Walking with Dinosaurs
Walking with Dinosaurs is a 1999 six-part television series produced by the BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh. In North America, the series was screened on the Discovery Channel, with Branagh's voice replaced by Avery Brooks.
The series uses 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 film Jurassic Park, six years earlier. The series was a commercial success and was praised by scientists [citation needed], having 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 reports that the series was the most expensive documentary series per minute ever made [1]
Episodes
"New Blood"
The first episode filmed and broadcast. 220 Million Years Ago — Upper Triassic; Arizona
- Filming location: New Caledonia
- Conditions: semi-desert with short rainy season. In the year of the episode, the rains are late.
The episode mainly focuses on the Coelophysis and the fight for suvrvival during the dry season. The Postosuchus is beaten out of her territory by a male Postosuchus and then is killed by the Coelophysis.The Thrinaxodon's home is invaded by Coelophysis and they have to eat their own young, to deprive the Coelophysis of their prey, before fleeing to find a new home. The Placerias are slowly dying out due to droughts and the remainder wander off into the desert and into extinction.
In order of appearance:
- Coelophysis (theropod)
- Placerias (dicynodont)
- Thrinaxodon (cynodont) missing link between mammals and reptiles (identified as cynodont)
- Postosuchus (basal archosaur) ambush predator
- Peteinosaurus (pterosaur)
- dragonfly (live-acted)
- Plateosaurus (prosauropod)
- lungfish
- Phytosaurus (in companion book)
- Metoposaurus (in book)
"Time of the Titans"
The second episode to be filmed and broadcast. 152 Million Years Ago — Upper Jurassic — Colorado
- Filming locations: Redwood National Park, Chile, Tasmania, New Zealand
- Conditions: warm with mixture of forest and fern-prairies.
This episode focuses on a female Diplodocus and her siblings as they grow throughout the years. But some are eaten by Allosaurus and Ornitholestes, and speared by a Stegosaurus's tail-spikes. By the end of the episode, only the female Diplodocus and one of her brothers remain and they join a herd of adult Diplodocus. The episode ends with the female Diplodocus mating and breeding. Also, an adult Allosaurus tries to hunt her, but the tail of a larger Diplodocus knocks the Allosaurus. She returns to the herd, with deep wounds on her side.
- Allosaurus (theropod)
- Anurognathus (pterosaur)
- Brachiosaurus (sauropod)
- Dryosaurus (ornithopod) (shown but not identified)
- Diplodocus (sauropod)
- Ornitholestes (theropod)
- Stegosaurus (stegosaur)
- Coelurus(theropod) (present in companion book)
"Cruel Sea"
The third episode filmed and broadcast. 149 Million Years Ago — Late Jurassic — Oxfordshire
- 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. In the end of the episode, a typhoon kills many Rhamphorhynchus, and washes the Liopleurodon ashore and it dies suffocated by its weight. Most of the Cryptoclidus survive and manage to make it back into the ocean.
- Ammonite
- Cryptoclidus: (plesiosaur)
- Eustreptospondylus: (theropod)
- Hybodus: (shark)
- Liopleurodon: (plesiosaur)
- Ophthalmosaurus: (ichthyosaur)
- Rhamphorhynchus: (pterosaur)
"Giant of the Skies"
The fourth episode filmed and broadcast. 127 Million Years Ago — Early Cretaceous — Young Atlantic Ocean (Brazil, Cantabria)
- Filming locations: New Zealand, Tasmania
- Conditions: Sea and coastlands.
It stars an elderly male Ornithocheirus, a big pterosaur like a Pteranodon, 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, which in the book of the series is named Cornubia. He passes another 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.
- Ornithocheirus (pterosaur)
- Iguanodon (ornithopod)
- Utahraptor (theropod)
- Polacanthus (ankylosaur)
- Tapejara (pterosaur)
- Iberomesornis (bird)
- Plesioliopleurodon (plesiosaur) Not identified, but revealed on the website
- Saurophtirus (identified in companion book)
"Spirits of the Ice Forest"
The fifth episode filmed and broadcast. 106 Million Years Ago — Early 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.
