When Dinosaurs Roamed America

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but...
Review: ... it is nearly impossible to look at this feature, without comparing its quality to that of 'Walking with Dinosaurs'. It is very similar in style, delivered like a modern-day wildlife documentary, but it jumps around a lot. The CG graphics and animation are not quite of the same calibur of WWD, as well. Very rarely did the creatures seem to interact with their real-life environment. They often looked like they were just dropped into it, or stuck on like those old colorforms decals on a cardboard background. Where the lack of detail was most obvious is when the dinosaurs eat. The plant-eaters were the most awkward to watch, mainly because of the same lack of interatction with the environment. The meat eaters rarely had any flesh in their mouths. To see the animals 'chewing' and making other eating movements, but not actually be *eating* anything made it look silly and almost unprofessional.

But this DVD isn't all bad. It was well paced and still interesting. Some of the interpretations of the dinosaurs themselves were good. T-Rex as a family pack hunter? Interesting. Some of the designs for the dinosaurs were quite cool too. Some of them looked a little cartoonish for my tastes, but I have to admit that the feathered dinosaurs were well done.

Certainly, it isn't nearly as impressive as Walking With Dinosaurs, but it also isn't as expensive as Walking With Dinosaurs. It is a good watch for the price.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but...
Review: ... it is nearly impossible to look at this feature, without comparing its quality to that of 'Walking with Dinosaurs'. It is very similar in style, delivered like a modern-day wildlife documentary, but it jumps around a lot. The CG graphics and animation are not quite of the same calibur of WWD, as well. Very rarely did the creatures seem to interact with their real-life environment. They often looked like they were just dropped into it, or stuck on like those old colorforms decals on a cardboard background. Where the lack of detail was most obvious is when the dinosaurs eat. The plant-eaters were the most awkward to watch, mainly because of the same lack of interatction with the environment. The meat eaters rarely had any flesh in their mouths. To see the animals 'chewing' and making other eating movements, but not actually be *eating* anything made it look silly and almost unprofessional.

But this DVD isn't all bad. It was well paced and still interesting. Some of the interpretations of the dinosaurs themselves were good. T-Rex as a family pack hunter? Interesting. Some of the designs for the dinosaurs were quite cool too. Some of them looked a little cartoonish for my tastes, but I have to admit that the feathered dinosaurs were well done.

Certainly, it isn't nearly as impressive as Walking With Dinosaurs, but it also isn't as expensive as Walking With Dinosaurs. It is a good watch for the price.

Rating:
Summary: Cheap knock-off of Walking with Dinosaurs
Review: A hastily put together c-grade Walking with Dinosaurs knock-off by the Discovery Channel, obviously cannot compete in any area with the BBC's production. If you're really into dinosaurs you might want to check it out, but even then you'll be hard pressed to stay interested in this sub-par effort.

Rating:
Summary: Good presentation, narration needed work
Review: A very interesting and fun American follow-up to the BBC's WALKING WITH DINOSAURS series, this presentation follows the practice of usnig CGI to present dinosaurs as they may have actually looked, moved, hunted, and reproduced. This series has certain advantages over the WWD series in that it tends to focus on dinosaurs that the average person will have heard of (triceratops) while WWD tended to focus on lesser-known dinosars (torosaurus). The only flaws in this design are the harshness of the CGI, occasionally glaringly not part of the landscape, and the narration of John Goodman. While Mr. Goodman has a great voice, he sounds bored to tears by the narration and it can occasionally distract from the visuals.

Also, as with WWD, be aware that these visuals are all built on THEORIES and may contradict your assumptions and major theories in the effort to provide interesting dinosaurs on-screen.

Rating:
Summary: don't rush it
Review: After watching what the BBC does with CGI and what can be done with CGI I found this to be quite disappointing. The attention to detail was lacking from start to finish. What the past actually looked like is definitely open to interpretation and this DVD does interpret the dinosaurs in a different way, atleast visually. The look of the dinosaurs is good but the imaging of the dinosaurs in action is dodgy.

This desperatley needed someone to write a decent storyline for it to follow rather than jumping all over the place and not really teaching you anything. The inclusion of some clips of paleantologists explaining some finds was interesting but was not adequately linked to the dinosaur footage.

It was more about America than it was about the dinosaurs....have another go fella's!!!!

Rating:
Summary: When Dinosaurs Roamed America
Review: All of these folks who are critical of the odd juxtaposition of John Goodman's voice in an educational film, the tired storylines, or even the uneven CGI , are missing the point of this DVD: It has a bunch of awesome moving and roaring Dinosaurs in it!!! That makes it great! I say keep 'em comin'. Don't stop untill you've created animations for every known species of Dinosaur.

My only suggestion is to have the option of muting the narration to enjoy a more pure Dinosaur ambiance. (Regardless of the narration voice.)

Rating:
Summary: dino-riffic
Review: Did you ever wonder what America was like back 65 million years ago??? When Dinosaurs Roamed America takes you back in time to see what the earth may have looked liked 65 millon years ago. This is another 2 thumbs up!!!! It is a great gift for those who want to see when dinos roamed America.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable but not up to Walking with Dinosaurs
Review: Five years ago, I probably would have given When Dinosaurs Roamed America a rave review. It is a good dinosaur special, well done overall and with interesting effects. But in the post-Walking with Dinosaurs era, it's a bit of a letdown. The animation is not as good, nor is the writing as sharp.

One other note: John Goodman is really not up the level of either Kenneth Branaugh (British version of Walking with Dinosaurs as well as the DVD version) or Avery Brooks (the version of Walking With Dinosaurs shown on the Discovery Channel). The latter two treat it as a serious nature special. Goodman's narration makes it sound like he's narrating a children's TV special, not a nature special.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Great! As good (if not better) than "Walking with Dinosaurs". My 6 year old son loves it and it is also interesting for the grown-ups to watch. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Another Great Dino Movies
Review: I absolutely loved "Walking With Dinosaurs." While this DVD isn't as good as that set it still is a great DVD. It has a very similar feel (like a Natural Geographic Special). The graphics are excellent but not as good as WWD. In some areas you can find imperfections. I like that they found some really interesting new locations; new woods that look like they were in the dinosaur times.

The naration is one of the bigger detractors from the film. John Goodman? Come on? Why? Because he was in the Flinstones? Not even close to the standard set in WWD.

There was some re-use of backgrounds and animations of some scenes which made me say, "hey, I saw that already, all they did was mirror the scene."

The pacing was perfect and the few but insightful palentologist comments were well done. The length was good. Another good thing was that there were some new dinosaurs in this DVD that we haven't previously seen.

Overall, the DVD is great, offered new info, showed dinos with feathers, and continued the trend started by WWD. I highly recommend it for any audience. Also the price is right.