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Post by zoograph on Oct 3, 2023 11:58:35 GMT 5
Greetings, residents of this wonderful forum. For many days I had numerous ideas to review different shows, inspired by Infinity Blade and several other members. One of my ideas was reviewing WWM, especially considering the fact it is probably the weakest part of Trilogy of Life (just look at brainless arthropods ffs!). Still, dinosauria101 beat me to it, so I decided to switch my attention from the past. Into the future.
The Future is Wild, so far, is the only “future biology”-type documentary. It was conceived in the late 1990s and developed by many different studios with help of many scientists, most notably the father of this very genre, who humbly goes by the name “Dougal Dixon”. In the end, these efforts paid off, and FIW became immensely popular, spawning books, a kids’ show, even entertainment rides, though this success is currently hampered by a loss of interest from networks themselves. Still, as time went on, more and more criticism was brought into a spotlight as people realized that some of these described animals aren’t quite realistic…
Two versions of this show aired in 2002 or 2003 (from my knowledge) – BBC one, which consists of thirteen 20-minute episodes, and Animal Planet one, which is just abridged hour-and-a-half version of it. This review will touch the former version, mainly because it features much more animals and habitats than the latter one. So, with formalities out of the way, let’s dive into the future.
Episode 1 Review
“Welcome to the Future”
The episode starts with a montage of different future animals, which eventually transforms into a fairly cool intro. Honestly, there isn’t much to say, it is not as captivating as WWB one for sure.
“But what would happen to the planet, if there were no people?”
This isn’t the story of how we might van… sorry, wrong show.
“Many familiar animals – the big cats, the bears, and the wolves – will disappear…”
Hmm, I don’t think I entirely agree with this statement. Big cats? Yeah, all of their species have at least some sort of declining populations, though they all might actually benefit from human absence. Bears? Same story. But wolves? Not so much. In fact, many of their populations are stable or recovering, and even if helping hand of current humanity were to disappear, they would just repopulate abandoned areas (like bison in Chernobyl).
Another problem is that neither humanities nor some animals’ extinction is properly explained here. In the US version, humans simply leave the planet on their spaceships, but it still doesn’t explain the absence of many modern taxa. At least smash a giant asteroid into planet, that’s a sure way many megafaunal species will go extinct (they actually do that later, but still screw it up lmao).
“But they’re not just fantasy”
As we will see in 200 MA episodes, they pretty much are *cough* Megasquids *cough*.
Eventually, narrator and his talking head helpers start describing future faunas that will be presented in the next episodes. We won’t touch them until we cover respective episodes, as they will add greater details to tear apart or maybe praise?
Final Thoughts. When I started to watch the first episode, I was ready that it would be some sort of a prologue. What I didn’t expect was a full-blown recap episode that summarizes the whole show before it even starts. It really makes you ask – what’s the point for 2002 audience to watch the rest of the program if they’re already given most of needed information? Other than that, it’s not really bad. More of a nothing-burger.
Episode 2 review coming soon!!!
See you, space cowboy
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Post by dinosauria101 on Oct 3, 2023 17:40:53 GMT 5
One of my ideas was reviewing WWM, especially considering the fact it is probably the weakest part of Trilogy of Life (just look at brainless arthropods ffs!). Still, dinosauria101 beat me to it, so I decided to switch my attention from the past. Into the future. Oh no, don't let my reviewing it first stop you! The (reasonable instead of baseless like A. A. Gill) perspective of someone who found it the weakest part of the Trilogy of Life would be great to compare and contrast against mine that finds it the strongest, actually. |
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Post by zoograph on Oct 3, 2023 19:53:03 GMT 5
Episode 2 Review
“Return of the Ice”
Huh, Ice Age. Even with current climate change, it’s still plausible in several million years, and considering the humans are long gone here, carbon dioxide levels may have returned to normal levels.
There’s not much to say about Shagrats. They’re named after some Tolkien character, they are coconut doggies descendant from marmots and they migrate like musk oxen. Overall, their existence is quite plausible and I don’t see any problems with them really.
“Rodents are natures’ greatest survivors”
Damn, so ironic in hindsight…
Then, wild Barde… I mean, Snowstalker appears. And immediately, we have, uh, this:
“The Shagrat is only wounded… [Snowstalker] simply trails the victim and waits until it bleeds to death”
What the…? Why does a mammal predator hunt in such a way? Wouldn’t it be more logical to get more energy immediately? Oh, about Komodo dragons: they don’t actually hunt this way. Cases of this behavior were actually prey escaping scaly foes and succumbing to a wound. Plus, they live on tropical islands, not in polar deserts. Same can be said about an outdated Smilodon theory, who is, despite stereotypes, not a part of Ice Age fauna.
