Disappointing and disjointed
Planet Earth
We rented this entire series, hoping that it would be a hit like Life of Mammals or Blue Planet. It isn't. We hoped that it would be an ecosystem or geological approach to the planet because it is, after all, called Planet Earth and the programs are called Fresh Water, Mountains, etc. It isn't. Instead, it is an eclectic collection of camerawork taken from various locations around the planet showing unusual geological formations (10%), weather occurrences (10%), and life at the extremes (10%). The rest is pure cinematography and focuses on the camera crew and how they got the shots. Needless to say, we were disappointed.
What we hated:
-a lot of jumping around from location to location with no logical organization
-a lot of baby animal deaths
-a 10-minute section at the end of each 40-minute program called Diaries that focuses entirely on the camera crew
-repeat footage
What we liked:
-very little new footage that we havne't seen in other documentaries
I hesitate to recommend this to anyone in particular. My husband has an interest in geology, but fell asleep during disc 1. My kids and I love ecosystems and animals and we were bored to tears. We couldn't even finish the whole set and I had already paid for it. There just wasn't anything new here and the approach was too disjointed, like a table book with nothing but pictures. Great if you've got nothing to do, but we were looking for something educational. We own and love Life of Mammals and Blue Planet, as well as numerous National Geographic and Imax films, but we couldn't even make it through this whole set, although I paid for them. It was just too boring.
Highlights of disc 1:
From pole to pole--elephants swimming
Mountains--Ehtiopian wolves, gelado baboons grazing in herds of hundreds
Fresh water--river otters fighting a crocodile
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