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Walking with Dinosaurs

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Walking with Dinosaurs
GenreDocumentary
Developed byAndrew Wilks
Narrated byKenneth Branagh
Theme music composerBen Bartlett
Country of originUK
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes6 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producerJohn Lynch
ProducersTim Haines, Jasper James
Production locationsNew Caledonia, California, Chile, Tasmania, New Zealand, Bahamas
Running time30 min.
Original release
NetworkBBC
ReleaseApril 16, 1999
Related
Walking with Beasts, Walking with Monsters

Walking with Dinosaurs was a six-part television series produced by the BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the UK in 1999. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel, with Branagh's voice replaced with that of Avery Brooks. The series used computer-generated imagery and animatronics to recreate the life of the Mesozoic, showing dinosaurs in a way that previously had only been seen in the feature films. The program's aim was to simulate a nature documentary and does not include interviews or any other such possible trademarks of documentaries. The series used paleontologists such as Peter Dodson, Peter Larson and James Farlow as advisors (their influence in the filming process can be seen in the documentary Walking with Dinosaurs - The Making Of). The Guinness Book of World Records reported that the series was the most expensive documentary series per minute ever made.[1]

Episodes

Each episode of Walking with Dinosaurs focused on the lives of one or more "protagonists", depicting fictional and speculative events based mainly on inferences and the behavior of modern animals, produced in a style that mimicked traditional wildlife documentaries.

"New Blood"

The first episode filmed and broadcast. 220 Million Years Ago — Late Triassic; Arizona

Head of a wounded Postosuchus
Filming location: New Caledonia
Conditions: semi-desert with short rainy season. In the year of the episode, the rains are late.

The episode followed a female Coelophysis as it tried to survive in the dry season. The Coelophysis was shown hunting a herd of Placerias, looking for weak members to prey upon. Early pterosaurs (specifically Peteinosaurus) were also featured, depicted cooling themselves in what little water was present during the drought. A female rauisuchian (Postosuchus, one of the largest carnivores alive at the time of the Triassic) was also shown following the Placerias herd. Still searching for food, the Coelophysis are shown discovering a burrow of the small mammal-like cynodont Thrinaxodon, and attempt to feed on the young. At night, the pair of Thrinaxodon are shown eating their remaining young, then moving away. The female Postosuchus is later wounded by a Placeras\'s tusks, and is beaten out of its territory by a rival Postosuchus. Wounded, sick and without a territory, the female is killed and eaten by a pack of Coelophysis. Finally, the wet season comes again, and the Coelophysis have survived, along with the Thrinaxodon pair. The episode ends with the arrival of a herd of the prosauropod Plateosaurus, forshadowing the future dominance of giant sauropod dinosaurs as depicted in the second episode.

Animals seen only in introduction:

"Time of the Titans"

The second episode to be filmed and broadcast. 152 Million Years Ago — Late Jurassic — Colorado

File:Allosaurus wwd.jpg
An Ornitholestes
Filming locations: Redwood National Park (Fern Canyon), Chile, Tasmania, New Zealand
Conditions: warm with mixture of forest and fern-prairies.

This episode followed the life of a young female Diplodocus. After hatching, its siblings are burnt in a natural forest fire, eaten by two Allosaurus and an Ornitholestes, and accidentally speared by a Stegosaurus tail spikes. The young Diplodocus and one surviving sibling eventually locate and join a herd. The plains are also home to other herbivores, including Brachiosaurus, Dryosaurus, while small pterosaurs called Anurognathus feast on their parasites (a speculative behavior inspired by oxpecker birds in modern Africa). At the end of the episode, an Allosaurus attacks the Diplodocus, but she is saved when a larger Diplodocus lashes the predator with its whip-like tail.

"Cruel Sea"

The third episode filmed and broadcast. 149 Million Years Ago — Late Jurassic — Oxfordshire

File:Ophtalmosaurus.png
Two Ophthalmosaurus
Filming locations: Bahamas, New Caledonia
Conditions: shallow tropical sea with small islands.

The Ophthalmosaurus breeding ceremony is the main event of the episode, but sharks and other predators, including Liopleurodon are on the hunt. The opening portrays a Liopleurodon snatching a Eustreptospondylus from the land, but there is no evidence of this ever occurring. (According to the producers, they were influenced by similar attacks by Killer Whales on land creatures.) In the end of the episode, a typhoon kills many Rhamphorhynchus, and washes the Liopleurodon ashore and it dies suffocated by its weight.