“They attack by a method that’s been used before in previous Ice Ages – razor-sharp saber teeth”
Saber teeth? On a dog-like jaw? Seems quite unlikely. First saber tooth predators, gorgonopsids, had big, vertically elongated skulls that supported their best weapons. Meanwhile, sparassodont Thylacosmilus and different lineages of felines all had nearly unbreakable skulls with a form that seems to “continue” cuspids and help evenly distribute the bite pressure. Snowstalkers, on the other hand, have a very small, short jaw that is more suited to give small wounds, and a bite force of the saber-tooth will literally break it. Sad, but true.
This documentary, by the way, also implies that Snowstalker is the second sabretooth predator in history. Ugh…
Ok, enough tearing down these poor mammals, let’s move onto Gannet… erm, whales.
“Despite their size, they’re actually (beat) birds”
What a weird narration. This scene literally shows a creature that has the same coloration as modern gannets, noticeably bird-like beak and slightly reduced wings. Yeah, no shit these are birds. Also, why does size matter so much in this sentence? They may look a little bit too big for modern species, but anyone familiar with pelagornithids (aka “Cenozoic pterosaurs”) might disagree.
“By 5 MA, all marine mammals will be extinct”
Correction: all modern marine mammals might be extinct. Because even if they disappear, there will be rodent/mustelid/etc. pretenders for this niche, though they might have to compete with other animals. The reason why we see a semiaquatic bird in this series is quite probably because of Dixon’s fetish for them.
“Gannetwhales took the place of smaller toothed whales…”
Yet they crawl out onto land to mate. You know, like a pinniped.
Still, despite all of the flaws regarding narrator himself, Gannetseal is quite a plausible critter. At the very least it is not ovoviviparous like Vortex.
Final Thoughts. Well, this episode is not bad. Its only scientific problems (I guess) are a questionable predator and the complete disregard of pinnipeds. Plot is a little bit lackluster and definitely doesn’t live up to WWD. All that happens is: Snowstalker kills a Shagrat, brings it to cubs, tries to steal Gannetseal’s eggs, fails, returns to cubs and teaches them how to wound a prey. In regards to animation, it’s passable in some shots and kind of bad in others. For example, this closeup of Snowstalker (22:31) is quite atrocious.
Episode 3 review coming soon!!!
See you, space cowboy
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 3, 2023 20:05:17 GMT 5
I said this once when I was reviewing how plausible all the creatures in TFiW were a few years ago: I feel like they should have made the gannetwhale shaped more like, you know, actual flightless sea birds (stuff like penguins or great auks). The only reason to make it like a pinniped would be for the cool factor.
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Post by zoograph on Oct 3, 2023 20:31:56 GMT 5
I said this once when I was reviewing how plausible all the creatures in TFiW were a few years ago: I feel like they should have made the gannetwhale shaped more like, you know, actual flightless sea birds (stuff like penguins or great auks). The only reason to make it like a pinniped would be for the cool factor. Yeah, you're right. I think Dougal Dixon is the main (if not only) reason why it even exists in this shape. |
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Post by zoograph on Oct 3, 2023 21:15:58 GMT 5
One of my ideas was reviewing WWM, especially considering the fact it is probably the weakest part of Trilogy of Life (just look at brainless arthropods ffs!). Still, dinosauria101 beat me to it, so I decided to switch my attention from the past. Into the future. Oh no, don't let my reviewing it first stop you! The (reasonable instead of baseless like A. A. Gill) perspective of someone who found it the weakest part of the Trilogy of Life would be great to compare and contrast against mine that finds it the strongest, actually. I wrote one recently, but it sadly vanished in a sudden log-out. So I'll bring up arguments little bit later, sadly. |
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Post by theropod on Oct 3, 2023 21:37:28 GMT 5
In fact it is not just implied, but quite openly claimed: "This is the first time that another group of carnivores [than cats] have evolved sabre teeth" (cats being the only other animals talked about in the sentences before).
That was always one of the specific claims from this episode, and perhaps the whole series, that irked me the most, especially because it is being stated by one of the experts they put on screen to make the whole thing look more scientific.
