Before the Dinosaurs

This documentary is to walking with dinosaurs what Episode I is to Star Wars.

You do get to see a timeline of animals evolving up to the dinosaurs, but all the animals behave in such cartoonish ways it's hard to take anything seriously.

It's hard to claim, considering all the millions of years of life on earth, that something never occurred even once, but this film manages to depict events so unlikely that it's very tempting to do so.

Watching this made me feel kind of like I felt after I left the cinema mid nineties having seen the digitally "enhanced" original Star Wars. Though this isn't the complete rape that happened to Star Wars the low quality is degrading to a series that in the past has achieved true greatness.

Well, I wish this "documentary" didn't take so much "artistic liberties".

Basically this "documentary" takes scientific evidence and throws in a lot of fantasy to tell a story. It's fun to watch, but aside being very gender passive aggressive, it makes too much unfounded assumptions.

Parents should not mistake this for educational, this is basically a fantasy cartoon loosely based on science.

OK, not enough lines to comment... I'll try to add more lines... I do think this "documentary" is good to demonstrate evolution and how things evolve. The CGI is excellent! The narrator is great!

who narrated it? driving me crazy - i know the voice and can't find. there are a few versions of the vignettes included in this show and they have different packaging so maybe that's why i have to dig a bit? both my son and i have enjoyed these visual extrapolations of what might have been; they are called theories. if we waited for hardcore scientific proof of every detail, we'd be left with our own imaginations. nice to have both, i say. and anyone who says "hogwash" and "jive-ass" in the same "review" is clearly a frustrated wannabe critic who uses IMDb as their "classroom" (like waaaaaaaay too many). how else can you explain such a misdirected and vituperative rant? oh yeah, maybe the individual is just miserable...in general. these DVD's are educational and interesting with just enough scientific proof and theory thrown in to complement the often silly CG. i guess you can let your kids fill up with everything Disney, this is a cool alternative.

These so-called documentaries about dinosaurs -- and in this case, the creatures that came before them -- are wearing very thin. My problem with them is that they are combining scientific theory with utter fictional hogwash story-telling.

Look, I don't mind that CG is able to give us a peek at how the world might have appeared those millions of years ago. Lay it on me . . . with a disclaimer up front that this is conjecture based on paleo evidence. But when some jive-ass writer starts telling me what the storms were like, and which animals were where in the food chain, and how lizards enjoyed baked spider, I just want to puke. There is no evidence for much of what appears on the screen. They're simply concocting a story, taking what science they have, adding what they think people want to see, and creating a farce.

And how many times do we have to sit through stories about T. Rex??? And why do they always have to be screaming??? I want to be educated about these animals. Unfortunately, these shows do nothing but get me frustrated.

My kids enjoyed watching this. The graphics are great, and I don't mind the fictional liberties taken to make the history more interesting- otherwise my kids probably wouldn't watch it. What I do mind is the narrator saying "your ancestor..." in reference to a fish getting it's first backbone.

This is a movie which, be forewarned, takes party with the rest of the 'intellectual' morons who treat Darwin's Theory of Evolution as fact; when in reality it is just that: a theory. A theory which will one day go down as the biggest practical joke in academia history. Anyway, check it out. Decide for yourself.