Customer Reviews

When Dinosaurs Roamed America

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Five years ago, I probably would have given When Dinosaurs Roamed America a rave review. It is a good dinosaur special, well done overall and with interesting effects. But in the post-Walking with Dinosaurs era, it's a bit of a letdown. The animation is not as good, nor is the writing as sharp.

One other note: John Goodman is really not up the level of either Kenneth Branaugh (British version of Walking with Dinosaurs as well as the DVD version) or Avery Brooks (the version of Walking With Dinosaurs shown on the Discovery Channel). The latter two treat it as a serious nature special. Goodman's narration makes it sound like he's narrating a children's TV special, not a nature special.

I'd love to be writing a gushing review about this DVD. I was certainly looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it suffers on two fronts. First, the CGI is at least a generation behind that shown in Walking With Dinosaurs. The character models are stiffer, less detailed, and show none of the realistic motion of skin and muscle that made the WWD animation so lifelike.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this presentation has been considerably "dumbed down" -- even at the risk of making the science fuzzy and inaccurate. If you've seen the Discovery Channel presentation of Walking With Dinosaurs vs. the DVD, you'll know just how horrid a job was done in the editing room when moving the presentation to Discovery. This DVD shows the same dead hand at the switch. It displays no faith in the viewers to do more than watch the pretty pictures.

Certainly better than anything we would have seen ten years ago, but not as good as what can be done today. It simply lacks the loving care and interest in the subject shown by the WWD specials.

A very interesting and fun American follow-up to the BBC's WALKING WITH DINOSAURS series, this presentation follows the practice of usnig CGI to present dinosaurs as they may have actually looked, moved, hunted, and reproduced. This series has certain advantages over the WWD series in that it tends to focus on dinosaurs that the average person will have heard of (triceratops) while WWD tended to focus on lesser-known dinosars (torosaurus). The only flaws in this design are the harshness of the CGI, occasionally glaringly not part of the landscape, and the narration of John Goodman. While Mr. Goodman has a great voice, he sounds bored to tears by the narration and it can occasionally distract from the visuals.

Also, as with WWD, be aware that these visuals are all built on THEORIES and may contradict your assumptions and major theories in the effort to provide interesting dinosaurs on-screen.

I got this video for my son when he was 3 and started really getting into dinosaurs. He's probably watched it 50 times and is still engrossed every time. I like that it not only shows the computer animated dinosaurs with narratives, but features many of today's experts on this topic sharing their thoughts. It's also helped both of us learn the pronunciations of the longer dinosaur names. Though not perfect, I'd much rather my kids watch reality-based programming like this than that ridiculous Land Before Time series. (Believe me, you can tell which kids watch the fluff and which ones watch documentaries.)

... it is nearly impossible to look at this feature, without comparing its quality to that of 'Walking with Dinosaurs'. It is very similar in style, delivered like a modern-day wildlife documentary, but it jumps around a lot. The CG graphics and animation are not quite of the same calibur of WWD, as well. Very rarely did the creatures seem to interact with their real-life environment. They often looked like they were just dropped into it, or stuck on like those old colorforms decals on a cardboard background. Where the lack of detail was most obvious is when the dinosaurs eat. The plant-eaters were the most awkward to watch, mainly because of the same lack of interatction with the environment. The meat eaters rarely had any flesh in their mouths. To see the animals 'chewing' and making other eating movements, but not actually be *eating* anything made it look silly and almost unprofessional.

But this DVD isn't all bad. It was well paced and still interesting. Some of the interpretations of the dinosaurs themselves were good. T-Rex as a family pack hunter? Interesting. Some of the designs for the dinosaurs were quite cool too. Some of them looked a little cartoonish for my tastes, but I have to admit that the feathered dinosaurs were well done.

Certainly, it isn't nearly as impressive as Walking With Dinosaurs, but it also isn't as expensive as Walking With Dinosaurs. It is a good watch for the price.

The price, for the length and quality of the dvd is wonderful. I would recommend this dvd to anybody who wants something acurate and realistic. I was totally sucked into this, even though I bought it for my four year old. He was totally sucked in too!

I absolutely loved "Walking With Dinosaurs." While this DVD isn't as good as that set it still is a great DVD. It has a very similar feel (like a Natural Geographic Special). The graphics are excellent but not as good as WWD. In some areas you can find imperfections. I like that they found some really interesting new locations; new woods that look like they were in the dinosaur times.

The naration is one of the bigger detractors from the film. John Goodman? Come on? Why? Because he was in the Flinstones? Not even close to the standard set in WWD.

There was some re-use of backgrounds and animations of some scenes which made me say, "hey, I saw that already, all they did was mirror the scene."

The pacing was perfect and the few but insightful palentologist comments were well done. The length was good. Another good thing was that there were some new dinosaurs in this DVD that we haven't previously seen.

Overall, the DVD is great, offered new info, showed dinos with feathers, and continued the trend started by WWD. I highly recommend it for any audience. Also the price is right.

After watching what the BBC does with CGI and what can be done with CGI I found this to be quite disappointing. The attention to detail was lacking from start to finish. What the past actually looked like is definitely open to interpretation and this DVD does interpret the dinosaurs in a different way, atleast visually. The look of the dinosaurs is good but the imaging of the dinosaurs in action is dodgy.

This desperatley needed someone to write a decent storyline for it to follow rather than jumping all over the place and not really teaching you anything. The inclusion of some clips of paleantologists explaining some finds was interesting but was not adequately linked to the dinosaur footage.

It was more about America than it was about the dinosaurs....have another go fella's!!!!

I found this program to be very interesting. Done in the style of Walking with Dinosaurs the viewer is provided with a fascinating glimpse at what the American Dinosaur world must have been like in various regions and periods millions of years ago. Most of the scenes were done very well, you could almost believe that you were actually there. On the Discovery Channel showing I noticed that the scene where the fallen Apatosaurus is killed and eaten was toned down in violence and blood, and in the Stegosaurus mating scene the camera moved at the critical point, probably for sensitive viewers such as children. This program is worth owning.

In one way, When Dinosaurs Roamed America is better than Walking with Dinosaurs. In the other way, it isn't. The CGI is just as good (maybe a tiny, tiny bit worse) Walking with Dinosaurs' CGI. They also show feathers on the Raptors, which WAS the case. I find the T-Rexes as pack hunters quite interesting, too. I also like the fact it shows some new species of dinosaur - Dilophosaurus, Camarasaurus, Zuniceratops, Ornithomimus ect. ect. I also like the fact it insights on Syntarsus, not the usual Coelophysis, ect. The feathers on the different dinosaurs looked very realistic. I also like the look of the Nothrhonyks (or however you spell it). The Apatosaurus looked good, too. I must say it has allot less killing (good!!!) than Walking with Dinosaurs. Then again its allot shorter (90 minutes, opposed to 180 minutes). Anywhow, make sure you get this (it's only $15) and it's sequal - Dinosaur Planet.