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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: 4 stars
Summary: A Nice Set Of Stories
Review: When I watched this on TV, I thought it was great. I thouroughly enjoyed watching the dinosaurs go about their daily life without any humans about discovering them, or creating them - and especially without any humans beinmg eaten by them (I doubt a dinosaur would attck something they have no idea what is for a good while, if a person should ever be lucky enough to meet one).

It is certainly a new way of seeing dinosaurs (a more natural way, at least).

Unfortunately, it has very little fact in it, so it's educational value is about 2 out of 10. The thing that annoyed me was the way in which it seemed so sure of it's facts (a good number of the ideas were fairly out dated). You see, the behaviour and such of these animals is unknown. You can never know it to even close to being sure of it. And I think it has just spread a whole load of lies about dinosaurs to young children again (I remember my education on dinosaurs at school - it was a laugh). I just don't like the idea of people taking it seriously.

(If you enjoyed this series, and like fact being involved, the Raptor Red by Bob Bakker is an excelent book to read - with Bakker being a paleontologist, the story is a lot more believeable, and detailed, than this series is with any of its individual tales.)

Past that though, if you know a bit about dinosaurs, then this is great. But I stress that you cannot take anything that is said as fact (who knows if ceratopsians could pump blood into their crests to make them change colour ?). The world it displays is one of fantasy (based off of fact).

I recomend it purely on an entertainment bases (because, on that side, it truely delivers).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic
Review: The BBC have done it again, I thought this doco was well done and very informative. One point, one of the other reviews which said this series was not in their opinion "scientifically orientated or fact laden as it should be". Well I think that is the beauty of this series and why it will be a big hit.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Educational Jurassic Park?
Review: Being a UK resident, I've seen this on TV and there is a BBC video of this. Walking With Dinosaurs is basically the story of the dinosaurs with narration using computer animation (with occational use of models). The animations are not as good as Jurassic Park, but on the budget given you cannot complain.

It's all put together to great effect and the programme picks dinosaur 'characters' from different species now and then and follows their life for an entire episode at times. One example is when a flying dinosaur is followed on it's mating journey with the trials and tribulations along the way.

This is the best Dinosaur documentary I've seen. The only flaw is it's not as scientifically orientated fact laden as it could be. It's primarily designed to come across like a 'The Living Planet' or a similar wildlife doumentary.

Very nice to have in your collection of DVDs, especially if you are interested in the dinosaurs.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Original series
Review: Take Jurassic Park and turn it into a program about the development and life of the Dinosaur and you'll get an idea of the quality of this program. If you like the subject matter, then this is a must to watch, graphically superb with the history of the dinosaur to boot. The BBC at its best.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Walking With Dinosaurs
Review: Spectacular ! Using state of the art Computer Generated effects the history of the Dinosaurs is brought to life. If you enjoyed Jurassic Park, this is for you. One of the most spectacular TV series ever made. For kids and big kids alike.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Walking with style
Review: This has to be one of the most absorbing docu's ever made, the computer graphics and the realistic pryo's go to make you think that those dinosaurs are real. You could quite easily convince an uneducated person that these are real scenes! And the educational value is amazing and informative:-)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A CGI delight for all the family about Dinosaurs
Review: This was a 6 part BBC documentary through Triassic, Jurasic & Cretaceous periods of pre history following many different species of Dinosaur and a few early mammals.

However this is a documentary with a difference ! As it has been filmed as if you were there amongst these huge beasts watching them grow, eat, fight and all the other things Dinosaurs may have done.

The Best thing about this series of docos is the Computer Generated animals - they really bring to life all that was those millions of years ago, from flying reptiles, huge meat eaters and of course... the long necks !

Congratulations to the BBC on a very courageous and fun series on Dinosaurs - the kids will love it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Walking with Dinosaurs - Incredible!
Review: I work for the Dinosaur Natural History Association in Brooks, Alberta. We support Dinosaur Provincial Park. Because of this I started receiving phone calls from the UK, from friends and family asking me if I had seen "Walking with Dinosaurs". Everyone was raving about it, however, I had at this time no idea what they were talking about. Luckily I was sent a copy for Christmas and what can I say. This is one of the most fascinating and incredible set of programs I have ever seen. My mouth was open in amazement most of the time! The animation was beyond belief. Basically "Walking with Dinosaurs" is 6 part series made in documentary fashion. The producers worked with palaeontologists and animators to take what we know about dinosaurs, with what we think we know to come up with six incredible programs of a documentary style that would make you believe you were actually walking with dinosaurs. Narrated by Kenneth Branagh in a way that you would expect to see on the Discovery Channel while watching a documentary on a pride of lions. My nine year old daughter watched this too and was totally caught up in it. Never have I watched such an amazing creation. The animation matches that of the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park". The story lines are believable to the point that you get emotionally involved with the Iguanodon herd risking attack, or the Apatasaurus caught up in a forest fire trying to escape. You want the T-Rex to 'get it' after the way she treats her man! To top it off at the end of the series there is a 50 minute "Making of Walking with Dinosaurs" (at least there was on my copy, I hope you all get it on the DVD) Which leaves you with feelings of nothing but admiration for Tim Haines's team, who worked hard at their research and quest for fact, the conditions they had to create in their heads to film landscape with no dinosaurs, from the footprints they had to make in sand to trees swaying and splashing water... WATCH THIS! It is hysterically funny in parts and you will be amazed. If you watch no other movie or series in your life .... watch this one because you will feel totally fulfilled, amazed and be on the phone to your friends telling them about it. It is truly brilliant and you will want to watch it all over again immediately afterwards... I know I did!

Please feel free to email me

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome special effects
Review: This is an impressive undertaking. To make a documentary about animals that disappeared 65 million years ago but give the impression that they were filmed 'live'. The chance to see how these animals lived and interacted far outweighs the criticisms that theories have been presented as fact. A major undertaking and an awesome achievement.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good, but ...
Review: Walking With Dinosaurs was a BBC series which was one of the most expensive the company has ever made, and attracted huge audiences in Britain when first aired. The premise is very simple. Imagine a typical wildlife programme. Now imagine that we had a time machine, and could send film crews back to prehistoric times to film dinosaurs. Having got there, they make a typical wildlife programme. Typically, each episode is structured around following one dinosaur through its life cycle, or particular episode in on or a group of dinosaurs' lives, etc. The programmes totally follow the action. There are no cut-aways to talking heads, etc. The narrative is very well spoken by Kenneth Branagh.

That it is all just like a set of typical wildlife programmes reveals the series' greatest strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, the special effects are *stunning*. They are arguably better than Jurassic Park, and you really believe you are seeing dinosaurs in their natural habitats. On the negative side, after a while you stop wondering at the special effects and treat it like another wildlife programme. Whether you love or hate the series will depend on how you normally respond to such things.

A couple of other things to note. First, we know very little about dinosaur behaviour (or even what colour they are). A lot of what you see is by definition speculative. There was a distinguished team of experts involved in planning the series, but note that whilst they present one set of views which shaped the programme 'plots', there are often conflicting theories held by other distinguished experts. In other words, we don't know that everything portrayed is necessarily 'how it happened'. However, to complain about this is probably churlish. A second point is that some scenes may be a bit upsetting for some children. For example, in one scene, a scavenging dinosaur eats the (very cute) young of another dinosaur. My four year old daughter found this distressing (whilst my six year old son loved it).


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