Product Description
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Over the years, BBC wildlife documentaries have featured the
most incredible footage, illustrating just how ingenious,
beautiful, frightening and even how funny the natural world can
be. Now the most amazing and dramatic moments of these programmes
have been collected on one DVD.
A combination of talent, patience, split-second timing and not
forgetting good luck, has allowed some of the worlds most
famous natural history film-makers to capture these unique and
extraordinary moments on camera. The tension s as crocodiles
prepare to ambush zebras at a river crossing; a ruthless python
kills and eats a gazelle; unbelievable underwater filming
captures the elegance of elephants swimming and David
Attenborough gets close to ain gorillas. Along with bears,
monkeys, meerkats, lions, whales and some of the more bizarre
members of the animal world, these wildlife stars reveal the
sheer awe-inspiring magic of the natural world.
.co.uk Review
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Introduced and presented by David Attenborough, Great Wildlife
Moments is a feature-length anthology that compiles some of the
most memorable moments from the BBC Wildlife Unit. With a running
time of 108 minutes it consists of 38 sequences drawn from the
greatest archive of natural-history filmmaking in the world,
breathtaking television spanning the entire biosphere from
never-before-seen creatures in the ocean depths (Blue Planet (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005OR3I/${0} ), 2001) to Attenborough
himself in zero gravity high above the Earth (The Living Planet (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AISIR/${0} ), 1984). The anthology is
divided into seven chapters covering different environments from
"Snow and Ice" to "Jungles", an approach that both gives
structure to the film and offers an effective vision of the sheer
diversity of life on planet Earth.
Most people's favourite sequences will be found here, from a
killer whale taking a sea lion on the beach in The Trials of Life
( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006G9VQ/${0} ) (1990) to Attenborough
communing with ain gorillas in Life on Earth (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AISIQ/${0} ) (1979). Other segments come
variously from BBC wildlife specials, Wildlife on One, The
Natural World, The Kingdom of the Ice Bear (1985), Life in the
Freezer ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006G9VR/${0} ) (1993), The Private
Life of s ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AISJC/${0} ) (1995),
Attenborough in Paradise (1996), The Life of Birds (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004XQSN/${0} ) (1998) and The Life of
Mammals ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B000088DSM/${0} ) (2002), with
additional narrators including John Hurt, Andrew Sachs and Simon
King. This is a fine selection made all the more rewarding by
Attenborough's endless enthusiasm and celebration of the world
about us.
On the DVD: Great Wildlife Moments is presented at 16:9,
anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. Unfortunately most of
the material was originally for traditional 4:3 broadcast
and so has been reformatted by carefully cropping s at the
top and/or bottom. For the most part this works acceptably with
little of visual significance lost, though a sequence of emperor
penguins from Life in the Freezer is ruined. Only one 4:3
segment--Attenborough high in the rainforest from Attenborough in
Paradise--has been presented in its original ratio. Picture
quality varies depending on the age of the clips, with material
from Blue Planet and The Life of Mammals being flawless and older
footage offering some grain, which is never too distracting.
Sound is again variable, the Dolby Prologic soundtrack
effectively smoothing the transitions between older mono
soundtracks and more recent surround sound. The main extra is a
fine commentary that is specific to each sequence and calls on
the original producers, directors or cameramen (most but not
every section has a commentary), while a 12-minute "making of" is
actually more of an extended trailer for other BBC wildlife DVDs.
The disc also includes a useful BBC Natural History Unit
filmography. --Gary S Dalkin