Product Description

This 4 DVD Box Set contains 12 programs hosted by anthropologist David Attenborough . New Worlds: As the planet spins, shifts, erupts, melts, and freezes, it forces its inhabitants to accept this truth: A life-form either changes its ways or it passes away.; The Frozen World: They shouldn’t support life, the coldest, most desolate reaches of the earth.; The Margins of the Land: The Earth seems to have saved (reserved) some of its most remarkable displays of life for that special place where the land meets the sea.; Jungle: It spans the globe - an immense, green, equatorial belt called the jungle.; Sweet Fresh Water: As fresh water makes its mad, headlong plunge from the mountains to the salty oceans, it actually seems to "age."; The Northern Forests: Anthropologist David Attenborough's probing cameras and fresh insights make the woodlands a wonderland of fascinating extremes.; The Building of the Earth: From the icy summits of the Himalayas to the lush Tropics, anthropologist David Attenborough's view is awesome.; Worlds Apart: In a stirring piece of filmmaking, anthropologist David Attenborough takes you to out-of-the-way places that are, in every sense of the phrase, out of this world.; Seas of Grass: Where it grows, there is life.; The Open Ocean: Water covers two-thirds of the Earth, but the immense, tantalizing world beneath the sea remains one of the planet's great mysteries.; The Sky Above: If the atmosphere that surrounds the Earth can be called an envelope, then anthropologist David Attenborough delivers it in a first-class and awe-inspiring way.; The Baking Deserts: Scorching days, frigid nights. The desert should be the most relentlessly hostile place for life on the planet.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26881 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-05-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 720 minutes

Amazon.com
Originally broadcast in 1984, The Living Planet followed five years after David Attenborough's first wildlife blockbuster series, Life on Earth. This was an equally ambitious 12-part documentary that spanned the globe with portraits of each of the major geographical regions that offer a home to life. Attenborough demonstrates how even in the most hostile of environments, from the volcanic "Furnaces of the Earth" to "The Frozen World" of mountains and tundra, the Arctic and Antarctic, live maintains a foothold. He takes us to "The Northern Forests," the "Jungle," "Seas of Grass," and "The Baking Deserts" and, ever the genial host, details how, in all its endless diversity, life is ingeniously suited to its surroundings.

Through breathtaking imagery we meet our fellow inhabitants, from penguins to polar bears, lions to scorpions, oaks to eagles, and journey on to "The Open Ocean" and the "New Worlds," which mankind itself is rapidly fashioning through ever more radical technological change. The series ends with an impassioned environmental plea that rings even more urgent now than in 1984. --Gary S. Dalkin

Customer Reviews

Somewhat disappointing, but still great
This series was originally aired on PBS in the mid 1980s and was groundbreaking. It set a new standard for nature documentary. I was excited to see it released on DVD.

Given the apparent age and material of the source for the transfer (it looks to me like the DVD was made from a videotaped copy of the original film stock, and the video tape probably sat in a storage room somewhere for 15+ years), I think one needs to make allowances for a diminished sound and picture quality, but I really wonder who thought it was a good idea to change the order of episodes. The way Sir David originally wrote and performed the voice-overs for the ends of each episode was as a tie-in to the next, so that there would be a sort of cliff-hanger, but also a continuity to the whole series. Some idiot at Time/Life must have thought he/she knew better than Sir Attenborough how the shows should be ordered, so they cut those parts out. The result is very abrupt and startling endings to the shows--sometimes in mid-sentence! Why? This makes no sense at all.

I hope that someone comes to their senses and these classic shows get re-released without the stupid edits, and with the shows in their proper order.

Boo Hiss Time/Warner
The Living Planet Series by David Attenborough is a milestone, a benchmark in the production of nature education. What he has done is a quantum leap beyond anything else in the "nature show" category. The depth, breadth and brilliance of this series is unparralled. Unfortunately, TimeWarner got their grubby hands on it. They decided that to reorder and edit the shows so that they fit with the graphics they have chosen for the packaging. I'm not kidding! It is like they put a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Boo Hiss TimeWarner.

Excellent, but get version 2 DVD
The program is EXCELLENT, and I've watched it many times on VHS. Unfortunately, the region 1 DVD has been edited and I was very disapointed to find that most of the sections had been shortened. From what I understand, the region 2 DVD is not edited. So if I had it to do over, I would buy the region 2 DVD from amazon.co.uk instead.