Walking with Dinosaurs

As a child of the 2000s I grew up watching the BBC and Impossible Pictures' "Walking with" series of natural history documentaries, chief among them Walking with Dinosaurs. So you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that Walking with Dinosaurs would be returning to our screens once more 25 years later. However, there's just one problem with this reboot and that is that this just isn't Walking with Dinosaurs.

While the original show focused entirely on the dinosaurs created with both (ground-breaking for the time) CGI and practical puppets/animatronics in real world locations, this show instead features short scenes of fully CGI dinosaurs intercut with very obviously staged and rather dull scenes of palaeontologists uncovering their remains in the present. Gone is the iconic voice of Kenneth Branagh, instead replaced as narrator by Bertie Carvel whose voice lacks the same gravitas that Branagh brought to the original. Also missing is Benjamin Bartlett's powerful score which elevated many of the original show's most memorable scenes, as well as the involvement of original creators Tim Haines and Jasper James.

It is unfortunate that the BBC decided to attach the Walking with Dinosaurs name to this rather different and honestly subpar dinosaur documentary instead of focusing their efforts on producing a true successor to the original show, bringing back the original creative team that made it so special.

I was waiting for this to be released for a long time. I couldn't wait to see an updated dinosaur show, both in terms of CGI and in scientific understanding. We almost got both, but neither shines the way they should.

What we do have is a character-driven narrative style for each episode. These stories feel entirely unnatural and based more on the writers' ideas of what makes a compelling structure than what the science actually shows. Amongst these contrived scenarios we get some insight from actual paleantologists, which are quite good but feature far too prominently.

This is not Walking With Dinosaurs the way we know it. The show should have presented the animals as if we were observing them in a nature documentary. Instead we get a series of silly what-if situations, very loosely based on scientific evidence.

The storytelling element and lack of actual dinosaurs on screen ruin this. I get that it's cheaper to interview people than it is to make complex computer animations, but it doesn't work for this show. We want the dinosaurs on screen acting in a way that seems natural.

So disappointed with this series. I was hoping for factual updates not silly stories about George the dinosaur! Who was in mind when this was thought up? I can imagine 4 year olds being enthralled but their parents watching with them are getting nothing from it. The dig sights are insightful. There could have been more about the dig sights and how the dinosaurs lived and died without making it for 4 year olds. I don't mind the CGI. It's not great but anything better would have been costly. I get that. My main gripe it the silly stories about juvenile dinosaurs with given names of different species playing together etc. Disappointed.

Compared to the original this is something that belongs on Disney+ The dinosaurs are far to cartoony and look really CGI. In places it looks almost to computer-gamey and unrealistic.

How can something with 25 years computer and animation development look worse than the original?

The stories are happy-clappy woe is me with dinosaur behaviour you have no way of substantiating scientifically.

Stick to the science and stop trying to "tell a good story".

The narration is very poor and it is hard to get into.

Then there is the painful dialogue between researchers is cringeworthy to listen to - why make up obvious fake dialogue for people in the field.

Overall this is a major let-down - the original was (and still is) far superior.

I have been so excited for this show to premiere, however first episode in and I was already disappointed, they called it walking with dinosaurs but it is anything but. I have never wrote a review for anything but I had and still have such a love for the original, I was so excited when I heard they were remaking it. The timing is so out of place with them flipping between a the dinos and the dig sites, they could've had an extra episode focused purely on the digs sites but chopping up the story was just difficult to watch, the animation is also sub par. All in all very disappointing. Definitely does not have the same feel as the original. The music, narration, storylines and script are all bellow my expectations for what this should have been.

Sincerely, a dinosaur nerd since the early 2000's.