Life On Our Planet

[dinosauria101]

www.whattowatch.com/watching-guides/life-on-our-planet-guide-release-date-trailer-narrator-and-everything-we-know

I have very high hopes for this documentary. The CGI looks nearly as real to me as the Trilogy of Life (for reference I find it halfway between Prehistoric Planet and the Trilogy of Life), all eras shall be covered, and the high episode count suggests plenty of well-thought-out-content.

Chapter 1: The Rules of Life - "The battle for survival has been raging for four billion years. This is the story of life's winners and losers. This is the story of Life On Our Planet."

Chapter 2: The First Frontier - "For billions of years, much of our world was fiercely inhospitable, ravaged by the elements and the forces of nature. This is the story of what was happening beneath the waves. There, shielded from the storms, life had miraculously taken hold."

Chapter 3: Invaders of the Land - "Life began in the oceans, but its battle to conquer the land would change our planet forever. From a barren wasteland to a green oasis, the transformation took millions of years. But where life could find a way to leave the water, it did."

Chapter 4: In Cold Blood - "After the biggest extinction event in history, this is the story of the unexpected heroes who survived - only to then succumb to a new dynasty of reptilian giants."

Chapter 5: In the Shadow of Giants - "Dinosaurs ruled our world for over 100 million years, but in the shadow of these giants some of the most incredible animals we know today found their footing."

Chapter 6: Out of the Ashes - "The dramatic story of the day the dinosaurs were wiped out by a planet-killing asteroid and the ride of the most unlikely survivors in the aftermath of the apocalypse."

Chapter 7: Inheriting the Earth - "This is the story of the rise of our dynasty: the mammals. Once bullied by the dinosaurs, the chance cataclysm caused by the asteroid gives them the chance to step out of the shadows and into the light - a chance they grabbed onto and never let go."

Chapter 8: Age of Ice and Fire - "Two and a half million years ago, an ice age struck. With it, temperatures dropped and vast ice sheets took over much of the north. But from this frozen wilderness would rise a new force, the most dangerous animal of all."

There's literally only a single bugaboo so far and it's that Morgan Freeman's narration is not as much to my taste as is that of Kenneth Branagh (A+ vs B). I really hope my expectations can be met or exceeded here.

Anyone else as excited as me? Only 47 days left to go!

[Exalt]

Interesting that the synopses for the dinosaur episodes...don't make them sound like they're that much about the dinosaurs, barring that it sounds like that they might give us something of a kpg event model.

[dinosauria101]

I did not get that impression at all. Maybe I am mistaken but the fact that they have middle Jurassic, comparatively obscure dinosaurs like Sinraptor (as I was told it probably is on Discord) suggests plenty of dinosaur time.

Edit: Might as well list the animals that I saw in the clips. If I made any mistakes, feel free to let me know.

-Smilodon
-Some species of terror bird
-Diplodocus
-Some species of sauropod that is not Diplodocus (no spikes on its back)
-Woolly mammoth
-Some species of hadrosaur
-Anchiornis
-Arthropleura
-T. rex
-Some kind of either lizard or baby dinosaur
-Some kind of shark
-Triceratops
-Alamosaurus
-Sinraptor
-Some kind of gorgonopsid
-Some kind of lobe-finned fish
-Some kind of giant carnivorous reptile eating said lobe-finned fish
-Some kind of orthocone
-Dunkleosteus
-Megalania
-Cave lion
-Lystrosaurus

[Exalt]

Sept 10, 2023 6:20:09 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

I did not get that impression at all. Maybe I am mistaken but the fact that they have middle Jurassic, comparatively obscure dinosaurs like Sinraptor (as I was told it probably is on Discord) suggests plenty of dinosaur time.

Source?

Also, I don't think that what I said will be necessarily accurate in practice: I think it's more just them giving some of the lesser-known creatures the spotlight for a bit.

[Exalt]

As for me, I am trying to remain cautiously optimistic for this one.

It seems believed that the terror bird is Titanis, since it's apparently the only one that a Smilodon would have actually seen, despite what WWB and Prehistoric Park taught us.

