Rating: 
Summary: Raised my expectations for anything else
Review: I went to see Jurassic Park in the theater. There was a scene early on in the movie where the human characters look, from a distance, at a watering hole where a bunch of dinosaurs are gathered. At that moment, I thought to myself, "Ditch these tediously stereotypical people, and let's just watch what happens at that watering hole."Walking with Dinosaurs was made for people like me. After rafts of popular books and more documentaries than any one dino-crazed kid can possibly have watched, this BBC series managed to approach the whiz bang subject of dinosaurs in a strikingly new and fresh way. The accomplishment is exhilarating to watch -- engagingly, intelligently written, and visually stunning. I skimmed past the listing when this was originally released in the U.S. -- "Yeah yeah, another dinosaur special." My loss. This series and its sequel, Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, are just plain wonderful. Basically, "Walking with Dinosaurs" is a faux wildlife documentary. Rather than interspersing brief snippets of dinosaur images and animated sequences with paleontologists, perhaps a popular news anchor, maps, and images of fossils, the program gives us nothing but "footage" of dinosaurs and their world. The six episodes in the series obey the narrative structure of an animal documentary show like PBS's "Nature"; each one is thematically written around a single species or (sometimes) one particular animal. So, we follow a diplodocus as it moves though the stages of its life, moving away on tangents to explore other sides of its world but always coming back to touch on the same individual. There's a reason regular nature specials get produced this way. It gives the viewer a lens through which to see the larger world. It provides the show with a narrative direction. For dinosaurs those advantages, along with modern cgi effects, work like magic. Partly the effects are quite good, though they were made on a comparative shoestring next to big time effects movies these days. Partly the production here is just so smart, so thoughtful, that it blends just the right admixture of nature show conventions -- camera angles, story arcs -- with those great effects. It flows right, you know? It works. And yes, of course there's going to be a downside. Because we're seeing thematically composed stories, here, rather than brief shots and cuts away for a learned discussion, we have to rely on Kenneth Branagh's narration for a lot of exposition. We can't see that animated map of plate tectonics in action, no. ("Meanwhile, while our baby diplodocus eats those ferns, Antarctica is moving southward...") There's quite a bit of speculation, too - unavoidable speculation, when you're working this way. If you're discussing T. Rex on another program, you can waffle about a few different ways it may have hunted. If you're going to write a show around the animal and show it for maybe 30 minutes on screen, it's gonna have to eat something. You can't put that dithered censorship smudge over the moment of the kill to avoid committing yourself to one interpretation or another. You also shouldn't have your narrator break in on the dramatic moment to point out each potential "reach" by the scientists who consulted with the producers. ("Or maybe this didn't really happen. Some people think...") That'd break the form of the shows. And finally, it's very hard on a budget to make the whole, messy world come to life. There are times when it seems like we're seeing a limited range of the bigger, more interesting animals, and maybe there wasn't the money to animate more. All of which is to say: No, this isn't perfectly respectable, bet-hedging, responsible academic science. (The accompanying "Making of" program on the second DVD does tie it back to that world very securely.) This is popular science. It also isn't a major motion picture, though in a lot of ways it's better. Did you notice it was on TV? It does gloss over some murky evolutionary relationships in favor of easier-to-understand offhand lines that help the viewer along. No, it isn't going to get every postural detail just as the latest journal article had it. What it does do is provide us with some truly amazingly good television to watch. Anyone could nitpick at this for a few different reasons, it's true -- but if you're enough of a dinosaur buff to nitpick, your expectations will be raised by this program. It's that good.
Rating: 
Summary: CGI, puppets and dinosaurs... o my!
Review: Overall this was a very nice program. The CGI was very well done, although it was no where near to the quality of Jurassic Park (hey thats a five star by the way).
Well then if I liked it so much why did I give it 4 stars? I think there were too many errors littering the film to deserve a perfect rating. And yes, I do know quite a bit on paleontology (exclusively dinosaurs), so do not think I don't know what I'm talking about. If you think I'm wrong, consult the nearest Vertebrate Paleontology resource.
1.They could have done better than the puppets. I don't understand why they just didn't use CGI for those.
2.Yes, Diplodicus did lay eggs because many Titanosaur eggs have been found in argentina and other sites around the world. My problem is that in WWD the sauropods abandon their eggs. I do not believe this to be true. It would make much more sense for the adults to care for their children; the young would be too vulnerable. In fact, I don't think any Jurassic or Cretaceous dinosaur would have left their young to an uncertain fate.
