BBC's Planet Earth

[sundowning]

550 minutes. DVDs. Great series. Invest wisely!

BBC - Science & Nature - Planet Earth
Amazon.com: Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series: DVD: David Attenborough

Favourite footage:

-Snow leopard running down some large herbiverous mammal literally on the side of a mountain.

-The vampire squid.... from Hell?

-Polar bears sliding down a snow-covered hill-face ...then attacking a walrus.

-Lions taking down an elephant - at night.

-Caves, caves, caves.

-Mountains, mountains, mountains!

-Frenchman flying an uptight Englishman into a tree... via hot-air balloon.

[rivercrow]

I second this.

Also, Life of Birds and Blue Planet.

[Zergling]

There's an older Planet Earth series as well, I used to watch it a lot when I was really young.

[Noel]

Wonderful little series.

I especially enjoyed the footage of the fungus in the Rain Forest episode. Each kind of fungus specialized in infecting particular species of insects. Once infected, the now charmed creature would lose all bodily control and stagger up the nearest foliage to higher ground. The creature dies and utilizing the nutrients inherently in it, fungi begins to grow from it. Finally, when mature, the fungi would rain its spores across the jungle floor. Absolutely Fascinating.

The showcased creature for this footage was an ant. I was particularly struck by how colonies of ants could potentially face extermination if A. their population grew to large, for more colonies meant greater chances of infection or B. did not identify an infected member. The infected ant was carried out away from the colony by another ant and was left to die. Rather than save the individual ant, its further existence threatened something much greater than itself (the colony). I can't help but feel reminded of long lost tales of heroism-living for something greater (ideals) than yourself. Sigh.

On a side note, was anyone bothered by the commercials that aired during the programme, specifically the "Don't forget the most important element, the Hu or Human Element"-inserted onto the periodic table of elements? Stupid humanist bullshit.

[Geoff]

You might want to look for the HD-DVD or Blu-ray versions rather than standard DVD, as the original was magnificent in HD.

-Geoff

[darlets]

Wow, I'm there with bells on. Hopefully I can buy it on Saturday.

O/T everytime I read a book that's remotely scientific my inner monologue starts doing an impression of David Attenborough. It's highly annoying.

[sundowning]

Ants - yeah, that was cool.. a real Alien sort of moment!

I can imagine this series on HD would be the next best thing to a full blown IMAX production.

I always make fun of old science documentaries because they have that silly 50's style "Darwin" voice... David Attenborough is the modern version of the Darwin Voice, but unlike his predecessors, rules very hard.

[Trystorp]

I bought Planet Earth on release and haven't regretted it. I'm a sucker for these high quality nature videos.

[Kyrielle]

Originally Posted by sundowning

I can imagine this series on HD would be the next best thing to a full blown IMAX production.

I've seen the HD versions from OnDemand. They're top notch. Incredibly and unnervingly realistic.

[darlets]

I bought the first one today. yippie