Walking with Monsters

This documentary is a view of life on earth before the dinosaurs. The film begins with the creation of the Moon by the impact of the hypothetical planet Theia with the Earth. Starting with the Cambrian period 530 million years ago, the evolution of life on earth is documented, starting with the earliest of man's ancestors, the Haikouicthys, an orange "fish" the size of a thumbnail. The progress of the sea-dwelling creatures is charted as they evolve into being able to exist on land and ends where the documentary "Walking with Dinosaurs" picks up, at the end of the Triassic period, with the first dinosaurs walking the earth and forcing the smaller mammalian creatures into a nocturnal existence of hiding.

If you get the actual DVD, the extras include a thirty-minute documentary entitled Trilogy of Life. This documentary covers all of the Walking with series (Dinosaurs, Beasts, and Monsters). There are numerous interviews with the filmmakers and producers of the series. There is even footage of the real locations and backgrounds before the animated beasts were inserted by computer. It's funny to see the filmmakers kicking up dust and moving trees with wires "pretending" to be the dinosaurs since the dinosaurs would be inserted later. The documentary itself is presented with a great deal of detail and authority, as if the filmmakers know for a fact that this is exactly what took place, when in fact it is all quite hypothetical. However, you have to watch it understanding that its purpose is not to present an academic thesis. Instead, its purpose is to bring prehistory to life, just as if you were watching present-day animals being filmed, complete with animated prehistoric beasts occasionally bumping into an imaginary camera.

As children, my stepkids absolutely loved this documentary. This film just goes to prove that science can be made interesting, inviting the viewer to further investigate what is being presented. That is the purpose of the film, and it does succeed brilliantly.

Walking with Monsters is the last of the Walking with series which truth to be told brought the prehistory to life. This one focuses on the life before the age of dinosaurs when creatures, even stranger than those we saw in the previous installments,walk the earth. The animation looks terrific and the story here is pretty much the who our bodies and all the bodies of any organism alive today.From my point of view makes sense to do that because back then was the time when all the organisms were much more closely related and to see the way they became was a awesome experience. To see these series end, made me express bitter- sweet feelings .From one hand you feel like when the summer vacations before going to college are over, you know only too well that ,that this time is going to be be the most relaxed time that you will ever have. But on the bright side you are happy to see what you put so much time end in a high note and not milked to death like the movie franchises with sequel after sequel and horrible spin offs. In conclusion I love it, although the fact that it was only three episodes long in bug me ,but apart from that I have no reservations suggesting to someone who love good documentaries in general.

Walking with Monsters covers the period from the appearance of the first marine vertebrates to the beginning of the rise of the dinosaurs - roughly from 500 to 250 m.y.a. The film shows how animal life spread from water to land, and covers some of its earlier land-based stages. The documentary is informative and comprehensive. It covers the changes in climate, the transformation of geography and plant life, and the evolution of our ancestral creatures.

The word "monsters" implies a sensationalist flavor, but the film really features animals of all scales and types, not just the biggest and the "scariest". One of the better documentaries I've seen on the subject; highly recommended. 9/10.

Interesting docudrama about life on Earth before the dinosaurs. Excellent CGI and scientific information is marred by an overly simplified and sensationalized presentation. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution are condensed into about a half-dozen scenes. Information about ecology and the food web is ignored in favor of scenes of large carnivores attacking each other.

I am curious how they determined the behavior, colouration, and sounds of these creatures. The arthropods are so loud that one would think that prey would be able to hear them coming. I was also not aware that amphibians and reptiles roar like lions.

Waling with Dinosaurs may be the most fondly remembered of the series, but I'd place this as the best of the Walking With series. Talking the lessons learned from the prior series, the filmmakers seek to push the limits by giving the audience what is quite literally a more in-depth look at the fascinating life before the dinosaurs. It may be shorter than the others, and inevitably suffers from some inaccuracies, but it's nonetheless an engaging and thrilling experience.