Customer Reviews

Amazon [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Please ignore the technology debates. This is one of the very best IMAX films ever produced, and one of the best documentaries- in ANY format- on the Amazon ecosystem in all its glory. It is simply unsurpassed in its depiction of the awe-inspiring variety and scale of these legendary forests; all that's missing is the heat & humidity. Rather than the usual stupefying one-note narratives of conventional IMAX films, this one has real stories about fascinating people. The photography is stunning, the music is excellent, and the price is unbelievably fair. You can't miss with this one.

This film is even better than the Coral Reef film I bought. It has much sharper and interesting imagery and the story is not dumbed down like in the reef film. This film is an excellent demo film for hdtv and it has some of the most fascinating images i have ever seen.

BTW: If you have problems playing these discs, insert the disc, ALT-F4 when the built in hdtv player pops up to close it, run the licgen.exe on the root of the drive, then use windows media player to play the wmv of the film which is in the videos directory.

Mirrors of clouds dance across miles of glossy river as aerial views create a sense of breathless wonder. The vast expanses are captured with an added sense of magic. As a medicine man seeks plants with curative powers he wanders through lost cities embraced by ancient mountains.

He braves formidable rapids and takes a train ride. The dense forests and river are the focus and you can see a sloth swimming and brief glimpse of a jaguar. Pink dolphins revel in sunlit spaces of peaceful beauty and snakes slither through muddy ponds shadowed by towering trees.

Waterfalls as if from a dream, appear and disappear. Indian tribes help researchers find medicinal plants and babies are found drifting, asleep on water lily pads. We learn about leaves that will heal injuries and why tribes use spider webs for medicinal purposes.

The story of the medicine man gives the story continuity and the images of nature's splendor are beyond awe invoking. My kitten Meesa was absolutely entranced by the fast moving images of boats on the rivers and was batting at images on the screen.

Also of interest:

Storm Chasers
Dolphins
Coral Reef Adventure
Journey Into Amazing Caves

~The Rebecca Review

Rick Duim has no idea what he is talking about.

#1. you do not register any personal information with Microsoft or anyone else when you register to watch WM9 HD material. You do not fill in any forms or anything of the sort. When you put the disc in, it checks to make sure the disc you are attempting to play is a legitimate copy and that is it. After your 1 week viewing period is up, it just checks once again to make sure your copy is legal, and gives you another week, you could do this forever! There is no limit to how often or how long you watch the material.

#2. This is true High Definition video. It looks STUNNING! If you have a computer powerful enough to play it it is WORTH IT! There are DVD players coming out at the end of the summer that can also play WM9 HD material, so you will not need a computer. I use a HD projector on a 14 foot wide screen to view my WM9 material, and it is better than going to the movies.

Until HD DVDs come out (probably not for 2-3 years or longer) there is not really very many options to use your HD display with HD material. Regardless, the movie is great in HD or not, so get it for the movie itself, and if you want to see it in High Definition, at least you have the option.

It's a good thing that this comes with 2 DVDs. The Amazon WMVHD disc wouldn't work since it would not get a license, so I watched the standard DVD format from the 2nd disc. I also bought the Coral Reef Adventure discs, and had no license problems with that WMVHD disc.
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Update: If autoplay is used, then it works fine (no problems with the license). I keep autoplay disabled because of Sony's rootkit on some of their CDs. A work-around is to go to My Computer, right-click on your DVD drive, then choose 'Autoplay' to start the movie.

This movie is nice, I bought it to see high quality WMVHD high definition content, but I'm quite disapointed that it only last 39 minutes, making it quite expensive for the length... I also had problem getting it to run on XP SP2 but resolved them by running the components directly from the command line as the support site indicated

And you are going to enjoy it! I had the opportunity to see this film at the IMAX theater and it was spectacular, I look forward to seeing it on dvd now that it has been released. It combines a sensational visual experience with the interconnected stories of Mark Plotkin, an ethnobotanist, and a fictional shaman. Both are in search of healing plants in the Amazon. Mark Plotkin also wrote Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, and this movie is a really nice add-on if you've already enjoyed his book.

The cinematography and research were superb, but I was hoping for a more indepth overview. I overlooked the fact that this film is only 39 minutes, so I guess that's my fault. I enjoy documentaries on nature and world culture, so I was looking for a more informative piece. The backdrop for this film is definitely a scenic beauty, especially for those with large high definition televisons. To those looking for interesting facts and insight into secret worlds, this is not the video for which you're looking. It does please the eye and I'm sure was awesome in an IMAX theatre.

the music is good, the film is very interesting with both animals and peoples but we don't see enough animals in the deep
jungle,
the high definition is very succesful with wonderful colors but it could have been used more for our pleasure

It's a great to have HD content even before the HD-DVD or Blue Ray discs start shipping. Picture and sound quality are great. The documentary itself was a bit slow (if not borring) to me.