shivjm

The best thing about Planet Dinosaur is not the CGI, the narration or the story (not that there is much of the latter). No, the best thing about the show is that it describes the fossil evidence for almost everything it, er, shows. From a bone broken by a stegosaur to a bed of eggs, when you see it on screen, you can be sure it's backed up by science and will be explained soon after, if it hasn't already been, with few exceptions.

The rest of the show leaves something to be desired. Yes, the animals are quite detailed. However, the animation is of somewhat poor quality, despite the fact that a lot of effort has clearly been put into it. In particular, there is no sense of weight to the dinosaurs: when two carnivores collide, it feels as if two small stones banged into each other, rather than two towering animals intent on hurting one another. Given that every episode features multiple struggles between predator and prey or predator and predator, this is a problem. At many points they feel disconnected from even the ground itself. In addition to the lack of weight, their movements in general are either too jerky or too smooth, almost never at the right point in the spectrum.

Planet Dinosaur repeats things a lot, especially in the last two episodes, where I think most of the salient facts were covered thrice over. The writing, too, is not quite up to scratch. The constant search for synonyms for 'monster' is a major offender. In many cases, the gravity of the narration seems very forced: it just doesn't gel with the image.

This series is overall a major step in the right direction. Introducing the general public-myself included-to the discoveries that we base our knowledge of dinosaurs upon in such an interesting fashion is to be commended. I just expected more, and I hope we will get it in the future.

Like sowbi, I too came across this series completely by accident. I turned on the TV one day and started channel surfing, and suddenly saw a new channel -- "Animax" -- with these two guys with cool powers fighting off a few thugs. The voice acting was pretty laughable, but the series captured my imagination. I started watching from the "Venus di Milo" episodes, missed quite a bit, then watched around 47 of the 49 episodes almost religiously! As I said, the voice acting was pretty laughable. However, it wasn't because the actors were bad. It was laughable for the simple reason that Animax appears to use the same three or four actors to do the voices for every single character in every single series. The actors themselves are extremely talented -- they'd have to be, in this situation! -- but it's a little weird to hear one of the villains being voiced by the same guy who gives the voice for one of the heroes (no, they're not supposed to be related or anything like that).

Get Backers is, as mentioned earlier, one of my favourite anime series. The cast of characters is amazing. Every single character encountered is fascinating. The animation isn't all that great; the art is quite inconsistent. However, far from dragging the series down, it actually improves on it by lending it personality. Also, the series ending (which has a fairly long buildup) is probably the most well-executed ending I've ever seen.

In closing, let me voice my only complaint: Get Backers only lasted for one season of 49 episodes. I want more!