Walking with Dinosaurs

I was waiting for this to be released for a long time. I couldn't wait to see an updated dinosaur show, both in terms of CGI and in scientific understanding. We almost got both, but neither shines the way they should.

What we do have is a character-driven narrative style for each episode. These stories feel entirely unnatural and based more on the writers' ideas of what makes a compelling structure than what the science actually shows. Amongst these contrived scenarios we get some insight from actual paleantologists, which are quite good but feature far too prominently.

This is not Walking With Dinosaurs the way we know it. The show should have presented the animals as if we were observing them in a nature documentary. Instead we get a series of silly what-if situations, very loosely based on scientific evidence.

The storytelling element and lack of actual dinosaurs on screen ruin this. I get that it's cheaper to interview people than it is to make complex computer animations, but it doesn't work for this show. We want the dinosaurs on screen acting in a way that seems natural.

As a child of the 2000s I grew up watching the BBC and Impossible Pictures' "Walking with" series of natural history documentaries, chief among them Walking with Dinosaurs. So you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that Walking with Dinosaurs would be returning to our screens once more 25 years later. However, there's just one problem with this reboot and that is that this just isn't Walking with Dinosaurs.

While the original show focused entirely on the dinosaurs created with both (ground-breaking for the time) CGI and practical puppets/animatronics in real world locations, this show instead features short scenes of fully CGI dinosaurs intercut with very obviously staged and rather dull scenes of palaeontologists uncovering their remains in the present. Gone is the iconic voice of Kenneth Branagh, instead replaced as narrator by Bertie Carvel whose voice lacks the same gravitas that Branagh brought to the original. Also missing is Benjamin Bartlett's powerful score which elevated many of the original show's most memorable scenes, as well as the involvement of original creators Tim Haines and Jasper James.

It is unfortunate that the BBC decided to attach the Walking with Dinosaurs name to this rather different and honestly subpar dinosaur documentary instead of focusing their efforts on producing a true successor to the original show, bringing back the original creative team that made it so special.

The Original 'Walking with Dinosaurs' (and the two subsequent Series 'Walking with Beasts' & 'Walking with Monsters') were ground-breaking insomuch that they presented 'Prehistory' in a Wildlife Documentary-style. The 30 minute Episodes allowed the viewer to remain in the time period concerned and thus forced the makers to write a cohesive (and informative) Narration script to explain to viewers the important scientific facts of the animals and Periods themselves.

Fast forward to 2025 - and we have the long anticipated 'follow-up' to this classic Series. BUT, oh my goodness, what on earth have the makers decided to do? Well, they have decided to 'discard' the original concept and replace it with something that simply does NOT work. The idea that you can flit backwards and forwards from Mesozoic to modern dig-sites completely destroys any proper narrative and is a serious distraction. In addition, the script seems to have been written with an audience of 10 year olds in mind! All the wonderful 'cliche's' are in there - I was even anticipating the next line (successfully) on several occasions! The 'Science' seems to have taken 'second place' to telling a 'Story', so the Narration gives hardly any scientific insight, leaving that to the 'Dig-site' portions of the Episode. Even worse, the CGI itself was absolutely SECOND RATE. I have seen a lot of Dinosaur CGI and this was distractingly BAD & added to the dreadful Narration, just made it an effort to watch.

It appears the 'Makers' thought it needed a 'modern reboot' touch and in this they have seriously compromised the Series.

In conclusion, the entire 'concept' for this Series is totally WRONG, the jumping around is distracting, the Narration is simplistic tripe, the CGI creatures themselves are second-rate, the 'stories' all seem to be rehashed from elsewhere and both the sound-effects - and music - are plain and uninspired.

I will re-watch the old Series now. I doubt I can even be bothered to watch any of these new Episodes again as they are simply awful in every respect...

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!

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.