countmustard
I can understand the hardships of CGI, but this is a sorry excuse for this movie. The animals act too human-like and not enough like animals. The dinosaurs are unrealistically colored and there are sound effects every 2 seconds as their on camera. unfortunately, this is a flaw in many documentaries, and I wish that there could be a documentary that fixes all of these flaws, and Dinosaur Revolution acts like it did... but it failed at doing so.But on the bright side, at least they tried to do so, and I have to give them credit for adding feathers to their dinosaurs. Turns out it was meant to be a comedy rather than a documentary, so...yeah.
philip-hellzen
Although the animations are stiff at times i really liked the colorful and imaginative take on the different species, especially the t-rex which looked like death itself. But despite this fact i cannot like this series when every single scene is filled with straight out ridiculous behavior from animals which intelligence and behavior should have been similar to their modern counterparts. When i see a hunting dinosaur nod to its fellow hunter i cannot help but shiver out of dismay, the animators obviously had no idea about animal behavior and seemed to have given the dinosaurs almost human personalities.I suppose the purpose of this series was to display dinosaurs as more caring for each other, but the way it was executed reminds me of a Disney movie, the only thing missing is the animals actually talking to each other.
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.