Life On Our Planet- New Paleo Docuseries coming to Netflix

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

I saw an interview Adam Savage did with one of the science guys who worked on it, and from that it seemed they worked really hard on getting the science right, so me not being a paleontologist and with that in mind, I find it really interesting how different the looks of the dinosaurs are to Prehistoric Kingdom. It just goes to show how similar, yet different the interpretations can be. And for that along I really find it enjoyable.

It all has a slight Jurassic Park feel to it, like JP dinos evolved to be accurate. I like it.

Well the reason it looks so different from pk is because a lot of loop's designs are straight up inaccurate. As for looking like Jurassic park, it's pretty clear a lot of the modes are edited jw models.

[DinoFan2010]

In the edited JW models, the most obvious one is the Triceratops, it's even got the same sort of puffy cheeks and thick nasal horn.

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

In the edited JW models, the most obvious one is the Triceratops, it's even got the same sort of puffy cheeks and thick nasal horn.

I'd argue the allosaurus is even more obvious, they didn't even change the coloration.

[Faelrin]

I only got to watch the first episode so far, and a little bit of the second episode here and there since I had to watch my baby niece because my mother needed to go to the hospital, and her parents were out at the time. So here's some thoughts:

Spoiler

First episode is okay. Setting up the series I guess. I do like the mix of prehistoric and extant stuff throughout it though. And of course as already mentioned the Triceratops is blatantly a slight model change from the Jurassic World one, ugh. Like I get ILM worked on this, and obviously reused or altered some existing models, but eh. Never-mind the rehash of JP sounds for the T. rex. The terror birds were cool to see though.

That said I'm mainly interested in the Paleozoic stuff representation, and whatever pre-Pleistocene prehistoric mammals or other ancient Cenozoic animals there are. Glad we got my beloved Anomalocaris, but it would have also been nice to see Opabinia, or something else for a change too. I did like seeing Cameroceras, and especially Arandaspis. Arandaspis barely ever gets any attention in particular. Quite possibly the most exciting thing for me so far. Dunkleosteus also looked quite nice. The proportions seem to be based on the older estimate from what I could tell, but the model looked good, with the fluked tail, etc. Didn't really get to see anything past that point in episode 2.

Also boy did I get a kick out of seeing the magnapinna squid for a bit. I joked to my dad and said, "would be nice if they showed the magnapinna squid", and then there it was, lol. At least I'm pretty sure it was, since it was doing the good ole T pose, a lot of them are known to do.

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[SenSx]

Is it available in 4k ?

[Einherjar]

Well the reason it looks so different from pk is because a lot of loop's designs are straight up inaccurate. As for looking like Jurassic park, it's pretty clear a lot of the modes are edited jw models.

Who's loop? I haven't read up on the production side. The PR says ILM did this.

But you're not exactly helpful. If the designs are inaccurate, how are they inaccurate, which ones are inaccurate? I'm genuinely interested.


We know many dinos are reworked JW models, they've been open about this. I don't see what the problem is though. Sounds more like a subjective opinion than anything else. I've tried to find reviews by scientists about this, and only found one. They liked it, but said nothing about the dino designs.

So as someone who's not a scientist, all I have to go on is the word of the science guy working onit, vs a random person on the internet whose credentials I don't know.

[Leyster]

E @Einherjar these are just the most quoted ones:
- as paleontologist Andrea Cau pointed out, their Tyrannosaurus has 18 premax teeth. Which is ten more than it should have. And no, this is not open to speculation.
- Dromeosaurs do not fold their wings in the way Life on our Planet shows.
- As Tyler Greenfield pointed out, the supposed Cameroceras is not Cameroceras at all, but WWD-Liopleurodon-enlarged Endoceras.
- Anchiornis' (at least, but I have to check Deinonychus too) secondaries are put wrongly.
- The Smilodon species that lived with a terror bird (Titanis) was S.gracilis and the current understanding is that it had no role at all in its downfall (if anything, Smilodon got bigger only after the Phorusrhacidae disappearance).
And I'm sure there are many others.

