Walking with Dinosaurs

I have been so excited for this show to premiere, however first episode in and I was already disappointed, they called it walking with dinosaurs but it is anything but. I have never wrote a review for anything but I had and still have such a love for the original, I was so excited when I heard they were remaking it. The timing is so out of place with them flipping between a the dinos and the dig sites, they could've had an extra episode focused purely on the digs sites but chopping up the story was just difficult to watch, the animation is also sub par. All in all very disappointing. Definitely does not have the same feel as the original. The music, narration, storylines and script are all bellow my expectations for what this should have been.

Sincerely, a dinosaur nerd since the early 2000's.

The BBC should hang their heads in shame. CGI from the 50's, overly dramatic story telling, cuts to dumbed down palaeontologist commentary, horrible 'human like' dinosaur reactions, and ultimately a really boring series of shows. Honestly, if you don't love what you do - go home. Leave the making of these beloved shows to people who care and can negotiate a budget. No hope for your kids falling in love with dinosaurs after this mess.

Format should have been like the original. Long show of purely dinosaurs with good story telling and interesting interactions. Then, like Planet Earth sometimes does, do a 'behind the scenes' style show. Like what inspired the story.

If my legacy was to be depicted like this I'd have tried so much harder to survive the impact of the meteor just to make sure mammals didn't rise up to work in the BBC feature making department.

It's ok. I can't help but feel Jurassic Park felt more realistic, and that was over 30 years ago. Even the first Walking with Dinosaurs 20 years ago seemed to have more believable animated dinosaurs, from memory.

I quite like the format of telling the story about a central character each episode, but the archeologist segments really take you out of the story. I prefer the usual format where you have 10 minutes at the end to meet the people behind the story.

The narrator sounds as bored as I was, or maybe I was bored because of his drone. There wasn't a moment of excitement or fascination in his voice.

Compared to the original this is something that belongs on Disney+ The dinosaurs are far to cartoony and look really CGI. In places it looks almost to computer-gamey and unrealistic.

How can something with 25 years computer and animation development look worse than the original?

The stories are happy-clappy woe is me with dinosaur behaviour you have no way of substantiating scientifically.

Stick to the science and stop trying to "tell a good story".

The narration is very poor and it is hard to get into.

Then there is the painful dialogue between researchers is cringeworthy to listen to - why make up obvious fake dialogue for people in the field.

Overall this is a major let-down - the original was (and still is) far superior.

So the Walking with Dinosaurs reboot came out and many of the complaints are indeed true. Rather than a straight documentary narrative, each episode is intersected with modern day excavations to explain the narrative better. In essence it's like Planet Dinosaur and to a lesser extent Sea Monsters, but it definitely lacks the heart of the latter.

Accuracy is all over the place. Some things fly, other don't (like the many dense canopy settings, when Mesozoic forests were more open). The dinosaurs mostly look fine, but the animation isn't fully polished so they look often quite unnatural. The worst offender has to be the Edmontosaurus from episode 1, which look really unreal with their bright blue bodies contrasting against daylight.

Unlike Prehistoric Planet, there aren't many times dinosaurs act besides stereotypical ways like hunting, fleeing and fighting. There are a few instances of them acting more cuddly and playing, but it mostly happens with young dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are the focus on the series, with little on other prehistoric reptiles and mammals. I guess that's to be expected, but the original run gave us episodes focusing primarily on marine reptiles and pterosaurs, so that's a downgrade.

But hey, at least it's better than WWD 2013!