| Life On Earth [1979] | ![Life On Earth [1979]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41V46MY90ML._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Actor: David Attenborough
Studio: 2 Entertain Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £34.99
Buy New: £12.36
You Save: £22.63 (65%)
New (15) Used (4) from £9.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 5503
Format: Pal
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Exempt
Running Time: 715 minutes
Number Of Items: 4
Discs: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.7 x 1.2
EAN: 5014503123321
ASIN: B0000AISIQ
Theatrical Release Date: January 16, 1979
Release Date: September 1, 2003
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Ships from U.S.A., to anywhere in the United Kingdom! Orders only take 7-10 days! We specialise in service to the U.K. and only ship airmail.
|
| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 12 | | NEXT » |
 Fantastic look at evolution February 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Only 4 stars because of three reasons:
I think that Attenborough's style has improved over time, in particular his voice has developed additional richness over time.
While the photography was undoubtedly cutting edge at the time it now leaves a little to be desired.
I think that the music used on this series is not quite as good as some of the later series.
Please don't be put off however by these minor quibbles, it is a stunning series and well worth it. It is especially good at showing the development of species over time and makes excellent use of fossils.
Iconic, Breathtaking, Brilliant... February 4, 2008
...add your own superlative here. This is television at its best- informative, amazing and full of sights and sounds to astound. David Attenboroughs presentation is note-perfect, and despite its age this program still ranks as one of the greatest programs ever made.
One of the first and the best by David Attenborough February 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I saw this series when I was 10 years old, and it was absolutely incredible. It is one of those programs that sticks with you, and even now (yes, it is a bit grainy on my plasma TV, and David Attenborough looks so young! :) I can sit and watch it with the sense of wonderment I felt all those years ago... Back then, it also prompted me to do several school science projects on scorpions, spiders, snakes, lizards and almost every other creepy crawly! I can't recommend this enough for all ages. Yes, Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Life in the Undergrowth etc. are mandatory viewing as well but this is one of the original and one of the best! Long live David Attenborough!
Education as entertaining as it is fascinating January 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Life On Earth is almost as old as me now and I need to say that its wearing a little better. Produced to be among the most comprehensive documentaries of its kind and presented by the incomparable David Attenborough it is a masterwork bringing science to the masses and making it interesting and entertaining.
When it starts up with the pompous music and the late 1970s graphics it all looks as if its going to be a bit rubbish. Then Attenborough appears and you're stuck by his relative youthfulness and confidence is further drained. By the end of the first episode, however, any fears are dispelled as the series starts to tell its fascinating tale of how life on our little blue orb came to be as varied and as fantastic. The series does this by taking small steps while drawing in broad strokes. Attenborough works up as the series progresses from single celled organisms and molluscs in the early episodes to mammals and even humans in the last. While pretty much every form of life you can imagine is discussed throughout the series it is all done in very general terms while cleverly focussing on the most important details. Its actually remarkable that a single episode details reptiles but manages to educate on the most important varieties and provide some great and vivid images.
There is some stunning photography (and some very poor graphics that do age the series) of everything from hunting lions to foraging platypuses and the attention to detail is magnificent. The whole thing is bound together by the near whisper of David Attenborough who always sounds trapped somewhere between awe and amusement but never, ever, stops sounding authoritative. There is quite literally no-one on television in the field of natural history who can capture the imagination of the population so intensely, largely because he knows how to project his seemingly boundless enthusiasm for his subject onto the viewer. He sounds as excited about the aforementioned hunting lions as he does about a frog leaping from tree to tree and that carries the viewer into the jungle or onto the savannah, watching as if they were there with him.
As tiny caveats, as stated above, some of the graphics look very dated indeed. It wouldn't have hurt for the Beeb to have replaced some of the animated sequences showing extinct animals etc with new state of the art graphics for the DVD release. I also would not recommend it for any fans of Creationism or Intelligent Design as Attenborough is clearly a firm believer in the scientific principles of Darwinism and natural selection. Overall though this is a fantastic and through nature documentary and a prime example of why we have a licence fee and reminds us that Attenborough is a national treasure.
A heroic and successful venture in intelligent TV October 11, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
'Life on Earth' was recognised almost immediately by contemporary TV critics as one of the most intelligent and most absorbing TV series ever made. It's more than just a prelude to Attenborough's later achievements (which were remarkable); it's more than just a great wildlife show; it's television at its very best, offering beautifully crafted visuals in a thoroughly entertaining, informative and coherent context.
The idea of the show was to demonstrate, over the course of the entire series, how life came to evolve on this planet. This is what makes 'Life on Earth' the pinnacle of David Attenborough's career, in that not only is each sequence gorgeously shot and intelligently narrated, but the entire series has a dramatic storyline that none of his future series were able to emulate. The storyline is one of a slow change from simplicity to complexity, and it means that every episode of 'Life on Earth' is not only a self-contained piece of television but also a part of an overall and thoroughly integrated whole.
'The Living Planet' and other shows benefited from improvements in wildlife filmmaking technology, but ultimately they are not as magical and gripping as this show. Attenborough had the good taste not to try to tell the same story twice, and that's why 'Life on Earth' will remain not merely the greatest television wildlife series ever made, but arguably the greatest television documentary series ever made. The only other candidate I can think of is ITV's 'The World At War'.
|
|
|