This could be a reach, but given the long episode times, I think that they might be covering two different Smilodon species: the one we see from behind seems too big to be S.gracillis but there's also not anything to really scale it to.

EDIT: I have a possible answer for the fish and it's predator:

[dinosauria101]

Sept 10, 2023 6:49:35 GMT 5 Exalt said:

Sept 10, 2023 6:20:09 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

I did not get that impression at all. Maybe I am mistaken but the fact that they have middle Jurassic, comparatively obscure dinosaurs like Sinraptor (as I was told it probably is on Discord) suggests plenty of dinosaur time.

Source?

Also, I don't think that what I said will be necessarily accurate in practice: I think it's more just them giving some of the lesser-known creatures the spotlight for a bit.

It's just speculation from myself and someone else on Discord.

We shall see at the end of the day, I suppose.

[Exalt]

Atrociraptor, Sinraptor...who names these things?

[dinosauria101]

Sept 10, 2023 6:52:07 GMT 5 Exalt said:

As for me, I am trying to remain cautiously optimistic for this one.

It seems believed that the terror bird is Titanis, since it's apparently the only one that a Smilodon would have actually seen, despite what WWB and Prehistoric Park taught us.

This could be a reach, but given the long episode times, I think that they might be covering two different Smilodon species: the one we see from behind seems too big to be S.gracillis but there's also not anything to really scale it to.

EDIT: I have a possible answer for the fish and it's predator:

Thanks. Titanis, I don't think I've ever seen any palaeodocumentary explicitly call it that. This might be the first?

An episode doing that would be really cool! And also very novel: I'm up for it.

And for the last: ah yes, a Proterogyrinus analogy. I've come to love that animal since I knew it was in WWM.
Not to mention it's very much like a reversed Hyneria/Hynerpeton situation as well. Lol.

[theropod]

I’m actually really happy about the episode synopsis.
It seems my first suspicions were correct, and the programme was going to somewhat follow the Walking With-formula in chronologically showing us the evolution of life, which I think is exactly what we need. That it seems there aren’t that many dinosaur episodes is just fine with me, as dinosaurs have generally received by far the most spotlight in paleo documentaries (perhaps somewhat narrowly followed by Pleistocene mammals) so far, and Prehistoric Planet recently already gave us an excellent portrayal of them (albeit a very stratigraphically restricted one, that lasted two whole seasons).

The only thing that I have somewhat mixed feelings about is that just months after already seeing T. rex and Triceratops get a good share of the screentime on Prehistoric Planet, we are apparently going to get more or less the same again with this one.
I think if they are going to be relatively restrictive with the dinosaur episodes anyway, it would have been interesting to instead see another point in time, and some other dinosaurs that aren’t ALWAYS the focus of documentary portrayals. I mean, I literally can’t count how often Campanian-Maastrichtian North America has appeared on all sorts of paleo documentaries, but it must be dozens of times, whereas most other localities (with the exception of Late Jurassic North America, which is the second-most popular, though it hasn’t really been done justice to the same extend as the Late Cretaceous, with many taxa still remaining undepicted or almost undepicted).
However I suppose it couldn’t really be helped, as they pretty much didn’t have a choice but to make a K/Pg extinction episode. But imagine an episode set at 66 ma that T. rex doesn’t appear in (or that doesn’t show us North America at all, for a change), wouldn’t that be a fun subversion of audience expectations?

Chapter 1: The Rules of Life - "The battle for survival has been raging for four billion years. This is the story of life's winners and losers. This is the story of Life On Our Planet."

I wonder what this episode is going to be showing us, in concrete terms. Perhaps something like the first "Welcome to the Future" episode of the future is wild, giving us an extended introduction to the entire story, for the succeeding episodes to then explore further?

Chapter 2: The First Frontier - "For billions of years, much of our world was fiercely inhospitable, ravaged by the elements and the forces of nature. This is the story of what was happening beneath the waves. There, shielded from the storms, life had miraculously taken hold."

It’s really great that we are apparently getting a Cambrian episode here. This, to my knowledge, has only been showcased exactly once in a high-profile documentary, namely in Walking with Monsters, and even there the segment was rather brief, and not all that accurate. Having an entire episode exploring the weirdness of the Cambrian radiation will be amazing!

