Favorite dinosaur documentary

[Brocc21]

So what's your favorite dinosaur documentary. This is my first time running a pole so if something doesn't work, das on me.

[Faelrin]

Even though I enjoyed Dinosaur Revolution's up to date reconstructions, I have to say it's the Walking with trilogy. While there was a lot of stuff thrown in there with no evidence (mostly in regards to behavior), I don't think there's ever been another dinosaur documentary just presenting them as animals, and doing it in the style of a nature documentary.  Granted the only other one on the list there that I've watched has been Planet Dinosaur, and I really hate the use of the jerky "camera" (just watch any fight scene and you'll see what I mean), and the settings are just CGI backdrops, and boring/simple ones at that in a lot of cases.

[Jose S.M.]

Walking with Dinosaurs is my favorite. It's outdated by now but it was just an spectacle to watch. To me it was breathtaking, they way it was filmed, the live backgrounds, the music (the final shot of the Diplodocus episode is so majestic). I'm so sad that the whole series was taken down from Netflix here en Latin America. I don't know if it was removed in general.

[IrritatorRaji]

WWD without a doubt. Yes, it's incredibly outdated, but it was so entertaining, so visually pleasing, and told such interesting yet realistic dinosaur stories. I remember, as a kid, staying up til 4am because a channel was showing the Ballad of Big Al at that time. It would have been the 10 billionth time I saw it, but I was watching it regardless.

Dinosaur Planet is a close second, and I mean real close. I discovered White Tip's Journey on some random documentary website as a kid and it cemented my adoration of Velociraptors.

[Brocc21]

Walking with Dinosaurs is my favorite. It's outdated by now but it was just an spectacle to watch. To me it was breathtaking, they way it was filmed, the live backgrounds, the music (the final shot of the Diplodocus episode is so majestic). I'm so sad that the whole series was taken down from Netflix here en Latin America. I don't know if it was removed in general.

Yeah it was taken down here in America to. but I have walking with dinosaurs and monsters on dvd.

[Gwangi]

For me it's gotta be the Christopher Reeves Dinosaurs! documentary. And yeah, a lot of that is because of nostalgia but those stop motion sequences were just fantastic, they hold up even better than the CGI in the Walking With documentaries. Other documentaries from that era that I enjoy include PBS The Dinosaurs, Dinosaur! with Walter Cronkite on A&E (they weren't good at naming these), and also the PaleoWorld series on TLC. For more recent stuff I guess I would go with Dinosaur Revolution and Planet Dinosaur. For some reason I have never been a big fan of Walking With Dinosaurs. Seems like we're overdue for another good series.

[Cretaceous Crab]

Planet Dinosaur. Relatively new with current knowledge compared to most on the list. I like it when it paused and the narrator explains the science behind the scene. John Hurt is a terrific narrator.

The animation & design is a little weak in some places, and in that regard, I think Dinosaur Revolution / Dinotasia is more visually stunning. But Dinotasia's narration is....awkward.

[Joe the Spinosaurus]

I think that Nigel Marven provides the perfect atmosphere for me to learn from and enjoy the series. Favorite documentary since I was a kid.

Planet Dinosaur, in my opinion, is overrated and lacks the ability to tell a good story.

[Neosodon]

I think that Nigel Marven provides the perfect atmosphere for me to learn from and enjoy the series. Favorite documentary since I was a kid.

Planet Dinosaur, in my opinion, is overrated and lacks the ability to tell a good story.

Yeah, he was great in prehistoric park. I think people that voted for Planet Dinosaur really meant Dinosaur Planet. There was so much more effort and quality put into the second of the two but the names are annoyingly similar.

[Cretaceous Crab]

I think people that voted for Planet Dinosaur really meant Dinosaur Planet. There was so much more effort and quality put into the second of the two but the names are annoyingly similar.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I definitely voted for Planet Dinosaur, and not Dinosaur Planet.

I remember seeing Dinosaur Planet when it first aired 15 years ago (2003). It was cool for its time, as was WWD and others, especially with the feathered raptors and quite rotund Saltasaurs, but as many should know, much of the depictions in it are (now, if not then) considered inaccurate. Plus, I wasn't a fan of Christian Slater's narration. Conversely, I did like John Goodman's narration of When Dinosaurs Roamed America in 2001.

Planet Dinosaur (2011) was much more current on its depictions and quality of CGI. It is probably one of the few series I recommend to those who occasionally ask me what is a good dino documentary to watch.

I understand everyone has their favorites, and to each its own, but those are my thoughts. Cheers, everyone! 

[Crackington]

WWD for me, it was a magnificent series and also caught the public imagination in a big way, similar to the Blue Planet last year in that way.

I realise that this is an international poll, so these wouldn't have been widely seen outside the UK, but the BBC Horizon science programmes had some good one off documentaries on dinosaurs.

I remember one on the Dinosaur renaissance from the mid 70s when I was a kid. The first time I heard of Bob Bakker and John Ostrom and lots on Deinonychus. Would be great to see it again.

