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Planet Earth
The first disc of this BBC-produced nature series blew me away, buy it here. Amazon calls it "quite simply the greatest nature/wildlife series ever produced," and no it doesn't matter that the narrative is at a fourth-grade level and fails to mention the Hotelling rule or the tragedy of the commons.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 1, 2007 at 07:18 AM in Television | Permalink
Comments
Does Hotelling's rule apply often in nature? I had no idea.
Posted by: Michael H. at Jun 1, 2007 7:57:33 AM
This aired on the BBC a while back and it really got the nation's attention. I was disappointed by the narration and general depth, but it probably contains the best camera work ever seen. I can't find the story but I read somewhere that the team are working on another series...can't wait.
Posted by: Caravaggio at Jun 1, 2007 8:11:03 AM
Could you point us to a decent definition of Hotelling's Rule?
Posted by: waterboy at Jun 1, 2007 8:32:15 AM
Hotelling wrote a good rule, but I don't think people always follow it for natural resources. Even where ownership is defined, and it isn't conflated with a tragedy of the commons, ... short term profits are attractive. (Are they really charging us enough for oil?)
Posted by: odograph at Jun 1, 2007 9:05:13 AM
So the narrative is at the 4th grade level. As an avid watcher of (and at-home participant in) the TV show "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?", I would say that's an entirely appropriate narrative level for a mass market documentary.
Posted by: Pat Mathews at Jun 1, 2007 10:22:38 AM
Hotelling: change in rents over time equals the return to capital.
Posted by: Josh at Jun 1, 2007 10:30:43 AM
Make sure to watch it in High Def on a large screen tv. The ocean and river episodes are simply stunning. Also, the bird of paradise is the coolest creature on earth.
Posted by: joe at Jun 1, 2007 10:42:48 AM
joe is absolutely right. I'll wait until I can afford a HD DVD player since for now, I have them all Tivo'd.
Posted by: eriks at Jun 1, 2007 11:15:05 AM
Turn off the sound and put on some music, it's much more enjoyable, though Sigourney's voice is somewhat soothing. Visually it's the best nature series I've ever seen and though many shows aren't, this one is definately better in HD.
Posted by: Fred at Jun 1, 2007 12:08:13 PM
Your stoned students are grateful everywhere.
Posted by: alec at Jun 1, 2007 12:33:05 PM
If you got caught by Planet Earth, then I also recommend BBC's Blue Planet about the ocean life.
Posted by: pinus at Jun 1, 2007 1:18:13 PM
I own the series in the Blu-Ray (Sony's High Definition disc) format. If you think the DVD is good, the Blu-Ray is amazing.
If Attenborough's narration is "fourth-grade," then Sigourney Weaver's narration on American version is, what, second-grade?
Posted by: Roberto Rivera at Jun 1, 2007 2:23:13 PM
I second pinus' suggestion of Blue Planet. I watched it before I started to watch Planet Earth, and my girlfriend and I found it far more interesting.
Posted by: AK at Jun 1, 2007 5:24:28 PM
Someone posted the whole series (Brit version) on youtube. The clips are in 4 minute chunks, but it is still great.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=antoniooo9
Posted by: stan at Jun 1, 2007 9:36:55 PM
The show blew us away too (the DVDs are the Attenborough narration. The Weaver narration is grossly inferior but good and kudos to her for taking on the role on man has so defined). But I feel the same way about it as for _Blue Planet_ by the same group: the video is _incredible_, so incredible that you have to buy it and will watch it over and over again. But the documentary sucks. Viewed back-to bak against an Attenborough (and we have them all), it's _weird_ how _wrong_ they get the timing and "feel." So hey often have to go over the same concept twice or do it terribly. Weird since the expensive, hard part is the part they did well, and, hell ,they _hired_ the master of the "easy" part, to do the narration, for cryin' out loud.
So I've actually told a bunch of people, just go get the DVDs. But in a cerain way I still think Tyler's very wrong in his evaluation of the series.
Posted by: Sanjay Krishnaswamy at Jun 1, 2007 11:03:08 PM
And what is Tyler's evaluation of the series.
Posted by: DVH at Jun 2, 2007 6:13:27 AM
The images in the film are simply remarkable. I watched it in standard definition at school in Chicago, then came home and watched it in HD... the difference cannot be understated. I'm sure the DVD is good, but if you've got a friend with an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, do yourself a favor and rent the series.
And yes, the narration was a little bit... inferior, one might say.
Posted by: Cris at Jun 2, 2007 12:38:29 PM
I sincerely hope you did not watch the American version. The fact that you criticise the narative tells me that you probably did. You should watch the BBC version which is narrated by Sir David Attenborough, one of the greatest naturalists of our age. I was enraged when it came to the States and I saw that David Attenborough was not good enough for the American audiences. Someone at the Discovery channel needs to be taken out. The high-def BBC version can be torrented here.
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