Product Details

• Actors: George Blasing
• Directors: Kreg Lauterbach
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC, Closed-captioned
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: A&E HOME VIDEO
• DVD Release Date: January 20, 2009
• Run Time: 564 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001DITH8E
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,038 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Jurassic Fight Club: Season One" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, but Jurassic Fight Club offers ample evidence that our fascination with these mighty creatures is eternal. Sure, there will be those who will object to the various inaccuracies and generally flashy style and tone of the 12 episodes (on four discs) from this first season of the popular History Channel series. But this isn’t science class; it’s entertainment, and taken on its own terms, it’s both engaging and informative. The show’s conceit--namely, that "new discoveries in forensic science bring to life the prehistoric art of war"--reveals itself through episodes focusing on particular dinosaurs, including their environments, their prey, and their adversaries. Thus we get Madagascar’s Majungatholus, the "Cannibal Dinosaur," an "apex predator" that weighed a ton and was thirty feet long; when a male of the species kills a youngster, the baby’s mother exacts her brutal revenge in graphic detail (it’s not for nothing that the show advises viewer discretion). Elsewhere, we meet Nanotyrannus, the "pygmy tyrant" (smaller and stealthier than the notorious T-Rex, this nasty customer feeds on the latter’s young), as well as Allosaurus, the enormous "Terror of the Jurassic," and Ceratosaurus, another huge predator. We see Megalodon, the 50-foot ancestor of the great white shark, attacked by an entire pod of sperm whales from the Miocene era, and the fearsome raptors, who hunted in packs and were smarter and stealthier than other hunters. And "Armageddon," one of the best episodes, chronicles the Mt. Everest-sized asteroid that landed on the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago, bringing the reign of the dinosaurs to a sudden and unimaginably violent end.

All of this is delivered quite convincingly and realistically by way of CGI, computer recreations of the actual "combat" scenes, charts, graphs, tables, maps, film footage of actual paleontologists and other scientists in the field, and interviews with numerous experts (principally the colorful "Dinosaur George" Blasing). The pounding, dramatic music is similar to that used for History productions like Battle 360 and The Universe, as is the macho narration (which favors overheated terminology like "crime scene," "suspect," and "investigators"). Bonus material is limited to some additional footage on one disc. --Sam Graham

Product Description

JURASSIC FIGHT CLUB:SEASON 1 - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Too long, overly speculative, but battle scenes make up for it., January 26, 2009

By 

Greg "Saganite" (Brooklyn Park, Mongolia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jurassic Fight Club: Season One (DVD)

One person gave "JFC" a single star, complaining about the accuracy of some of the material in the series. His qualification for doing so, he said, is his passion for dinosaurs, which I do not doubt. I would not presume to match knowledge with even a ten or 12-year-old dinosaur enthusiast...people who love dinosaurs tend to know a lot about them. It's like the one "fantasy" we can indulge, because it's seen as factual fantasy. If you're into World of Warcraft or Middle Earth or comic books, it can be looked down on as nerdy and useless, whereas knowing the name of every Triassic predator...well, you're still a nerd, but the knowledge itself seems less useless, because it's about the real world. Or, a recreation of the real world, more accurately.

And that was our one-starring critic's complaint, that the recreators of this series played fast and loose with these ultimate cold cases (even using the language of crime scene investigation sometimes, to very mixed effect). There is no doubt that the producers and animators have taken some spectacular guesses and have extrapolated far beyond what the often meager evidence would allow. But this is NOT the O.J. Simpson trial. It is, largely, a thin sciency-sounding excuse to put on some fantastic battle scenes. Very few young boys (and many girls) will be immune to the excitement of watching two monsters clash. It's Godzilla versus Mothra, except these fanatically enthusiastic paleontologists adding ringside color are legitimizing the whole thing with fossils and CAT scans and references to living animals.

And that's the series' undeniable strength. The enthusiasm, even passion, for learning that it could engender in some kids formerly only interested in completely imaginary monsters. Not that there's anything wrong with imaginary monsters--I happen to like several. But to harness that imagination in the service of educated speculation in pursuit of more facts about our planet's fascinating history seems an even more noble pursuit. This series has the capacity to ignite a passion for learning about dinosaurs.

My more substantive criticism of the "JFC" (I can't write that without thinking of Jersey Fried Chicken) shows is that the battle scenes are too slight to merit their build-up. Working with usually sparse and fragmentary evidence and making gigantic hypothetical leaps takes up about 75 percent of the show, with the actual battle taking up only a quarter or so. The easy fix here would be to make it a half-hour show, which would put the science speculation in proper balance with the battle scenes.

I also think the paleontologists could provide a lot more warning about the nature of the guesses they are making without damaging their enthusiasm or the excitement of the show. There's nothing wrong with saying, "We don't have enough information to know, but we think something a little like this might have happened." If anything, that might inspire a generation of budding paleontologists to work on creating techniques that would enable us to speculate with more and more plausibility.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Series!, August 21, 2008

By 

Lin (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jurassic Fight Club: Season One (DVD)

I can't wait for this to come out on DVD! Right now, during the arid summer season, this is one of the best shows on TV. The build-up is fascinating, the experts (I love "Dinosaur George") are eloquent and knowledgeable. The "fight" scenes are exciting to watch but, to me, the background info is what makes them exciting. It's isn't just conjecture, but studying the fossils, the behavior of living animals, etc. Then they put everything they learned on the scene in the finale. I'm on the edge of my seat by the time the end fight is played out.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, bad, and sometimes annoying, March 26, 2009

By 

Lyle Carbutt "ltgamer" (Alamosa,Co) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jurassic Fight Club: Season One (DVD)

I haven't watched every single episode that aired on the History Channel but I have seen more than half of them. I take issue with the series in some areas for instance the Nanotyrannus vs T-rex episode. My understanding is that the -Nanotyrannus is a juvinile T-rex or a legitimate genus- issue is still very much unsettled. There are plenty of other examples but I'll leave it at that. Yes, I'm a dinosaur nut and have been for long time so the technical errors tend to upset me. The science is well presented but then liberties are taken with it to produce an "exciting" battle. Tooth marks don't always equal a struggle and Mr. Blasing takes great liberties with the behavior of the animals in the series. Some of the ideas are plausible but that does not make them the only way this animal behaved. I'll give Mr. Blasing points for enthusiasm but as has been said in other reviews he becomes annoying. I understand the appeal it has because of the battles, the danger this series has is that the real science gets pushed aside for the good storyline. I hope that if more episodes are made they stress the importance of the science, Mr. Blasing tones it down some and presents the fight as a possibility of what may have happened and not get caught up in telling a fantastic story.