"Giant of the skies"

[3] The fourth episode filmed and broadcast. 127 Million Years Ago — Early Cretaceous — Young Atlantic Ocean (Brazil, Cantabria)

File:Giantoftheskies.jpg
Ornithocheirus
Filming locations: New Zealand, Tasmania
Conditions: Sea and coastlands.

It stars an elderly male Ornithocheirus, a large pterosaur, who is on his way back from South America to the island of Cantabria in Europe to mate. He passes a nesting colony of Tapejara. He reaches the north tip of South America and crosses sea to North America. He passes a herd of Iguanodon who were migrating along a beach. He travels from America to Europe across the young Atlantic Ocean. He reaches a European island, off the coast of Britain, which in the book of the series is named Cornubia . He passes a herd of Iguanodon, who are being preyed on by a pack of Utahraptor. Eventually, the Ornithocheirus reaches his breeding site, but fails to get a mate as he cannot land in the best place in the middle of the breeding site, because on the way he had been delayed (by having to shelter from a storm under a cliff overhang) and the site was taken. In the end, he perishes on a beach of hunger, exhaustion, heat stress and old age.

"Spirits of the Ice Forest"

The fifth episode filmed and broadcast. 106 Million Years Ago — Middle Cretaceous, in the rift valley where Australia is beginning to separate from Antarctica.

Conditions: Forest dominated by podocarps, very near South Pole (the sun did not rise for 5 months in the winter). The lopsided arrangement of the continents keeps ocean currents and strong monsoon winds blowing across the polar area, keeping it free of icecap and warm enough for forests to grow.
File:Steropodon.jpg
Head of Steropodon
Filming location: New Zealand

This episode focuses on a flock of Leaellynasaura who are trying to survive the freezing winter and breed in the summer. The episode runs from end of winter to the next end of winter. At the beginning a Koolasuchus eats a Leaellynasaura which had died in the winter. During the summer a dwarf allosaur hunts the Leaellynasaura and the Muttaburrasaurus. The Leaellynasaura usually escape, but during the noise and trampling and confusion caused by the Muttaburrasaurus migrating away north for the winter, the allosaur catches and eats the female of the Leaellynasauras' alpha pair. Other predators like Koolasuchus are on the hunt for the Leaellynasaura.

"Death of a Dynasty"

A Dromaeosaurus stalking its prey.

The sixth episode filmed and broadcast. 65.5 Million Years Ago — Late Cretaceous — Montana

Conditions: Areas of low herbaceous plant cover, and forest, affected by volcanism. The episode shows some effects of the end-of-Cretaceous asteroid impact.
Filming locations: Chile (Conguillío National Park) , New Zealand

This episode starts several months before the extinction of the dinosaurs. According to the book, the forests were shrinking and the Pierre Seaway between Laramidia and Appalachia was slowly drying up from the north. The main character is a female Tyrannosaurus, who abandons her nest because all the eggs in it were infertile. She mates and nests again, lays 12 eggs, of which 3 hatch. One of the babies disappears, most likely eaten by the other two. The mother is wounded by a blow from an Ankylosaurus's tail-club and dies later of internal injuries and a broken femur. Her babies die when the dinosaurs become extinct by the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, which, in the series is caused by a gigantic meteor that collides with earth in the Gulf of Mexico.

Animals only seen at the end:

Companion book

A companion book was written by Tim Haines to accompany the first screening of the series in 1999. The settings of some of the six episodes were changed between the time the book was written and the screening of the television series, and some of their names were changed: 'New Blood' is set at Ghost Ranch; 'Cruel Sea' is set at or near Solnhofen in Germany near what then were the Vindelicisch Islands [2]. The book elaborated on the background for each story, went further in explaining the science on which much of the program as based, and included descriptions of several animals not identified or featured in the series. (see animal lists above)

Deviations from the series

  • At the end of the episode "New Blood", a Plateosaurus frightens away a Coelophysis. In the book, a Postosuchus attacks the herd and loses. Near the end of the episode, the Coelophysis gather around a waterhole. In the book, this happens earlier. In the book, the first thing to happen is the Postosuchus attack.
  • In the episode "Time of the Titans", the female Diplodocus lifespan shown was: 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. In the book, it was: 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 12 years, so the Diplodocus age faster in the book. In the series, the Allosaurus attack occurs on the 3rd year. In the book, it occurs on the 4th year. The Stegosaurus kills nothing in the book.
  • In the book, the Liopleurodon attack from "Cruel Sea" occurs much later, the Cryptoclidus catches a pterosaur rather than a fish, and the female Liopleurodon does not appear.
  • Unlike in the episode "Giant of the Skies", Ornithocheirus cannibalism doesn't occur in the book. In the series, the lead female Utahraptor attacks the Iguanodon with no injury, whereas in the book, she is injured by the thumb spike. Additionally, in the series the Tapejara ignore the Ornithocherius, while the book, they try to drive it off.
  • In the episode "Spirits of the Ice Forest", the lead female Leaellynasaura is killed by the allosaur, while in the book, she dies of frostbite. In the book, all the Leaellynasaura chicks survive, and the Muttaburrasaurus don't get lost.
  • Dromaeosaurus and Parksosaurus are not in featured in the book, unlike in the episode "Death of a Dynasty." The Quetzalcoatlus gets eaten by a group of Deinosuchus in the book after a futile struggle, while the television program features only one Deinosuchus and the Quetzalcoatlus escapes without fighting back at all.

