Walking with Monsters - Life Before Dinosaurs

List Price: $19.98 Discount Price: $13.33

Customer Reviews:

Best of the series [Posted on 2008-07-27]
Of all the Walking with Dinosaurs offshoots, this is by far the best one in terms of diversity of life and presentation style. The show clocks in at 90 minutes; 3 episodes of 30 minutes each. Each episode focuses on one time period; all of which occurred before the Jurassic rule of dinosaurs. The show features creatures as diverse as sea scorpions, giant millipedes, orthocones, unusual-looking sharks, predatory lobe-finned fish, huge dragonflies, primitive crocodiles, and the famous sailback reptiles Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus. This diversity of wildlife is greater than the other Walking with Dinosaurs serials. The show is filmed like a nature documentary with minimal human presence, unlike some other dinosaur specials. Of course, the show's creators have taken creative license with the vocalizations, skin tones, and behaviors of the featured animals, but this is necessary to make the show enjoyable. There is one extra feature on the DVD, a short documentary that is worth watching. All in all, a great 1.5 hours of CGI documentary.

An awesome look at before the dinosaurs! [Posted on 2008-08-09]
I found this "walking with" to be very good, even in comparison to Dinosaurs and Beasts. I liked how they made it different from the others; such as showing the evolution from one era to the next and the insides of some of the animals.
They also didn't make it as long as the others, but it was actually better having shorter. I found it easier to watch.
There was one thing i didn't like about it and that was some of the effects. Although the cgi upclose seemed to work, the animatronics weren't as impressive as the previous films. The parts that get me (and if you haven't seen it yet you may want to skip this!) are the ones such as where the giant spider attacked the petrolacosaurus and it was half cgi and half puppet. Why wouldn't they have just done it all cg? another one was where the chasmatosaurs attacked the lystrosaurs in the river. At one point the animatronic chasmatosaur bites the lystrosaurus and there is a spray of blood, which is clearly being done by someone off camera. However the lystrosaur animatronics are quite well done, especially considering its operating in the water. I forgot to mention, the chasmatosaur puppets have no intricate movements at all. There jaws are always open, there eyes never shut, there tounges nor nostrils don't move at all. At one point they're on the beach apparently sunbathing, and they don't move at all. They even used the same head in the water as they did on land! Other than those slight mishaps, the special effetcs were top notch.
All the episodes are wonderful, and they all have intresting animals, spectacular effects, great storylines and up-to-date facts squeezed in. However the last episode was kind of short and not as good as the others. It kind of lacked content, but it works. the bonus features on this disc are also quite enjoyable.
I'm glad i bought this DVD, and if you liked Walking with dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts, you'll love this adventure through the beginnings of our world.

Add to your library [Posted on 2008-08-13]
Fun and interesting for the dinosaur fan in your house. Best for second grade and up.

James Arndt, Montgomery Alabama [Posted on 2008-09-19]
Impressive video. This video brings to life the periods before the dinosaurs with realistic images. This section of the series should have focused more into the Devonian Period (Age of Fish)and included more footage into this period of Earth's history. There were some impressive fish during this period. The series does focus on the huge fish called Hyneria, but the footage on this fish does not appear to contain the large teeth found in fossil finds. This video series is a close second to Walking with Dinosaurs. However, I have read that the series appears to have made an error on the cat sized spider, which was identified recently as a eurypterid instead of a spider. The series does concentrate heavily on the spider, and should have put more time into Devonian fish species, since recent fossil finds have identified magnificent types. Otherwise, the series is truly a great piece of work!! 5 Stars in my opinion.

Life After Life Before [Posted on 2008-10-11]
My son (6) has watched this video every night since it arrived over a week ago. He is engaged, intrigued, and has the rest of the family hooked as well.

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