BBC - Planet Earth

Planet Earth (BBC - Complete Series)

Movies : Documentary : DVD Rip : English
The programmes were made over five years by producer Alastair Fothergill and his team, who were responsible for the successful The Blue Planet (2001). The narrator, David Attenborough, worked on them while also embarking on the last in his 'Life' series, Life in Cold Blood. The series' music is composed by George Fenton. Filming involved visiting 62 countries and 204 different locations. Planet Earth had a production budget of around £13 million or $25 million.
There are 11 episodes. The first gives a general overview of the series, by describing each of the environments that are looked at in more detail in later programmes. However, the method used to communicate this — a 'journey' from one end of the Earth to the other — serves to demonstrate the rich variation that exists on the planet as a whole.
Each of the remaining 10 episodes focuses on one of the Earth's natural habitats and examines its indigenous features, together with the breadth of fauna found there. Several animals and locations are shown that have hitherto never been filmed, using innovative camera technology.
Previously unseen animal behaviour includes: wolves chasing caribou observed from above; snow leopards pursuing markhor in the Himalayas; grizzly bear cubs leaving their den for the first time; crab-eating Macaques that swim underwater; and over a hundred sailfish hunting en masse. CGI is used for some transitional sequences.
Some sequences, particularly in episodes 6–11, are notable for their potentially disturbing content. Examples include a lone elephant being brought down by lions and a polar bear unsuccessfully attacking a walrus colony and subsequently being overcome by hunger, exhaustion and injury. Fothergill confirmed that he asked BBC presentation for an appropriate warning before transmission in such cases - 'The thing is, we have to tread a fine line between showing nature as it really is and not offending the sensibilities of viewers. I think it's an enormous mistake to try and sanitise nature, but I can assure you that there's plenty of footage that we shan't be showing as the natural world is far to barbaric for western stomachs.'
Apart from David Attenborough's closing narration, the series rarely makes explicit reference to the world's environmental problems. Attenborough indicated that this was intentional - 'This new series is more a celebration of our planet, not a lament about the state of it. It shows what is still there. In some areas there is no doubt that we are doing damage to our world but, at the same time, there is a vast amount of uncharted and untouched wilderness.'
However, the subject of species conservation and man's effect on the world's ecosystems is addressed in the companion series, Planet Earth: The Future.
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