- 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. During the summer an Allosaurus 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 Allosaurus catches and eats the female of the Leaellynasauras' alpha pair. Other predators like Koolasuchus are in the hunt for the Leaellynasaura.
- Allosaurus (theropod)
- Koolasuchus (temnospondyl amphibian)
- Leaellynasaura (ornithopod)
- Muttaburrasaurus (ornithopod) (shown as migrating away north for the winter)
- Steropodon (monotreme) (live-acted by a coati)
- Pterodactyl Not identified
- weta (live-acted)
- Sphenodon (live-acted by tuatara)
"Death of a Dynasty"
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, New Zealand
This episode starts several months before the extinction of the dinosaurs. Accoding to the book, the forests were shrinking and the Pierre Seaway between Laramidia and Appalachia was slowly drying up from the north. The first Tyrannosaurus seen is male. The main character is a female Tyrannosaurus, who abandons her nest because all the eggs in it were infertile or dead-in-shell. 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 all the dinosaurs are destroyed by the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event.
- Anatotitan (ornithopod)
- Ankylosaurus (ankylosaur)
- Deinosuchus (crocodilian) (not identified)
- Didelphodon (marsupial) scavenges the deserted Tyrannosaurus nest
- Dromaeosaurus (theropod)
- Quetzalcoatlus (pterosaur)
- Torosaurus (ceratopsian)
- Tyrannosaurus (theropod)
- Dinilysia (snake) (live-acted by a python)
- Parksosaurus (ornithopod) (not identified)
- a dead Triceratops is also shown
Supplemental episodes
Several new episodes were created in the wake of the original series' popularity.
The Ballad of Big Al
Produced in 2000, this two-part documentary follows the life of a 145 million year old Allosaurus, called Big Al, a dinosaur who "lived fast and died young" because he only lived for six years. The first episode covers the 6 years of Al's life from Birth to death during the late Jurassic period, and sees the possible events that happened while he was young, while the later years of his life covers the events which led to his death. The second episode covers the science involved that brought Big Al to life. It is also known as Allosaurus: a Walking with Dinosaurs Special.
Conditions: conifer and Cycad forest and dry, shrubby fields Film locations: Utah and Arizona
- Allosaurus
- Anurognathus
- Apatosaurus
- Brachiosaurus
- Diplodocus
- Dryosaurus
- Ornitholestes
- Othnielia
- Pterodactylus
- Stegosaurus
- dragonfly (live-acted)
- scorpion (live-acted)
- lizard(live-acted)
- waterdog (live-acted)
Chased by Dinosaurs
This two-part series features Nigel Marven as a time-traveller who encounters dinosaurs in the wild.
"Land of Giants"
Nigel travels back in time with his film crew. He sees a herd of Argentinosaurus crossing a salt flat to get to a vegetated area round a lake where they will breed, but predators are obstacles on the way, including Giganotosaurus. At one point, an Argentinosaurus is persuaded to walk onto an array of heavy-duty weighing scales intended for weighing lorries, hidden under leaf-litter: the resulting weight is 92 tons.
100 Million Years Ago — Middle Cretaceous — Argentina
Conditions: volcanic ash fields and conifer forest
Filming Locations: Tenerife, Canary Islands
- Argentinosaurus (sauropod)
- Giganotosaurus (theropod)
- Iguanodon (ornithopod)
- Ornithocheirus (pterosaur)
- Sarcosuchus (crocodilian)
- Pteranodon (pterosaur)
"The Giant Claw"
Nigel searches the early Mongolia deserts and forests for Therizinosaurus, who has massive and very long claws. On his journey, Nigel dashes across a nesting ground of Protoceratops into a forest ruled by Velociraptor and then into the path of a Tarbosaurus. Nigel then finds that Theirozinosaurus is a herbivore that uses its sickle-claws to hook tree and bush branches towards its mouth. He then finds a Therizinosaurus caught in a duel with Tarbosaurus (the Therizinosaurus wins)
75 Million Years Ago — Late Cretaceous — Mongolia
Conditions: Desert, and dense forest growing on the sand dunes.
