The Life of Mammals, Vol. 1-4
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Life of MammalsBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 500 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Warner
Movie Reviews of The Life of Mammals, Vol. 1-4
Movie Review: In the same Class as humans
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the 7th entry in the David Attenborough Life series following The Life of Birds. The groundbreaking first series Life on Earth was based on evolution and started with bacteria making its way up to modern humans over the course of 13 episodes. The Living Planet was 12 episodes long and dealt mainly with adaptation over a wide range of environments that also incorporated more Earth science along with the life science in terms of geology and environments. The Trials of Life was 12 episodes long and all about animal behaviour. Life in the freezer was 6 episodes long and specialized on the Antarctic. The Private life of Plants was another 6 episode series and focused entirely on botany. The Life of Birds was 10 episodes long and is one of the best documentaries about birds ever made.
With Life in the Freezer and The Private Life of Plants Attenborough made a new move to specialize instead of following the 12-13 episode discipline that started with Clark's Civilisations and Bronowski's The Ascent of Man and birthed other great series like Sagan's Cosmos. Attenborough, after deciding to detach from the shorter episode format of Freezer and Plants (an such as was in previous non-life series such as The Tribal Eye, The First Eden and Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives) and after going for a higher number of 10 episodes instead of 6 for a specialized theme on birds, goes for mammals for what will be the last of his longer running shows in the Life series as he would afterwards cut back considerably for the remaining ones.
Apart from the extremes of Life in the Freezer, Mammals maybe his most dangerous production. Skunks spray. Grizzly bears are hungry. Big cats are filmed in close-up hunting, not to mention that Attenborough does all this at 76 years of age. The series requires that they fly to and visit multiple places around the world. Because mammals are warm-blooded the producers make full use of the latest night vision and heat sensitive technology. Attenborough looks at why mammals have evolved and why the mammalian design works. He covers insect hunting mammals and plant predators, herbivores, before turning to rodents and how they chisel their food. Then we get carnivores meat eating and the opportunistic feeders that take advantage to also eat plants, the omnivores. Mammals have also evolved to return back to the water so a large part of the series is marine based. Then we turn to the trees for the final few episodes concentrating on primates and their social structures before finally veering to man with special emphases on the extinction of other civilisations and why we must conserve the diversity of life.
Overall this is some of the best of Attenborough's incredible life series. Some of the most memorable scenes are whale mating and the indigenous bushmen of the Kalahari Desert going on a long endurance hunt, not to mention the sheer scope of the social behaviour of primates that is investigated. This is an utterly fantastic and unbeatable view of mammals. Attenborough does it yet again.
Summary of The Life of Mammals, Vol. 1-4
In ten parts, the award-winning David Attenborough (2002 Emmy winner for The Blue Planet: Seas of Life; The Life of Birds) introduces us to the most diverse group of animals ever to live on Earth, from the smallest - the two-inch pygmy shrew, to the largest - the blue whale; from the slowest - the sloth, to the swiftest - the cheetah; from the least attractive - the naked mole rat, to the most irresistible - a human baby. The Life of Mammals is the story of 4,000 species that have outlived the dinosaurs and conquered the farthest places on earth. With bodies kept warm by thick coats of fur and their developing young protected and nourished within their bodies, they have managed to colonize every part of the globe, dry or wet, hot or cold. Their adaptations for finding food have also had a profound effect on the way they move, socialize, mate and breed.Documentary DVD Video
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