[Einherjar]

E @Einherjar these are just the most quoted ones:
- as paleontologist Andrea Cau pointed out, their Tyrannosaurus has 18 premax teeth. Which is ten more than it should have. And no, this is not open to speculation.
- Dromeosaurs do not fold their wings in the way Life on our Planet shows.
- As Tyler Greenfield pointed out, the supposed Cameroceras is not Cameroceras at all, but WWD-Liopleurodon-enlarged Endoceras.
- Anchiornis' (at least, but I have to check Deinonychus too) secondaries are put wrongly.
- The Smilodon species that lived with a terror bird (Titanis) was S.gracilis and the current understanding is that it had no role at all in its downfall (if anything, Smilodon got bigger only after the Phorusrhacidae disappearance).
And I'm sure there are many others.

Thank you, precisely what I was asking for.

Odd that they'd do those things knowing they're wrong.

Do you have links to anyone discussing it in more detail? I tried searching but couldn't find much.

[Leyster]

E @Einherjar most of these are common knowledge. Tyrannosaurus tooth count can be verified on any skeleton.
About Anchiornis feathering, see here and here.
There are multiple papers on Dromaeosaur arm range of motion, an example is this. This is about Endoceras (relative to Chased by Seamonsters, but Life on our Planet did the same errors anyway). About Smilodon and Titanis, its datation is quite solid, the only Smilodon species alive at the time was S.gracilis and well, you can compare their relative sizes. Bigger species of Smilodon evolved after its disappearance from the fossil record.

[Einherjar]

E @Einherjar most of these are common knowledge. Tyrannosaurus tooth count can be verified on any skeleton.
About Anchiornis feathering, see here and here.
There are multiple papers on Dromaeosaur arm range of motion, an example is this. This is about Endoceras (relative to Chased by Seamonsters, but Life on our Planet did the same errors anyway). About Smilodon and Titanis, its datation is quite solid, the only Smilodon species alive at the time was S.gracilis and well, you can compare their relative sizes. Bigger species of Smilodon evolved after its disappearance from the fossil record.

Thanks for the links, but I can see I'm not gonna be able to wrap my head around all of this. There's a specific language to these things that I'm just not fluent in. Too many foreign words for me to gain meaning from. As I said, not a scientist, so I'd need it simplified.

I appreciate the effort though. Not doubting you at all. Just find it a bit odd/disappointing they know these things and still don't fix it. I saw they're doing a whole series about it on paleocast, so maybe they'll touch upon it there. They're doing every episode, and have professors and people who worked on it on board talking about it, so could be interesting.

[Leyster]

E @Einherjar I think that sooner or later somebody will do a thread on twitter with a digested version of this and other inaccuracies, so don't worry.

[Jose S.M.]

I'm probably watching it this weekend with my husband. He was super excited about Prehistoric Planet when it came out but for some reason the trailer for this didn't hyped him up very much. Maybe we'll enjoyed better now that we have adjusted our expectations a bit after reading this thread.

[HD-man]

I think Giirator's review puts it best: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxtCqNoUPkIBZebh_4ctiwzl-L0a7uz9re

[Faelrin]

Finished episode 2, 3, and 4. Thoughts below.

Spoiler

Definitely some dated info, such as pertaining to the Permian-Triassic extinction event (if not elsewhere in the series, aside the repurposed Jurassic World models). I recall a paper a few years back saying the estimate was now 70%, not 90% as previously thought. Unless a recent paper found that older 90% estimate valid again, it was incorrect info they were giving out.

The avoidance of calling stem-mammals synapsids is a weird choice. Dicynodonts like Lystrosaurus were not on the synapsid branch that led to mammals, so calling them mammal ancestors isn't correct.

I'm surprised at the omission of things like Dimetrodon and eurypterids so far, but on the other hand it gave more screen time for some other animals seldomly represented, such as Inostrancevia, Scutosaurus, Lystrosaurus, and Erythrosuchus (first on screen appearance I think), never-mind those from the earlier Carboniferous. I also find it odd there are no mentions of the periods so far, except the Devonian, Permian, and Triassic onward. There are quite a few time jumps so far, and unless folks are familiar with the particular time frame, they might get lost along the way.

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[Duna]

I've watched only the first 3 chapters so far. And I have mixed feelings, but they tend towards the not-so-good part. The scenery is very very good and the best part of the series, even the CGI vegetation looks nice, too. The music ... sorry, but doesn't blend very good in the documentary, doesn't transmit feelings to me (Prehistoric Planet did). I think the best models are the arthropods but have some innacuracies (I could pass on some of them in 1999 WWD but not 20 years later).

