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BBC Frozen Planet - Sir David Attenborough's swansong

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Big-E

Member
The arctic parts of Planet Earth were pretty sad so I hope that they don't show too much sad stuff. It really sucked seeing that bear go to sleep and die after it couldn't take the baby walrus out.
 

Jake.

Member
Big-E said:
The arctic parts of Planet Earth were pretty sad so I hope that they don't show too much sad stuff. It really sucked seeing that bear go to sleep and die after it couldn't take the baby walrus out.

why wouldn't you want that included? death is part of life, especially in the arctic.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
Big-E said:
The arctic parts of Planet Earth were pretty sad so I hope that they don't show too much sad stuff. It really sucked seeing that bear go to sleep and die after it couldn't take the baby walrus out.
The Emperor penguins scene was quite depressing as well.
 

Big-E

Member
Edmond Dantès said:
The Emperor penguins scene was quite depressing as well.

Ya and also the elephant that was going the wrong way :(

Jake. said:
why wouldn't you want that included? death is part of life, especially in the arctic.

I know that death happens, I just don't want to see depressing shit all the time when it comes to nature.
 

ymmv

Banned
Jake. said:
it will be sad to see him go.

He's 85 years old, it's unreasonable to expect him to continue doing these documentaries at his age. (But it's still a shame. The man is a living monument)
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
Qwomo said:
Narrated by Tyra Banks in America.
They've learnt their lesson with the Life/Oprah debacle, as Human Planet retained its original narration in the US and Frozen Planet's will most likely be retained as well.
 

mclem

Member
Zaptruder said:
Would be nice if he could've done a city/architecture documentary, like the last episode of the Human Planet series.

I've mentioned a couple of times, but way back when he started out making documentaries - with Life On Earth - there were another two similar documentary series of similar quality; Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man (looking at how scientific and cultural developments shaped the human race) and Kenneth Clark's Civilisation (looking at the development of art, architecture and philosophy through the ages).

Both are phenomenal. Although, yes, I'd like to see a more modern take on those. Particularly covering the huge tracts of development that Civilisation couldn't.
 

dejay

Banned
I've just read the whole thread in David Attenborough's voice.

I won't bother trying to watch it - I'll just get the bluray when it's out.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
mclem said:
I've mentioned a couple of times, but way back when he started out making documentaries - with Life On Earth - there were another two similar documentary series of similar quality; Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man (looking at how scientific and cultural developments shaped the human race) and Kenneth Clark's Civilisation (looking at the development of art, architecture and philosophy through the ages).

Both are phenomenal. Although, yes, I'd like to see a more modern take on those. Particularly covering the huge tracts of development that Civilisation couldn't.
Two of the greatest series ever produced by the BBC, well worth owning.
 
while its sad this is his last series, im not sure if ill be watching it

i personally found arctic stuff to be the most boring parts in his series. i usually skipped or fast forwarded through those segments in both life and planet earth. im so sick of penguins, whales and polar bears
 

mclem

Member
Edmond Dantès said:
Two of the greatest series ever produced by the BBC, well worth owning.

And who commissioned them? Why, David Attenborough, while he was Controller of BBC2.

He's not just a natural history god, he's also a television exec who *gets what's good*.

(And he also played at the proms in 2009. On a floor polisher.)
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
mclem said:
And who commissioned them? Why, David Attenborough, while he was Controller of BBC2.

He's not just a natural history god, he's also a television exec who *gets what's good*.

(And he also played at the proms in 2009. On a floor polisher.)
Referring to someone as a legend or a great man seems pretty common now, almost nonchalantly, but David is genuinely deserving of those terms.
 

Jake.

Member
ymmv said:
He's 85 years old, it's unreasonable to expect him to continue doing these documentaries at his age. (But it's still a shame. The man is a living monument)

...i never said i expected to see him continue.
 

tim.mbp

Member
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The Life of Birds is one of my favorite nature series ever. I'm really going to miss having cable, Discovery Channel, when this airs in 2012.
 

Gaaraz

Member
Can anyone please tell me if Blue Planet was ever released in HD? Cannot find it anywhere, not on Blu-Ray nor online.

I really hope they release a massive David Attenborough collection on Blu-Ray sometime, would be instabuy for me.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
Gaaraz said:
Can anyone please tell me if Blue Planet was ever released in HD? Cannot find it anywhere, not on Blu-Ray nor online.

