Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series

This BBC 5-disc, 14-episode series blew me away!

OK, what makes this series any different than the myriad of other nature shows out there?

1) Planet Earth filming crews made it a point to visit remote places that are seldom visited
2) They made it a point to locate and film many endangered species that have seldom if ever been filmed in the wild
3) The film crews were not satisfied to only film these animals, they succeeded in filming many seldom-observed behaviors of those endangered species
4) The film crews included not only footage of the animals they sought, but incredible footage showing the habitats those species rely on for survival.
5) The "how-they-did-it" video short features accompanying the episodes were fantastic.

From all indications the BBC did not cut any corners or leave any filming techniques unexplored in order to compile video footage and then produce this masterpiece.

When our copy of "Planet Earth" arrived we decided as a family to watch one episode a week. After only the first episode the entire crew wanted to watch more, but we decided to stick with our original plan. We set aside a designated time each week to watch an episode and no one missed any of those showings. That's incredible considering the fact that we have a HS senior, a HS junior, a HS freshman, and a 4th grader.

The episodes satisfied and intrigued children, teens, and adults alike. We were sad when we reached the final episode, but we all agree that it was a highly enriching experience.

If you are looking for intelligent, meaningful, and well-done programming to add to your personal video collection, look no further. Planet Earth is a MUST HAVE item.

Nature video experiences just don't get any better than this! And, I should know - I've been teaching biology, zoology, and environmental science at the college/university level for over 15 years.

5 stars all the way! And this is not just any 5 stars - a solid, A+ 100% 5-star rating!

Wow! This set of DVDs is overflowing with breath-takingly beautiful photography shown in such stunning clarity in Blu-ray that it will blow your socks off! One question that was frequently asked as we viewed various scenes was "now how did they get that shot?".

The narration by Sir David Attenborough is excellent, very informative, and pleasant to listen to. The scenery of this set offers views of our planet that is absolutely astounding, shot from land, sea, under water, air and space. The episodes were so enjoyable that when one would end we wanted to watch another, and another, and another.

No doubt that in my home, this series will be watched many times for years to come. I was concerned about the price at first, but the set has proven itself to be well worth the cost! In fact I'm planning to send this set to family members as a gift.

I'd give this more than 5 stars if possible... it's that good!!

It is unbelievable beautiful! The videography, photography, the subjects, but above all the human effort that was invested in bringing us these glorious views and animal/nature actions. We are enjoying it tremendously.

This is an exceptional series and it's put together very well.

Yes, there are several places where the image quality is poor or has some kind of "noise" but they mention on the cover that not all of the video was shot in HD. Just that some of what appears to be HD shots have some weird noise on it and it's definitely on the disc.

But this does not detract from my opinion of the disc as it's content is excellent and the image and sound are also excellent, overall.

This film is crucial if we want to understand the present debate on climate change. The climate is changing as it has always done. But it seems to be changing more dramatically and warming up slightly though it is still a long way cooler than it was at the time of the dinosaurs. The position defended here by Attenborough is moralistic more than anything else. We are supposed to feel compassion for polar bears and to be afraid of the future. Such a fascination for apocalyptic predictions is quite typical of the Jewish or Christian tradition, with some roots in older Indo-European religious mythologies. This apocalyptic literature is often, and by far, the best and most inspiring inspiration in these traditions. But does it have any real foundation? According to Attenborough it is the truth, full stop, period, dead end, let's get ready for it. He follows the model of the now famous carbon dioxide and green house gases and global warming up theory. And exclusively this one. Then he considers the main cause is the production - or liberation - of carbon dioxide by human activities, particularly the use of fossil fuels. In other words he uses his pointer a little bit too much and of course ends up pointing at the Chinese and their becoming the first polluter in the world, ahead of the US, but he forgets to say they are at least four times more numerous for a level of development that is evaluated by the CIA to be around 80% of the US. When he is not pointing at people he is pointing at the only things we can do to reduce our production of carbon dioxide. And he does not see this totally negative approach cannot really work because people do not want to be made to feel guilty all the time, and then, in this perspective, we will have to set regulations and a cop behind every human activity. He forgets the basic human principle, and even vital principle for all that is alive at least on this planet, that has been totally negated by western development, by this short-sighted development at all costs, the fact that humanity has managed to emerge by using the basic living principle that all activities must produce more energy or value than it consumes and that the consumption of energy has to be as low as possible for the profit margin to be as high as possible. To be soundly economic life has to be economical. And our free and extremely wasteful consumption of energy - and everything else, including human life - is anti-economic because it is un-economical. That is the very first principle we must refer to: we must not use one gram of energy more than what we need. The second principle is also basic to all forms of life: a living being uses his environment to live - and/or survive - but it does not pollute it. And strangely enough humans seem to have been only interested in visible pollution. All that is not visible does not seem to bother them. That's the only positive aspect of the film: it reveals one invisible pollution, carbon dioxide. It also reveals that what is not immediately catchable by human senses does not seem to exist for human beings. I personally think here that it is better to mobilize the sense of cleanliness human life has always demonstrated - even if that sense has been increasing across centuries and will go on increasing - rather than the guilt we are supposed to feel when thinking of our grandchildren. This argument about our descendents is the reversal of another human principle. In all civilizations including ours till recently, the younger generation was there to take care of the older one when needed and not the reverse. The argument used by Attenborough means that we consider the younger generation is unable to assume their responsibilities. We are making them childish and dependent. We should expect them to be more reasonable than us and not the reverse, which does not excuse our own foolishness which is foolishness in itself and not as for the consequences on our descendents. This leads me to a final remark. Has the West been developing along a line that negates all human traditions and logic? I have like the impression that yes it has. We must then reverse that mistake but not with cops and regulations or guilt complexes but with economic and economical arguments. And that should not prevent us from studying other climatic models particularly the one based on water vapor, which Attenborough does not do at all. Note, as a final kick at the sandbag of blind if not biased ideology, that Attenborough does not even take into account that if we learned new cooking method based on microwave oven we could cut by half our consumption n of energy for all forms of cooking, and frying being a bad dietary habit, the light browning we can get with microwaves has to be healthier than all that carbonizing we produce in a frying pan.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines