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When Dinosaurs Roamed America

When Dinosaurs Roamed America

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another Great Dino Movies
Review: I absolutely loved "Walking With Dinosaurs." While this DVD isn't as good as that set it still is a great DVD. It has a very similar feel (like a Natural Geographic Special). The graphics are excellent but not as good as WWD. In some areas you can find imperfections. I like that they found some really interesting new locations; new woods that look like they were in the dinosaur times.

The naration is one of the bigger detractors from the film. John Goodman? Come on? Why? Because he was in the Flinstones? Not even close to the standard set in WWD.

There was some re-use of backgrounds and animations of some scenes which made me say, "hey, I saw that already, all they did was mirror the scene."

The pacing was perfect and the few but insightful palentologist comments were well done. The length was good. Another good thing was that there were some new dinosaurs in this DVD that we haven't previously seen.

Overall, the DVD is great, offered new info, showed dinos with feathers, and continued the trend started by WWD. I highly recommend it for any audience. Also the price is right.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very realistic, almost like being there
Review: I found this program to be very interesting. Done in the style of Walking with Dinosaurs the viewer is provided with a fascinating glimpse at what the American Dinosaur world must have been like in various regions and periods millions of years ago. Most of the scenes were done very well, you could almost believe that you were actually there. On the Discovery Channel showing I noticed that the scene where the fallen Apatosaurus is killed and eaten was toned down in violence and blood, and in the Stegosaurus mating scene the camera moved at the critical point, probably for sensitive viewers such as children. This program is worth owning.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: My 4 1/2 year old loves this video!
Review: I got this video for my son when he was 3 and started really getting into dinosaurs. He's probably watched it 50 times and is still engrossed every time. I like that it not only shows the computer animated dinosaurs with narratives, but features many of today's experts on this topic sharing their thoughts. It's also helped both of us learn the pronunciations of the longer dinosaur names. Though not perfect, I'd much rather my kids watch reality-based programming like this than that ridiculous Land Before Time series. (Believe me, you can tell which kids watch the fluff and which ones watch documentaries.)

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A bit dissapointing
Review: I think I gave this fewer stars than I would normally would've...only because I'm used to the quality work of "Walking With Dinosaurs" and "Allosaurus". These titles are not just visual splendors; they match every visual spectacle with a didatic counterpart...oh yeah...it helps to have Kenneth Branaugh as the narrator as well...not the boring Jonathan Goodman.

Overall, entertaining, but if you must own something that is well created, well based in fact, and didactic, look to the BBC series "Walking With Dinosaurs" and "Allosaurus".

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Just plain awful.
Review: I watched the first 20 minutes before I turned this sorry excuse for a Walking With Dinosaurs imitation off. It is neither educational nor entertaining. For example, a bunch of furry turkeys (they called them raptors) had brought down a segnosaur when all of a sudden, a fire starts in the woods. The raptors continue eating until they relize they are on FIRE and they drop dead. Animals instinctively run from woodsmoke. Let that be a lesson to you: John Goodman (who played Fred Flinstone in the equally educational Flinstones movie)+ dinosaur documentary = something not fit even fit for basic cable.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Lacks the care & attention shown in Walking With Dinosaurs
Review: I'd love to be writing a gushing review about this DVD. I was certainly looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it suffers on two fronts. First, the CGI is at least a generation behind that shown in Walking With Dinosaurs. The character models are stiffer, less detailed, and show none of the realistic motion of skin and muscle that made the WWD animation so lifelike.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this presentation has been considerably "dumbed down" -- even at the risk of making the science fuzzy and inaccurate. If you've seen the Discovery Channel presentation of Walking With Dinosaurs vs. the DVD, you'll know just how horrid a job was done in the editing room when moving the presentation to Discovery. This DVD shows the same dead hand at the switch. It displays no faith in the viewers to do more than watch the pretty pictures.

Certainly better than anything we would have seen ten years ago, but not as good as what can be done today. It simply lacks the loving care and interest in the subject shown by the WWD specials.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Cheap & truly poor imitation
Review: In a feeble attempt to capitalize on the success generated by the "Walking with Dinosaurs" special the Discovery Channel hobbled this program together with weak results. Everything about this program was hastily produced and it shows. A total lack of attention to detail plagues every second of this program from begining to end. Whoever produced this show was certainly looking to save costs and time. The visiual effects were the first noticeable flaw. Whereas the dinosaurs in WWD appeared to be truly alive, these others were almost cartoonish by comparison. The writing was obviously geared towards a "below average" audience. The narration lacked depth, as if it were being read from cue cards. And the narrator's voice sounded as if he were discussing Paleontology over beers at some truck stop.
There were even elements from the WWD storyline taken directly, such as the fire scene. Could not the writers have been a little more original? They say that imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery, but in this case it was more of an insult.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Entertaining but not especially noteable
Review: It is difficult to grade this 90 minute film without mentioning Walking With Dinosaurs which was fantastic (5 star effort) and runs along a comparable story line. When Dinosaurs Roamed America was clearly done with a tight budget in mind -- the graphics are clearly (or rather unclearly) computer generated, often awkward and not persuasively "real". The raptors however are done well and the overall story lines seem reasonably thought out and logical for the viewer. I dislike the moderator John Goodman who brings a Roseann-type blue collar "image" to the viewer. Almost anyone else would have been much better. Overall, I think the product was not intended to be bought for a collector's shelf. It is akin quality wise to a made-for-tv movie, intended to be watched once, and only once. A bland, average product far inferior to the "Walking With" series.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Entertaining but not especially noteable
Review: It is difficult to grade this 90 minute film without mentioning Walking With Dinosaurs which was fantastic (5 star effort) and runs along a comparable story line. When Dinosaurs Roamed America was clearly done with a tight budget in mind -- the graphics are clearly (or rather unclearly) computer generated, often awkward and not persuasively "real". The raptors however are done well and the overall story lines seem reasonably thought out and logical for the viewer. I dislike the moderator John Goodman who brings a Roseann-type blue collar "image" to the viewer. Almost anyone else would have been much better. Overall, I think the product was not intended to be bought for a collector's shelf. It is akin quality wise to a made-for-tv movie, intended to be watched once, and only once. A bland, average product far inferior to the "Walking With" series.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Same old, same old....
Review: Ok, I did enjoy this, & it was informative. The graphics, I thought, were up to standards. One major problem: many of the scenes seemed like they were taken straight out of other Discovery Channel prgroams. If you've watched any of their other dinosaur programs, especially Walking With Dinosaurs, you'll find a lot of repetition. However, if this is your first time watching one of their dinosaur programs, its excellent, & you'll enjoy it.


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