Customer Reviews

Australia: Land Beyond Time (IMAX) [Blu-ray]

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

 

 

Extraordinary panoramic vistas, taken from a 2-engine plane with a camera attached to its nose, amazing geological facts, and marvelous animals, most of them unique to Australia, are what we get in this superb documentary of what is both the world's smallest continent, and its largest island. Once joined to Antarctica many millions of years ago, with high mountains and lush forests, time transformed Australia into 3 million square miles of mostly arid flat land, and its creatures adapted to the different weather conditions. Fabulous and often amusing footage of kangaroos and koalas (both share the same ancestral marsupial possum), as well as desert creatures from ants to the giant and fearsome parenti lizard, and the "living contradiction," the platypus, are among the many delights shown in this film.

An event that only occurs approximately twice every century, torrential rains filling the Outback's Lake Eyre, bringing long dormant animals to life, as well as flocks of pelicans, is caught on film, and is a spectacular sight. This is a glorious but harsh land, with a strange beauty that fills the soul. Australia is described as being more like another planet than another country, and this documentary has many images rarely seen.

Directed by David Flatman, written by Flatman, Meg Morrison, and poet Les Murray, it is narrated by Alex Scott, and has a lovely score by David Bridie. Made for IMAX in 2002, every aspect of "Australia, Land Beyond Time" is excellent, is a must for anyone interested in this great country, and those of us who like to explore foreign lands without leaving home.

I am so impressed with this movie. The production is truly amazing. I feel like I traveled to Australia for 1 1/2 hrs and flew over that vast land of natural wonders. I loved the Kangoroo and Koala scenes as well as the underwater scenes. The film succeeds in almost every aspect, including its sound effects and truly delightful music score. As opposed to other IMAX films that use cheap background music or music by classic rock bands, here we get a one-of-a kind music score performed by an orchestra that blends with the images really well. The narrative script provides a lot of information while keeping the viewer entertained (like the Kangoroo kickboxing scene) Also, the picture quality was amazing! At times I wondered if I was watching a plain DVD or some sort of high definition video!!

I expected more video of some of the scenic areas in Australia. This DVD focuses on the animals in Australia and the terrain. I was hoping it would include something on the Great Barrier Reef but it didn't. The video was good quality and the narration was informative.

Australia: Land Beyond Time (IMAX) [Blu-ray]

Only 45 minutes of video, not the advertised 75 minutes. I guess they took into account the "B Roll" stuff, which did not look like it was filmed in HD. The production was quite bad as well. Look at desert, look at kangaroos, look at desert, look at more kangaroos. No cities, just outback, a few more animals, and a brief lesson on continental drift and quite repetitive concerning...kangaroos. Don't waste your money in my opinion.

AUSTRALIA THE BEAUTIFUL
DISCOVERING AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIA - THE LAND BEYOND TIME

These movies are all informative, and Australia itself is of course gorgeous. Some people seem to think the only things in Australia are kangaroos, koalas, Aborigines, Crocodile Dundee, and Steve Irwin feeding his baby to the crocodiles. Students in China will ask you "What is the weather like in Australia?" as if a country roughly the size of China or the USA has the same weather from east to west and north to south. These films will show you otherwise, but it is annoying that I can't find a single DVD about Australia made by Australians. These are distinctly American, even though the third has a British narrator.

Very good film about Australia. I would have liked more scenes and info about marsupials and other exotic Australian animals, but any how, this is a great documentary. Totally recommended.

Incredible scenery from down under! I particularly enjoyed the underwater life and underground insect scenes. Transitions are so smooth and the music ...so relaxing.

Land yes, people no.......????
this video shows the beautiful and interesting land and land creatures of the continent but fails to show that it is inhabited at all. I expected some views of the aboriginals and their history, some mention at least. But by watching this video you have no idea that humans exist on the continent AT ALL!
I loved the segments of the formation of the continent, the kangaroos, the birds... but after 30 minutes of this I expected to see the Great Barrier reef, the inhabited areas and some other aspects of Australia. I was left very unfulfilled. Too bad.

I bought this DVD in anticipation of migrating to Australia. I was expecting a well balanced documentary about Australia: history, wildlife, people, cultures etc. The DVD promises 74 min, so it should be able to cover all that. But after about 30 minutes of in itself interesting material, the DVD was done already. I felt very disappointed, as I expected many more minutes and much more than just a few animals and even some repeating scenes.

Once again, an IMAX documentary where the only thing that seems to matter are pretty pictures. While the image quality is superb it's the only real redeeming feature. There's no real exploration of the ecology of the Outback, there isn't much discussion of the wildlife (yay, kangaroos, yay perenties). What discussion there is is basic, repetitive and about on par with what you'd get in a 3rd or 4th grade science class. It's amazingly pretty, but there's nothing else there. It's like a screen saver for your TV basically.
The subtitles were also horrible; words were misspelled, just flat out missing, sometimes out of sync with the audio... I use subtitles because my hearing is so/so, and that was a real pain for me.