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Planet Earth movie series |
directed by Alastair Fothergill and narrated by David Attenborough is a 2006 BBC Natural History Unit production. It was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC and also the first to be filmed in high definition.
Series episodes1. From Pole to Pole show you the planet Earth and its wildlife as you have never seen them before 2. Mountains some might think that by climbing a great mountain they have somehow conquered it 3. Freshwater only 3 percent of the water on planet Earth is fresh 4. Caves this is planet Earth's final frontier, an inner world where only the most adventurous dare to go 5. Deserts a third of the land on planet Earth is desert 6. Ice Worlds both poles of our planet are covered with ice 7. Great Plains the plains of planet Earth support the greatest gatherings of wildlife on Earth 8. Jungles this is planet Earth's hothouse, the tropical rainforest jungle 9. Shallow Seas they contain the vast majority of planet Earth marine life 10. Seasonal Forests the deciduous and coniferous woodlands are the most extensive seasonal forests on planet Earth 11. Ocean Deep it covers more than half the surface of planet Earth and is beyond our reach Writing credits and narratorDavid AttenboroughProductionProduced by Maureen Lemire, Shannon C. Malone, Kera Rennert, Vanessa Berlowitz; original music by George Fenton, Sam Watts; cinematography by Michael Kelem, Andrew Shillabeer, Peter Kragh, Mike Madden; sound department by Frank Scheuring, Kate Hopkins, Andrew Wilson, Tim Owens, Graham Wild; camera and electrical department by Richard Brooks Burton, Paul Atkins; film editing by Thom Sulek; music department by Robert Houston. ReviewsDiscussing the BBC series Planet Earth without resorting to some form of hyperbole is a fairly impossible task. To do anything less would seem to diminish somehow the true scope of its overwhelming achievement. But to oversell it also seems to be a disservice as this is at heart another nature documentary, albeit one of singular beauty. The best description necessitates the borrowing of a phrase from Douglas Adams. Planet Earth could be, when all is said and done, nothing less than the last chance to see the wonders of the natural world (animal, vegetable, and mineral) before they are irrevocably changed or gone. |
PlotPlanet Earth movie series | From Pole to Pole takes us around the planet Earth from Antarctica's winter to northern Canada. Show us the longest overland migration of three million caribou, which are hunted by wolves; the forests of eastern Russia, home of the Amur leopard (the world's rarest cat), the tropics, the jungle that covers 3% of the planet's surface supports 50% of its species. Other species shown include New Guinea's birds of paradise, African hunting dogs, elephants in Africa migrating towards the waters of the Okavango Delta, a seasonal bloom of life in the otherwise arid Kalahari Desert, and 300,000 migrating Baikal teal. Mountains show us Ethiopian wolves, the Andes with the most volatile weather and guanacos are shown enduring a flash blizzard, the Alpine summits who are always snow-covered, in the Matterhorn, Grizzly bear cubs emerge from their den for the first time in the Rockies, Himalayan inhabitants include rutting markhor, golden eagles that hunt migrating demoiselle cranes, the rare snow leopard, the giant panda who cannot hibernate due to its poor nutriment of bamboo and one of them cradles its week-old cub, the planet Earth's biggest mountain glacier, the Baltoro in Pakistan. Freshwater show us the course taken by rivers and some of the species, Venezuela's Tepui, where there is a tropical downpour almost every day, the vastness of Angel Falls, the world's highest free-flowing waterfall, the two-metre long giant salamander, salmon undertake the largest freshwater migration, and are hunted en route by grizzly bears, the Grand Canyon, created over five million years by the Colorado River, Nile cousin ambushing wildebeest as they cross the Mara River, Roseate spoonbills, cichlids, piranhas, river dolphins and swimming crab-eating macaques. Caves who explores Planet Earth's final frontier. At a depth of 400 metres (1,300 ft), Mexico's Cave of Swallows is Earth's deepest pit cave freefall drop. Equally as impressive, we explore the otherworldly cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula. Also featured is Borneo's Deer Cave and Gomantong Cave. In Gomantong Cave, guano is many metres high and is blanketed with hundreds of thousands of cockroaches and other invertebrates. