Prehistoric Planet: BEST Dinosaur Documentary? 

47:14 to he honest I never saw this as censorship, I feel like it’s more so that the model is so detailed into looking realistic that making it possible for that model to be torn apart and animated in a realistic way would be difficult, not to mention expensive

You took pretty much every word out of my mouth. The only thing I slightly disagree on is the speculation being indistinguishable from the facts being an issue. It's just the caveat when doing a cg dinosaur documentary, we'll never know everything, Though like you said, it's a nitpick. I also completely agree with people being too attached to walking with dinosaurs to give prehistoric planet's format it's merits and overlooking WWD's issues. Probably my new favourite video of yours.

A few notes: Mosasaurus being referred to as twice the size of T-Rex is in reference to its mass, with the average T-Rex being about 8 tons or so, whereas the average Mosasaurus Hoffmannii of 15 meters or so would be more like 15 tons. It is roughly twice the size by that metric. In reference to being "arguably the greatest marine predators of all time", that's in reference to the mosasaur family, not Mosasaurus itself. And that is definitely a valid appraisal, it's not just as size matter, especially in light of the revelatory science they did that concluded Mosasaurus could accelerate to incredible speeds in a matter of seconds. Mosasaurus were without a shred of a doubt the most formidable predators of the cretaceous oceans at most trophic levels. Additionally, referring to for example Tarbosaurus individuals as a "Tarbosaur" is perfectly valid, because Tarbosaurus does not at all refer to a specific animal, it refers to a genus, and a genus may include a variety of species within it. Homo is a genus and to it belongs 13 species including Homo Erectus, Neanderthalensis and Sapiens. Plus, modern animals are in documentaries referred to by a sort of slang. Lion isn't a scientific term, they are the species Panthera Leo. Prehistoric animals don't have this, they just have the scientific names. Trying to remedy the issue of taxonomic confusion by referring to the genus like saying "Tarbosaurus" all the time instead of ever calling them "Tarbosaurs" makes about as much sense as being satisfied with referring to Lions in documentaries as "Panthera". What "panthera" are you talking about? Lions? Jaguars? Tigers? Leopards? They're all of the genus Panthera. One needs to accept that in order to actually get it taxonomically correct in a dinosaur documentary, you could never just call Tarbosaurus by its genus name, you would have to refer to the species name every single time. So should David Attenborough have called them "Tarbosaurus Bataar" every single time he mentions them by name? Obviously not, that would be beyond stilted and awkward. There isn't a real solution to this until extinct animals get named in the same way that extant ones do and so a taxonomic lack of specificity are gonna be inherent to prehistoric documentaries. Calling them "Tarbosaurs" instead of "Tarbosaurus" doesn't comparatively fail to convey any important information to the viewer and is thus perfectly valid. Which puts the similar X-fish thing into context, given that they already referred to them by the genus name and are basically using "X-fish" in the same way one would call Panthera Leo a "Lion". The point about speculation is valid in the way that all speculation is treated equally in the narration, however you cannot escape that this and documentaries like it will never be more than artistic renditions of the past, and since Prehistoric Planet is done in the style of the other Planet documentaries that David Attenborough does, I think speaking in this way is a valid trade-off between immersive filmmaking and scientific accuracy. The show ends every episode by referring you to the bonus featurettes talking about the science and speculation they do, they know what they are doing, which is why I believe this to be very deliberate. In my opinion, the show is made a better documentary by making this slight tradeoff because it makes it more engaging and entertaining and thus more capable of accomplishing its artistic goal of spiking and changing public interest in the topic without sacrificing too much accuracy.

That outro reminding us to appreciate the beauty and diversity of birds was beautifully wrought. I did not expect an "our prehistoric planet" to be thrown in there in such a way, and the elegance of the way it was performed was very praise-worthy.

This is beautiful! Your channel has sparked a newfound fascination for me.

