient cliffs (episode 6), impact injuries in Neanderthal skeletons (episode 6), and exposed fossil mangrove roots in the Sahara desert (episode 2). This sort of background information is essential for a deeper analysis of many of the stories in the main series, and provide good information for the enthusiastic amateur palaeontologist. This is a wonderful 65 million year story, which has been somewhat neglected during the modern science era, and this series attempts to fill in many gaps for the wonder and scientific endeavour of the chattering and lumbering primates who eventually came down from the trees. The BBC has left some significant Quaternary and Recent megafaunal extinctions out, in such places as Madagascar, Australia (eg diprotodon, megalania), New Zealand (eg the moa), and other places, so I hope they will visit these places in another series!
Rating:
Summary: The "Walking With..." team strikes again!
Review: The team that brought you Walking With Dinosaurs brings you look at the world from time not long after the dinosaurs were extinct until just a few thousand years ago. Since I was reasonably familiar with dinosaurs already, this new series was a lot more informative for me. We see a world where giant birds hunt cat-sized horses, where a pig is the meanest thing on the block, where the ancestor of sheep was a carnivore, where whales had teeth and attitude. We learn that there was really no such animal as a sabre-tooth "tiger," but there a large variety of sabre-tooth cats. Technically, the team has progressed significantly, as the effects are, on the whole, much more realistic. Given that most of animals have hair now, this is a real accomplishment. There were a few moments when things didn't look real, and they had to do mostly with the early humans (austrailopithicus). These looked a little phony compared to the others, although they looked better on DVD than they did when I first watched this show on the Discovery channel. Just an aside, was I the only one, when the tribe of pre-humans was driven away from their watering hole, who expected to see a 2001 monolith teaching them how to kill things with bones? The only downside I found was the fact that there really wasn't enough room to adequately tell the human story, and many stages of human evolution where left out. I kind of wish they had left the humans out altogether and done a third special, "Walking with Early Humans," or something like that. The narration by Kenneth Branaugh is, as before, superior to the American actor they hired to redub the show for the Discovery Channel, although Stockard Channing was a lot better than Avery Brooks. Why do they feel the need to redo the narration for American television? It's not like Branaugh isn't famous over here. He's sure a lot better known than Avery Brooks. As usual, there are good supporting documentaries on the second disk. This time, these have more to do with the science involved than the production. Again, just like with "Dinosaurs," these extras are filled with as much sly good humor as good information.
Rating:
Summary: A risk that really succeeded
Review: The Walking with Dinosaurs team could probably have contented itself with producing spinoffs for a long time. They made one special -- "Allosaurus" -- which basically seems to be a seventh episode that didn't get included in the earlier series. If they went on producing half-hour dinosaur shows for years, they'd have had me for an audience. They didn't do that, though. Instead they traded on their success with dinos to make this great series about prehistoric animals after the dinosaurs. One of the producers mentions, in the "making of" documentary on disk two, that they knew they'd have to do the dinosaurs first because those were popular enough to draw money and attention. They seem to have made "Beasts" because they were just plain interested. Thank goodness someone's letting curiosity drive the work, you know? This series works a lot like "Walking with Dinosaurs" did. There are six episodes, and each one's a storyline involving a particular species of animal and the world in which it lives. There's no "talking head" side to these shows; they're nonstop film of the (animated) animals living in their worlds, without other graphics. Kenneth Branagh narrates them very much like any other animal documentary, only you're seeing reconstructions of extinct animals instead of lions or elephants. The camera work is skilfully made to work like shots from modern nature shows, with a few minor conceits from the cgi animators thrown in for fun. The "Walking" team really raised the bar for themselves here, though. First, for some reason prehistoric mammals don't knock people out the way dinosaurs do. A couple of years ago a Japanese team announced it was trying to produce a real, live mammoth, but nobody's making movies in which a series of ... scientists get lured out to an island for mammoths to stomp on them, you know? Then too, people know how a lion or tiger looks when it moves, so animating a saber toothed cat is going to be harder to pull off, leaving alone the primates. Also, and it's a simple thing, mammals have hair, which is hard to make right on a computer. Well, it works again. The shows are wonderfully written, with an extremely good sense of timing and a nice range to each episode. The animals are stunning. Seeing a brontotherium browsing the shrubs is just dazzling. There's almost more evolutionary interest to this one, too, because we're seeing lots of animals that have modern relations. Glyptodonts, car-sized armadillo relations, are a kick to see bumbling around in company with giant ground sloths and smilodon, the largest saber tooth. The shortcomings of Beasts are pretty similar to those of Dinosaurs. A couple of more typical documentaries on the second disk make up for the lack of hard core paleontology. The payoff of the documentary approach is worth underplaying the material you can find in more traditional programs and books. There might be a little less money behind this than the earlier show; the worlds we see are a little less lushly populated, with a handful of highlighted species the only ones we see. My only real reservation, though, would be that the complexity of human origins suffers. That's one story I don't think you can gloss over the scientific debate for... maybe another entire series would really be better. So, what I'm asking for is more. Another series, please. And I trust you to stretch yourselves, out of curiosity, to give us something even better.
