Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Nat'l Geographic Vid
• VHS Release Date: September 11, 1997
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6304474881
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,435 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Viewing The Great Whales feels a bit like cuddling up with an out-of-date encyclopedia. There's a lot of solid information and great pictures, but everything's a little bit dusty. So it is with this National Geographic production from 1978, which presents the save-the-whales movement as if it's breaking news. Still, there's plenty of educational value here, from the history of man hunting whales and an examination of the phenomenon of beached whales in Florida to the heartbreak of a baby whale born in captivity in California that strangely doesn't make it. Often, the production is poetry in motion, whether it's showing the graceful movements of the world's largest mammal or providing lyrical narrative to accompany the footage of the whales, the "masters of a dark world human eyes have seldom seen." --Valerie J. Nelson

Product Description

Once feared and hunted almost to extinction, the whale now commands worldwide attention. Join scientists and conservationists as they study and document the anatomy, communication, and migratory patterns of a variety of whale species, including killer, pilot, and humpbacked whales. THE GREAT WHALES also looks at the birth of a killer whale and how captive whales participate in scientific experiments.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Video on Whales and Man's Interaction With Them, February 21, 2004

By 

Warren J. Dew (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: National Geographic's The Great Whales [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This video provides a broad overview of whales and their relationship with man through history up to the time of its publication. Historical material includes discussion with images as well as some interesting whaling footage from the early 1900s, when hand thrown harpoons were still used. More recent material includes footage of the birth of a killer whale calf in captivity and of grey and humpback whales under study in the wild, along with some discussion with researchers about the significance of the behavior we see. Perhaps some of the most interesting material is of Greenpeace activists in high speed rubber boats attempting to protect sperm whales from Soviet whaling ships in the 1970s.

The video was released in 1978, so it is somewhat dated today. If you keep the release date in mind, though, there's still a wealth of interesting information here. It's definitely still worth seeing, and I don't know of any more recent videos that provide as good a survey of a variety of great whale species.