I tbh would love a show based on prehistoric park idea with all the good things prehistoric planet has

PHP outdid the Trilogy of Life. Absolutely agreed on Hatzegopteryx’s multifaceted depiction on Season 2, and that the T. rex hunt scene is easily the first GOOD version of such a scene in media yet (if only we had scenes like this for other theropods).

I never left my dinosaur phase!

What makes these times so exciting, paleo wise, is the co-incidence of recent brilliant science/knowledge with incredible CGI to bring these times back to life.

Very glad I came back to this one when I realised I never finished it. The Catholic Church joke alone was enough for the near hour I've been listening

This is not a series this is art!

Bravo, Jackson. You had me (figuratively) applauding and cheering by the end.

This is genuinely my new favorite video of yours, and I don’t mean that lightly… you truly gave me an even greater sense of appreciation for this documentary than I already had, and towards the end nearly brought me to tears when describing the beauty of nature and the celebration of creatures from long ago. I agree with the majority of what you said, though I definitely feel as if the speculative aspect of the documentary isn’t really that much of an issue as if it weren’t for speculation, then the documentary would honestly seem to tread water with others of its kind and be a bit bland, though we can’t be sure if any of the speculations are necessarily accurate, they most definitely do wonders for portraying dinosaurs as actual animals and not simply mindless bland creatures with no unique adaptations at all. You should absolutely do more documentary reviews, I also enjoyed the monster bug wars one a lot!! You definitely have a great ability to articulate your points clearly and concisely and in an entertaining way. Also the line “so much child predation that it could give the Catholic Church a run for its money” made me laugh for a solid five minutes lmao.

Answer: yes.

Went though a dinosaur phase in childhood? I'm in my 40s now and dinosaurs are still a fascinating obsession! So glad my son also finds them equally as fascinating!

BUGS That ending made me tear up in a way that I haven't teared up since I first watched that Hatezgopteryx fly off into the sunset. Well Played, Sir.

I hope that future seasons cover more than just the Late Cretaceous the early to middle parts of that period would be nice to see along with the Jurassic Fantastic video.

you should be feeling very proud of this one, absolutely amazing description.... thank you very much

that ending was beautiful

Damn, the ending segment brought a tear to my eye

I love how they portrayed the mosasaurus as an actual animal that would pick up it's fights and not attack a T Rex that is capable of defending itself in the water.

Who knew when you get competent Paleontologists to help make these documentaries you get excellent results 👌

Brilliant review of a brilliant series. Thank you :)

honestly, this video was so great i really expected it to have more views lol. i really enjoyed watching this though!! awesome work

Oh, wasn't expecting you'd end with my bird edit. Cool :) Anyway, thank you for this wonderful review. It's nice to see someone actually exploring the core of the show in such detail, rather than over-nitpicking on whether or not species X might have been slightly more muscular or not. As you said yourself, in an age dominated by JP-like dinosaurs, even the worst of PP is still miles above the dinosaurs we usually see in big media in terms of accuracy - superfically or behaviourally. And I couldn't agree more: the Planet Earth format is indeed one of Prehistoric Planet's greatest strengths, even if it does diffuse the scientific clarity a bit. Overall it is very well executed paleo art. Now, I don't know if you like requests or not, but I'd love to see you do a dragonfly video in future. They're my favourite arthropods so I can't help but ask hehe. Have a nice one!

I really enjoyed the Walking With Monsters series which is pre-dinosaur. Such an amazing array of animals, it’s an era I’d love to see more of in a documentary style series.

Thank you! Fantastic presentation!

Yessss I’ve been waiting for this vid lol

Honestly sounds like people who give those criticisms you mentioned at the end should just stick with mindless content like jurassic park. If they can’t see the reasoning behind a nature documentary they should just not watch them. T-rex vs quetz scene is one of my favourite scenes in the whole series. It does a great job of showing how interactions don’t always go as one would expect. Sure, a quetz is a toothpick to a rex, but sometimes animals lose their nerve and decide the effort isn’t worth it. It again helps portray the rex as a real animal and not some overconfident murder puppet like in jurassic park

Great video. Thanks.

