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Walking with Dinosaurs

Walking with Dinosaurs

List Price: $29.98
Your Price: $23.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just phenomenal; as real as any animal documentary ever made
Review: We bought this for my (almost) 5 year-old son who has already forgotten more about dinosaurs than I'll ever know. I have worked in the elearning world with programmers who make 3-D animations of industrial equipment, and I have to say I am just amazed at the quality of the work in this series. The dinosaurs just plain look like they are alive today. It looks as real as if they were shooting elephants in Africa.

PROS
* Presented in story style of real animal documentaries: Each of the six episodes follows a small number of dinosaurs for a period of time; we learn about their relationships with each other and their environmental struggles

* "Making of" bonus DVD is a treat for older viewers interested in seeing how the episodes were made. THERE WAS A LOT OF INTERACTION WITH PALEONTOLOGISTS DURING THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS THAT ADDS TONS OF CREDIBILITY AND REALISM TO THE END PRODUCT.

* Animations as real (or better) than Jurassic Park

* Comprehensive focus on different periods (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous) of the dinosaurs and wonderful background on the different climates and geology of these periods

PURCHASING RECOMMENDATION
Anyone, young or old, with an interest in dinosaurs should get this. There may be some parts that frighten young viewers, so parents should screen it first and be with kids during the kids' first viewing. BUT THIS IS PHENOMENALLY ENTERTAINING AND EDUCATIONAL FOR EVERYONE.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Superb but quite graphic
Review: We bought this DVD for our 3 1/2 year old boy who is in the advanced stages of dinosaur obsession. He is very interested in all the particulars of each dinosaur -- names, diet, chronology, habits, etc. He was beside himself with delight when we first started watching the DVDs, literally jumping up and down yelling "Coelophysis! I love this! Diplodocus! Look, Allosaurus!"

As almost all others have mentioned, the overall production design is beyond impressive, and beggars the word "clever." Witty, thoughtful, convincing, and highly entertaining.

Unfortunately (for us), there is one dramatic trope that appears in literally every episode of this and the later "Walking With Prehistoric Beasts" series: eating babies. Sometimes creatures eat their own young for murky defensive reasons; sometimes predators pick off defenseless baby prey; sometimes territorial males eat their competitors' babies; sometimes giant ants eat cute hatchlings.

I can't fault the dramatic effect of these passages, and the continuing theme that competition is the engine of evolution is accurate and effectively presented. But it takes the air out of my little boy's enthusiasm when he constantly expects the cute baby dinosaurs to be messily devoured, and it makes me grimace to watch him watching it. Those scenes are not especially suspenseful, and don't seem to agitate him (he got a lot more anxious at "Finding Nemo"). But when his reaction to two Allosaurus eating a baby Diplodocus is "look, they're sharing!", I decided the infanticide just wasn't age-appropriate.

We put the series aside for now, and maybe we'll take it up again in a year.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting series, great animation, mediocre narration
Review: Walking with Dinosaurs is an interesting series for lovers of natural history. I have not seen the Discovery Channel version with Avery Brooks narrating, but only the DVD-version with Kenneth Branagh.

One should think that someone who does Shakespeare well should be able to get a dinosaur show done right, but it's obvious that dinosaurs are not Kenneth's passion, and both in WWD and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts one sometimes hears that he is reading a badly-rehearsed (and occasionally poorly-written) script. Sir David Attenborough with his authority and enthusiasm would have been perfect for the job, and I was a bit surprised that such a major BBC fronting didn't feature his legendary voice and employed his singular talent in writing nature show narrations.

That aside, I enjoyed it both visually and from the educational point of view, even if many elements of such a show naturally soon becomes dated as calculated guesses are disproved by more recent findings.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Diplodocus DID NOT leave their eggs?... I'M AGHAST!!!!"
Review: After reading alot of these reviews it becomes quite clear that this series is both education AND entertainment. People have a right to there opinions. If they want to criticise the use of puppets, disputed claims, minor inaccuracies(disputed), excluded details... (you get the point), I believe they have every right to do so. All I can say is THANK GOD FOR THE BBC!!! If the "Experts" had made this series we'd get to watch them argue over how the Diplodocus REALLY performed bodily functions!! Let's face it, if they made this series showing the "real" day-in-the-life of a dinosaur, we'd all turn the channel (and certainly not buy the DVD) after watching them eat grass and leaves for 2 hours. This series was designed to do 2 things:

1. ENTERTAIN YOU.
2. EDUCATE YOU (no, not you "Vertibrate Paleontologist", the average person).

Without 1, 2 does not happen. That's the reallity of it. I learned more from this series (or ever needed to learn)about Dinosaurs than I'd ever imagined. The details about Dinosaurs will always be disputed, but the fact that this series (DVD) is great educational entertainment can not. I highly advise anyone who is not a Vertibrate Paleontologist to add this DVD to your collection. YOU will not be disappointed.