Now granted, the guy who says it, Stephen Harris, is a molecular biologist who doesn’t seem to have expertise on the subject at hand, so he isn’t to blame for not knowing a particular detail about vertebrate paleontology like thatEDIT: Nope, as it turns out that’s a different Stephen Harris, the one on Future is Wild is actually a mammalogist, so I would have expected him to know about the evolutionary history of the prominent mammalian predatory adaptation he is talking about.
Anyway, that does throw up the question as to why the series producers thought it was a good idea to let him talk about something he clearly isn’t knowledgeable on, considering the information being presented by a scientist is very likely to make the general public expect it to be trustworthy (even more so than if it had just been the narrator giving the statement).
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Post by zoograph on Oct 3, 2023 22:10:45 GMT 5
In fact it is not just implied, but quite openly claimed: "This is the first time that another group of carnivores [than cats] have evolved sabre teeth" (cats being the only other animals talked about in the sentences before). That was always one of the specific claims from this episode, and perhaps the whole series, that irked me the most, especially because it is being stated by one of the experts they put on screen to make the whole thing look more scientific. Now granted, the guy who says it, Stephen Harris, is a molecular biologist who doesn’t seem to have expertise on the subject at hand, so he isn’t to blame for not knowing a particular detail about vertebrate paleontology like thatEDIT: Nope, as it turns out that’s a different Stephen Harris, the one on Future is Wild is actually a mammalogist, so I would have expected him to know about the evolutionary history of the prominent mammalian predatory adaptation he is talking about. Anyway, that does throw up the question as to why the series producers thought it was a good idea to let him talk about something he clearly isn’t knowledgeable on, considering the information being presented by a scientist is very likely to make the general public expect it to be trustworthy (even more so than if it had just been the narrator giving the statement). Yeah, I just missed it somehow. From what I remember from my childhood, this series will also name pterosaurs as flying dinosaurs at some point, though I haven't found it yet. |
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Post by zoograph on Oct 3, 2023 23:12:59 GMT 5
Episode 3 Review
“The Vanished Sea”
This segment does not appear at all in the US version for no real reason. I guess director thought no one would care about saline desert.
Cryptile is fine. It’s basically a frilled lizard which behave like Lake Eyre dragon (it’s even mentioned by the show btw). There is one problem though.
“If you’re a lizard, there’s nowhere to lay your eggs”
Oops, sorry, that’s not a problem at all. Just look at Zootoca vivipara. This small lizard has conquered some subarctic regions by developing the ability to birth live young without the need to find temperature-appropriate soil. Same can be said about many other lizards, so if cryptile had this adaption most of their story wouldn’t have happened.
Grykens are also not as scandalous as some other creators’ fantasies, though they somehow found a way to make another weird scientific mistake.
“Pine marten… the ancestor… of the gryken”
Do writers even know how many different mustelid species there are in Palearctic realm? Pretty much every single one of them – weasel, mink, stoat – can easily fill in this niche before marten does. How many creatures do you have to kill until this idea becomes a reality? Previous episode also mentioned most of Europe becoming a tundra, so wouldn’t this mean they have a big chance of dying out alongside trees they live in?
Scrofas are, surprisingly, also not bad scientifically (especially considering how adaptable hogs are, though I wonder if they can actually evolve to eat brine flies, cryptiles or even grykens with their modern universal diet and not be completely helpless in a desert), though their animation seems awful. Around 10:00 – 10:25 they move as if their limbs are pulled by invisible strings. Still, it’s not that important in a grand scheme of things.
Final Thoughts. Wow, what a shock – an episode that has almost no problems! Even with that, I think I would tweak some details to create a much more plausible and interesting scenario – for example, change scrofas from generic herbivores into a much more interesting omnivorous hell pigs or add viviparity to a cryptile. Still, compared to what’s coming in 100 and 200 MA episodes, it’s a scientific masterpiece.
Episode 4 review coming soon!!!
See you, space cowboy
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Post by Exalt on Oct 3, 2023 23:14:31 GMT 5
This is the kind of thing I had no idea about as a kid. But a few months ago, I didn't get far into my paleontology interest before hearing about some of the other saber-toothed mammals. Heck, I learned what a gorgonopsid was before I was a teenager, thanks to WWM.
Edit: Oh, the timing...
Also, what is meant by Smilodon not being an ice age animal? I understand that they didn't live in the mammoth steppe and all but I'm confused here.
