Blue Planet: Seas of Life - Ocean World/Frozen Seas (Widescreen)

Ocean World starts with phenomena that can best be described as a self-sustaining ecosystem in itself. Annually, one could set their watch by it, off the coast of South Africa gathers a swarm of millions of sardines. So thickly dense is their amassment that the appearance they give off is one of a black swarm. This swarm of sardines is the catalyst and lowest in the sequence of the food chain that their congregation incites. After their onset, immediately arriving are cape gannets, who dive into the water and then submerge themselves while swimming after their prey sardines. The next largest superiors in the food chain are bronze whaler sharks, who are complemented and joined by common dolphins possessing much greater strategy in their progress to catch the sardines. These common dolphins hunt cooperatively in their families, releasing air bubbles from their blowholes to herd the sardines into easily-caught, sporadic balls of sequestered and packed-together sardines. As the coup de grace, the largest predator comes, a Bryde's Whale, leviathan mouth wide agape as all he has to do is, like a baleen whale, coast through the fish to finish them off, since they'll be superceded by his mouth's scope.

Absolutely, Ocean World's exciting highlight is the documentation of a live-captured assault-and-pillage of a Gray Whale calf by a pod of majestic Killer Whales. Gray Whales take the same migratory path each year from their Mexican breeding grounds to the Arctic Sea, via North America's Western coast, and are stalked annually by, grisly, the same pod of Killers. This is why the Killers know precisely where and when to track them. Blue Planet explains deeply how the pod must first inconveniently swim alongside the calf and its mother for six hours to tire the calf out, because with its mother present, the Killers can't front a head-on storming, being less than half of the adult's size. On their way to the Artic Sea, in the seventh hour, the Gray Whale calf's macabrely worn down, and can't expend enough strength to keep its blowhole above water. To compensate, its mother futilely struggles to support it above water-but the Killer Whales are beginning their homicidal campaign to cannibalize. Fearfully shrewdly, stunningly emphasizing the mammals' intellect, the Killers divide mother from its calf by plowing their own bodies in between!!!! After separating mother and calf by respectable distance, the Killers DON'T directly savage it by biting-they plan to DROWN it!!!! Relentlessly, the Killers keep schemingly beaching themselves over the calf, one almost seeing the intelligent gloom in the calf's eyes, the intelligent cunning in the Killers'. Once the calf's drowned, the Killers tear into it, Blue Planet nicely portraying the bloodying waters!!!! Peculiarly, the Killers waste most of the carrion, segregatively eating the tongue and lower jaw. The carrion sinks to the sea's bottom, where nature won't waste it; eels and a deep-ocean specialist-shark scavenge it.

Frozen Seas' alternatively superlative in terms of pure, sparkling luster, with the pristine, unadulterated briskness of snow, ice and glaciers. Its indisputably preeminent scene's the theretofore undisclosed secret of Beluga Whales becoming startlingly snared in small bodies of water where the branch to the sea's been frozen over because of shocking seasonal change. For the few months of winter, the Belugas are condemningly imprisoned in an ice hole not even big enough to support the whole pod surfacing at the same time. They're extorted to regularly, stressfully alternate between surfacing to breathe and spending most of their time submerged, because a polar bear's discovered them. This harrowing polar bear habitually preys on the Belugas because bears are supposedly acclimatized to this ensnared Beluga phenomenon, which happens frequently, something I was rattled to learn. The bear stalks the Belugas, tactically anticipating the pod's sporadic resurfacing, lurking at the water's edge. When a Beluga surfaces, the bear attempts to homicidally paw it, to either wound or catch it, failing most attempts. This allegedly impresses deleteriously penetrating scarring on the Beluga, which had escaped me previously. The bear's tumultuous persistence succeeds, netting him a tasty Beluga!!!! Noteworthy is that Blue Planet unmercifully delivers these aforementioned, edifyingly eye-opening behaviors which will startle the onlooker via its seminality.

Emperor Penguins are scrutinized, particularly their savage threshold to weather -50º Centigrade, Antarctica turbulence. Blue Planet explores how Emperors huddle together for warmth in densely overpopulated groups despite their protection. Emperors also face somewhat inconveniencing odds when returning from hunting: it's enormously harassing for parent Emperors to relocate their offspring because of the difficultly exorbitant distribution of penguins in colonies. Returning Emperors are dictated to rely on the subtle distinguishment of their offspring's cries to reunite. Next, Emperors' fear towards 16-foot Leopard Seals is examined, starting with their apprehensiveness to dive off glaciers into waiting waters. Beneath the surface are Leopards-lurking beyond an imperceptible ridge-who anticipate some Emperors' misjudgment to be the first one in. For this reason, a tentative few Emperors chance their lives and dive in, allowed by the Leopard to pass. Their herd mentality activated, the rest follow-which spurs the Leopard to chase, although Emperors reputedly have the advantage in open water. Rounding Frozen Seas out are Weddell Seals, who, heartlessly, suffer succinct lives due to their malignant lifestyle: they're oppressed to continually deteriorate their teeth by scraping ice around their breathing holes because they can't endure Antarctica winters unshielded, so they've to withdraw to the sanctuary of scattered patches of water. And Zavodovski Island, where Blue Planet captures magnificently the comical-resembling antics of Chinstrap Penguins as they uneasily try to scale its glaciers, timing their leaps out of the water with incoming waves!!!!

Two aspects of the films stand out the most: the unbelievable image quality and visual narratives. The films capture aspects of animal behavior which have never before been seen on film (polar bears hunting beluga whales; orcas playing soccer with a baby seal, baitball feeding with marlin, dolphins and a sei whale; orca pods attacking a baby gray whale, and so on). And they capture this behavior with extremely moving beauty.

Unlike many nature documentaries, there are no talking heads, only background narration. You get a non-stop flow of images creatively matched to orginal music. But for those who do enjoy the talking heads, each film has great bonus tracks with interviews of the camerafolk, producers, scientists, etc.