Chapter 3: Invaders of the Land - "Life began in the oceans, but its battle to conquer the land would change our planet forever. From a barren wasteland to a green oasis, the transformation took millions of years. But where life could find a way to leave the water, it did."

From this summary it is not entirely clear what and how much of it this episode is going to show us, except that it is going to be about the terrestrialization of life. There have been a few, short portrayals of this in the past (such as WWM and Animal Armageddon), which were of varying quality, and very very focused on vertebrates, at best lightly touching on plants or arthropods. With luck, we might get a more comprehensive look here.
It would also appear that the episodes might be set over a longer time frame than a single point in time, as the trailers clearly appeared to show Arthropleura which (while closely related to the first terrestrial animals) would be sort of late stage for the themes of this episode if it didn’t make any time jumps.

Chapter 4: In Cold Blood - "After the biggest extinction event in history, this is the story of the unexpected heroes who survived - only to then succumb to a new dynasty of reptilian giants."

This might be the one I am most psyched about, as it suggests we might see the Early or Middle Triassic for a change, and some of the amazing and unique life forms that existed during this time. Again, a time that has received very little attention in documentaries so far, so it’s great we see it adapted here. And again, the presence of what seems to be a Gorgonopsid in the trailer would imply that there might be some time jumps, so we might also get to see something on the P/T extinction itself.

Chapter 5: In the Shadow of Giants - "Dinosaurs ruled our world for over 100 million years, but in the shadow of these giants some of the most incredible animals we know today found their footing."

This would clearly imply that it is about the evolution of mesozoic mammals (and, perhaps, birds, albeit strictly speaking being dinosaurs?), something else that’s been very underrepresented in paleo documentaries so far, but I’m sure we’re also going to see our fair share of dinosaurs in this one.

Chapter 6: Out of the Ashes - "The dramatic story of the day the dinosaurs were wiped out by a planet-killing asteroid and the ride of the most unlikely survivors in the aftermath of the apocalypse."

This is our classic episodes featuring the only three characters many people will care about: T. rex, Triceratops, and the meteorite. The premise isn’t very novel, but the execution might be, so I’m still looking forward to it a lot.

Chapter 7: Inheriting the Earth - "This is the story of the rise of our dynasty: the mammals. Once bullied by the dinosaurs, the chance cataclysm caused by the asteroid gives them the chance to step out of the shadows and into the light - a chance they grabbed onto and never let go."

I wonder how much cenozoic mammal evolution we are going to see in this one, but it’s bound to revisit some very interesting stuff that’s also at most made very few appearances in paleo docs so far.

Chapter 8: Age of Ice and Fire - "Two and a half million years ago, an ice age struck. With it, temperatures dropped and vast ice sheets took over much of the north. But from this frozen wilderness would rise a new force, the most dangerous animal of all."

This is the classic Pleistocene episode, many of the things in it we will likely be very familiar with, but I’m excited to see a new take on it anyway.

[Infinity Blade]

I know there’s an episode that has what appears to be Titanis and Smilodon. I’m hoping for the best, but bracing myself for classic “mammal predator superior terror bird inferior” stuff.

[Exalt]

Sept 10, 2023 16:49:13 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

I know there’s an episode that has what appears to be Titanis and Smilodon. I’m hoping for the best, but bracing myself for classic “mammal predator superior terror bird inferior” stuff.

I read that in Soundwave's voice.

[Exalt]

theropod

Given your expertise, you being pleased with those is a good sign.

I'm inclined to agree about the time jump theory: we know that Dunkleosteus is going to be in the program, and afaik it's the only Devonian animal that we've see, and none of the synopses suggest a dedicated Devonian episode. Maybe episode 3 starts with the Devonian and moves into the Carboniferous?

Everyone's favorite visiting space rock being listed as the third character was a little amusing.

Were there any clips that would be associated with Episode 7? That might be the episode with the most curiosity about what will be covered, at least for some. Maybe we'll finally get some of that Miocene and/or Australia representation that some people ask for?

I hope that episode 8 doesn't focus too much on humans, and gets what we do see right. I'm not too worried about how they'll depict mammoths, but as Infinity Blade alluded to, they could bungle this for some others.

