Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 01/17/2006

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7283 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2006-01-17
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Many people think of the dinosaurs as the first inhabitants of the earth, but this prequel to Walking With Dinosaurs puts viewers in the midst of a host of strange creatures that inhabited the earth millions of years before the dinosaurs ever existed. With the help of complex computer animation and the research of hundreds of paleontologists, the BBC presents an extremely realistic picture of the earth's earliest, most primitive aquatic inhabitants and chronicles their evolution to the precursors of man himself and the mighty dinosaurs. The first Walking With Monsters episode begins in the Cambrian period 530 million years ago, showcasing how a simple jellyfish-like sea creature evolved over 200 million years into new creatures with eyes and protective external and internal skeletal systems. These adaptations resulted in the world's first fish, arthropods, amphibians, and land-loving reptiles. The second episode details the giant insects of the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago and demonstrates how evolution empowered amphibians and reptiles by creating mechanisms to regulate their own body temperature and developing specialized teeth. The final episode begins in the late Permian period 250 million years ago when the earth was essentially one large desert full of volcanic activity. While much of earth's life was extinguished during this period, adaptation and evolution continued, bringing the development of a specialized hip in a tiny reptile called the Euparkeria that would prove to be the forerunner of mammals and evolve into the dinosaurs in the Triassic period. While some criticize this project as a somewhat overly dramatic presentation of speculative paleontology as fact, this program utilizes scientific inference to bring pre-history to life and highlight the amazing adaptations and evolution of the earth's earliest inhabitants. The bonus "Trilogy of Life" feature details the research, vision and hard work inherent in the creation of the Walking With Monsters, Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Prehistoric Beasts. (Ages 6 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

A Few Facts, Lots of Speculation and Worlds of Wonder
Nobody should confuse this with a course of paleontology. Nobody should even confuse this with a broad survey of the subject. Instead, it is a magnificent flight of imagination based upon some real science but which does not let the science take precedence over the wonder. It is wonderful

This is a series of three programs. Each deals with prehistoric life before the advent of the dinosaurs.

In the first program, we are treated to one theory of the formation of our planet and introduced to the Cambrian seas. There are not dinosaurs here. Fish barely even exist. That does not stop the cycle of predation in a world of gigantic marine scorpions and the proto-fish prey. We see the colonization of the land by the first plants and encounter the first amphibians, learning a little bit about the evolutionary pressures that drove their emergence. The program ends with the first true reptiles and the hard shelled egg.

The second episode takes place more on land. Gigantic arthropods contest with gigantic amphibians and the odd reptile here and there. We see the first strains of reptile that will eventually give rise to the mammals. Life is still a contest of the predator and the prey.

The third episode advances the story through the lives of some early, pre-dinosaur reptiles. The motif of eat and be eaten is still the rule of the day. The episode ends with the apprearance of true dinosaurs, where the series first began.

There is a lot of speculation in this work. Some of it is well reasoned and logical. Some of it is much less so. Only a few species are looked at with any degree of detail. The great Devonian age of the fishes is bypassed in a short sentence. That does not stop the wonder of it all. It is fascinating seeing the fossils come to life even with the speculations.

The DVD also includes a "making of" segment which covers all three of the series. It too is worth watching.

This will never replace real coursework and has all of the depth of the old, "Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom" but neither was ever intended to teach zoology. Both were meant to kindle a sense of wonder. Both accomplish that end.

Putting meat on the bones...
Three episodes that explore the life, or what life might have been like, before the dinosaurs showed up onto the stage. With only about 90 minutes that does seem to leave a lot of details out but most of the major turning points are hit on - animals and plants moving from the oceans to the land, the development of certain organs for survival, evolution working to make animals and plants more fit. Sea scorpions, giant spiders and killer fish that could take on sharks make me happy I live NOW and not back then.
The DVD extra, the Trilogy of Life, talks about the history of the THREE shows, Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts and Walking with Monsters to show how the first series produced the next and so on.
I really enjoyed this series and wanted more - I think dinosaurs get too much of the spotlight and would like to know more about life before and after them.

great...but could have been much better
this special was amazing. i am really 16, and have always been a fan of creatures from before dinosaur supremacy. however, i think 90 minutes is far too short for such a huge amount of life. most of the time periods up until the early Permian were skimmed over, and the Ordovician period was completely passed over, without a word said.

also, there were many creatures that i was disapointed not to see get re-created in this special. a few apperences, such as Gorgonops, Dimetrodon, Edaphosaurus, Euparkeria, Pterygotus, etc, i was happy to see. however, i was dissapointed when i did not see Icthyostega, Estemmenosuchus, Protorosaurus(earliest known archosaur), and many more creatures that i would like to know more about.

it is good, for 90 minutes, but if the creators were to re-create it as a four hour special, it could become something truly spectacular.