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Walking With Dinosaurs (Widescreen)
 
 
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Walking With Dinosaurs (Widescreen)

Kenneth Branagh (Actor) | Rated: NR (Not Rated) | Format: DVD
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)

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Dinosaurs may be extinct, but they still rule the world. When the first episode of the six-part BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs originally aired, an estimated one out of every four Britons tuned in. What they witnessed was dinosaurs brought to life, not in the modern world as in Jurassic Park, but in their original habitats millions of years ago. Revived using computer-generated effects that cost close to $5 million and sophisticated animatronic models, the dinosaurs look barely a day over 150 million years old. The creators present the series in classic nature-documentary style, complete with an authoritative narrator (Kenneth Branagh) to guide the viewer through the footage of dinosaurs mating, fighting, raising their young, grazing, or, in the case of carnivores, hunting. Each episode focuses on a theme, whether it is a particular era, such as the Mesozoic, or a particular type of dinosaur, like those that ruled the oceans. Each part also focuses in on the life of an individual dinosaur or family of dinosaurs. The result is a series of short dramas that both inform and entertain.

The show is so realistic that some scientists and viewers have criticized its seamless blending of fact and speculation. Those who wish to maintain a healthy skepticism about the theories set forth should watch the exclusive footage from The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs included on the DVD and available via mail-in on the VHS. In it, the scientists freely admit that some educated guesswork was involved and explain how they arrived at the dinosaurs' appearances and behavior. Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with every detail of the re-creation, it is difficult to deny that Walking with Dinosaurs succeeds in providing dinosaur lovers with an experience that can't be matched by mere images of paleontologists and fossils.

There's an extra 15 minutes of footage on the video that wasn't broadcast on TV, much of it dinosaurs attacking each other. With the violence, plus explanations of mating, cannibalism, and other terrifying things, young kids should skip it. Dinosaur enthusiasts of age 6 and up should be fine; it's far less violent than anything from the Jurassic Park films. --Eugene Wei

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Customer Reviews

121 Reviews
5 star:
 (92)
4 star:
 (20)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (121 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Superb but quite graphic, Dec 28 2003
By 
John Schwartz (Upstate New York, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Walking With Dinosaurs (Widescreen) (DVD)
We bought this DVD for our 3 1/2 year old boy who is in the advanced stages of dinosaur obsession. He is very interested in all the particulars of each dinosaur -- names, diet, chronology, habits, etc. He was beside himself with delight when we first started watching the DVDs, literally jumping up and down yelling "Coelophysis! I love this! Diplodocus! Look, Allosaurus!"

As almost all others have mentioned, the overall production design is beyond impressive, and beggars the word "clever." Witty, thoughtful, convincing, and highly entertaining.

Unfortunately (for us), there is one dramatic trope that appears in literally every episode of this and the later "Walking With Prehistoric Beasts" series: eating babies. Sometimes creatures eat their own young for murky defensive reasons; sometimes predators pick off defenseless baby prey; sometimes territorial males eat their competitors' babies; sometimes giant ants eat cute hatchlings.

I can't fault the dramatic effect of these passages, and the continuing theme that competition is the engine of evolution is accurate and effectively presented. But it takes the air out of my little boy's enthusiasm when he constantly expects the cute baby dinosaurs to be messily devoured, and it makes me grimace to watch him watching it. Those scenes are not especially suspenseful, and don't seem to agitate him (he got a lot more anxious at "Finding Nemo"). But when his reaction to two Allosaurus eating a baby Diplodocus is "look, they're sharing!", I decided the infanticide just wasn't age-appropriate.

We put the series aside for now, and maybe we'll take it up again in a year.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Best, better, and best again!, July 7 2007
This review is from: Walking With Dinosaurs (Widescreen) (DVD)
The name says it all! "Walking with Dinosaurs" beats most other movies a million to one! The best part about this movie is the fact that it is moderatly modest, making it a documentary not only good for adults, but also for the dinosaur fan kids out there! In fact, I have a never-ending belife that dinosaur documentaries are the best thing for kids- even better than stuff that is supposedly educational like "Dora the Explorer", and "The Wiggles".

If you are new to dinosaur documentaries, this is the movie you should get first. I personally like documentaries a lot!
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4.0 out of 5 stars The first "Walking With"..., May 8 2004
This review is from: Walking With Dinosaurs (Widescreen) (DVD)
With 230 minutes and bonus features this two disc set is a must if you enjoyed any of the other "Walking With..." series. From the very first dinosaur to to the very last, the show explores the changes to the world and evolution of the dinosaurs to keep up. Frankly, two of the shows don't even FOCUS on dinosaurs, but on the sea reptiles and the flying reptiles. It could of used more dinosaurs.
There is a 50 minute "Making Of" documentary in the second disc and about 29 minutes of behind-the-scenes picture-in-picture footage spread through-out the first disc. The behind-the-scenes footage tells you how they did the effects, why they picked certain locations and why they made the dinosaurs do what they did. Some of the behind-the-scenes footage is also shown in the "Making Of", so there is some overlap.
Interesting, but much of the information was already well known and covered by older shows or children's books. And, yes, lots of babies seem to die. A lot. THAT is nature, but maybe not something younger viewers should be exposed to in so many scenes.
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