The Blue Planet: Seas of Life, Vols. 3 & 4

Director: Alastair Fothergill
Studio: BBC Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
The BBC's landmark series on marine wildlife continues with this pair of uncommonly beautiful episodes. "Seasonal Seas" focuses on the explosion of life that accompanies every annual blooming of plankton, numbering in the countless billions and captured here with brilliant microphotography. The plankton provide a seasonal feast for a stunning variety of creatures, including the gigantic basking shark, sea otters, immense swarms of jellyfish, bat rays, and dancing Australian squid. In massive kelp forests, we witness such delightful sights as white-sided dolphin playing a game of "pass the seaweed." In "Coral Seas" miles-long reefs of living coral are explored, from deep within (requiring brief computer animation) to the surrounding environs, where you'll see white-tipped sharks in a feeding frenzy while beautiful harlequin shrimp wrestle with a starfish.

Amazon.com

The BBC's landmark series on marine wildlife continues with this pair of uncommonly beautiful episodes. "Seasonal Seas" focuses on the explosion of life that accompanies every annual blooming of plankton, numbering in the countless billions and captured here with brilliant microphotography. The plankton provide a seasonal feast for a stunning variety of creatures, including the gigantic basking shark, sea otters, immense swarms of jellyfish, bat rays, and dancing Australian squid. In massive kelp forests, we witness such delightful sights as white-sided dolphin playing a game of "pass the seaweed." In "Coral Seas" miles-long reefs of living coral are explored, from deep within (requiring brief computer animation) to the surrounding environs, where you'll see white-tipped sharks in a feeding frenzy while beautiful harlequin shrimp wrestle with a starfish.

Description

See some of the most startling wildlife photography ever to have been shown on television! The Blue Planet: Seas of Life features amazing new discoveries and photographic breakthroughs in four episodes. The Blue Planet: Seas of Life #3 features: "Seasonal Seas" and "Coral Seas." The Blue Planet: Seas of Life #4 features: "Tidal Seas" and "Coasts."

Customer Reviews:

Fabulous! Don't miss it!.......2003-10-06

I've viewed Part 4, The Deep Oceans. The videography of the deep oceans is absolutely incredible. If you have the slightest interest in the oceans, this is a no-miss DVD!

unFathomable quality, Leauges ahead of others.......2003-10-03

Each of the 4 disks has something unique and beautiful. The narration is just enough so that you know what is going on but not so much that you do not absorb all the facts given.
These DVDs are all about life and the sea. not just life in the sea, so combined they are quite extensive and show the big picture. I recommend the entire box set, not just individual disks.
My only complaint is a few of the sound effects are a little cheesy.

Phenomenal and breath-taking.......2002-09-14

The quality of these films, and these dvd's, is not available anywhere else. You will never see such 'impossible-to-imagine-how-they-filmed-these' scenes anywhere. The documentaries on the making of each episode are themselves better than any other sea or ocean documentary available on dvd. The camerawork is amazing. Admittedly, I watched them widescreen, where they pack an incredible punch. They will be the jewel of your collection if you have a widescreen tv: you'll show them to your friends over and over again.

Not extraordinary.......2002-07-10

Unlike the first set, this second set of videos does not astound. My bias is for larger fish and mammals of the sea. The deep sea footage of "The Deep" was amazing in the breadth of the variety of organisms shown. The majority of the footage for the fourth DVD involves land animals, birds and invertebrates. The third DVD has some interesting scenes of sharks hunting at night but it didn't feel like it had any image that topped the first two DVDs. Buy these if you want a complete set at home but they're not absolutely necessary.

Good, but not as great as discs 1 and 2.......2002-05-27

This review is actually pretty simple:
If you saw discs 1 & 2 and loved them, go ahead and get these.
If you saw discs 1 & 2 and were ambivalent, this won't change your mind.
If you didn't see discs 1 & 2, what are you doing here? Go see them!

With that out of the way... I liked these, but the "wow" factor of the imagery is nowhere near as high on these discs as on the first two discs. Parts of these episodes feel like re-cycles from prior discs (how many different scenes of whales and birds eating up shoals of fish packed into balls do we need?), and the long segments on seafarig birds felt out of place. Also, some really suspect computer graphics work rears its head in these two specials a bit too often, which really pulls the viewer out of the experience.

Still, that being said, these are darn good documentaries for eye-candy, and leagues ahead of the competition. It's just that compared to some of the jaw-dropping material on discs 1 and 2, these two come up somewhat lacking. I don't regret purchasing them, I just know that in the future I won't be re-watching them anywhere near as often as discs 1 and 2.

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