[Shonisaurus]

WWD is a legendary series but honestly I think the Planet Dinosaur series is better in the sense that its work is more finished, and due to the advances of the animation technique it makes more perfect Planet Dinosaur

WWD is a great series and has more merit in the sense that it was made with dolls and special effects were more handmade and has more merit than Planet Dinosaur but I understand that Planet Dinosaur is superior since it is made by computer.

WWD was much more expensive than Planet Dinosaur since the work of 2011 was done in a time of global economic crisis which gives more merit to WWD so the budget of Planet Dinosaur was much cheaper but saying that the result was much better that WWD.

[Uncle Rex]

I loved the Walking With series - still my favourite. Also liked Dinosaur Planet, Planet Dinosaur and Dinotopia. Jurassic Fight Club, which wasn't included in the poll, was enjoyable except for the overly dramatic and often plain silly narration.

[Crackington]

I think it's actually quite interesting to compare WWD with the BBC's later series Planet Dinosaur.  When WWD was first shown, there was quite a lot of criticism of its speculative assumptions on prehistoric animal behaviour, e.g. the postosuchus urinating to mark its territory. This got up the noses of many palaeontologists (pardon the pun) and a public talk I attended at the time by UCL academics was highly critical.

I think the BBC took this on board when they made Planet Dinosaur and made it much more scientifically accurate with the scenarios for the various species based on fossil evidence. In that regard, Shonisaurus is right and it is the better documentary.

However, I must confess that I found Planet Dinosaur to be a rather cold series, which just seemed to feature endless bloody conflicts between the dinosaurs.

It had none of the epic quality of WWD, or its charm, whether that be willing on the baby diplodocus or marvelling at the tragic last flight of the ornithocheirus. WWD to me was simply great TV. Viewed as science based fiction, its better than Jurassic World in my book.

[Brocc21]

Man how could I forget Jurassic fight club. It was not perfect or really close in anyway but dang I loved that show.

[stargatedalek]

Planet Dinosaur was less speculative than Walking with Dinosaurs sure, but that was to its detriment. Where Walking With Dinosaurs had a lot of thought put into creating realistic speculation Planet Dinosaur blindly followed the latest paper on each topic they covered. This came and bit them in a great many places, but the most obvious would have to be the venomous Sinornithosaurus.

It's only a few years old and is already as dated as Walking with Dinosaurs is almost two decades later.

And where Planet Dinosaur did get speculative they did so in arbitrary, shoehorned ways. Like having Spinosaurus fight Sarcosuchus (which it did not live alongside!) and Carcharodontosaurus. Or having it hunt Ouranosaurus during droughts (despite being a coastal animal!). All of these were clearly just done to make it "cool", there was no thought put into any of it, it's just mindless drivel thrown out for "entertainment value".

I don't understand what about it people are saying is accurate. That it had feathers in it at all? It's dinosaurs aren't even as well feathered as the ones from When Dinosaurs Roamed America or Dinosaur Planet which were around a decade earlier.

Planet Dinosaur also lacked the sheer production value, great writing, and amazing special effects that will ensure the Walking with trilogy remain worthwhile pieces of media, even outside the documentary category. Planet Dinosaur tries to coast on being a documentary, it doesn't take advantage of any of the options extinct life as a subject gives them access to, and I truly believe that it deserves to be forgotten.

There are people with no interest in dinosaurs who still remember WWD, but I'd forgotten Planet Dinosaur even existed.

Walking With Dinosaurs is easily the weakest of its trilogy in terms of science. I wouldn't be surprised if only a handful of things from Beasts are outdated at this point. Monsters had a bit of an unfair advantage though, following generally better known animals.

Chased by Dinosaurs / Chased by Seamonsters are stretching the boundaries of documentary if you ask me, even with being marketed as spin-offs of the Walking with series. And, shouldn't we technically be including Primeval with them too? (fairly certain they had a cross over)

They were fun TV specials, but educational content does not a documentary make.

When Dinosaurs Roamed America is a more traditional documentary formula, with some CGI segments thrown in to keep audiences attention. It's a good program for what it is but it's age definitely shows. Unlike Planet Dinosaur they hired writers, so it's at the very least worth watching at some point if you're into dinosaurs, science aside.

Dinosaur Revolution/Dinotasia is the only title on this list besides the later Walking with sequels that is genuinely noteworthy for being more accurate than the others. It doesn't have the production value, writing, or effects wizardry of the Walking with titles but it still holds its own.

Clash of the Dinosaurs is unworthy of being on this list. If it's on here than everything from Jurassic Fight Club to Dinosaur Train should be included too. Those are more educational and clearly had more time and money put into their production. Clash of the Dinosaurs is and always was a low budget cash grab bordering on an asset flip! Don't waste your time watching it.

Dinosaur Planet is my vote. Partially nostalgia, but mostly because I feel like it holds up the best outside of simply being a documentary. Its effects aren't mind blowing, but they were impressive for the time and still suffice now. The educational segments are generalized and brief, keeping them more or less timeless. And most importantly I think it has the most solid writing of every option, even WWD.

