NHK: Dinosaur Super World 2019

[ITdactyl]

Apparently the NHK of Japan have been making CGI centric dinosaur documentaries since (as far as I can tell) 2017.

Here's the link to the website.  I suggest checking the trailer with the Troodon* (labelled "Trailer 1" and not yet on Youtube).  The animation for that panting Troodon is excellent.  Too bad the Japanese insist on having their feathered dinosaurs have scaly un-feathered manus.  What do you think of the CGI?

*The Troodon will be in the new special that will air this July.  Trailer 2 shows the Aquatic Spinosaurus, and the [unfortunately] rhino-horned Pachyrhinosaurus.

I've also included some of their older videos that are already on Youtube.

I know someone had posted the video for their night hunting Tyrannosaurus previously.  Now I know that snippet was part of a yearly release of Dinosaur centric documentaries (They also have a nice documentary about Neanderthals).

[Halichoeres]

Interesting! The dinosaur-costumed Domo Kun is pretty great.

[ITdactyl]

latest trailer is up.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Man, this looks cool! It's nice to know the actual name now!

[Halichoeres]

There's a Xiphactinus. I'm sold.

[ITdactyl]

For those who haven't watched the full episodes yet, NHK wss kind enough to post snippets on youtube.

While I do have some complaints about the 2 episodes, both were generally well made. NHK actually did a nice job of presenting how the varanid family produced mosasaurs (my layman's generalization of the episode) and how bird traits and behavior can be found in even large theropod dinosaurs.

My main complaint with the two episodes is that the main characters seemed to have super powers. The main story deinocheirus fell from a high cliff yet seemed unharmed.  The main story mosasaur was shown hunting and killing full sized spinosaurus and tyrannosaurus.

This is also the first tv appearance of halzkaraptor (shown hunting fish like a grebe/loon).

[stargatedalek]

While not always accurate, the design work for these is quite incredible. I love that Gila monster looking mosasaur, even if its exploits are a bit dramatic. Deinocheirus reminds me of the giant pink shoebills from Conan Exiles.

[acro-man]

Watched it. Amazed. Excited. Great documentary!

First Episode looks cool and all. The animals' re-construction and the prehistoric environment setup are well-researched and the flawless CGI makes everything plausible. Easily one of my favourite dinosaur videos.

Second Episode suddenly turned monstrous, featuring a typical 80' Japanese TV show Ultraman vibe. All the sense of reality they built in the first episode was destroyed by such scenes in which the almighty Mosaurus claims her dominance on land by dragging a full-grown T-rex / Spinosaurus singlehandedly into the water like a towel (which in reality she never had a chance to encounter these guys), not to mention she swims right onto the beach without a slightest fear of stranding. Nothing is impossible for Mosaurus, how brilliant!
The second half of the Episode tries to fix this problem by re-imaging her as a caring mother figure, which is too late and not convincing.

In conclusion, my ratings:
1st Ep. 9/10
2nd Ep. 4/10

[Philoceratops]

This documentary was quite a good watch! I've yet to see the second part though, really should do that soon...

For episode 1, I really did like the Deinocheirus story arc, as it was not only the first time I'd ever seen it get a major media appearance, but also that it was pretty well-executed too! I really liked the design of the Deinocheirus, with the large head plumes and the bright pink arm feathers. I also liked that this animal felt large, heavy, and clumsy when running about or making fast movements, like when the brooding female was defending her nest from a gang of marauding Zanabazar.

Another thing about episode 1, I was amazed with not only the amount of diversity among Mongolian theropods that they showed, but also which ones appeared. Avimimus, Zanabazar and Halszkaraptor all got their pop culture debuts in this documentary, which was really nice as all are very interesting theropods. I also liked the speculative burrowing adaptations they gave to their Protoceratops, which I believe is based on an abstract from a paleontological symposium this year about burrows found in Montana made by Leptoceratops.

One of my biggest gripes though is the end, where the mother Deinocheirus is trying to defend her chicks from an attacking Tarbosaurus, which while it was a very unhappy ending, the background music really made it unbearable. Compare with the death scene of the birthing Ophthalmosaurus in WWD, and you'll see what I mean.

As for the Alaskan troodontine arc, it was OK, but nothing really special. This probably has one of my favorite documentary depictions of a troodontine, I daresay more so than WWD 3D! The Pachyrhinosaurus was probably one of my favorite nontheropods from the documentary, despite the inaccurate keratinous horns.

So far those are my thoughts, I'll tell more once I get to watching episode 2.

[Flaffy]

Where can the full episodes be found? I could only find the few minute snippets on NHK's website and on youtube.

[ITdactyl]

Where can the full episodes be found? I could only find the few minute snippets on NHK's website and on youtube.

Hopefully another member here has a source.  I was only able to watch the Deinocheirus episode during a layover in Japan.  The Mosasaur episode was posted on a fan page on youtube, but it seems to have been deleted.

[Einherjar]

Curiosity Stream just added two episodes of Amazing Dinoworld, which is made together with NHK. Looks like the same thing. Can anyone confirm, I haven't had time to watch it yet.

[ITdactyl]

I can confirm that the 2 episodes have been released with full English narration in Curiosity Stream.  The narrator is Salvatore Vecchio.

Ep. 1: The Feather Revolution
Ep. 2: The World of Sea Monsters

[Duna]

Wow, I really love some of those reconstructions ...

But what really kills me is those babies coming out of their eggs as a puppy out of a dog house ... as a reptile owner I have seen many times how the babies are curled up in their eggs filling ALL the space inside, their tails curled also, head goes out first. If an actual reptile would come out as seen on that videos, a Madagascar day gecko would need a quail's egg size. Same about bird chicks, also.