3.Uhhh Allosaurus fragilis had its postorbital horns before its eyes, not above them.Don't believe me? Look at the word POSTORBITAL.
4.Did anyone notice how the Diplodicus's size changed throughout the second episode?
5.Liopleurodon did not get that huge. They reached lengths of 40 feet, not 80.
6.The feathers atop the Ornitholeste's head came from nowhere when he raised them up.
7.I think that the british were making fun of us americans by making the Tyrannosaurus (native to western america) so inaccurate. First of all, the feet were about 3 times larger in life. They had the animal walking on the tips of its toes. NO! Second, the head was way too short and bull-doggish. However I did enjoy the roar.
Overall you should buy this program. It is very enjoyable to watch and presents a fairly accurate view of the dinosaur world.
Rating:
Summary: A new breed of dinosaur documentaries
Review: This DVD is refreshing. Unlike other dinosaur documentaries, this one presents the subject of dinosaurs from a "Wild Life Documentary" perspective. You feel as though you are watching a typical safari documentary on lions and other wild life. The commentary is no different. The scenes are no different. The only difference being you are watching dinosaurs! The producers managed to pull it off very well. At times the realism is very striking and you feel as though you are actually watching real live dinosaurs in their native habitats. Notice I said "At times"? Well, having a real good eye for detail is sometimes not the best thing. I can see that sometimes the dinosaur computer animation overlays of some of the dinosaur scenes do not have enough contrast and look unnatural compared to the surrounding natural scenery. Most people will not notice this but I do. For me this minor detail makes it difficult for me to get totally immersed in the film. This is one reason why I didn't give this movie more than 4 stars. I did not notice this with any of the underwater scenes. They look completely real to my eyes. Also many of the other scenes look completely real, showing that the producers of this film have the talent to pull off the realism, but failed to do so in some of the scenes, especially with the Tyrannosaurus scenes. This dinosaur is very impressive, but the contrast on the computer animation of this creator is probably the worst of all. His image badly needs more contrast. Its such a minor detail. And its easily fixed. With a little more contrast its image would look more natural compared to the natural scenery. I'm sure its simple for the film makers to go back to the computer program and adjust the contrast of the image to make it match its surroundings better. I would have gave this film 1/2 of a star more IF the computer animation overlay sequences always had correctly adjusted contrast to match the natural scenery. And an additional 1/2 of a star if there were a few more exciting scenes added. There is one scene were this huge sea dinosaur jumps out of the water and gulps down a large land walking dinosaur. This scene is startling. It will make you jump and clap. Exciting stuff. A little more of this and this DVD would be much more entertaining. The second DVD that comes in this set is very nice. It shows how everything was done and is quite entertaining. This DVD gets 4 1/2 stars!
Rating:
Summary: Almost 'too' real...
Review: I watched this when it aired on the Discovery channel and have all intentions of purchasing the DVDs. Within the first 20 minutes, I was amazed by the animation. The Coelophysis was so life-like, I had to remind myself that this is not a typical wildlife documentary. This six-part dinosaur film is presented as one would expect a documentary on tigers or spiders to be presented. It followed the story of individual dinosaurs and specific herd and packs. From a herd of hadrosaur, to the flight across the ocean of a great pterosaur, to the family life of T-Rex. Almost all of the creatures featured were of believable quality. The dinosaurs appear to interact with their environment of real-life scenery. While this is an educational film, it would only be fair to point out that the information and stories about these creatures involve a lot of speculation, but that is to be expected in any dinosaur documentary, especially one presented in this style. I would recommend 'Walking with Dinosaurs' to anyone who likes dinosaurs, wildlife documentaries, or just want to see something amazing and imaginative. This is a program I watch when I'm feeling creatively blocked... it really jump-starts my imagination to see these extinct creatures come to such believable life.
Rating:
Summary: Husband loves it and so do the kids!
Review: A great documentary with a lot of recreations!