I really hope they release a massive David Attenborough collection on Blu-Ray sometime, would be instabuy for me.
http://store.discovery.com/blue-planet-blu-ray-disc/detail.php?p=264656

According to some of the reviews, it's not remastered in HD, just an upscaled version on Blu-ray. A remastered BBC Blu-ray is not going to happen I'm afraid, they're concentrating on producing new material, rather than going back and re-releasing older series.
 

Hyphen

Member
Wow! This is exactly the kind of thing that gets me excited. I've never really been into the "wildlife" HD programmes, I much prefer the ones aimed at the general environment, more specifically giant mountains of ice. Is it me, or is there a lack of HD material already out there that covers this kind of stuff. I've got Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World and an IMAX presentation called Antarctica, but I haven't found anything else. Anybody know of any more I could find?
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
Hyphen said:
Wow! This is exactly the kind of thing that gets me excited. I've never really been into the "wildlife" HD programmes, I much prefer the ones aimed at the general environment, more specifically giant mountains of ice. Is it me, or is there a lack of HD material already out there that covers this kind of stuff. I've got Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World and an IMAX presentation called Antarctica, but I haven't found anything else. Anybody know of any more I could find?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6nm9k3JKvY

Not on par with the two you've mentioned, but still very decent.
 

cbox

Member
I keep telling everyone that they need to digitize david's voice so when he's gone, he can still narrate documentaries.

Seriously, nobody does it better than him.
 

dalin80

Banned
ConvenientBox said:
I keep telling everyone that they need to digitize david's voice so when he's gone, he can still narrate documentaries.

Seriously, nobody does it better than him.


Its his life and passion and it really shows.
 

Gaaraz

Member
Edmond Dantès said:
http://store.discovery.com/blue-planet-blu-ray-disc/detail.php?p=264656

According to some of the reviews, it's not remastered in HD, just an upscaled version on Blu-ray. A remastered BBC Blu-ray is not going to happen I'm afraid, they're concentrating on producing new material, rather than going back and re-releasing older series.
Many thanks, but I'm in the UK and can't really get that from the US.

Shame it's just upscaled too, although I imagine it looks better than what my PC/360/PS3 in terms of up-scaling anyhow.
 
I, and many of my generation, learned so much about nature first from watching TV. Many people cited this at the time as incredibly sad and an example of how culturally bankrupt we were becoming in the age of mass media.

The truth however is that it primed me for a life full of appreciating the natural world at every turn. Certainly, you could do a lot worse than have the voice of Attenborough or Sagan pop into your head when you see something new and wonderful.

Will be a great watch I'm sure, but I couldn't possibly miss it anyway if it's Sir David's last.
 

Kyaw

Member
I saw the trailer on BBC One and my mind was blown.

Such an amazingly epic trailer. Sir David Attenborough is legendary.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
Vibri said:
George Fenton returning as the composer!

His work on the Snow Leopard segment in Planet earth is probably one of the best pieces of contemporary classical music I've heard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79G6DwRv3GI
George Fenton's work on Planet Earth was astonishing, as was his work on the Blue Planet and Life.

Some of my favourites from Planet Earth.

The Wolf And The Carribou
Diving Into The Darkness
The Lions And The Oryx
Tibet Reprise
Plains High And Low
River Predation
Seasonal Change
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
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Just beautiful.

This may well be the rightful sequel to The Blue Planet and Planet Earth. Life was mildly disappointing, it felt very disjointed and somewhat dumbed down even with Sir David's narration. This lack of quality in comparison to the aforementioned series can be attributed to a different production team though.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
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1. To The Ends Of The Earth

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• David Attenborough visited the North Pole for the first time in his career.

• A pack of 25 wolves bring down a bison filmed simultaneously from ground and air to bring a totally fresh insight.

• A crew films 22 attacks by killer whales on seals in Antarctica. With the help of a pair of scientists, who satellite tagged the pod, the crew were able to follow them day and night, filming the killer whales as they teamed up to generate giant waves to knock seals from the ice floes. Pioneering use of the aerial camera mounted onto the yacht, a second stabilised camera and a polecam enabled the crew to capture multiple angles on this remarkable behaviour.

• Ground-breaking footage of a rapidly advancing glacier.

• Multiple camera shoot of a major calving event as a giant iceberg was spawned off Greenland.

