Product Details

• Actors: Modern Marvels
• Directors: History Channel
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 5
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: A&E HOME VIDEO
• DVD Release Date: May 27, 2008
• Run Time: 846 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0012XIGYG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,524 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

MODERN MARVELS:ENGINEERING DISASTERS - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting and inexpensive collection, July 30, 2008

By 

C. Gelmi - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters (History Channel) (DVD)

Finally, what I was waiting for: a large collection of case studies (18 episodes in total; at least two disasters in every episode - sometimes as many as six) taken from a large variety of engineering areas. As a chemical engineer and as an instructor, I found this collection very interesting, full of different "case studies" and lessons to learn in a very amusing way.

The episodes includes:
- New Orleans: Hurricane Katrina.
- The fire at Las Vegas MGM Hotel.
- The collapse of Seattle's Lacey V. Murrow Floating Bridge.
- The flaw that grounded the first commercial jet.
- An entire lake and the surrounding land are sucked into a Louisiana salt mine.
- Exxon Valdez incident.
- The Ford Explorer/Firestone rollovers.
- The fire on the Piper Alpha offshore oirlig.
- Computer errors that brought the world to the brink of accidental nuclear war.
- The explosion of a jet-fuel plant in Nevada.
- The Union Carbide explosion in India.
- A devastating flood in China that killed 145,000 people.
- Denver baggage system nightmare.
- Patrior missile failure
- etc.

The only drawbacks are that the DVDs come with no closed captions and no subtitles. Thanks HC.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, should not be overlooked, April 21, 2009

By 

James E. Adam (Baltimore, Md.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters (History Channel) (DVD)

Many of the major engineering disasters of the past century are covered. Each episode provides about 5 disasters and during the 8-10 minutes is provided the effect (disaster), the cause and the solution. The dvd menu lists each disaster, so one can go quickly to the disasters of their interest.

The episodes included are #4 through #20, plus Hurricane Katrina is provided as a bonus single disaster episode. Which begs the question, what happened to episodes #1, #2, and #3, as they are not in this set? These early three episodes were generally an overview containing a wide number of disasters in brief detail. I suspect, since these episodes were so good, A&E expanded the series to provide much greater detail and limit each succeeding episode to just 5 disasters.

This set also needs an index of every disaster, either on the dvds, or with a paper insert. I loved the menus as they are so simple and easy to follow, without dumb pictures cluttering the screen.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than I Hoped, January 20, 2009

By 

CeruleanGrey (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters (History Channel) (DVD)

This has been one of my best DVD purchases; I highly recommend it.

I bought this for my boyfriend who is an engineer and he loves it, and so do I. I was very surprised and intrigued with the variety of engineering disasters that were presented along with the footage. Some of the best ones I've seen so far were the salt mines (the footage of the barges being sucked towards the whirlpool was unbelievable), the Love Canal, and many of the oil rig disasters. I also learned that underground salt deposits make great natural propane storage tanks.

In each episode there are multiple stories not just one or two; it is definitely worth the money.