My sister-in-law received the entire Planet Earth series from the BBC for Christmas this year. She loaned them to us as she doesn’t have a DVD player and because she thought we might like them. She was right.
I have always been a fan of nature documentaries for as long as I can remember. The ones that were narrated by James Earl Jones and Avery Brooks were among my favorites both from an entertainment and educational point. The Planet Earth series was by far the best made documentary made to date by any standard.
Shot entirely in HD, it has been 3 years in the making. The workmanship put into it by the cameramen, editors, naturalists and even the narrator (David Attenbourough) shines in every scene and shot. The best segment from the series (and we have watched nearly all of them) is a tie between the Desert and the Ocean, with the Mountain one being a close second.
If you get a chance to watch them, do so. We have been watching them on my widescreen Mac, which is great quality, so I can only guess what it would look like in native HD or Blue Ray on a large plasma.
Oh, and a word of caution: if you are afraid of creepy crawlies, don’t watch the Cave episode. And if you are fine with them, don’t watch the cave episode. It was creepy enough to watch it so I can only imagine what it was like to actually film it for weeks on end.
- Cheers