The story of the life on Earth is a good thing and always interesting. But in my opinion, it would have been better to tell about that in order, not jumping forward and backwards all time (however if they would have done this, probably only 1 chapter would have been about prehistoric life and the rest about extant species).

Spoiler

And what made my eyes roll is the everytime use (even if I've seen only 3 chapters) of the same very-well-known videos of the very same cool species that we have seen lots of time in other documentaries: yes, the peacock spider, the tiger beetle, the dart frog climbing with her tadpole, the Nile crocs and the wildbeest ... OK, you are talking about prehistoric artropods, spiders and beetles and you just throw in those cool segments of extant criatures.
Only in the first 3 chapters I can say that a lot-or most of the extant creatures fragments are recorded in TERRARIUMS, AQUARIUMS and human set-up enclosures. As an amphibian, insect, reptile and reef tank keeper for years, I know that very well. And what I couldn't stand is when they put stupid croaking-chirping noises to the pumilio (dwarf dart) frog when it was ONLY BREATHING, every time that she appeared!!! And it was the female, she's the one that carries the tadpoles, and females don't sing and don't make those noises!  Yes, I bred dart frogs for years.

Basically, the show tries to tell the evolution of the life on Earth but mentions very superficially extinct animals of that period (and even omits the most well know, like Dimetrodon and others), calls Lystrosaurus an ancestor of mammals and just throws here and there a lot of "cool videos" of some "cool extant species" that have been seen and used a hundred of times in BBC and Discovery documentaries. I haven't seen the rest, but I doesn't look that is going to be any different.

I looked at other side when I saw they reused innacurate Jurassic Park models - yes, the galloping overweight triceratops, Tyrannosaur youngsters are Velociraptors and use the same sounds too, same as the T-rex, lystrosaurus ... and the allosaurus (which is one of the most horrible models in JW excepting the spino).

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[Dynomikegojira]

Yeah Duna pretty much my feelings on the whole show it's not terrible depending on what you look for but it was definitely not what they advertised but still miles better than Alien Worlds. I will say that they handled the Paleozoic and Cenozoic segments very well but the dinosaurs were a huge letdown for me. All in all in our current era of a paleodoc resurgence Life On Our Planet will pretty much be the forgotten one especially if Surviving Earth, Forgotten Bloodlines and Dinosaur Empire turn out well and based on whispers on X(Twitter) other big projects are in the works could sweep this show away.

[Faelrin]

Episode 5 and 6 were the weakest for me so far (Episode 1 aside I guess). Kind of a bummer when I love dinosaurs, but they dropped the ball here.

Spoiler

Barely any interesting Mesozoic things in these two episodes. I guess the inclusion of Deinonychus, Maiasaura (in the first episode as well), and Anchiornis was nice, even if some of the anatomy was off. Most of the rest have had their fair share of screen time already, so lost potential there. Moving on, there were too many repurposed Jurassic World models (and sounds). Allosaurus obviously, but Sinraptor was also based on the Jurassic World BaBR/Dominion Allosaurus from the looks of it. The Diplodocus, and possibly the Alamosaurus, looked like they were remodeled from the Jurassic World Apatosaurus and Dreadnoughthus. Also way too much Jurassic styled roaring in nearly every sequence with a theropod (including the later terror bird sequence). Only two marine reptiles shown so far, unnamed pliosaurs. Pterosaur diversity lacking so far too. Thank goodness for Prehistoric Planet spoiling us in both of these cases, despite only focusing on Maastrichtian fauna.

Lots of narration of the survivors of the extinction event, but they were showing extant animals instead? Would have preferred some show, not tell in that case.

Way too much extant nature scenes shown that I've seen many times before. If you watch a lot of extant nature documentaries you'll know which ones they are when you see them. Same as some of the prior episodes too. Sure they are great spectacles to watch, but it does get tiring when there's so much fauna out there that doesn't get a passing eye most of the time.

That said there was some stuff I hadn't seen much of before so I appreciate them, such as showing the numbat, or the Galapagos penguin instead of your typical antarctic ones shown many more times. But nothing particularly groundbreaking here either. Honestly while I did enjoy the mix of two at first, now it just feels like filler because they didn't want to spend the budget or time making models or animation. This is especially obvious in the case of repurposed Jurassic World models. The first few episodes with the Paleozoic stuff and early Triassic were better (still some outdated or incorrect stuff, but that aside a bit more variety on show, and lots more first timers to get screentime).

