Best/Worst Documentaries

[Brontozaurus]

Exactly what is says on the tin. What are the best and/or worst dinosaur documentaries?

Even though it's outdated in many aspects, I still think Walking with Dinosaurs is one of the best. It pioneered (for better or for worse) CGI dinosaurs on TV, and approaching the subject as a nature documentary that just happened to be about dinosaurs was a good approach. Planet Dinosaur, though more up-to-date, wasn't quite as good, though the fact that it showed the evidence for most of its reconstructions is a major plus in its favour.

There are also two old ones I'd consider for title of Best Dinosaur Doco Ever. The first is Dinosaur! (with Christopher Reeve). I only watched it recently and I was quite impressed. The other one is a four-part series simply called The Dinosaurs, made by PBS in the early 90s. This was before CGI dinosaurs ruled the doco world, so most of it is talking heads and interesting science stuff. By far my favourite moment in it (and by far the one of the most influential moments in my early childhood) was when John Ostrom revealed Deinonychus. First he pulled out a drawer containing a cast of the hand. After talking about a giant claw they found at the scene, he pulls out another drawer, with its foot and raised toe claw. I can't really express how much this impressed Deinonychus on my little mind back then.

For worst...Jurassic Fight Club. By a huge margin. I hate 'documentaries' that are basically 'Let's put two animals together and make them kill each other', especially when this happens in dinosaur documentaries because it's the approach that nearly all modern cable TV dinosaur docos take. Nature may be red in tooth and claw, but I don't think that it is (or ever was) quite this violent.

Also, the Spinosaurus episode of Monsters Resurrected, because it's not so much a doco and more SUPER BESTEST GIANT SPINOSAURUS MURDERS EVERYTHING IN CRETACEOUS AFRICA!!!!!!!!!1!!!! THE MOVIE!!!

[Himmapaan]

I agree with pretty much all you've said. Only I don't think I've seen The Dinosaurs; at least I can't seem to recall it. I still haven't seen Dinosaur! in full, but have seen clips of it and liked them very much.

Planet Dinosaur had a number of highly commendable things, chief among which was the showing of the fossil evidence, as you mentioned; but it didn't quite make the same impression or indeed move me as Walking with Dinosaurs did.

[DinoFan45]

I'm going to agree with the WWD, but as a side note, the extras, such as the sea monster special, and the Nigel Marvin extras, helped bring some pretty obscure names into the limelight.

Don't know what's the worst. For the Jurassic fight club, just for something I've seen, people tend to forget the fact that the first 45-50 minutes of the show was the hard evidence they had for the battle.

[SBell]

I don't think there would be a lot of argument about the Walking with series overall as best.

Unfortunately, many of the later ones show a lot more movie influence--a lot of focus on violent battles, and worse, the loud, quick-cut, repeat-scene, zoom-focus style that is especially prevalent in Discovery-based documentaries (and many National Geographic ones too). It's like they worry that if it's not enough like a Bayformers movie (even before those came out) people will lose interest.

Picking a worst, after the Fight Club stupidity (cool info and reconstructions or not, the purpose is so insulting and distasteful it pretty much negates the whole show, just like the show that focuses on modern animals in the same context).  Most recent documentaries have at least some merit or interesting parts.  For example, When Dinosaurs Roamed America was decent, but they couldn't get the pronunciation of Desmatosuchus correct? That was just annoying (it kept being called Dem-AHST-o-suchus).

[Bokisaurus]

I pretty much still think that the WWD series is the best. The way it was presented, was just stunning for me, I love the documentary style with no humans
Decade later, and after watching it so many times, I can still sit and watch it again like its new!

Worst for me is Sea Rex! OMG, that must be the most annoying one I have ever seen! And the animations were so limited and bad! I had to return the Disc right away for an exchange!

[Takama]

Does anyone recommend (or not recomend) Nat-Geos Super Croc?

[CityRaptor]

It's no Walking with Dinosaurs, but it is pretty solid documentary.