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is featured with its calcite formations. Mexico's Cueva de Villa Luz is also featured. The programme ends in New Mexico's Lechuguilla Cave. Deserts that covers one third of the Earth. Due to Siberian winds, Mongolia's Gobi Desert reaches extremes of temperature like no other. It is home to the rare Bactrian camel. Africa's Sahara is the size of the USA, and just one of its severe dust storms could cover the whole of Great Britain. Few rocks can resist them either and the outcrops shown in Egypt's White Desert are being inexorably eroded. The biggest dunes are to be found in Namibia, while other deserts featured are Death Valley in California and Nevada, the Sonoran in Arizona, the deserts of Utah, all in the United States, the Atacama in Chile, and areas of the Australian outback. Animals are shown searching for food and surviving in such an unforgiving habitat. Ice Worlds looks at the regions of the Arctic and Antarctica. Snow petrels take their place on nunataks and begin to court, but are preyed on by South Polar skuas. During summer, a pod of humpback whales hunt krill. The onset of winter sees the journey of emperor penguins to their breeding grounds. At the northern end of the planet, Arctic residents include musk oxen, who are hunted by Arctic foxes and wolves. A female polar bear and her two cubs head off across the ice to look for food. As the sun melts the ice, a glimpse of the Earth's potential future reveals a male polar bear that is unable to find a firm footing anywhere and has to resort to swimming. Great Plains show us savanna, steppe, tundra, prairie. In Outer Mongolia, a herd of Mongolian gazelle flee a bush fire. On the Arctic tundra during spring, millions of migratory snow geese arrive to breed and their young are preyed on by Arctic foxes. On the North American prairie, bison engage in the ritual to establish the dominant males. The Tibetan Plateau is the highest of the plains and despite its relative lack of grass, animals do survive there, including yak and wild ass, pika, Tibetan fox. In tropical India, the pygmy hog. African bush elephants that are forced to share a waterhole with a pride of thirty lions. Jungles show us jungles and tropical rainforests. Figs are a widespread and popular food, and as many as 44 types of bird and monkey have been observed picking from a single tree. In the Congo, roaming forest elephants are shown reaching a clearing to feed on essential clay minerals within the mud. Chimpanzees are one of the few jungle animals able to traverse both the forest floor and the canopy in search of food. Shallow Seas that fringe the world's continents they contain most marine life. As humpback whales return to breeding grounds in the tropics, a mother and its calf are followed. While the latter takes in up to 500 litres of milk a day, its parent will starve until it travels back to the poles to feed. The coral reefs of Indonesia are home to the biggest variety of ocean dwellers. In Western Australia, dolphins hydroplane in the shallowest waters to catch a meal, while in Bahrain, 100,000 Socotra cormorants rely on shamals that blow sand grains into the nearby Persian Gulf. In Southern Africa the Cape fur seals that share the waters are hunted by the world's largest predatory fish: the great white shark. Seasonal Forests surveys the coniferous and deciduous seasonal woodland habitats. Conifers begin sparsely in the Arctic but soon dominate the land, and the taiga circles the globe, containing a third of all the Earth's trees. These include some of the world's tallest trees: the redwoods. Further south still, in the Valdivian forests of Chile, a population of smaller animals exist, including the pudu and the kodkod. Bialowieza Forest typifies the habitat that characterised Europe around 6000 years ago. Ocean Deep begins with a whale shark used as a shield by a shoal of bait fish to protect themselves from yellowfin tuna. Also shown is an oceanic whitetip shark trailing rainbow runners. In the ocean's furthest reaches, some creatures defy classification. On the sea floor, scavengers such as the spider crab bide their time. The volcanic mountain chain at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean also sustains life through the bacteria that surround its sulphide vents. QuotesThis series will take to the last wildernesses and show you the planet Earth and its wildlife as you have never seen them before. Every year three million caribou migrate across the Arctic tundra. The immensity of the herd can only be properly appreciated from the air. Nowhere on our planet Earth is the life giving power of water so clearly demonstrated. The Okavango becomes criss-crossed with trails as animals move into its heart. Volcanoes form the backbone of the longest mountain chain on planet Earth - the Andes of South America. The Karakoram lie at the western end of a range that stretches across a tenth of planet Earth - the Himalayas. Baikal contains one fifth of all the fresh water found in our planet's lakes and rivers. The plains of our planet support the greatest gatherings of wildlife on Earth. Most tropical shallows are barren but these coral havens contain one quarter of all the marine life on our planet. The great white. The largest predatory fish on the planet Earth. Our planet is still full of wonders. As we explore them, so we gain not only understanding, but power. TriviaThe project took 40 camera teams shooting at over 200 different locations all over the world for more than five years. For the air shots, a special airborne camera was used with a 400mm lens that was able to zoom into single animals from a kilometer away without disturbing them. AwardsWon 4 Primetime Emmys and another 9 wins and 12 nominations. |