Best Prehistoric Planet review I’ve watched

Goddamn that ending speech made me tear up

Himalayasasaurus is only known from very fragmented remains. It’s size estimates are very speculative. Adults of large species of Mosasaurus had twice the estimated mass of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Size is based on mass and not length. Xiphactinus is colloquially referred to as the X-fish, so it’s literally the same as saying T-rex.

To be fair, you're WOW edit actually has some real basis. Bateleur eagles make a sound like that while displaying feathers. Tsavo used to do it while being held on my arm. So did Shadow.

In the light of Netflix's Life On Our Planet, your point on how having a story-driven narrative can impede the educational value of a palaeodocumentary in 44:44 remains relevant (and makes me appreciate Prehistoric Planet's format even more than I already did), with how LOOP's absolutely regressive WWM-level take on how evolution worked severely damaged its educational value on trying to tell the story of life on Earth, perpetuating long-outdated misconceptions such as Smilodon outcompeting and predating terror birds into extinction.

This could explain why there are a lot of legendary stories and myths about dragons living near volcanos.

I hope u review river monsters in the future

Bloody Oath (I was gonna full send it by RU-vid Would instantly kill me If I use the full phrase I lived in Straya for 2 years Let's just say I've come to love this part of Gondwana)

As a Paleonard I absolutely agree

Since you've done such a great job with Prehistoric Planet and Life on our Planet, do you think you can do a review on the Walking with Series?

I haven't seen Prehistoric Planet yet, since I believe the series isn't available in my country yet (plus a lack of Netflix on my part) and I'm hoping it will so I can watch it subtitled (or even dubbed) with my parents, the same way I first watched Walking With Dinosaurs all those years ago as a child. So I can't really comment on your assesment of the series itself, though it does look lovely. What I will comment on is that I don't quite agree with your take on WWD's Postosuchus, or rather, I don't quite see the negative light the series' portrayed the animal in that you bring up in the video. I don't recall I ever thought of the animal in the series as "slow" or "lumbering" in a negative sense as a child. It may not have been fast in comparison to other animals in the episode like the coelophysis, but I thought it was made clear to the viewer that this was merely the result of a different and heavier morphology, not because the animal was somehow inferior to its contemporaries. Even if it wasn't a swift or agile animal, I always thought the episode did well to portray how this was offset by its hunting strategy, namely being a succesful ambush predator. I am aware that since WWD's release our understanding of Postosuchus has changed a lot, such as it being bipedal instead of quadrupedal, but it was in line with the science of the time, as far as I know. WWD's Postosuchus is outdated, yes, but I don't fully understand where your impression that it was also a mean-spirited portrayal comes from. Perhaps nostalgia is tainting my view; I admit I haven't seen the series in well over fifteen years, so perhaps my memory is leaving out some egregious details. I hope this comment doesn't come across as overly negative; this was a great video overall, it's just that the Postosuchus detail stood out to me as odd enough (from my point of view) to comment on.