As for worst:
How about "Mammals vs. Dinos", which should rather be called Mesozoic Mammals. So boring and focused on mammals, not enough dinosaurs to even justify the title...

Also not sure how it is called in the original "Urzeitkrieger", the one where the interviews with the paleontologists were take out of context.  Also  portrays Sauropods as idiots with terrible senses in need of a second brain. And that one was made just recently!

[Sharptooth]

Regarding "true" documentaries, i'd say the best are:

- "Il Pianeta dei Dinosauri" (basically the ONLY dino-doc made in Italy, hosted by no one other than Piero Angela and his son; really good stuff back in '93 and still very good today, even if some things turned out to be quite inaccurate)
- "Dinosaurs" hosted by Walter Cronkite" (my first dino-doc... Simply AWESOME, i love the animatronics they used, especially the green, orange-spotted Rex  )
- "PBS' Dinosaurs" (those cartoons... Those cartoons!!)

About "speculative docs/dino fiction" my choices are:

- WWD & spin-offs (including the more fantasy stuff like "Prehistoric Park", even if Nigel Marven basically ripped off "Il Pianeta dei Dinosauri")
- When dinosaurs roamed America
- Sea Monsters 3D
- March of the Dinosaurs
- Jurassic Fight Club (i cringed many, many times when watching it, but hey, some fights were pretty cool and Dino George is a nice guy, so i don't feel to completely bash it)
- DR (best T.rex since JP?)

And now for the worst, well... I'd say clash of the dinosaurs, monster resurrected, that infamous piece of crap also known as "Mammals vs Dinosaurs", parts of JFC and the really lame "Planet Dinosaur" (what have you done, BBC? What the heck you've done??), also renamed (by me) "the sloppy-animated dinosaur show".  *yuck*

[SBell]

Regarding "true" documentaries, i'd say the best are:

- "Il Pianeta dei Dinosauri" (basically the ONLY dino-doc made in Italy, hosted by no one other than Piero Angela and his son; really good stuff back in '93 and still very good today, even if some things turned out to be quite inaccurate)
- "Dinosaurs" hosted by Walter Cronkite" (my first dino-doc... Simply AWESOME, i love the animatronics they used, especially the green, orange-spotted Rex  )
- "PBS' Dinosaurs" (those cartoons... Those cartoons!!)

About "speculative docs/dino fiction" my choices are:

- WWD & spin-offs (including the more fantasy stuff like "Prehistoric Park", even if Nigel Marven basically ripped off "Il Pianeta dei Dinosauri")
- When dinosaurs roamed America
- Sea Monsters 3D
- March of the Dinosaurs
- Jurassic Fight Club (i cringed many, many times when watching it, but hey, some fights were pretty cool and Dino George is a nice guy, so i don't feel to completely bash it)
- DR (best T.rex since JP?)

And now for the worst, well... I'd say clash of the dinosaurs, monster resurrected, that infamous piece of crap also known as "Mammals vs Dinosaurs", parts of JFC and the really lame "Planet Dinosaur" (what have you done, BBC? What the heck you've done??), also renamed (by me) "the sloppy-animated dinosaur show".  *yuck*

I thought that, from a fact point of view, Planet Dinosaur was superior to DR. As for the T.rex in it--why was the male larger?  At this point it's almost a given that females were larger and more robust.

[Gwangi]

I would have to say "Planet Dinosaur" (BBC) is one of my favorites where new documentaries are concerned. Good information and I don't see how the animation was poor at all. Now "Dinosaur Planet" (Discovery) on the other hand was not so good, though I did like a couple of the stories. I would caution confusing the two. WWD of course gets as does "When Dinosaurs Roamed America".
Personally however I prefer older documentaries with talking heads, paleontologists digging up bones and pictures of dinosaurs. I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Paleoworld series, I've watched nearly every episode and most of them were pretty good at the time. Others that need mention would be the Walter Cronkite series and the Christopher Reeve's "Dinosaur!". That last one might actually be my all time favorite due to nostalgia.

