Product Description

See some of the most startling wildlife photography ever to have been shown on television! The Blue Planet: Seas of Life features amazing new discoveries and photographic breakthroughs in four episodes. The Blue Planet: Seas of Life #3 features: "Seasonal Seas" and "Coral Seas." The Blue Planet: Seas of Life #4 features: "Tidal Seas" and "Coasts."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #108217 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2002-05-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 196 minutes

Amazon.com
The BBC's landmark series on marine wildlife continues with this pair of uncommonly beautiful episodes. "Seasonal Seas" focuses on the explosion of life that accompanies every annual blooming of plankton, numbering in the countless billions and captured here with brilliant microphotography. The plankton provide a seasonal feast for a stunning variety of creatures, including the gigantic basking shark, sea otters, immense swarms of jellyfish, bat rays, and dancing Australian squid. In massive kelp forests, we witness such delightful sights as white-sided dolphin playing a game of "pass the seaweed." In "Coral Seas" miles-long reefs of living coral are explored, from deep within (requiring brief computer animation) to the surrounding environs, where you'll see white-tipped sharks in a feeding frenzy while beautiful harlequin shrimp wrestle with a starfish.

"Tidal Seas" explores the myriad life forms that thrive when lunar gravity pulls the oceans offshore. These include surfing snails, diving osprey, breeding stingray, and bottlenose dolphin digging for razorfish in the shallow tidal flats. In a delightful time-lapse sequence, sand bubbler crabs clean an entire beach for food, leaving millions of filtered sand balls in their paths. "Coasts" is easily the most brutal episode, but no less mesmerizing. Here we witness the battles of elephant seals, the tenacity of Galapagos iguanas, and the mating rituals of the walrus. Surely the most unexpected, and horrifying, sequence is that of the orca, earning its "killer whale" nickname by capturing, killing, and tail-tossing a seal pup--a performance so mysteriously primal that even the most seasoned marine biologist will be utterly amazed. Stunningly photographed, The Blue Planet: Seas of Life represents a filmmaking legacy that will reward viewers for many years to come. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
In addition to the fine "making of" featurettes that accompany all Blue Planet episodes, this DVD set includes "Deep Trouble," an hour-long supplement to the series, in which noted marine biologists describe and illustrate the many ways in which the fishing industries are destroying the delicate balance of marine wildlife. From the indiscriminate use of destructive netting to the little-known and illegal use of cyanide to stun and capture exotic reef fish for the aquarium trade, this documentary is thorough, provocative, and passionately intelligent in its plea for industrial reforms and preventive legislation, and an altogether fitting accompaniment to the astonishing beauty on display in the Blue Planet series. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Good, but not as great as discs 1 and 2
This review is actually pretty simple:
If you saw discs 1 & 2 and loved them, go ahead and get these.
If you saw discs 1 & 2 and were ambivalent, this won't change your mind.
If you didn't see discs 1 & 2, what are you doing here? Go see them!

With that out of the way... I liked these, but the "wow" factor of the imagery is nowhere near as high on these discs as on the first two discs. Parts of these episodes feel like re-cycles from prior discs (how many different scenes of whales and birds eating up shoals of fish packed into balls do we need?), and the long segments on seafarig birds felt out of place. Also, some really suspect computer graphics work rears its head in these two specials a bit too often, which really pulls the viewer out of the experience.

Still, that being said, these are darn good documentaries for eye-candy, and leagues ahead of the competition. It's just that compared to some of the jaw-dropping material on discs 1 and 2, these two come up somewhat lacking. I don't regret purchasing them, I just know that in the future I won't be re-watching them anywhere near as often as discs 1 and 2.

Not extraordinary
Unlike the first set, this second set of videos does not astound. My bias is for larger fish and mammals of the sea. The deep sea footage of "The Deep" was amazing in the breadth of the variety of organisms shown. The majority of the footage for the fourth DVD involves land animals, birds and invertebrates. The third DVD has some interesting scenes of sharks hunting at night but it didn't feel like it had any image that topped the first two DVDs. Buy these if you want a complete set at home but they're not absolutely necessary.

Phenomenal and breath-taking
The quality of these films, and these dvd's, is not available anywhere else. You will never see such 'impossible-to-imagine-how-they-filmed-these' scenes anywhere. The documentaries on the making of each episode are themselves better than any other sea or ocean documentary available on dvd. The camerawork is amazing. Admittedly, I watched them widescreen, where they pack an incredible punch. They will be the jewel of your collection if you have a widescreen tv: you'll show them to your friends over and over again.