Filming locations: Egypt, Fraser Island, Australia
- Velociraptor (theropod)
- Saurolophus (ornithopod)
- Tarbosaurus (theropod)
- Protoceratops (ceratopsian)
- Therizinosaurus (theropod)
- Mononykus (theropod)
- Azhdarcho (pterosaur) (seen in very brief shots, not identified, but revealed on the website)
Sea Monsters
Nigel returns in the three-part Sea Monsters Trilogy, featuring deadly prehistoric sea life. He visits the seas in order of dangerousness -- the more dangerous it is, the later it is visited.
Part 1: Sea Monsters
Nigel plunges into the seas of the Ordovician, Triassic and Devonian to find the top predators Cameroceras, Cymbospondylus and Dunkleosteus. In the Ordovician, he dodges spiny Megalograptus. As he ventures into deep water, he sees the thing even Megalograptus fear -- Cameroceras. Next, Nigel heads off to the Triassic, where dinosaurs and pterosaurs like Coelurosaurus and Peteinosaurus are starting to take over the land and sky. As he dives, he swims with Nothosaurus and demonstrates how a Tanystropheus can regenerate it's tail. But he must use an electric prod to ward off the top predator -- Cymbospondylus, the largest ichthyosaur ever! Next stop, the Devonian. There's a whole range of sharks here, including the "ironing-board shark" -- Stethacanthus. But they're not the top predators yet. Nigel catches a Bothriolepis to use as bait for the top predator -- Dunkleosteus.
- Megalograptus (identified as sea scorpion)
- Cameroceras (identified as orthrocone)
- Coelurosaurus not identified, but revealed on the web
- Peteinosaurus not identified
- Nothosaurus (identified as nothosaur)
- Tanystropheus
- Cymbospondylus
- Bothriolepis (identified as placoderm)
- Stethacanthus (identified as ironing-board shark)
- Dunkleosteus
- A dead Isotelus is also shown (identified as trilobite, alive in book)
- A dead Astraspsis is also shown (identified as armored fish, alive in book)
- Graptolite (in book)
- Onychodus (in book)
- Cladoselache (in book)
- Placodus (in book)
- Neuticosaurus (in book)
- Mastodonsaurus (in book)
- Thrinaxodon (in book)
Part 2: Into The Jaws Of Death
Nigel gets past the Dunkleosteus and tracks down Basilosaurus and Megalodon by plunging into the seas of the Eocene and Pliocene.
Part 3: To Hell...And Back?
Nigel gets past the Megalodon and dives into the Cretaceous and Jurassic seas to search for the most dangerous of all: Liopleurodon and Tylosaurus.
- Megalodon
- Whale
- Leedsichthys
- Metriorhynchus
- Hybodus
- Liopleurodon
- Hesperornis
- Tyrannosaurus not identified
- Xiphactinus
- Squalicorax (identified in book)
- Halisaurus not identified
- Pteranodon
- Elasmosaurus
- Archelon
- Tylosaurus (identified as mosasaur, replaced by Hainosaurus in book)
- Ophthalmosaurus (in book)
- Cryptoclidus (in book)
- giant squid (in book)
Acclaim
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.
Criticism
Critics of the series have claimed that some of the episodes tend to be overly gory, and to rely on shock and horror at the expence of factual accuracy, citing many examples of predation, defenses against predation and even cannibalism as examples of violence in the series. However, such examples of violence are seen in the natural world as well as other nature documentaries (carnivores eat other animals, several species engage in acts of cannibalism, other species defend themselves with clubs, spikes and spines, etc), and none are depicted with any of the gore beyond what is found in nature.
Spin-offs
The popularity of Walking With Dinosaurs led to numerous spin-offs in various media.
Book
A 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].
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.
A series entitled Walking with Cavemen, a documentary about our ancestors, was produced by the BBC, sharing some of the same computer animation as Walking with Beasts. However, Tim Haines, the original creator of Walking with Dinosaurs, was not involved in this work, nor were many of the other personnel including Branagh and music composer Ben Bartlett.
Nigel will return in another spin-off to be called Prehistoric Park, to be released in 2006. it will be shown on itv1
The Lost World
For Christmas, 2001, the BBC produced a two-part dramatization of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, starring Bob Hoskins as Professor Challenger, and using several of the computer models used in the Walking With Dinosaurs series to create the dinosaurs.