There are few things more reassuring than the calming smile of Anthony Bourdain parading unappetising truths while washing down dubious meats with beer, and on the other end of the spectrum is Sir David Attenborough seeing signs of hope for the environment in the bleakest of times.
Meaningful and television may appear contradictory most of the time, but an exception unfolds on May 23 when the limited series Prehistoric Planet premieres on Apple TV+, capturing surprising facts and facets about dinosaur life unfolding against the backdrop of the “environments of Cretaceous times”.
Presented by none other than the legendary British naturalist, executive produced by Jon Favreau and Mike Gunton (for BBC Studios Natural History Unit), while music is by Hans Zimmer, it’s one of those series that has been in the works for years, especially because of the cutting-edge CGI that has been employed to bring dinosaurs alive. It’s a series that can keep children and adults on the edge of the seat.
Dreadnoughtus shown in the second episode
In fact, watching the special preview, I couldn’t help but recall the legendary biologist’s brother, Richard Attenborough’s famous line from the 1993 Steven Spielberg movie, Jurassic Park — “Welcome to Jurassic Park!”
The series makes viewers travel back 66 million years to when majestic dinosaurs and extraordinary creatures roamed the lands, seas and skies.
That magical voice
The mighty tyrannosaurus rex, the awe-inspiring velociraptor and show-off sauropoda are all there and in a visual display that matches the standards of any top Hollywood film. There is a strict supervision on factual as well as visual details. Viewers are made aware that even dinosaurs had a checklist comprising activities like eat, sleep and procreate. We see pterosaur babies trying to make it across the ocean without becoming meal for predators and the carnotaurus trying to impress a mate.
Each of the five episodes focus on a different habitat and its occupants, taking viewers from coastal areas to deserts, freshwater environments to ice worlds and forests. There is also a fair amount of screening of the survival of the fittest. But the focus is never on the level of gore. Instead of showing a triceratops being shredded into pieces by a T-rex, we see blood dripping from leaves, telling viewers of what had happened. Animal babies do get eaten but only shown from a distance. After all, this is about documenting nature.
Narrator Sir David Attenborough attends Apple’s Prehistoric Planet London premiere
With each episode there is something to discover, like a T-rex wouldn’t mind feasting on a turtle but at the same time, the male cared for its children. A lot of the information shared has been only discovered in the last 10-odd years, like those involving the qianzhousaurus or the corythoraptor.
Yet, all of this — 95 different dinosaurs — has been recreated using CGI. And the narrator is as always at his best, injecting enthusiasm into every episode. Perhaps the high point comes in the final episode, showing a courtship while the background music is spot on. Attenborough switches between serious and playful notes easily, especially when it comes to a couple of tyrannosaurus “nuzzling”.
Even if the series doesn’t get a sequel, Prehistoric Planet will go down as a triumph, thanks to the level of research and the extraordinary lengths the CGI team has gone to recreate the creatures that once roamed freely on earth.
Looking at the bigger picture, the series reminds us how earth once looked like, contrasting with the fragile state it is in. Though we don’t get to see the man travelling around the planet (he had apparently travelled 1.5 million miles for his momentous 1979 series Life on Earth), yet every word from Attenborough is worth clinging on to. In case this series reels you in, don’t forget to watch his other recent series, A Perfect Planet, which was filmed in 31 countries over four years.
Agreed that CGI is at its best and so is the background music, but the narrator’s voice is the best part of the series. It’s Sir David Attenborough, the voice of sanity. Each time you hear him speak, you will be reminded of what he had once said: “I eschew adjectives and metaphors and high-flown language and just try and produce the facts that are required to make sense of the pictures.”
Prehistoric Planet will stream on Apple TV+ starting May 23
