Planet Dinosaur

Awesome documentary!

The BBC's latest dinosaur documentary was all the talk among many of you when it was announced, even though we couldn't watch it here in America. (luckily we had "Dinosaur Revolution" to watch here in the US at the same time) Now you can watch it; well, sort of.Planet Dinosaur is an almost three hour Blu-Ray disc showing all six episodes from the BBC series special. Narrated by John Hurt, the CG graphics are extremely well done. I know its an over-used word but I thought several scenes were truly awesome. In between the CG action scenes, we are shown various graphics and fossilized bones that tell us stories about the dinosaur's fights and their lives. The show provides some great, very up-to-date information; some of which, I dare say, you did not know. The first episode is set in prehistoric Africa, where we follow a Spinosaurus and meet Carcharodontosaurus, Ouranosaurus, Sarchosuchus, Rugops and more. The second episode is all about the feathered dinosaurs of China. Episode 3 covers the Late Cretaceous and the meat-eaters of that era. Part 4 is set in the Jurassic where we watch not only stegosaurs and allosaurs but marine reptiles too, including the huge Predator X. (It's a funny term, so I was surprised to hear John Hurt seriously use the word "Thagomizer" to describe Stegosaurus spikes.) The fifth episode is mostly about sauropods and other large dinosaurs and the final episode shows various dinosaur forms that evolved to help dinosaurs survive. I highly recommend the show; but, as mentioned at the beginning of this review there is a possible problem. The Blu-Ray would not play on my Blu-Ray player, even though it is supposedly for all areas of the world. I have a new laptop that plays Blu-Ray movies and fortunately it did fine on it. I also understand you can update your Blu-Ray player to where it will play foreign discs, but you have been forewarned. Check before you buy this DVD. However, I give it all five stars.

This only works on my all region orie blu ray player. It will not work on my regular blu ray player. So you probably need a all region blu ray player like mine to watch this one. This is the best dinosaur program that is now out. It uses the current most and recent finds and information to give a world wide view of dinosaurs. It's done with computer generated effects and it's a outstanding piece of work. Juhn Hurt does a great job of narrating this one. And it does have subtitles. It's not on blu ray in the u.s. so I had to get this version. The u.s. has a dvd version which is the same but not in hd. There is also a 3d version which has one or two episodes of this series on it. This also contains the bbc show 'building a dinosaur' which is not in hd and not cconnected to this series at all. Instead it was a show that aired on the bbc a few years back. It's about the Los angelos museum of natural history and their remodeling and the building of their dinosaur exibit. The 3d version (not in this package) and this is certianly region 2 or b only. And it doesn't have the whole tv series at all. One must wonder why bbc american did not show this tv series here. What a big mistake!. The science here is top notch and the effects are from this era. As opposed to even ten years ago. Leave it to the bbc to do another great dino series, after all they changed everything with their walking with dinosaurs show in 2000!. If you hava a all region player get this one, if not buy the dvd version , it's just a great tv series for the whole family.

Planet Dinosaur is a very good documentary, in a six episode format a la Walking With Dinosaurs, covering some of the most important finds of the last 20 or so years.The first episode covers the three superpredators of Mid Cretaceous Africa - Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and the crocodilian Sarcosuchus (a/k/a SuperCroc), which remarkably coexisted together. The second episode covers some of the more important feathered dinosaurs of Asia which have changed the way we look at dinosaurs. The third episode profiles Daspletosaurus and Majungasaurus as representatives of the two major predator groups that dominated the Late Cretaceous worldwide. Episode four takes a look at two Jurassic predators - the sea monster Predator X and the domination of Allosaurus by it's less prolific but larger relative Saurophaganax (stay tuned for further scientific news regarding whether or not it's actually not a separate species but rather an oversized Allosaurus). Episode 5 profiles the sauropods Argentinosaurus and Paralititan, two contenders for the largest dinosaur ever found. The series wraps up jumping around to examine several lesser known dinosaurs of the Late Cretaceous.There are a few instances where the CGI seemed evident to me, but all in all there were alot of quite memorable images. A few of the dinosaurs have already been covered in other documentaries, but there are also a few long overdue debuts. Camptosaurus, a mid-sized herbivore which appeared in almost every kid's dino book back in the day but is probably not quite as well known by today's kids, finally shows up after having been inexplicably omitted from Walking With's Jurassic episode and Allosaurus spinoff. Chasmosaurus, my choice for the most beautiful horned dinosaur, makes a full appearance after having only shown up, to my knowledge, in a brief section of the Bizarre Dinosaurs special covering Ceratopsian headgear. The highlight of the set might be the elegant potential death race (flight?) between China's Microraptor and Sinornithosaurus, a surprisingly creepy and nasty little predator.A must have for any dino fan.