Walking with Dinosaurs (1999)
Starring: BBC Documentary
Director: BBC TV
Synopsis: Dinosaurs brought back to life in this genre defining BBC documentary
Reviewed by: Ali Khan

The BBC have long since been known for their outstanding wildlife documentaries. A dinosaur documentary however, usually means a programme about fossils and palaeontologists - all quite dry viewing.

Walking With Dinosaurs in contrast is a stunning redefinition of what the dinosaur documentary is. If ever you had wondered what it would be like to actually see how dinosaurs behaved when they roamed the earth some 65 million years ago this documentary transports you back to the land of these fascinating animals.

With the use of state of the art digital technology, the BBC have literally brought prehistoric times back to life making that distant world as real and natural as images from today's jungles or forests. For all those who thought that only Steven Spielberg could create realistic dinosaurs, the BBC documentary is an eye opener. As good as anything that The Lost World created, Walking With Dinosaurs is backed up by an astounding amount of extensive research. In fact boundaries, both technical and research, have been challenged and redefined. It's hugely informative and compulsive viewing even after you get over the initial amazement of seeing the digital dinos.

The documentary itself is divided into 6 parts and traces the dinosaurs 160 million year history from their birth to their mysterious demise. There is also a behind the scenes documentary. You'll get a chance to see many of the major dinosaurs including Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, Allosaurus and of course Tyrannosaurus Rex. You will also see some lesser known prehistoric animals.

New research means that many of the old thinking and ideas on dinosaurs have been abandoned and this new thinking is reflected in the documentary.

A word of caution though - as with most wildlife documentaries - some scenes can be quite harrowing particularly for young children. There are some wonderfully realistic attack scenes in the documentary but they are not for the very young. Walking With Dinosaurs has rightly already been hailed a TV classic. Hugely exciting, consistently informative and down right amazing. See it immediately.