Rating:
Summary: The Best Dinosaur Documentary Ever
Review: Walking with Dinosaurs successfully blended a series of great stories with highly educational material. It made learning about Dinosaurs fun. The special effects are state of the art. Walking With Dinosaurs presents the Dinosaurs as if they were filmed as part of a nature documentary. All the Dinosaurs are presented as part of living ecosystem and shown interacting with thier enviroment. The show producers used all the latest scientific information to make sure the information presented is accurate as possible. This program is the clostest a viewer can get to that ancient world.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible program in gorgeous picture and audio quality
Review: This was my first DVD purchase, and it is still my favorite. Included are the original BBC broadcast versions of the episodes, and no the cut up Discovery version. The video quality is outstanding. They squeezed 3 and a half hourse of video onto one disc, and it looks better than a lot of 2 hour movies do. The widescreen format makes it look like a movie, as do the incredible special effects. The audio quality is wonderful aswell, and the sounds of the various creatures comes across with great clarity. Kenneth Branagh(sp?)'s narration is wonderful, and was sadly removed from the US broadcast versions, and replaced with Avery Brooks(who makes a much better space-station commander than narrator(He also plays Sisko on Deep Space 9)). The extras are much more than what you would expect from a documentary. A very in-depth making of feature, in glorious widescreen format and running nearly an hour in length would have been enough, but we also get a feature I had never seen before, a "picture in picture mode". When activated, a small window will appear ever so often on the screen. Commentary by the series producer will accompany the video in the window on a certain subject. There are 30 minutes of these spread across the six episodes. Very much worth your purchase.
Rating:
Summary: Great Show with One Annoying Feature
Review: "Walking With Dinosaurs" is really a spectacular job of television production. The series' creators have crafted a nature series in which one follows dinosaurs in much the same way "Wild Kingdom" followed living animals, only without the hokey Mutual of Omaha commercials. Of course the science is often quite speculative and 10 years from now much of it may be revised, but this is the state of the art of paleontology as we know it today. The only thing that keeps this DVD from getting five stars from me is one annoying feature: periodically a distracting icon pops up in the upper right of the screen alerting you to the fact that you can activate a window to see some producer's commentary or a behind-the-scenes look at how a particular scene was filmed. These little extras are rarely all that compelling when the feature is activated but even if you say you want the window turned off, the icon continues popping on, usually obstructing some dinosaur's face for a few seconds just enough to annoy the viewer. The publishers should have taken better note of the "popularity" of Microsoft's talking paperclip. Distractions that cannot be turned off do not belong in this otherwize fantastic bit of film making.
Rating:
Summary: They¿re Back!
Review: Each of these six half-hour episodes covers a different era and habitat and set of creatures that lived sometime during the 150-million years of The Age of Dinosaurs. We have watched the series twice now, and I am still impressed by the animation techniques, their realism and attention to detail. They are presented as nature films, and it takes me constantly reminding myself to remember that they are not: these are realistic but not real. It is unlikely that children will care to keep that distinction in mind. Not that it matters; this series has the heft of truth, and should instill a love of nature in children, even if it must use the giant and fantastical past to get them started. The genre of the nature film is an odd one, anyway. Even expert observers of wildlife seldom see much, so it is normally a bit of gentle deception that we are watching a connected narrative: the story is mostly words; the bits of film - of different animals, on different occasions - lend it immediacy and reality, though they are but flashes and glimpses of hidden and conjectured lives. Here, in the distant past, conjecture has even freer reign. I suspect many of the behaviors we see brought to life here were finally decided upon from a wide range of possibilities, but there is no hesitation or qualification in the presentation: this is the way it was. Thus we see ichthyosaurs acting like dolphins, and herbivorous dinosaurs acting like herbivorous grazing mammals, and so on. This is proper to a project of this sort: imaginary plausible facts are much better than tentative waffling when the purpose is primarily inspirational.
And here, in the fully-domesticated distant past, the creatures are without stage fright, so the visuals are all they need to be to tell a story in leisurely detail. We follow an aging pterosaur hundreds and thousands of weary miles to its traditional breeding grounds for yet another season, and see it to its sad end among its own kind, worn out and defenseless. A tyrannosaurus mother is killed in a freak accident at the end of the Cretaceous, leaving her tiny offspring to their fates. And as she dies, we feel, too, that we are watching the death of a whole world. Perhaps that is the supreme virtue of this series: that world is dead and gone, but something of the tragedy of its dying has been put across to us, so many millions of years later. Maybe it will help us love our own world better.
Rating:
Summary: DVD Narration the best
Review: Just a matter of factual correction: Kenneth Branaugh, world-renowned Shakesperian actor and director, is the original narrator. Avery Brooks was brought in to re-do the narration for the American audiences, who are supposedly too provincial and stupid to accept the narration with a British accent. Except, Branaugh's narration is infinitely better than Brook's overwrought version. Subtlety has never been Brook's long suit.
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