Walking with...

Ultimate Dinosaur Collection (Walking with Monsters / Walking with Dinosaurs / Allosaurs / Chased by Dinosaurs)

Four award-winning, massively popular Walking With... programs now in one monster set! Explore the amazing worlds before o own with the Ultimate Dinosaur Collection! Take a journey back hundreds of millions of years to a time when monsters roame the primordial seas and forests with Walking With Monsters, discover how dinosaurs moved and looked with Walking with Dinosaurs, follow the life and death struggle of one dinosaur who really existed in Allosaurus, and go back in time with zoologist-adventurer Nigel Marven to be Chased By Dinosaurs! Each program is a virtual lost world which has been recreated with spectacular digital effects and animatronics. The end of their era is only the beginning!

DVD Features:
Documentaries
Documentary
Featurette
Other
Photo gallery
Screen Saver
Storyboards

Walking with Dinosaurs

New Blood, Time of the Titans, Cruel Sea, Giant of the Skies, Spirits of the Ice Forest, Death of a Dynasty. Ride the ultimate time machine from the beginning of dinosaurs to their spectacular end! Using the latest in computer animation, this series puts you in the middle of Jurassic stampedes and T Rex battles, through 155 million years of pre-history.

Walking with Monsters - Life Before Dinosaurs

Many people think of the dinosaurs as the first inhabitants of the earth, but this prequel to Walking With Dinosaurs puts viewers in the midst of a host of strange creatures that inhabited the earth millions of years before the dinosaurs ever existed. With the help of complex computer animation and the research of hundreds of paleontologists, the BBC presents an extremely realistic picture of the earth's earliest, most primitive aquatic inhabitants and chronicles their evolution to the precursors of man himself and the mighty dinosaurs. The first Walking With Monsters episode begins in the Cambrian period 530 million years ago, showcasing how a simple jellyfish-like sea creature evolved over 200 million years into new creatures with eyes and protective external and internal skeletal systems. These adaptations resulted in the world's first fish, arthropods, amphibians, and land-loving reptiles. The second episode details the giant insects of the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago and demonstrates how evolution empowered amphibians and reptiles by creating mechanisms to regulate their own body temperature and developing specialized teeth. The final episode begins in the late Permian period 250 million years ago when the earth was essentially one large desert full of volcanic activity. While much of earth's life was extinguished during this period, adaptation and evolution continued, bringing the development of a specialized hip in a tiny reptile called the Euparkeria that would prove to be the forerunner of mammals and evolve into the dinosaurs in the Triassic period. While some criticize this project as a somewhat overly dramatic presentation of speculative paleontology as fact, this program utilizes scientific inference to bring pre-history to life and highlight the amazing adaptations and evolution of the earth's earliest inhabitants. The bonus "Trilogy of Life" feature details the research, vision and hard work inherent in the creation of the Walking With Monsters, Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Prehistoric Beasts. (Ages 6 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

The Complete Walking with... Collection

Finally all three programs from the Emmy Award- winning Walking With...series -- Walking with Dinosaurs Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Specialand Walking with Prehistoric Beasts-- are available for the first time as a collector's set on DVD and VHS. The epic begins with a journey back 65 million years ago to a virtual lost world which has been recreated with spectacular digital effects and animatronics. The series continues as we follow the life and death struggles of 'Big Al' the most complete allosaurus skeleton ever found. And finally we explore our planet after the reign of the dinosaur and the succession of extraordinary creatures that came and went over the following millennia. The end of the dinosaur was only the beginning!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY UPC: 794051269720 Manufacturer No: E2697

Walking with Prehistoric Beasts

Through stunning animation, Walking With Prehistoric Beasts follows the rise of mammals from the first signs of success aft the demise of the dinosaurs to the ice ages, when humankind completed its conquest of the world's mega fauna. It reveals not only the first appearance of familiar animals like whales, bats, horses and cats, but our own heritage running back to the very first primates.

Walking With Cavemen

Breaking the mold of previous "Walking with" offerings, the BBC's Walking with Cavemen sees Professor Robert Winston follow in the footsteps of ancient man in a series that traces the history of humanity from bipedal ape-men (Australopithecus Aphaeresis) to the awakening of the human mind's potential with Homo Erectus. Over four fascinating half-hour installments, Wilson presents an accessible and populist, but still suitably anthropological study on how apes became human and the traits that we inherited from our earliest ancestors.

Unlike Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Beasts, Cavemen combines CGI with actors to portray the characters in the story of man. Initially this seems to make it far less technically impressive than the earlier programs--memories of Stanley Kubrick's 2001 are inevitable--but fortunately the acting is superb and the viewer soon forgets that these are people in monkey suits. The series also makes use of a special effect called "deep time-lapse", which shows in a matter of dramatic seconds the thousands of years of geological changes that sped up our ancestors' evolution. Wilson himself takes part in the action as if he is a modern-day naturalist following lions across the Serengeti rather than creatures long extinct. This approach makes for a more immediate as well as poignant interpretation of history: the result is an enlightening and moving tribute to the human journey. --Kristen Bowditch