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Post by theropod on Oct 4, 2023 1:33:59 GMT 5
Could you elaborate a little on this? I am by no means very knowledgeable on sabre-toothed cats, but this seems to contradict what research I know, which suggests that Smilodon, for example, had a comparatively weaker bite force and skull than extant cats (e.g. McHenry et al. 2007)
McHenry, C.R., Wroe, S., Clausen, P.D., Moreno, K. and Cunningham, E. 2007. Supermodeled sabercat, predatory behavior in Smilodon fatalis revealed by high-resolution 3D computer simulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (41): 16010–16015.
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Post by Exalt on Oct 4, 2023 2:26:33 GMT 5
Everything I have seen suggests that the accommodations needed for Smilodon's case, at least, resulted in weaker force.
If you look at the mouth parts near the canines, there is definitely a curvature to the lower jaw, suggesting a similar case. Given the error mentioned before, it is probable that they looked at Smilodon for reference.
EDIT: Is it just me, or does it have REALLY flat feet?
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Post by creature386 on Oct 4, 2023 2:43:44 GMT 5
Another problem is that neither humanities nor some animals’ extinction is properly explained here. In the US version, humans simply leave the planet on their spaceships, but it still doesn’t explain the absence of many modern taxa. At least smash a giant asteroid into planet, that’s a sure way many megafaunal species will go extinct (they actually do that later, but still screw it up lmao). Funnily enough, that's a topic we discussed in the previous TFIW thread. It is indeed puzzling why they didn't cover humanity's extinction. I made two guesses (their budget was too low/they thought their target audience wouldn't care), but ultimately, we can only speculate. Since we got no satisfying explanation from the show itself, how about making a headcanon? I am not willing to accept that humans simply abandoned Earth because, em, it's pretty comfy here compared to the rest of the universe. Even assuming extreme overpopulation, one could at least keep some humans on Mother Terra. That leaves only extinction as an option, but how? It is perfectly possible some disastrous event happened (a nuclear war, bioterrorism, a robot/AI uprising, an asteroid impact, Yellowstone, etc.), but each of those events would have produced ripple effects well into the near future. Furthermore, they are not always intuitive. Had one of these events happened, the show would have needed to explain them. What else claimed our souls? Maybe it wasn't anything spectacular. Maybe it was a crunch rather than a bang, to use Nick Bostrom's terminology. Maybe civilization as we know it simply collapsed due to the current ecological crisis and, with all our natural resources depleted it, we couldn't rebuild it. Reduced to scattered societies of savages, H. sapiens couldn't adapt to future ecological changes and went extinct like any other animal. I'm not saying it's the most likely scenario (personally, I'd pick the nuclear option), but it fits the theme of the documentary most closely and feels like the least complicated explanation. Like the Trilogy of Life, it is a documentary where species come and go, so that's probably the most natural option. I'm aware I've spent so many words speculating about a topic that's barely even relevant to the documentary. However, as we noted in the previous thread, the documentary's refusal to explain why certain changes took place (What happened to marine mammals? And mammals as a whole? What happened to birds? And what to ocean fish?) is unfortunately a recurring problem and thus worth discussing. Maybe I'll come up with headcanons for the rest, too.  |
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Post by Exalt on Oct 4, 2023 2:47:20 GMT 5
Honestly, I want to hear more about the Super Mass Extinction that happens at the 100my mark that somehow wipes out 99% of all life, including all tetrapods, but leaves enough to keep things going.
Maybe it's just me, but we have to worry about the planet as it is now enough in real life...
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Post by creature386 on Oct 4, 2023 16:42:05 GMT 5
Honestly, I want to hear more about the Super Mass Extinction that happens at the 100my mark that somehow wipes out 99% of all life, including all tetrapods, but leaves enough to keep things going. That was a thing, too. The show sorta handwaved it by saying "Well, mass-extinctions take place every 100 million years or so, we guess something will happen".
There's a lot I'd like to say about that matter (including topics that were not discussed last time), but I think it's best to wait until zoograph gets to that point in the show. As for humanity's extinction, I found this on the TFIW wiki: the-future-is-wild.fandom.com/wiki/Human_era_mass_extinctionSo, I was right with my headcanon. No nuclear war, no runaway global warming, just nature. Considering how man-made climate change is said to push back the next glacial period by several hundreds of thousands of years, that's rather optimistic. Sure, our civilization probably collapses before that, thanks to the present-day ecological crisis, but considering anatomically modern humans have only walked the Earth for ~200k years so far, we still have the bulk of a existence before us, according to TFIW. |
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