Product Description
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Planet Earth: The Complete Collection (DVD)
With an unprecedented production budget of $25 million, and from
the makers of Blue Planet: Seas of Life, comes the epic story of
life on Earth. Five years in production, over 2,000 days in the
field, using 40 cameramen filming across 200 locations,
entirely in high definition, this is the ultimate portrait of our
planet. A stunning television experience that captures rare
action, impossible locations and moments with our
planet's best-loved, wildest and most elusive creatures. From the
highest ains to the deepest rivers, this blockbuster series
takes you on an unforgettable journey through the daily struggle
for survival in Earth's most extreme habitats. Planet Earth takes
you to places you have never seen before, to experience s
and sounds you may never experience anywhere else.
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As of its release in early 2007, Planet Earth is quite simply
the greatest nature/wildlife series ever produced. Following the
similarly monumental achievement of The Blue Planet: Seas of Life
( /dp/B001957A4E ), this astonishing 11-part BBC series is
brilliantly narrated by Sir David Attenborough and sensibly
organized so that each 50-minute episode covers a specific
geographical region and/or wildlife habitat (ains, caves,
deserts, shallow seas, seasonal forests, etc.) until the entire
planet has been magnificently represented by the most astonishing
s and sounds you'll ever experience from the comforts of
home. The premiere episode, "From Pole to Pole," serves as a
primer for things to come, placing the entire series in proper
context and giving a general overview of what to expect from each
individual episode. Without being overtly political, the series
maintains a consistent and subtle emphasis on the urgent need for
ongoing conservation, best illustrated by the plight of polar
bears whose very behavior is changing (to accommodate
life-threatening changes in their fast-melting habitat) in the
wake of global warming--a phenomenon that this series
appropriately presents as scientific fact. With this harsh
reality as subtext, the series proceeds to accentuate the
positive, delivering a seemingly endless variety of natural
wonders, from the spectacular mating displays of New Guinea's
various birds of paradise to a rare encounter with Siberia's
nearly-extinct Amur Leopards, of which only 30 remain in the
wild.
That's just a hint of the marvels on display. Accompanied by
majestic orchestral scores by George Fenton, every episode is
packed with images so beautiful or so forcefully impressive (and
so perfectly photographed by the BBC's tenacious high-definition
camera crews) that you'll be rendered speechless by the splendor
of it all. You'll see a seal struggling to out-maneuver a Great
White Shark; swimming macaques in the Ganges delta; massive
flocks of snow geese numbering in the hundreds of thousands; an
awesome night-vision sequence of lions attacking an elephant; the
Colugo (or "flying lemur"--not really a lemur!) of the
Philippines; a hunting alliance of fish and snakes on Indonesia's
magnificent coral reef; the bioluminescent "vampire squid" of the
deep oceans... these are just a few of countless highlights,
masterfully filmed from every conceivable angle, with frequent
use of super-slow-motion and amazing motion-controlled time-lapse
cinematography, and narrated by Attenborough with his trademark
combination of observational wit and informative authority. The
result is a hugely entertaining series that doesn't flinch from
the predatory realities of nature (death is a constant presence,
without being off-putting), and each episode ends with 10-minute
"Planet Earth Diaries" (exclusive to this DVD set) that cover a
specific aspect of production, like "Diving with Pirahnas" or
"Into the Abyss" (the latter showing the rigors of filming the
planet's most spectacular caves, including the last filming ever
officially permitted in the "Chandelier Ballroom," a
crystal-encrusted cavern found over a mile deep in New Mexico's
treacherous Lechuguilla, the deepest cave in the continental
United States.)
With so many of Earth's natural wonders on display, it's only
fitting that the final DVD in this five-disc set is devoted to
Planet Earth: The Future, a separate three-part series in which a
global array of experts is assembled to discuss issues of
conservation, protection of delicate ecosystems, and the
socio-economic benefits of understanding nature as a commodity
that returns trillions of dollars in value at no cost to Earth's
human population. At a time when the multiple threats of global
warming should be obvious to all, let's give Sir David the last
word, from the closing of Planet Earth's final episode: "We can
now destroy or we can cherish--the choice is ours." --Jeff
Shannon
Stills from Planet Earth (click for larger image)
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