Image A Sound B+ Extras B+
"New Blood," "Cruel Sea," "Time of the Titans," "Giant of the Skies," "Spirits of the Ice Forest," "Death of a Dynasty"
by Bill Chambers Walking With Dinosaurs is such a fantastic idea for a television show that two thoughts kept returning as I waded through it:
1) I'm surprised that no one thought it up until now.
2) Why couldn't I have thought it up?
I believe I have an answer for both: When we dream up concepts, we think "high," not "simple." Imagine a group of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC-style documentaries on prehistoric civilization--that take place in B.C., too. Cameras have "captured" dinosaurs in their natural habitats for this six-part BBC special (totalling 174 minutes), which bows on tape and DVD in North America this month.
Each episode narrows its focus to a few species from a specific era, but the series as a whole spans prehistory from the late-Triassic to the Cretaceous periods--around 155 million years. Having not grown up a dinosaur buff, I liked how Walking With Dinosaurs presented them less as rock stars and more as part of an ecosystem; its creators are especially adept at placing these reptilian predators and prey as links on a food chain and, by extension, steps on an evolutionary ladder.
Granted, much of the behaviour on display is speculative, to say nothing of the flesh tones of the various creatures, but I applaud producer Tim Haines's decision to not shy away from these hypothetical scenarios, which give the series dramatic heft. (Palaeontologists were consulted to help the filmmakers paint as accurate a picture of pre-Man as possible.) I became especially involved in the plight of an Ornithocheirus, "the Giant of the Skies," who arrives late for mating season and may perish as a result. Walking With Dinosaurs is exactly as riveting as the real deal.
Fret not, by the way: All of your favourite beasties are here, live and in colour, including Triceratops, Raptor, and, of course, T-Rex, the Tom Cruise of dinosaurs. FrameStore Group, the English computer animation outfit responsible for "Merlin"'s wizardry as well as "Gulliver's Travels"' Lilliputian landscapes, really come into their own here, injecting these characters with distinctive but not human personalities. The tech has made enough strides that some effects in Walking With Dinosaurs rival those of Jurassic Park, and even the ones that don't have an expressionistic beauty to them that is dazzling in its own right. (Note that puppets are used for close-ups, both the mechanics and designs of which are, at times, eerily realistic.)
Kenneth Branagh contributes heartfelt narration throughout, although his voice, combined with the sun-drenched images (background plates were shot in Chile and New Zealand, among other countries) and frequently tropical ambient sound, lends each instalment a somnolent quality. Even during scenes of carnage, Walking With Dinosaurs mimics nature specials so closely that it may soothe as much as entertain, one reason I believe it will ultimately hold less appeal for children than for adults. Another: These creatures don't communicate through human speech--ergo, there's none of that brilliant dialogue sure to grace Disney's upcoming dinosaur epic, um, Dinosaur.
THE DVD
The series comes to us in one fantastic DVD package from TCFHE in cooperation with BBC Video. Presented in 16x9-enhanced widescreen at approximately 1.78:1, the image is very close to perfect, three-dimensional in quality. (The same can actually be said of the bonus making-of, right down to the anamorphic enhancement!) Shots that contain multiple layers of CGI register as a bit too soft, but even at these intervals, colour depth is brilliant. The video will astound the format's veterans and newbies alike. The Dolby Surround sound is a bit less stellar. Most of the audio is concentrated in the front mains, and moments we expect to shake the rafters (or is that raptors?), such as the inevitable meteor shower, barely grumble. Music is the most dynamic aspect of this mix, while Branagh's voice comes through with crystal clarity.
Not counting the fabulous foldout packaging (two discs--#1 holds the entire series, #2 the extras--are contained inside a slipcase within a box, a nice change from those dual keepcases Fox loves), Walking With Dinosaurs features some intriguing supplemental material. First up is 29 minutes of revealing behind-the-scenes footage, scattered about on disc one. (It appears in an optional picture-in-picture window; I wish these snippets had been additionally indexed as chapters, since scanning to find them becomes a chore.) Disc two, meanwhile, houses a 50-minute making-of that fascinates and amuses; the FrameStore crew has a dry and veddy British sense of humour, and their demonstrations of the various computer techniques are guaranteed to enlighten. Finally, we have two promotional trailers for the completists out there.
29 minutes/episode; NR; 1.78:1 (16x9-enhanced); English Dolby Surround; CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9 + DVD-5; Region One; BBC/Fox