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[Faelrin]

I've finished the show. I think Episode 7 had some of my favorite sequences so far, next to the Paleozoic stuff of course.

Spoiler

Including both extinct and extant with the extinct Megacerops, Doedicurus and Smilodon, Maiacetus and Otodus, and the extant fruit bat, snow leopard, and mating behavior between humpback whales. Definitely a contrast to the last two episodes.

Worth mentioning that in a moment of show, not tell, they used the extant sugar glider for their Jurassic period mammal, sigh.

Episode 8 felt the most impactful obviously, as it brought up the current extinction event, and the global man-made events making things worse. I did love the Jurassic Park quote at the end of it, because of how truthful it is. It was also very interesting to finally see that Bison hunting put to screen (though the Bison falling to their death were obviously done with CGI).

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My overall thoughts now:

The Mesozoic and dinosaurs definitely got done the dirtiest, as I mentioned before, but at least it helped make up for Prehistoric Planet's lack of anything but Maastrichtian (even if a lot of my favorite prehistoric animals are from that part of the Late Cretaceous), with their refreshing Paleozoic and Cenozoic segments. Definitely not as accurate as one would want a documentary to be (from the Jurassic World models, to outdated or misinformed information), but it is definitely above and beyond the low bar that was Dinosaur with Stephen Fry, which is almost hard to believe it released earlier this year. And speaking of other documentaries this year, aside from this one, and Prehistoric Planet 2, there was also that goofy NHK Dinoworld 2 one that this year's Kaiyodo Maip figure seems to have been based on.

Wonder what will come for prehistoric documentaries next other then the Miocene set Forgotten Bloodlines: Agate, which had its kickstarter earlier this year?

[Joliezac]

Only have been able to finish episode 2 so far, but it was an improvement from the first one for sure.

[Dynomikegojira]

I've finished the show. I think Episode 7 had some of my favorite sequences so far, next to the Paleozoic stuff of course.

Spoiler

Including both extinct and extant with the extinct Megacerops, Doedicurus and Smilodon, Maiacetus and Otodus, and the extant fruit bat, snow leopard, and mating behavior between humpback whales. Definitely a contrast to the last two episodes.

Worth mentioning that in a moment of show, not tell, they used the extant sugar glider for their Jurassic period mammal, sigh.

Episode 8 felt the most impactful obviously, as it brought up the current extinction event, and the global man-made events making things worse. I did love the Jurassic Park quote at the end of it, because of how truthful it is. It was also very interesting to finally see that Bison hunting put to screen (though the Bison falling to their death were obviously done with CGI).

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My overall thoughts now:

The Mesozoic and dinosaurs definitely got done the dirtiest, as I mentioned before, but at least it helped make up for Prehistoric Planet's lack of anything but Maastrichtian (even if a lot of my favorite prehistoric animals are from that part of the Late Cretaceous), with their refreshing Paleozoic and Cenozoic segments. Definitely not as accurate as one would want a documentary to be (from the Jurassic World models, to outdated or misinformed information), but it is definitely above and beyond the low bar that was Dinosaur with Stephen Fry, which is almost hard to believe it released earlier this year. And speaking of other documentaries this year, aside from this one, and Prehistoric Planet 2, there was also that goofy NHK Dinoworld 2 one that this year's Kaiyodo Maip figure seems to have been based on.

Wonder what will come for prehistoric documentaries next other then the Miocene set Forgotten Bloodlines: Agate, which had its kickstarter earlier this year?

Several are in the works from some I heard on X

Surviving Earth on NBC rumored release late 2024 to 2025

Dinosaur Empire it's apparently about Late Jurassic dinosaurs most likely Morrison Formation fauna

Rumored projects

Prehistoric Planet 3 I do feel is a safe bet for next year based on a deleted tweet from Naish and Jon Favereau did joke about introducing dinosauroids in season 4 on one of the behind the scenes specials

There's definitely been a teases of a very big dinosaur documentary coming in the last few months on X that's been described as bigger than Prehistoric Planet now it could be a new Walking With Dinosaurs which somebody did allegedly leak that earlier in the year or ot might be something else but paleo twitter is certainly saying that our paleo media resurgence is just beginning.