I applaud the producers' efforts in this production. I'm a fan of the whole "walking with..." series in general -- I own nearly all of them on DVD! Yes, I did buy this because it was a spin-off and was therefore skeptical at first. After all, sequels are rarely good and certainly not the same standard as the other productions in the series. Like all those who have reviewed this on Amazon I was quite surprised...
Unlike the earlier productions, this show features Nigel Marvin. Basically he goes back in time and visits...well the animals of his or the producers' choosing....in other words, the more interesting animals! In the first show, we get Argentinasaurus and Giganotasaurus, not to mention Sarcosuchus. The second features Tarbosaurus and Therizinsaurus, and the third part presents a series of seven "sea monsters" of prehistory. All this of course is hardly in keeping with WWD or WWB, both of which uses detailed narratives and delves deeper into each subject. Instead of a prehistoric wildlife show, we get a prehistoric safari!
At first, this might sound contrived and unrealistic, but you come to realize that the idea was to truly recreate the "walking with dinosaurs" experience. A lot of us are fascinated by prehistoric life and the real way to appreciate the sheer scale and magnificence of these animals is to walk with them, literally! This was the appeal of Jurassic Park, both the idea and the film; but movies naturally sacrifice detail or accuracy for drama and action. For example, we actually get to see the correct 3ft Velociraptor and the Protoceratops in this! Chased by Dinosaurs is about as accurate as the series (accuracy typical of BBC documentaries), yet presents man and dinosaur interacting on screen. What's more, the CGI and SFX are of very good standard, comparable to all other such productions.
My interest in this series was the cast...heh...Nigel was a great actor ;-) but I really meant the animals! Argentinasaurus and Giganotasaurus were the two giant dinosaurs discovered not long ago, still holding the titles of biggest plant-eater and meat-eater respectively. I didn't really know about Therizinsaurus, but I assumed it was not unlike Deinocheirus (terrible hand) which has long been the anomaly of paleontology. Sarcosuchus was the "supercroc", the brief appearance of which was one of the best parts of the show. Others like Megalodon, Dunkleosteus, Leedsichthys and Archelon are other highlights, the greats and bigs, familiar to casual readers and followers of paleontology, not to mention shark and turtle lovers....
One can imagine Hollywood producing big budget movies featuring prehistoric animals in the future, utilizing either the time-travel or living fossil story lines -- a number of them already exist. However, my preference for this subject has always been with the scientific documentaries. Fortunately, as the technology becomes cheaper and available we will no longer have to rely on movies for realistic recreations of the prehistoric world
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