If someone hasn't yet seen "Dinosaur!" you should and you can thanks to Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYe3r-wH_1s&list=FLVx30feVbHHzQPEE7aR5vaw&index=75&feature=plpp_video

[Gryphoceratops]

I actually think Jurassic Fight Club is one of the better ones out there.  Yes actually nature can be that brutal sometimes if not more brutal.  Its a lot of speculation but I think that should be realized upon watching it for a few minutes.  A lot of people like to knock this show but really overall it's good qualities outweigh the bad. 

WWD is good, Chased by dinosaurs and Prehistoric Park with Nigel Marvin are also really cool.  I like how they are fiction yet still  remain grounded when it comes to scientific accuracy and guesswork. 

Planet Dinosaur is good except for that one HUGE mistake they made of portraying sinornithosaurus as venomous.  tsk tsk. 

As for worst

The Monsters Resurrected are all pretty bad. 

The worst show series that I can think of off the top of my head is probably Clash of the Dinosaurs.  They are terrible for taking good scientists they worked with for the show out of context, sacrificing education for the sake of seeming "more interesting".  Plus they just recycled the same clips of the dinosaurs themselves over and over again for each episode pretty much. 

[Sharptooth]

I thought that, from a fact point of view, Planet Dinosaur was superior to DR. As for the T.rex in it--why was the male larger?  At this point it's almost a given that females were larger and more robust.

From an educational point of view i agree, but it was the CG that killed PD for me... WWD was made in '99 yet its CG is still far superior to those wooden sauropods or that stiff, shrink-wrapped Carcharodontosaurus; basically it looked like an old pc game (not that it's bad per se but, c'mon, from BBC i expected much more!).

As far as i know not all paleontologists believe in the robust morphotype = female Rexes equation... Anyway, i guess Krentz enhanced the size of the males for dramatic purposes.

[SBell]

I thought that, from a fact point of view, Planet Dinosaur was superior to DR. As for the T.rex in it--why was the male larger?  At this point it's almost a given that females were larger and more robust.

From an educational point of view i agree, but it was the CG that killed PD for me... WWD was made in '99 yet its CG is still far superior to those wooden sauropods or that stiff, shrink-wrapped Carcharodontosaurus; basically it looked like an old pc game (not that it's bad per se but, c'mon, from BBC i expected much more!).

As far as i know not all paleontologists believe in the robust morphotype = female Rexes equation... Anyway, i guess Krentz enhanced the size of the males for dramatic purposes.

The robust vs. gracile thing is pretty much universal among scientists that understand it by now--not just the size difference, but things like medullary bone (calcium deposits meant to provide for eggs) found so far only on robust T.rex seem to point more definitively that way (but we dimorphic primates have a very tough time identifying with larger females than males, so once again story-telling trumps science).

[ZoPteryx]

My most favorite to least favorite:

-WWD: Stunning graphics, lifelike reconstructed behaviors, realistic scenery, and a nice organized layout
-WWB: Same as WWD
-Planet Dinosaur: Very good graphics and info, nice species choice
-Chased by Dinosaurs & Sea Monsters: nice spin on WWD
-WWM/BTD: All the good points of the other WW docs, but I didn't like the evolution sequences or the numerous "facts" the narrator spoke of
-Dinosaur Revolution: would have ranked higher, but Discovery butchered it
-Prehistoric Park: Not very realistic in my opinion, but fun
-NatGeo Sea Monsters: nice fresh species and good graphics
-When Dinosaurs Roamed America: good despite some flaws
-Dinosaur Planet: I didn't like the narration, but the species were interesting I think the feathered dinos were some of the first ever on screen!
-Various NatGeo docs (Super Croc, Dinos Unearthed, Bizarre Dinos, etc): relatively poor and often inaccurate grpahics, but some (Sky Monsters) were pretty good, others were bad
-Various Discovery Mini Series (Prehistoric America, Monsters Resurrected, Jurassic Fight Club, Clash of the Dinosaurs): A few were watchable, others (Clash of the Dinosaurs) were terrible for all the reasons others have said

[Brontozaurus]

I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Paleoworld series, I've watched nearly every episode and most of them were pretty good at the time.

