Earth: Making of a Planet

The general content of this TV movie is worth having. But it's mis-titled and poorly narrated and written.

Rather than being a history of our planet, this is only a partial history, focused primarily on the planet's suitability for life on it. It dwells less on planetology and more on biological evolution as the movie progresses.

I found the narration (both US narrator and script) annoying.

Warden Querns -- er, Reg E Cathey -- just doesn't have the right tone for a history of the planet. His voice is neither full of admiration for the subject like Morgan Freeman, nor full of gravitas like David Attenborough. It is too stern a voice, an angry teacher.

The script itself contains too many generalizations. As one example, it repeatedly implies that all the dinosaurs were wiped out, yet ignores that birds are likely their descendants. Further, no evidence is given for any of the claims in this video, so it plays more like a religious origin story than anything scientific. It diminishes the factual content, to present it in this way.

The animation is (by today's standards) amateurish, video-game like. The soundtrack could be mistaken for a CNN political broadcast. This information does not need "help" from the audio and video team. Rather, it deserves respect, which it sadly did not get.

Other TV movies have done this better. I would recommend Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (2009) for the biological part, and the miniseries "Wonders of the Universe" (2011) for the rest.