Walking with Dinosaurs 

Documentary-style series about the era of the dinosaurs, mixing real locations and CGI.

Stars:

Kenneth Branagh, Avery Brooks, André Dussollier

Won 3 Primetime Emmys. Another 11 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Kenneth Branagh	...	Narrator 7 episodes, 1999

Storyline

Using the latest technology the amazing lost world of the Cretaceous, Triassic and Jurassic periods of Earth's history, when the dinosaurs reigned supreme, is brought stunningly back to life. The series provides insights into how these mammoth creatures appeared, how they survived for millions of years and probes the mysteries of their sudden disappearance leaving only a fossil record to show they had ever existed!

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Plot Keywords:

dinosaur | triassic | jurassic | cretaceous | howie scream | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Animation | History

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Official Sites:

BBC [UK] Discovery Channel

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 April 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Akolouthontas tous deinosavrous

Filming Locations:

Bahamas

Box Office

Budget:

£6,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

BBC Natural History Unit (NHU),Impossible Pictures,Discovery Channel

Technical Specs

Runtime:

30 min (6 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Stereo Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to paleontologists like Darren Naish, the reason behind the show's many inexplicable scientific errors (wrong proportions on certain animals, wrong integument, muscles being misplaced or missing, ears being in the wrong place, animals appearing on the wrong continent, etc.) is that the creators talked to the wrong scientists. In many cases, outdated or simply incorrect animal reconstructions were approved because the scientific consultants either didn't know better or didn't care enough to ask for corrections. In other cases, the creators deliberately pushed improbable ideas or based the dinosaurs' behavior on modern day animals in order to make them feel more familiar to viewers.

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Goofs

All throughout the show, animals are consistently misplaced in time. In reality, only very few of the depicted animals lived in the time their respective episodes take place in.

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Connections

Featured in The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs (1999)

User Reviews

Superb on DVD -- avoid Discovery's televised version

You can't watch this documentary as aired on the Discovery channel (narrated wonderfully, though, by Avery Brooks). Apparently, they thought us American audiences couldn't handle, say, the cynodonts devouring their own young, or a mother T-rex regurgitating freshly killed meat for its young. How presumptive of Discovery.

On the other hand, the documentary is flawlessly done. You really get the impression of "being there", and you don't just get dinosaurs. You get the cynodontia (mammal-like reptiles), the dung beetles, the postosuchus, the terrifying liplurodon (which makes the T-rex look like an iguana by comparison), the sneaking didelphodon, and early birds.

The UK 6 episode version puts everything into perspective. Ending with a shot of the African jungle, and now we can see how similiar the world then was to the world today.

There are no iguanadons or sauropods in herds, but elephants and zebras. There are no tyrannosaurs or utahraptors, but lions and tigers.

Notably, the documentary wisely stays aware from the question of, say, whether the sauropods were warm- or coldblooded, or the new concept of gigantotherms (the sheer size of the body creates its own heat).

Congratulation, BBC.