Walking With Dinosaurs 3D should have been on this list. Frankly all of the Walking with titles should have been separated.

I have never seen PBS The Dinosaurs, but I think I have vague memories of Dinosaurs! With Christopher Reeves. Assuming it's the one I am thinking of, it was produced by the Canada film board and had a very WWD like formula where they posed it like a traditional nature documentary, and used stop motion dinosaurs.

[Brocc21]

Planet Dinosaur was less speculative than Walking with Dinosaurs sure, but that was to its detriment. Where Walking With Dinosaurs had a lot of thought put into creating realistic speculation Planet Dinosaur blindly followed the latest paper on each topic they covered. This came and bit them in a great many places, but the most obvious would have to be the venomous Sinornithosaurus.

It's only a few years old and is already as dated as Walking with Dinosaurs is almost two decades later.

And where Planet Dinosaur did get speculative they did so in arbitrary, shoehorned ways. Like having Spinosaurus fight Sarcosuchus (which it did not live alongside!) and Carcharodontosaurus. Or having it hunt Ouranosaurus during droughts (despite being a coastal animal!). All of these were clearly just done to make it "cool", there was no thought put into any of it, it's just mindless drivel thrown out for "entertainment value".

I don't understand what about it people are saying is accurate. That it had feathers in it at all? It's dinosaurs aren't even as well feathered as the ones from When Dinosaurs Roamed America or Dinosaur Planet which were around a decade earlier.

Planet Dinosaur also lacked the sheer production value, great writing, and amazing special effects that will ensure the Walking with trilogy remain worthwhile pieces of media, even outside the documentary category. Planet Dinosaur tries to coast on being a documentary, it doesn't take advantage of any of the options extinct life as a subject gives them access to, and I truly believe that it deserves to be forgotten.

There are people with no interest in dinosaurs who still remember WWD, but I'd forgotten Planet Dinosaur even existed.

Walking With Dinosaurs is easily the weakest of its trilogy in terms of science. I wouldn't be surprised if only a handful of things from Beasts are outdated at this point. Monsters had a bit of an unfair advantage though, following generally better known animals.

Chased by Dinosaurs / Chased by Seamonsters are stretching the boundaries of documentary if you ask me, even with being marketed as spin-offs of the Walking with series. And, shouldn't we technically be including Primeval with them too? (fairly certain they had a cross over)

They were fun TV specials, but educational content does not a documentary make.

When Dinosaurs Roamed America is a more traditional documentary formula, with some CGI segments thrown in to keep audiences attention. It's a good program for what it is but it's age definitely shows. Unlike Planet Dinosaur they hired writers, so it's at the very least worth watching at some point if you're into dinosaurs, science aside.

Dinosaur Revolution/Dinotasia is the only title on this list besides the later Walking with sequels that is genuinely noteworthy for being more accurate than the others. It doesn't have the production value, writing, or effects wizardry of the Walking with titles but it still holds its own.

Clash of the Dinosaurs is unworthy of being on this list. If it's on here than everything from Jurassic Fight Club to Dinosaur Train should be included too. Those are more educational and clearly had more time and money put into their production. Clash of the Dinosaurs is and always was a low budget cash grab bordering on an asset flip! Don't waste your time watching it.

Dinosaur Planet is my vote. Partially nostalgia, but mostly because I feel like it holds up the best outside of simply being a documentary. Its effects aren't mind blowing, but they were impressive for the time and still suffice now. The educational segments are generalized and brief, keeping them more or less timeless. And most importantly I think it has the most solid writing of every option, even WWD.

Walking With Dinosaurs 3D should have been on this list. Frankly all of the Walking with titles should have been separated.

I have never seen PBS The Dinosaurs, but I think I have vague memories of Dinosaurs! With Christopher Reeves. Assuming it's the one I am thinking of, it was produced by the Canada film board and had a very WWD like formula where they posed it like a traditional nature documentary, and used stop motion dinosaurs.

PBS the dinosaurs is on YouTube. It's really fun. And didn't Nigel Marvin get eaten or almost eaten in that crossover.

[Brocc21]

And yeah you thinking of the right one.

[ITdactyl]

I'm a nut.. I love them all, despite their flaws.  The one I wanted to succeed most was Dinosaur Revolution - while I still liked the end result, it could have been better.  Inconsistent animation aside, I disliked the editing.

I wonder if there are members who watched the "Cretaceous Cut" of WWD 3D.  Did the removal of the voice acting make the movie better?

For the documentaries listed, the scenes that are still on my mind are:
- Allosaurs hunting diplodocus (WWD)
- Nigel Marvin watches a Therizinosaur fend off a Tarbosaurus (WWD special)
- Tyrannosaurus chases a Quetzalcoatlus (When Dinosaurs Roamed America)
- Torvosaurus vs the world (Dinosaur Revolution)

[Neosodon]

Another one worth mentioing is WWD: Prehistoric Planet 3D. I heard it's a remake of WWD 3D were they gave it a new sound track and a real narration to make it into a proper documentary. That's what I heard about it anyways. Supposedly better than the Cretaceous cut. Has anyone seen it?