Nature’s Most Amazing Events
Another great look at some specific aspects of the world we live in
Tags: Misc DVD 2009, Nature Documentary Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jul 17th, 2009
Much like the various wildlife specials that I have been watching over the last few years, the BBC has produced another wonderful series looking at our natural world.
Nature’s Most Amazing Events is six separate documentaries narrated by the always authoritative David Attenborough. There is a thread that runs through each of these that ties them together – thankfully it doesn’t get overly preachy of heavy handed with it.
Much like Planet Earth and Blue Planet, we have some absolutely spectacular photography. Apparently the BBC now has a benchmark to shoot for every time.
The Great Melt examines the time when the sun emerges for the first time in four months at the top of the world. The polar ice cap melts and the seas which have been frozen over start to break up as the sun begins to beat down longer and longer each day. With the diminishing ice and snow, a greater abundance of life returns, such as birds and narwhals. We visit an arctic fox and her cubs, watching as food becomes more abundant and available. Spectacular footage of the narwhals is just one of the things that make this episode stand out. There is particular attention given to the polar bear, however, and this is where the message in this episode lies.
The Great Salmon Run looks at one particular area in British Columbia, with bears, wolves, and yes, plenty of salmon. It takes a while for the event to kick into gear with plenty of introduction to other animals and the habitat surrounding this event. We do, however, get plenty of footage of the classic battle between fish and bear (it’s not as one sided as you may think), and learn just what it is that the salmon have to go up against other than the big bundles of fur and claw. One of the highlights of this episode is a bear, fully submerged, using its hind legs to kick up a dead salmon from the river bed. It looked as if the bear was dancing.
The Great Migration follows a massive (and I do mean MASSIVE) group of wildebeest as they follow the grasses throughout Africa. As the months progress, regions gain or lose grass, forcing the grazing animals to move across vast distances. While this episode does have a focus on the grass eaters, it also follows a pride of lions that is dealing with the effects losing its food supply. We also meet a host of other animals as well, such as crocodiles, warthogs, cheetahs, and more. We also meet other natural obstacles, such as fire and a volcano that has lain dormant for 40 years suddenly erupt to life. In many ways, this was more like an “ordinary” nature documentary, but still quite a good one.
The Great Tide deals with a massive migration of sardines along the southern coast of Africa. With millions and millions of sardines in one spot, a feeding frenzy is triggered – sharks, dolphins, gannets and whales all gather in the one spot. There is some impressive underwater photography, particularly with the birds that dive into the water then start swimming as well as the bait balls that the dolphins separate from the rest of the sardine school.
The Great Flood deals with the annual flooding of the Okavango in Africa. This brings much needed water to a wide swath of land, bringing in herds of different animals. One of the more interesting sequences in the whole of the series is in this episode. We get to watch a porcupine very calmly deal with a leopard trying to get a meal. We also get to watch the elephants use their deceptively agile and delicate trunks to skim the top of a stagnant water pool. I would have enjoyed more of the hippopotamus footage, but what we get is quite good (and rare).
The Great Feast looks at the sea life in Alaska as plankton give way to herring on such a scale that can only be measured through aerial photography. The plankton bloom feeds the herring, which in turn feed the sea lions, who are prey to orcas. The waters off of Alaska come to life in the region’s summer months in such a spectacular fashion that it creates a very compelling story. Also of great interest is the detail with which the plankton are filmed as well as how the whales go fishing.
Each of the episodes comes with a separate “making of” documentary that runs about 10 minutes. These are really good at examining a particular aspect of the production as well as a general peek into what it takes to put just one episode together, let alone a whole series. Sometimes they act as “deleted scenes” as well (such as getting a full on shot of a bear’s “private parts”).
For lovers of nature documentaries, this is certainly worth picking up because there are some brand new things to be seen. Some of the episodes may no be the most exciting, but everything here is very interesting.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Spectacular photography + Even the "boring" bits are fascinating |
8.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
| - Some of the events aren't as amazing as they want them to be | |
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Simply another great set of nature documentaries. | |
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Tags: Misc DVD 2009, Nature Documentary
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jul 17th, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