Rating:
Summary: great fun
Review: This dvd is great. It's fun to watch as well was educational. The kids refer to it as "the other dinosaurs". Put it on while you clean house, wash dishes, do laundry or cook.
Rating:
Summary: more realistic than national geographic!!
Review: This DVD was more realistic than any National geographic or discovery channel documentary. With better CGI than in the first BBC groundbreaker, Walking with the Dinosaurs it leaves you with a sense of actually being involved in the series. I watched this DVD from start to finish about six times in the first week and was amazed each time I saw it by the makers attention to detail. Even when the Giant Indricatheer walked there were foot prints left in the dirt. There are a few little things that makes this more realistic than any other CGI documentary that I have seen and I have seen most. I won't mention these surprises but they are yet another piece of the puzzle that sets this DVD apart from any other around.
From 5 to 55 your whole family will enjoy this if they are interested in the past and wish to see it in the flesh!!!
I know this review sounds like an advertisement but watch it and see what I mean.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic value for the length of the film
Review: This is a great look at some incredible beasts from the past, many not so well known but fascinating and even a bit scary. the "nature documentary" manner in which the movie is presented is great, and adds to the sense of realism.
Rating: 
Summary: A Most Pleasing Post-Cretaceous Potpourri
Review: This is the "sequel" to the excellent Walking With Dinosaurs, where the mammals rise from humble beginnings in the post-dino apocalypse to assume many impressive forms, culminating in an advanced ape that climbs to the top of the food chain: us. The entire saga is told in a series of vignettes of some cornerstone species, including mammoths and sabre-tooth cats as well as some lesser known species such as Indricotherium, the largest land mammal ever, and Andrewsarchus a rhino-sized wolf-like animal with hooves.
The computer animation is top rate, but some sequences still don't appear very realistic such as the herd of wooly mammoths being forced off a cliff by a group of Neanderthals. As for the Neanderthals, they seem a bit too much of the caveman cliche. I saw a model recreation at a museum recently that suggests that Neanderthals brow ridge features and noses were much less exagerrated than what is shown here. But these are minor quibbles. This is an excellent way to get both kids and adults interested and informed on mammalian evolution, including human origins. An outstanding entertainment and educational experience awaits!
Rating:
Summary: Kittys to saber-cats Piggy's to entolodont's
Review: This was a great movie. It tells about giant carnivourous pigs, the famous "sabertooth tiger" scientificly named "smilodon", a giant whale with the behavior and eating habits of a shark, 7-foot tall scavenging birds, wooly mammoths, a huge omnivourous sloth and much more. It is not only great information, but it recreates the life of the animals and makes up logical stories.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic show that loses points for editing
Review: This was a great sequel to Walking with Dinosaurs. It is probably the most informative show about early mammals ever made. The animation and scenery are beautiful and the sound does what it has to. Unfortunately I cannot give it 5 stars because the Region 1 version has been edited. If anyone wants the full BBC version, they will have to get the Region 2 version.
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