Product Description

Take a journey back to prehistoric America when mighty dinosaurs ruled the continent. From New York to New Mexico, these powerful animals lived, hunted and died in the very place you call home. Watch millions of years of violent evolution unfold before your eyes. By combining state-of-the-art computer animation with beautiful live-action landscapes, you’ll witness these fearsome creatures roar to life. Faster, stronger and fiercer than ever, these dinosaurs are based on the most recent and scientifically accurate research ever assembled. Faithfully recreated, these dinosaurs move, look and sound like you’ve gone back in time. You’ll meet the never-before-seen Zuniceratops, a uniquely North American creature that was first of its kind to have horns over its eyes. You’ll also visit all your favorites including the T-Rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and the ferocious Raptor, with a startling new appearance that’ ll surprise you. You won’t see more authentic and terrifying dinosaurs anywhere...except buried in your own backyard.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57328 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-08-15
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.con
For dino lovers of all stripes, this Discovery Channel special delivers an entertaining documentary about what it was like to live in the land of giants. Combining nature photography and computer graphics, the program brings the dinosaurs--all of which lived on the North American continent of yore--to life. The 90-minute showcase explores dinosaurs with a narrative-story style similar to that used in BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs. The program includes quick, informative bits by paleontologists in the field, and shows nifty 3-D cross-sections of a dinosaur muscle and skeleton structures. Although it's quite fun to see what prehistoric America may have looked like (a typical opening slide: "Philadelphia, 300 million years ago"), the film doesn't have the technical expertise or fluidity of its BBC successor. Due to some dinosaur chomping, this program is not suited for children younger than 8. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable but not up to Walking with Dinosaurs
Five years ago, I probably would have given When Dinosaurs Roamed America a rave review. It is a good dinosaur special, well done overall and with interesting effects. But in the post-Walking with Dinosaurs era, it's a bit of a letdown. The animation is not as good, nor is the writing as sharp.

One other note: John Goodman is really not up the level of either Kenneth Branaugh (British version of Walking with Dinosaurs as well as the DVD version) or Avery Brooks (the version of Walking With Dinosaurs shown on the Discovery Channel). The latter two treat it as a serious nature special. Goodman's narration makes it sound like he's narrating a children's TV special, not a nature special.

Lacks the care & attention shown in Walking With Dinosaurs
I'd love to be writing a gushing review about this DVD. I was certainly looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it suffers on two fronts. First, the CGI is at least a generation behind that shown in Walking With Dinosaurs. The character models are stiffer, less detailed, and show none of the realistic motion of skin and muscle that made the WWD animation so lifelike.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this presentation has been considerably "dumbed down" -- even at the risk of making the science fuzzy and inaccurate. If you've seen the Discovery Channel presentation of Walking With Dinosaurs vs. the DVD, you'll know just how horrid a job was done in the editing room when moving the presentation to Discovery. This DVD shows the same dead hand at the switch. It displays no faith in the viewers to do more than watch the pretty pictures.

Certainly better than anything we would have seen ten years ago, but not as good as what can be done today. It simply lacks the loving care and interest in the subject shown by the WWD specials.

Good presentation, narration needed work
A very interesting and fun American follow-up to the BBC's WALKING WITH DINOSAURS series, this presentation follows the practice of usnig CGI to present dinosaurs as they may have actually looked, moved, hunted, and reproduced. This series has certain advantages over the WWD series in that it tends to focus on dinosaurs that the average person will have heard of (triceratops) while WWD tended to focus on lesser-known dinosars (torosaurus). The only flaws in this design are the harshness of the CGI, occasionally glaringly not part of the landscape, and the narration of John Goodman. While Mr. Goodman has a great voice, he sounds bored to tears by the narration and it can occasionally distract from the visuals.

Also, as with WWD, be aware that these visuals are all built on THEORIES and may contradict your assumptions and major theories in the effort to provide interesting dinosaurs on-screen.