[theropod]

I'm inclined to agree about the time jump theory: we know that Dunkleosteus is going to be in the program, and afaik it's the only Devonian animal that we've see, and none of the synopses suggest a dedicated Devonian episode. Maybe episode 3 starts with the Devonian and moves into the Carboniferous?

Good point, I’d forgotten Dunkleosteus was in it too. That does lend further credibility to that idea, yes, as we have both some Carboniferous animals (Anthracosaurus, Arthropleura, Rhizodus) and at least one Devonian one, plus the episode description that reads like it should contain the water-land transition of life in some way (also suggesting Devonian), in only one episode that they all could thematically fit in. Dunkleosteus also, time wise, fits the outline of the episode very well, in terms of being around at the same time as some of the earliest Tetrapods, as well as early full-fledged terrestrial forests.

Were there any clips that would be associated with Episode 7? That might be the episode with the most curiosity about what will be covered, at least for some. Maybe we'll finally get some of that Miocene and/or Australia representation that some people ask for?

So far I haven’t seen anything that I think would definitely have to be in that episode. Since it looks like Megalania may be in the programme (which is great!), I’d personally rather bet on the Australia part in the Pleistocene episode (perhaps even retreading Monsters We Met a little?), but who knows how they will structure it. The Smilodon and Titanis might also be either part of 8 or 7.

[dinosauria101]

Sept 10, 2023 15:14:21 GMT 5 theropod said:

I’m actually really happy about the episode synopsis.
It seems my first suspicions were correct, and the programme was going to somewhat follow the Walking With-formula in chronologically showing us the evolution of life, which I think is exactly what we need. 

I couldn't agree more. After PP with its ridiculously restricted timeframe and utterly un-immersive format, a documentary as comprehensive as the Trilogy of Life is very much in order.

That it seems there aren’t that many dinosaur episodes is just fine with me, as dinosaurs have generally received by far the most spotlight in paleo documentaries (perhaps somewhat narrowly followed by Pleistocene mammals) so far, and Prehistoric Planet recently already gave us an excellent portrayal of them (albeit a very stratigraphically restricted one, that lasted two whole seasons).

After finishing my first PP review I honestly want a few more dinosaurs instead of less. As you probably have been able to tell if you read it, the premise of what I said about the first quote applies here as well: with PP's dinosaur portrayals not being excellent to my tastes, something a little better would be nice.

The only thing that I have somewhat mixed feelings about is that just months after already seeing T. rex and Triceratops get a good share of the screentime on Prehistoric Planet, we are apparently going to get more or less the same again with this one.

I think if they are going to be relatively restrictive with the dinosaur episodes anyway, it would have been interesting to instead see another point in time, and some other dinosaurs that aren’t ALWAYS the focus of documentary portrayals. I mean, I literally can’t count how often Campanian-Maastrichtian North America has appeared on all sorts of paleo documentaries, but it must be dozens of times, whereas most other localities (with the exception of Late Jurassic North America, which is the second-most popular, though it hasn’t really been done justice to the same extend as the Late Cretaceous, with many taxa still remaining undepicted or almost undepicted).

However I suppose it couldn’t really be helped, as they pretty much didn’t have a choice but to make a K/Pg extinction episode. But imagine an episode set at 66 ma that T. rex doesn’t appear in (or that doesn’t show us North America at all, for a change), wouldn’t that be a fun subversion of audience expectations?

I won't spoil it here, but I found a bit of the Triceratops and ESPECIALLY multiple of the T. rex scenes in PP to be total letdowns/ripoffs. So, like with the above, I want to see an improvement on what PP was doing if they have the same animals.

Chapter 1: The Rules of Life - "The battle for survival has been raging for four billion years. This is the story of life's winners and losers. This is the story of Life On Our Planet."

I wonder what this episode is going to be showing us, in concrete terms. Perhaps something like the first "Welcome to the Future" episode of the future is wild, giving us an extended introduction to the entire story, for the succeeding episodes to then explore further?

I have little idea of what to expect here. Never seen The Future Is Wild as a reference point, guess I'll have to wait and see?