Allosaurus - A Walking with Dinosaurs Special

The phenomenal BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs spawned this 30-minute special. Using the same blend of computer animation, puppetry, and story-driven narration (by Kenneth Branagh), Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special centers on one particular dinosaur dubbed Big Al. Found in Wyoming in the 1980s, Big Al's fossil remains comprise the most complete allosaur skeleton ever found. Enough clues are found in the bones, 145 million years after his death, to tell the story of what might have happened from his birth to his death. The film's naturalistic approach (unlike that used in the Disney film Dinosaur, whose characters could talk) is quite spectacular, with chills (a bog turns out to be a big dinosaur threat), thrills (allosaurs chase a group of giant diplodocus), and humor (a baby allosaur seems to bump into the "camera"). A half-hour companion program, "Big Al Uncovered," illustrates how the "what-if" story of Big Al was constructed using facts uncovered by paleontologists (including the 17 injuries found in the skeleton) and filling in the gaps using the dinosaur's distant cousins (birds and crocodiles). The BBC production does not shy away from the violent world of dinosaurs, including mating and hunting techniques. However, any dinosaur fan age 7 and up should find all the Walking with Dinosaurs specials an exciting and fun education. --Doug Thomas

Life was hard in the Jurassic age, even for a large dinosaur at the top of the food chain. A few years ago, the most complete allosaurus skeleton ever found was discovered in Wyoming. The bones tells a surprisingly detailed biography of one individual dinosaur, Big Al, as he came to be known by the scientists who pieced together his story. The creators of Walking With Dinosaurs have vividly recreated this 15-year story from birth to death using the same computer graphic and animatronic techniques that stunned viewers throughout the world when they saw the original series. A companion program, Big Al Uncovered, shows how the scientists were able to trace the evidence of Big Al's life story. Using the same state-of-the-art graphic effects, Big Al haunts the modern-day museums and dig sites as passionate scientists explain their findings and theories. Nominated for three Emmy Awards.

Walking with Dinosaurs

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

New Blood, Time of the Titans, Cruel Sea, Giant of the Skies, Spirits of the Ice Forest, Death of a Dynasty. Ride the ultimate time machine from the beginning of dinosaurs to their spectacular end! Using the latest in computer animation, this series puts you in the middle of Jurassic stampedes and T Rex battles, through 155 million years of pre-history.

Walking With Prehistoric Beasts

Imagine a National Geographic survey of a natural world that hasn't existed for millions of years. The sequel to the mesmerizing Walking with Dinosaurs, one of the most imaginative explorations of the prehistoric world ever made, once again uses the technology of the Jurassic Park fantasies to re-create the "menagerie of weird and wonderful creatures" that roamed the globe after the dinosaurs. Designed as a series of survival dramas, each of the six episodes plays like a speculative Disney True Life Adventure (with appropriately resolute narration by Kenneth Branagh) centered around a day in the life of a creature or the seasonal cycle of a species: a pride of saber tooth cats, a herd of woolly mammoths, a tribe of hominids. It's all supposition, of course, but it's supposition based on the best research available. The BBC production, which does not shy away from this violent world, includes computer-animated footage of mating and hunting techniques. However, any prehistory fan 7 or older should enjoy this series. --Sean Axmaker

Prehistoric Planet/Allosaurus - A Walking With Dinosaurs Special

Prehistoric Planet
This well-received Discovery Kids television series cleverly cannibalized footage from two hugely popular, BBC primetime programs Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, reworking the CGI-heavy dino-dramas into absorbing (and--shh!--educational) fare. The result was, and is, smashing. Narrated by Ben Stiller and ingeniously scripted, the series delineates epochs, species, and prehistoric environments in an entertaining effort to broaden one's detailed appreciation of ancient creatures of the land, sea, and air. Meet Ornithocheirus, a Cretaceous-period flying pterosaur whose 40-foot wingspan can carry him from the future Florida coast to Europe in a day--yet who could end up as snack food for the 80-foot aquatic monster Liopleurodon. Or the fascinating, 6-foot Leallynasaura, a 106-million-year-old denizen of Antarctica's rainforest (!) who avoids the predatory Koolasuchus (seriously) through clan cooperation. There's more to prehistoric Earth than the stylish raptor and bullying T-Rex; meet their neighbors here. --Tom Keogh

Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special
The phenomenal BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs spawned this 30-minute special. Using the same blend of computer animation, puppetry, and story-driven narration (by Kenneth Branagh), Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special centers on one particular dinosaur dubbed Big Al. Found in Wyoming in the 1980s, Big Al's fossil remains comprise the most complete allosaur skeleton ever found. Enough clues are found in the bones, 145 million years after his death, to tell the story of what might have happened from his birth to his death. The film's naturalistic approach (unlike that used in the Disney film Dinosaur, whose characters could talk) is quite spectacular, with chills (a bog turns out to be a big dinosaur threat), thrills (allosaurs chase a group of giant diplodocus), and humor (a baby allosaur seems to bump into the "camera"). A half-hour companion program, "Big Al Uncovered," illustrates how the "what-if" story of Big Al was constructed using facts uncovered by paleontologists (including the 17 injuries found in the skeleton) and filling in the gaps using the dinosaur's distant cousins (birds and crocodiles). The BBC production does not shy away from the violent world of dinosaurs, including mating and hunting techniques. However, any dinosaur fan age 7 and up should find all the Walking with Dinosaurs specials an exciting and fun education. --Doug Thomas