Life

Another gorgeous and illuminating nature documentary to add to the list, Life focusses on the anatomical, behavioural and tactical adaptations that lifeforms have devised to survive and thrive. Instead of a geographical basis, the series is divided up into ten episodes that each focusses on a separate class such as fish, birds, mammals and so on. This choice of episodic organization throws light on the commonalities between members of these classes while also highlighting the diversity that exists within them. There is also an episode centred on plants, an uncommon subject of nature documentaries, and another shining a spotlight on predator-prey interactions.

Like most productions of the BBC Natural History Unit, Life is a cinematographic treat. We journey to scenic locations all over the world, with habitats ranging from frigid ice caps to arid deserts, dense jungles to verdant grasslands, dark caves to deep seas. The film crews devise innovative methods to capture natural behaviours and wildlife encounters in unprecedented detail, and this series is a fitting reward for all their patience and hard work. The end-of-episode Life on Location segments give the audience an insightful peek at the travails and collaborative effort necessary to make such elaborate filming ventures successful. The music score is also very good as are the foley effects necessary to lend realism to the filmed scenes, and the narration by David Attenborough is wonderful as always.

The series also provides one many emotional moments and gets the audience invested into the storytelling. Predator-prey conflicts, familial bonding, courtship and mating rituals, territorial disputes, food hunts ... these are all different settings portrayed in the series in which we may find ourselves rooting for one party or another. Symbiotic relationships and communal ties are also illustrated to show how cooperative strategies can also succeed.

In conclusion, Life is a must-watch timeless documentary for any Nature lover.

Overall good but far from great. My biggest issues were varied starting with most of this has been filmed and covered by bbc in past nature docs. My second issue was with Oprahs narrating. It was almost robotic with rarely any excitement on her part. Very unlike Attenborough who nails it every time and is very emotive. A big thing that took me right out of the doc was watching on BluRay the cuts to the commercial breaks were very very obvious. It's something I've never noticed in any of their nature docs and I've seen most repeatedly. Last complaint was a lack predation and a definite lack of showing the gore.

This has to be one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. The cinematography is amazing, the narrator has everything down perfectly, and the wildlife they show throughout the series is very interesting and colorful. The film crew travels all over the globe to capture nature's greatest moments, and they pull this off with ease.

I would highly recommend this documentary to anyone. It is quite comparable to Planet Earth or Animal Planet.

Check it out and let us know via comments what you guys think of it.

I can't wait to buy the BluRay 1080p versions of this series...

10/10!

I was expecting this film to have a creationist slant, but it does not. It is a bit like David Attenborough for children. It has first class nature photography, but it is aimed at children with a dumbed-down narration by Oprah Winfrey and somewhat Disneyfied music. It sometimes has an odd prudishness about fish reproduction.

The creatures chosen are each bizarre and entertaining but ones I have seen before.

Some of the principles of evolution are presented, but in a subtle way. The focus is on strange animal behaviour, not how it could have evolved. I learned something new, that the schooling behaviour of anchovies is indeed very effective against predators.

It is not totally prettified. It shows flamingo chicks that died after they fell out of the nest.

I think the insect segment was most interesting with the most material I had not seen before. The jousting tournament with the surprise ending really tickled me.

There are bits of Disneyesque anthropomorphising, for example talking of insects "fighting for their dignity".

This is first rate family entertainment. I am ready to see it again already.

The Blu Ray comes with 1080p resolution, Aspect ratio: 1.78:1 and audio DTS-HD HR 5.1. The series was able to take advantage of the latest camera stabilization technology while filming from helicopters and planes, the results are some sublime overhead and establishing shoots. My favourite comes from the insect episode where the camera starts off looking downwards at a waterfall before smoothly panning up to reveal a lake, beyond that a forest and beyond that again a large mountain in the distance with not a sole in sight.

By 2009 HD digital cameras were in full use by the BBC's natural history unit, having previously been used on Planet Earth (2006) and Life in Cold Blood (2008), no longer 480p but now 720 and then 1080.

The plant episode is one of my favourites with it's expert use of time lapse photography, it feels like an updated Private Life of Plants. The beautiful winter photography in this episode is also a stand out feature. The sound is also crisp and clean, whether it's a trickle of water, a rustling leaf, insect noise or an animal call. The narration from David Attenborough is also distinct, intelligible and is never muffled by the score.

On the critical side some of the most recent releases from the BBC natural history unit feature slightly less factual content, the programme seems more interested in trying to wow you with it's imagery and music than trying to educate the viewer. Earlier series tended to be drier, with more detailed narration. Life just about gets away with it's approach, the content is still very informative, there isn't so much attempt to build up drama or humour as later series would do. During the primates episode the narration did border on stating the obvious too, not trusting the audience to grasp finer points but spelling it all out for them. Attenborough tells us 3 times that the Japanese macaques monkeys in the hot spring exclude other monkeys, it slightly labours the point here. Show don't tell please.

Another stand out episode is the insects with frogs leaping in slow motion to catch insects to the sound of violin strings and soft drums. The soundtrack is orchestral having moved away from the more symphonic sound often used in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the cinematography of the butterflies in Mexico is sublime as is the time lapse photography of changing skies. We also learn a great deal too in this episode about insect camouflage, armour and acid. 85,000 species of fly. It's worth reflecting too on how critically threatened much of this is by global warming and overpopulation. Behind the scenes looking at this episode is also well worth a look. Commercial drones for photography weren't really around back in 2009, very different to today. For one shot the camera had to glide along a wire in order to travel with the butterflies. 17 takes were done after 3 days of prep for what probably amounted to 5 seconds of footage. These people are trying so hard to get the right result for the viewer, you have to applaud the results. Unofficial sources put the budget of this programme at around £10 million, it's not just the production where the money was spend I'd bet but also the post production, All the footage looks like it's been extensively colour corrected to ensure everything looks.