I watched an episode of that. It was alright, though it's one of the few docos that I think needed some CGI or other animations, since what happened in the episode I saw was that the cameraman took some footage of skeletons and had fun in the editing suite.

When Dinosaurs Ruled is another doco that, while not the worst, gets my award for Worst Narration. I can see why they'd get Jeff Goldblum to narrate a dinosaur documentary, but he doesn't work very well as a narrator, especially since he seemed to be doing an impression of Ian Malcolm on morphine throughout the show.

There's one really obscure doco that I would nominate not only for best, but also for weirdest. Said doco is 'Once Upon Australia', essentially the stop-motion equivalent of WWD. What was weird about it is that it was even more silly in some parts than DR. A segment about Antarctica freezing over features a mouse freezing solid and its tail snapping off. Also the doco ends with the extinction of humanity and a rodent homaging the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sadly it does not survive complete on the internet aside from a few clips, such as this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vLhjkZaZpw

[Gwangi]

When Dinosaurs Ruled is another doco that, while not the worst, gets my award for Worst Narration. I can see why they'd get Jeff Goldblum to narrate a dinosaur documentary, but he doesn't work very well as a narrator, especially since he seemed to be doing an impression of Ian Malcolm on morphine throughout the show.

Jeff Goldblum? The only one I've seen was narrated by John Goodman. As for Paleoworld, they are lacking in the graphics department but being an older show I think it is understandable. There are some with CGI but it is pretty terrible.

[postsaurischian]

Best ~ BBC's Planet Dinosaur (I love the Microraptor sequences.)

Dinosaur Revolution could have been a candidate, but I dislike the Hollywood style stories and the animations' quality differs too much throughout the episodes. Some are really bad.
The talking heads are only there for grandstanding.
Not to mention that the production of the DVD is disastrous and done without any love for the product.
But ....... I do like the T. rex episode. I wonder why ...  !

Worst ~ I don't know. I keep away from them .

[Himmapaan]

When Dinosaurs Ruled is another doco that, while not the worst, gets my award for Worst Narration. I can see why they'd get Jeff Goldblum to narrate a dinosaur documentary, but he doesn't work very well as a narrator, especially since he seemed to be doing an impression of Ian Malcolm on morphine throughout the show.

Agreed there, too. I found myself falling asleep watching that, which was a little bewildering.

Best ~ BBC's Planet Dinosaur (I love the Microraptor sequences.)

The feathered dinosaurs were some of the best things in that series (even though the wing feathers grew from the wrong finger). Their animation was often more successful than some of the much heftier creatures, too.

[Takama]

I would have to say "Planet Dinosaur" (BBC) is one of my favorites where new documentaries are concerned. Good information and I don't see how the animation was poor at all. Now "Dinosaur Planet" (Discovery) on the other hand was not so good, though I did like a couple of the stories. I would caution confusing the two. WWD of course gets as does "When Dinosaurs Roamed America".
Personally however I prefer older documentaries with talking heads, paleontologists digging up bones and pictures of dinosaurs. I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Paleoworld series, I've watched nearly every episode and most of them were pretty good at the time. Others that need mention would be the Walter Cronkite series and the Christopher Reeve's "Dinosaur!". That last one might actually be my all time favorite due to nostalgia.

If someone hasn't yet seen "Dinosaur!" you should and you can thanks to Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYe3r-wH_1s&list=FLVx30feVbHHzQPEE7aR5vaw&index=75&feature=plpp_video

I loved this show as a kid.

and now i still do.

For some reason, i like those Clymation dinosaurs better then todays CGI-a-saurs. mybe its the fact that they actaully look REAL.

[Gwangi]

Takama, I agree with you on those stop motion dinosaurs. I love stop motion and even though those dinosaurs look less real in one sense they look more real in the fact that they actually are real. I would love to see a well done stop motion dinosaur movie but I don't think that will happen. The CGI scenes in Jurassic Park were originally supposed to be stop motion.