Am definitely looking forward to it, though. Introductory full episodes are very novel to palaeodocumentaries: literally every one I've watched jumps in from the get-go so this might be an interesting twist.

Chapter 2: The First Frontier - "For billions of years, much of our world was fiercely inhospitable, ravaged by the elements and the forces of nature. This is the story of what was happening beneath the waves. There, shielded from the storms, life had miraculously taken hold."

It’s really great that we are apparently getting a Cambrian episode here. This, to my knowledge, has only been showcased exactly once in a high-profile documentary, namely in Walking with Monsters, and even there the segment was rather brief, and not all that accurate. Having an entire episode exploring the weirdness of the Cambrian radiation will be amazing!

If these are indeed alternate takes on what WWM showed? Count me in!

It would also appear that the episodes might be set over a longer time frame than a single point in time, as the trailers clearly appeared to show Arthropleura which (while closely related to the first terrestrial animals) would be sort of late stage for the themes of this episode if it didn’t make any time jumps.

I am curious how well they can implement this without a WWM-style evolution sequence format. If the episodes are long enough it should be an ideal way to get in time jumps while remaining immersive.

Chapter 4: In Cold Blood - "After the biggest extinction event in history, this is the story of the unexpected heroes who survived - only to then succumb to a new dynasty of reptilian giants."

This might be the one I am most psyched about, as it suggests we might see the Early or Middle Triassic for a change, and some of the amazing and unique life forms that existed during this time. Again, a time that has received very little attention in documentaries so far, so it’s great we see it adapted here. And again, the presence of what seems to be a Gorgonopsid in the trailer would imply that there might be some time jumps, so we might also get to see something on the P/T extinction itself.

Now I'm extra psyched for it too! WWM may not be alone in its showing this after all.

Chapter 5: In the Shadow of Giants - "Dinosaurs ruled our world for over 100 million years, but in the shadow of these giants some of the most incredible animals we know today found their footing."

This would clearly imply that it is about the evolution of mesozoic mammals (and, perhaps, birds, albeit strictly speaking being dinosaurs?), something else that’s been very underrepresented in paleo documentaries so far, but I’m sure we’re also going to see our fair share of dinosaurs in this one.

That sounds like a very unique combo to me. Psyched about it too.

Chapter 6: Out of the Ashes - "The dramatic story of the day the dinosaurs were wiped out by a planet-killing asteroid and the ride of the most unlikely survivors in the aftermath of the apocalypse."

This is our classic episodes featuring the only three characters many people will care about: T. rex, Triceratops, and the meteorite. The premise isn’t very novel, but the execution might be, so I’m still looking forward to it a lot.

I am most excited for a better take on what Dinosaur Revolution was doing!

Chapter 7: Inheriting the Earth - "This is the story of the rise of our dynasty: the mammals. Once bullied by the dinosaurs, the chance cataclysm caused by the asteroid gives them the chance to step out of the shadows and into the light - a chance they grabbed onto and never let go."

I wonder how much cenozoic mammal evolution we are going to see in this one, but it’s bound to revisit some very interesting stuff that’s also at most made very few appearances in paleo docs so far.

Indeed! And said stuff very much needs to reappear: this is its chance!
I am getting WWB-vibes!

Chapter 8: Age of Ice and Fire - "Two and a half million years ago, an ice age struck. With it, temperatures dropped and vast ice sheets took over much of the north. But from this frozen wilderness would rise a new force, the most dangerous animal of all."

This is the classic Pleistocene episode, many of the things in it we will likely be very familiar with, but I’m excited to see a new take on it anyway.

Similar to above. The only really immersive-storyline Pleistocene documentary IMO is good ol' WWB, doing more of what it did would always be welcome.

[dinosauria101]

Sept 10, 2023 16:49:13 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

I know there’s an episode that has what appears to be Titanis and Smilodon. I’m hoping for the best, but bracing myself for classic “mammal predator superior terror bird inferior” stuff.

Oof for your part. From my end I'm actually very excited: that's very reminiscent of WWB's Sabre Tooth and that's one of my top 2 favorite WWB episodes, so.......

That being said, I certainly wouldn't mind if your hopes for the best are justified. Just as long as there is immersion and entertainment to go with it.