Fantastic and awesome video! Great overview as well on the series, though regarding the inaccuracies and speculation, thankfully wasn’t as much of it in the series. Also would really be cool to have a series on the Pleistocene of Australia where the last of the terrestrial ziphodont crocodiles persisted and were the top apex predators along with the giant varanids at the time and giant constrictor snakes. And these giant long legged galloping land crocodiles besides having ziphodont dentition, had very vaulted tall and deep skulls with laterally directed orbits and forward facing nares, powerful necks held high, modified pillar pelvis, and more heavily armored with Heavily keeled limbs and a rounded shorter tail. Quinkana was one of these land crocs, and another recently found one with a mostly complete skull of a new taxon of Pleistocene ziphodont land croc was found in Queensland, and is more similar morphologically to baurusuchus and had Very vaulted skull, has yet to be fully published, and even megalania the other top apex carnivore of the Australian Pleistocene wasn’t the only known giant varanid living during the Pleistocene of Australia, it’s a new unnamed species that is intermediate in size between a Komodo dragon and megalania, and interestingly Komodo dragons evolved in Australia and were living with megalania, a giant linage of constrictor snake, and giant long legged ziphodont land crocs. Also the mekosuchines which comprise of these highly diverse crocodiles survived in the South Pacific region until very recently. Up until 2,500 years and we’re dwarf fully terrestrial species that were semi arboreal to. Also Australia also had giant ankylosaur, glyptodon mimics or land turtles that evolved Convergently with these other Armored groups and were heavily armored skulls with horns, and spiked clubbed tails with bony rings as added protection much like a glyptodons called meiolania. Also hope to see a documentary on the carboniferous and when sea scorpions were abundant. Also Pleistocene Australia and miocene South America as well, which in South America during that time had the largest Cenozoic Carnivore since trex, barinasuchus the terrestrial sebecid crocodylomorph.

Okay but what was that stop motion dinosaur film from the beginning? Because I have been trying to find that again ever since I lost the VHS and I CANNOT

8:42 wooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaah😂

how was the copyright hammer like ;) glad u survived ps. fist like/comment on a youtube vid scrached off the bucket list lol

This is definitely just a me thing as well as a nitpick (not of the video). But i felt that the movements of mosasaurus were a bit too "rapid". Didn't really sell on how huge they were, i saw a similar problem with other animals in the show but this one stuck out the most to me.

Prehistoric Planet is great, though it does have some minor errors - for example, it incorrectly portrayed hadrosauroids as fully quadrupedal rather than as facultative bipeds. However, the Walking With series is still very entertaining regardless. Same goes for the Meteor Studios/Evergreen series (which includes When Dinosaurs Roamed America, Before We Ruled the Earth, and Dinosaur Planet).

Bro Imagine An Accurate Prehistoric Planet Spinosaurus

Are you Australian? I’m trying to figure out how to watch Prehistoric Planet. Where did you watch it?

They made 2 seasons so quickly and that's great. I'm only disappointed it's stuck behind the paywall of Apple TV. The Walking with Series got so popular because it was openly shown on public television. Having high ratings meant that they were allowed more money and resources to branch out and do more spin offs, such as WWM and WWB. And the funniest thing is I was too young to watch the Walking with series live on TV, but early RU-vid was able to provide me with episode for free lol. And in the case of Prehistoric Planet, with the exception of clips, any kid that wants to watch the full show would need to pay or pirate it. Or have their parents do that for them.

The show going for a Planet Earth style dont mean that isnt a somewhat disapointing decision. The show is amazing, but i would rather prefer we spend more time in the same location instead of jumping all around. Specially when we revisit the same place, but cut with other places in between. Even worst when the same place is spread among diferent episodes or even seasons. As for the "soft tone", i think the problem isnt the lack of violence, but instead the lack of blood. We ser a lot of death, but we rarely see blood. Thats what gave some people the impression the show is "soft".

zzzzING! LMAOOOO!!

my biggest issue is you said "4 square handball" it is called downball, what is this disrespect to the holy artform of school age Australians everywhere

The qzatco vs trex was a bit rare im sure to happen thts why its controversial. When do u see a bear running away from vultures .vultures or birds wil almost always wait not scare predators off but its not impossible because it does hapen sometimes

I use to have book about dinosaurs as a child. I threw it out cause I figured it was outdated.

You say Prehistoric Planet is better than the walking with series but it covers nothing of the Paleozoic and Cenozoic which is questionable.

Prehistoric Planet: BEST Dinosaur Documentary? Are you asking your viewers if this video is the best, well bad news for you: it isn't it. Sorry.

I hope if we get a third season they move away from the pure Maastrichtian focus. Even if it's still within the Cretaceous an extended timeline would be welcome.