• Extensive aerial filming of Antarctica, capturing unique images of the molten heart of a live volcano.

2. Spring

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• The crew endured katabatic winds of 148mph while filming Adélie penguins in spring.

• The fascinating life-cycle of the woolly bear caterpillar is revealed. Instead of turning into a moth the same year it hatches from the egg, the caterpillar freezes solid each winter and then thaws and resumes eating in spring. It takes 14 years to complete its life-cycle!

• While they knelt on the ice edge, the crew were forced to look up at giant killer whales spy-hopping above their heads – they and their cameras got covered in oily whale breath!

• The spring team captured the spectacular moment when a giant frozen waterfall gave way and released the flow of a major Arctic river in Canada.

3. Summer
• By mounting an aerial camera to a trawler, the team captured a new perspective on the melting ice world of the Arctic in summer. They had a close encounter with a hunting

female polar bear, which came within 15 feet of them.

• A crew spent nine weeks in the company of Arctic wolves to capture unique interactions between the parents and their cubs.

• A crew spent two months at St Andrews Bay, South Georgia, on a beach where they had to build metal skirts to defend themselves against attacks from territorial seals.

• For the two months of peak breeding season, the Adélie penguin crew was surrounded by nearly 500,000 penguins – the noise and chaos nearly drove them insane!

4. Autumn
• A crew captured the first-ever film of leopard seals exploding from the sea and snatching Adélies from ice floes.

• A crew spent three days chiselling their way through a labyrinth of sea ice to squeeze through a 1m sq hole to scuba dive with emperor penguins.

• First aerial images of baby belugas aquaplaning on their mothers' backs shot from a helicopter 300m above the water's surface.

• Dramatic images of musk ox fights – first extensive fight sequence ever shot.

• The mating battles of caribou were filmed for the first time from the air.

5. Winter
• The crew filmed on foot with snow-shoes and cross-country skis in temperatures of -50°C. Their eyes froze shut and plastic camera parts snapped easily.

• The team were able to film a polynya – a giant hole in the ice that stays open all winter – crammed full with the total world population of spectacled eider ducks.

• Two cameramen each spent 87 hours (5,200 minutes) underwater at temperatures of almost -2°C in order to film brinicles – icy fingers of death – growing for the first time.

• The first time that the world's smallest carnivorous mammal – the least weasel – has been filmed plucking the fur from its vole prey and making a macabre fur duvet to snuggle into.

6. The Last Frontier
• First exploration of the bizarre crystal-filled ice caves on Mt Erebus volcano by the film crew, in collaboration with a team of scientists.

• The first aerial images of the South Pole were filmed from a Twin Otter at -50°C. The camera froze solid on one flight.

• A crew followed Danish Special Forces as they patrolled Northern Greenland on dog sled through the depths of winter.

7. On thin Ice

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• David Attenborough stood at the North Pole on sea ice that is only a couple of metres thick.

• David Attenborough accompanied a team of Norwegian biologists who do an annual health check on Svalbard's polar bears, spending time with the bear while it was tranquillised on the ground.

• Climbing specialist Tim Fogg spent three days rigging ropes and pulleys so the crew could descend 60m down into the heart of the Greenland ice sheet inside a recently formed moulin (vertical shaft in the ice).

• A crew followed in the footsteps of Frank Hurley, to match his photographs of the glaciers of South Georgia and document the mammoth changes which have occurred to the ice since Shackleton visited the island only 100 years ago.

• The British Antarctic Survey assisted Frozen Planet in the first filming of the collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf – an area of ice the size of Jamaica which broke up, resulting in hundreds of giant icebergs.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
I'm particularly intrigued by these three points.

  • Astonishing footage of a bizarre underwater phenomenon – the brinicle, or "icy finger of death". The 3m-long ice stalactite plunges towards the sea bed killing everything it touches.

  • Killer whales team up to generate giant waves that knock seals from ice floes. Considered by scientists to be the most complex team hunt ever filmed in the natural world.

  • One of the largest single iceberg calving events ever captured on film at Store Glacier, Greenland.
 

markot

Banned
Oh man so cute and deadly and weird!.

• The first time that the world's smallest carnivorous mammal – the least weasel – has been filmed plucking the fur from its vole prey and making a macabre fur duvet to snuggle into.


Mustela_nivalis_-British_Wildlife_Centre-4.jpg


And that Brinicle thing sounds amazing.
 
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