Critical reaction

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted on by industry professionals, Walking with Dinosaurs was placed 72nd.

The series won three Emmy Awards, including Best Animated Program (For More Than One Hour). [3]

Censorship

In the initial U.S. broadcasts of the series, a few scenes were omitted from some of the episodes. The most notable deletions were a shot of the cynodont pair devouring their offspring, and a scene where a dead-in-shell Tyrannosaurus embryo is preyed upon by a pair of Didelphodon. The DVD contains the original UK broadcast, so the omitted scenes were restored.

Spin-offs

See more info in the Walking with Series

The popularity of Walking with Dinosaurs led to numerous spin-offs in various media.

Walking with Dinosaurs - The Live Experience

A live theatrical adaptation was created in Australia and began touring in early 2007 (starting in Sydney's Acer Arena, and continuing to Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide & Melbourne). Coming from the mind of creative genius William May, the show itself features life size mechanical dinosaurs operated by teams of puppeteers and drivers as well as music by James Brett.

It was produced by Malcolm C. Cooke & Jill Bryant and directed by Scott Faris. The leading role of the palentologist (Huxley) was played by both Bruce Spence & Felix Nobis in the original Australian version.

The dinosaurs featured are:

The show is due to tour North America beginning June 2007.

Encyclopedia

Tim Haines has also written a Walking With... encyclopedia known as The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life, featuring most animals from the series, including the specials, and the accompanies Walking with Monsters

Prehistoric Planet

A child-oriented reversion of this series was released in America under the title Prehistoric Planet for the Discovery Kids Saturday morning line-up on NBC, with new naration read by Ben Stiller and Christian Slater over the same visuals. This version cut out the majority of the "violence" of the original.

The Walking With series

Tim Haines's direct follow-up to the series was Walking with Beasts, set in the Cenozoic era. This series featured extinct mammals and birds like Indricotherium and Gastornis. In 2005 the prequel Walking with Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs was produced.

Specials

Main articles: Chased by Dinosaurs, Sea Monsters, The Ballad Of Big Al, and Prehistoric Park

Chased By Dinosaurs, featuring Nigel Marven, stars Argentinosaurus and Therizinosaurus in two episodes in which Nigel tries to track down the biggest dinosaurs and the longest claws. The Ballad Of Big Al follows the life of an Allosaurus (Inspired by evidence found on a single Allosaurus skeleton). Nigel returns in Sea Monsters Trilogy, trying to survive the seven most dangerous seas of all time and meet the dangerous sea predators of the past -- Cameroceras, Cymbospondylus, Dunkleosteus, Basilosaurus, Megalodon, Liopleurodon and Tylosaurus. Nigel also stars in the latest special: Prehistoric Park, six episodes in which Nigel tries to collect Tyrannosaurus, Mammoth, Smilodon, Microraptor, Arthropleura, and Deinosuchus for a prehistoric zoo known as Prehistoric Park.

The Lost World

Main article: The Lost World (2001 film)

For Christmas, 2001, the BBC produced a two-part dramatization of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

Computer Games

There is a free downloadable game available at the bbc website. It is called Dinosaur World.

Notes

  1. ^ According to the site, book and encyclopedia, the cynodont is based upon Thrinaxodon, but it is never actually said to be one in any of the sources
  2. ^ The Liopeurodon is oversized as 25 meters (82 feet) long and 150 tons
  3. ^ In the book, the fourth episode is called, "Beneath a Giant's wing", but the fourth episode of the television series is called, "Giant of the Skies
  4. ^ The pterosaurs in the fifth episode are of a yet un-named species
  5. ^ The dwarf allosaur in the fifth episode is of a yet un-named species
  6. ^ In the American narration of the episode, the dwarf allosaur is referred to as a carnosaur instead.

See also

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