DISCLAIMER:
(Vertibrate Paleontologist have been known to enjoy this series from time to time. They just get a little picky about Dinosaurs like it was there JOB!!)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Astounding Entertainment
Review: Not so much a program as it was an event. Walking with Dinosaurs was without a doubt one of the most stunning releases to come from the BBC. Dinosaurs once again walk the earth in this groundbreaking documentary. Tim Haines has done something that had never been done before, breath life into a world vanished long ago. Unlike Spielberg, Harryhausen, Disney, or anyone else in Hollywood. Haines portrays dinosaurs not as cinematic monsters, but as living animals for the first time. With dazzling visual effects, incredible cinematography, moving musical score, and a powerful narration by Kenneth Branagh. This film could have easily been a theatrical release. Included is a very entertaining and amusing featurette on how the whole program was made. As well as interviews with some of the technical staff. All in all this would be a most welcomed addition to anyone's DVD library.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Misleading Mixture of Fact and Fantasy
Review: Given the amount of time and money put into the production of this series (3 years and approx. $9million) you might expect that the producers would be careful to make it as accurate as possible.

HOWEVER - they didn't. Who says so, some nutty anti-evolutionists?
No. Henry Gee says so.
And Henry Gee is a senior editor on "Nature", one of the most highly respected scientific journals in the world. I quote:

'Viewers should have the right to expect that everything is true; or, if it isn't, they should be able to tell fact from fiction. This is not the case with Walking with dinosaurs' (Nature, 7 October 1999, 401, 530).

What we have here is NOT science but sci-fi.

Far from showing us how things were, the series depends upon a whole heap of imagination. How did various creatures actually look, move, eat and otherwise behave? We can guess, and depending on the completeness of various fossil skeletons we can make some educated guesses.

But "Walking with Dinosaurs" goes far beyond 'educated guesses' and gives us something that excels in the animation department, but which has been roundly criticised by numerous scientists for the extent to which it has passed off fantasy as fact.

So, did we worry how accurate the creatures were in "Jurassic Park"? I shouldn't think so.
And when viewers realise that this is also a largely PSEUDO-scientific production then I guess it can be enjoyed in much the same manner - as entertainment NOT as education.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My 3 year old has rented this a dozen times! Time to buy!
Review: My 3 year old son is a dino expert - ever since viewing Disney's Dinosaur, he's been obsessed! He loves this set because it is realistic and shows dinos in their habitats. I also enjoy watching these DVDs because they are very well made - though I admit I find myself watching him watching them - I just love his reactions! I highly recommend!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Info-tainment at its finest
Review: Who cares whether the science is 100% accurate?! Paleontologists don't even agree on every detail. The point is to make these creatures come alive, and convey a sense of what life was like in those prehistoric days. This series succeeds admirably. You really get to feel that life was dog-eat-dog, perhaps no different then from today. Not only do strong dinosaurs eat weaker ones - they eat their own kind, even their own children and mates! Cruelty was everywhere, made necessary by the need to survive. But such was nature, and so it remains. Only very small children should not see these magnificent pictures. There's much philosophy in them. You learn about life itself.

The quality of the graphics is slightly below that of the first Jurassic Park, let alone the sequels. But that's not too bad for a British production. This is an expensive production FOR A DOCUMENTARY. The real bummer is the perfunctory treatment of the Alvarez K-2 event, i.e., the description of the meteor which destroyed the dinosaurs. The graphics are poor, and the description brief to the point of neglect. One is misled into thinking that the rock wiped out the dinosaurs overnight, when in reality the climatic change caused by it took decades, even centuries, to make the dinosaurs extinct. (It also fails to mention that had it not been for this event, mammals would not have flourished, and we might not have existed.)

Anyway, despite all this, it's very well done!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Walking with Dinosaurs
Review: When they said "USED, in NEW CONDTION", It Was Like New!! Was also Very Pleased With Service !!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Dinosaur Documentary on the Planet
Review: I purchased this title along with "When Dinosaurs Roamed America" and this is by far the better DVD set. Both titles use a lot of liberty in recreating the world the dinosaurs lived in and what their daily lives were like but the "Walking with Dinosaurs" set covers much more ground and has the better CGI effects of the two. Both are worthy of purchase, but if you are sitting on the fence trying to determine which is the better buy then look no further. This is THE standard by which all other dinosaur documentaries are measured.

Kenneth Branagh is far superior to John Goodman in his narration and although the scenes are solely based on the researchers and film-makers imaginations, there are no obvious logic flaws as there are in "When Dinosaurs Roamed America". In that title, a segment on the raptors at one moment describes them as the most intelligent of all the dinosaurs and then the next moment shows them feasting on a carcass while ignoring an oncoming forest fire. As the other animals flee, they remain and gorge themselves until they consumed in the flames. That would make them the most ignorant of the dinosaurs at the time, not the most intelligent.

You won't find logic flaws like that in "Walking with Dinosaurs". What you will find is three plus hours of amazing footage and facts that will enable you to see these magnificent creatures like you've never seen them before. Ever wonder what the dinosaurs of Antarctica were like or imagine an Allosaurus getting taken out by an ocean dwelling carnivore? You'll see it all here. This is the closest thing to a National Geographic show on living dinosaurs that we'll ever see. I only hope that the creators of this series will make more episodes.


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