Libramedi
Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant
Asad Almond
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
jurassicsean
While some paleontological information is offered from very famous experts in the field occasionally, with some footage of excavations, there really is not much educational content to be given. The biggest pro I can give this program is the designs of the dinosaurs. They're very colorful and creative. Very birdlike, which is something most dinosaur documentaries actually lack, going for duller browns and greens primarily. Everything else though is pretty bad. The animations of the dinosaurs are strange. It's jerky and looks like they're moving at a different framerate then they should be. They also act way too much like domesticated animals like dogs, and even some human-like behaviors are present as well, which is my biggest con. This honestly feels more like a high-budgeted cartoon than a documentary. This is honestly one of the worst dinosaur documentaries of recent years. If you're looking for something educational on the subject matter, check out other Discovery Channel documentaries such as "When Dinosaurs Roamed America".
tankace
Dinosaur Revolution is not in part with its predecessors of Walking with Dinosaurs fame and to say the truth does not even deserve to be called a documentary,more like a over styled cartoon. To say the truth I had to figure ti out went in any break I saw "This show is sponsored by Nissan". It could have been called "A Nissan commercial with Dinosaurs" and it wouldn't make any difference. So why did this revisit of the Mesozoic epoch failed so badly?For starters the CGI is a over the places and it looks uglier than those in Walking ,who were more than a decade older in the time of the release of this documentary. The reasons ,for this was that the project had more than one animation team and so the models could not be constant. An other was the program was at first going to be in total about twelve hours long and in was cut in just four, so many parts look broken. One more ,which I sensually tell if this was to make fun of the audiences or to ridiculed themselves, was that many of the stories showed were based on Looney Tunes cartoons, WHY IN GOD EARTH??!?1?Also an other factor was the studio interference ,which made some of the scientist working in the project disown their work in it. Man you it is bad when even your crew deserts you. To the dinosaurs again, they are depicted human like and the sad fact is that some of the designs are quit accurate, like the raptors, but if you have them act in this manner then your work lose credibility's.To conclude it was painful see the real life dragons be treated like that for profit and the advancements in the study of their lives going back to a preschool level. In the end ,no matter the project if your team isn't loyal to it and the leaders want to do it only for money ,is going to be a disappointment.
RogerBorg
Take a smattering of randomly themed vignettes, add some excitable paleopublicists, curiously proportioned and bizarrely animated models, throw them together, blend, and pour.Is this entertainment? Education? I'm really not sure, and neither is it. Some paleontological background is presented, but in a token way, with a few stock shots of hammer wielding Indiana Jones style field workers cutting to a hand waving exposition of the conclusions, with no connection between the two. Science by assertion.Pragmatically though, all television is a way to attract eyeballs for advertisers, and this series is clearly aimed at doing just that.To its credit, there is an underlying theme to each episode, such as parental care. But this is illustrated with tiny minidramas, jumping around between eras and species in a disjointed way that prevents any subject being explored in depth.And there are also some highly spurious scenarios, presumably thrown together more for re-use of models or raw drama than through any suggestion from their tame pseudo-science mouthpieces - giant killer mosquitoes, being a standout example.The animation is passable, barely. Strangely staccato, it's more reminiscent of Harryhousen than Jurassic Park. Since the latter was made twenty years ago, there's little excuse for such jerky, hesitant beasts that float and waft through their environments without any interaction.All of this I could forgive, but for one thing: the comedy anthropomorphisation of the stars, with a side line in puppyish behaviour.Apparently the way to sell dinosaurs now is to have them react like people or our favourite contemporary beasts, to project human problems and emotions and reactions on to them.Dinosaurs perform double-takes, females sport rounded, darkly lined eyes - I could swear that some of them were batting lashes. A sleepless night leads to a tired, grumpy dinosaur during the day. It's an animal! If it's tired, it will just lie down and sleep, problem solved.This theme continues through the episodes that I bothered to watch, but eventually I realised that I was watching popular entertainment that simply isn't very entertaining.
qabala
This miniseries was much disliked by its' viewers.That said, yes it had fairly jerky animation, and yes, it had many silly and/or gory moments.So if the above makes you feel this production is not worth your time, I've already gotten the critique out of the way. However, if you, like me, have more than just a passing interest in dinosaurs, you are in for a real treat.For all of its' quirkiness, this series is the first of its' kind to set up its' species as characters that the viewer can be invested in. If I were you, I'd be protesting that "Walking With Dinosaurs" already accomplished that, but you'd be wrong.Anyone who's ever dealt with snakes or alligators will tell you that even they have their "adorable" moments. This series takes that angle as well. We see these animals as clumsy and imperfect, with personality and quirks. Another twist is the illustration of some species fighting to survive AFTER the well-known asteroid impact.Dinosaur Revolution takes a sympathetic view of its' subjects, even T-Rex. It is obvious that this series was not meant to have narration or "talking head" interviews as each subject has more than enough personality to carry each story. The problem was the late revision to present this as a documentary, rather than a docudrama.The article here says that the producers are re-editing this series to reflect the original vision. If so, I'd be happy to see it, but I'd be surprised if anyone would change their opinions on it. The criticisms about the animation are justified. The silliness, however, I found endearing.I'd say this video would do well as a foil between viewings of other CGI dinosaur documentaries. It fleshes these species out in a way that has never been, and likely will never be, done by anyone else.If nothing else, consider this the, intentionally, campy dinosaur documentary.
