Home :: DVD :: Documentary  

African American Heritage
Art & Artists
Biography
Comedy
Crime & Conspiracy
Gay & Lesbian
General
History
IMAX
International
Jewish Heritage
Military & War
Music & Performing Arts
Nature & Wildlife
Politics
Religion
Science & Technology
Series
Space Exploration
Sports
Tropical Rainforest (Large Format)

Tropical Rainforest (Large Format)

List Price: $19.99
Your Price: $19.99
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: amazons mining rainforest
Review: 3,00

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Evolution of the Tropical Rain Forest
Review: Compared to other IMAX DVDs, the sound quality isn't quite up there with Yellowstone, Antarctica, and others. Nevertheless, the great visuals make up for any real or imagined sound quality. You do feel a bit sorry for the animals who have been taken from such a lush setting and placed within a 2x3 foot aquarium. And it hurts to see these rainforests chopped down for the sake of business.

What bothered me most about the video, was its blatent credit to this wonderful area to evolution. Part of the problem is that we have a 40 minute video--not near long enough to have a good discussion on evolution even if the whole DVD was devoted to it--which it is not. Instead, we get these simplistic answers, such as, evolution did this, or that, or gave us a conscience, etc. But where did evolution come from? What caused its existance? How did an impersonal force with no personality give us a conscience? The movie never tells us, and "it just happened." For the thinking viewer, however, this will lead to more questions than answers. How can we evolve from one state to a better one when the rest of life tells us that things tend to break down? Where is the transitional evidence of evolution in the fossel record? There is none, but this DVD never touches on this. It just assumes that evolution is true, and everything just happened. What was its first cause? We aren't told. How does "Mother Nature," made up of trees, rocks, and other things, manage to make willful decisions? We aren't told. I don't believe evolution is true, but just throwing out evolutionary phrases in a 40 minute movie doesn't do justice to the topic. Despite this, there are some very beautiful scenes of plant life and animal life.

However, if you are wondering what IMAX video to buy, if you have to make a choice between this one and another, I would recommend Yellowstone, Antarctica, Niagara, Super Speedway,Alaska, or Africa The Serengeti as a starting point. Save this as a purchase toward the end of your run of IMAX purchases.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Waste of money!
Review: Completely useless piece of film making, why did IMAX bother? Picture quality bears no resemblance to other IMAX productions such as "Africa The Serengeti" and the transfer to DVD has been done very poorly. The background sounds of the rainforest are completely marred by a terribly delivered commentary which sounds as if it were intended for 5 year olds. Any adult of average intelligence will learn nothing from the commentary that they didn't already know. Don't waste your money.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Worst IMAX I ever saw
Review: I felt so happy when I was able to return this DVD for a refund. I stopped collecting IMAX DVD's without renting them first after the experience I had with this one.

The things that are bad with this one: 1. Poor Video 2. Lousy narration(worst ever for an IMAX). 3. Not at all interesting

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Very poor MPEG transfer...
Review: It would be better advised if you rent this film from Netflix first before you make your purchase here. As the other reviewers have noted, the transfer from film to DVD can vary, and in this particular case, it was clearly poorly done. It's a terrible shame that this beautiful IMAX film was given such a second-rate transfer.

Normally I would end it here, but as some perceptive readers might have noticed, a vocal creationist has entered our midst, voicing his objections to the theory of evolution being used so matter-of-factly. Now I certainly don't want to belittle Dan, he can certainly believe or disbelieve whatever he wishes. However he went beyond just stating his discomfort with the theory and went out of his way to draw out a couple objections to Evolution, in effect distorted the evidence and philosophical foundations of the theory. Thus, here entails my problem.

Dan complains that the IMAX film, while giving references to evolution, never attempted to provide evidence that evolution had taken place. Is this really surprising? Perhaps Dan should ask himself if just conceivably that the theory might be so well established in modern biology, so well documented in scientific literature, that no rational person questions it today (i.e. such as cell theory, or population genetics), therefore any exposition on "proving" evolution would simply become superfluous. Just an idea Dan.

If Dan is so dissatisfied with the rather simplistic explanations given in the film, perhaps he should actually read some of the evolutionary literature that is readily available (here at Amazon no less). A great text would be Douglas J. Futuyma's _Evolutionary Biology_, or Ridley's _Evolution_, and a few excellent popular works would include Steve Jones' _Darwin's Ghost_, Kenneth Miller's _Finding Darwin's God_, Donald Johanson's _From Lucy to Language_, and anything by Steve Gould or Richard Dawkins.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Regret for Buying it..
Review: The narration is very bad and it doesn't even look like a common Discovery Channel program. It looks like it has been taken by a Home Video camcoder. Only the audio is good. I wouldn't even recommend for renting.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Are they for real? Absolutely AWFUL
Review: This is the WORST documentary I have ever watched. Anyhow i consider iMAX documentaries sub par to National Geographic and BBC documentaries. Given that leeway, this documentary still sets new standards. New stardards in terms of the worst documentary made.

The narrator sounds like hes overdosed on prozac, there is no theme whatsoever (they take a rainforest, take the first person off the street to narrate, and an IMAX camera: where they spent all their money). I was so severly disappointed. The DVD transfer is nothing spectacular.

Which brings me to my next point: IMAX documentaries are subpar in terms of filming and content and narration to the aforementioned documentaries. They are only popular becuase of the film and projection technuiques of the BIG screen IMAX theatres. Once they are transferred to DVD, the effect is lost and they appear as inferior, B-class documentaries. Stick to some BBC or National geographic documentary.

I think the grass growing in my lawn is more fascinating than this lacklustre piece on a "rainforest". Useless.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Waste of money
Review: What a waste of money, this film was more of an add to save the rain forest than a documentary.


<< 1 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates