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National Geographic: Sea Monsters - A Prehistoric Adventure
Other // Unrated // August 11, 2009
List Price: $19.97 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Film:
What happens when you strip away the potency of three-dimensional rendering from an IMAX presentation geared towards a massive-scaled, awe-inspiring experience? The result is a lot of bold, obvious computer-generated imagery, blandly presented with encyclopedia-style content coming from the speakers. That's what results from watching Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey, a National Geographic RealD production, which fails to translate the actual "content" to the home video spectrum.
Sea Monsters covers many of the interesting prehistoric beasts that dominated the sea, from long-necked ancestor (Styxosaurus) of the fabled Loch Ness monster and the focused-upon Dolichorhynchops to the giant squids of lore. They introduce computer-generated renderings of each creature, matched with music that accompanies either their viciousness or passivity, and let the grand scale of the construction speak louder than the actual content. Between them, a few dramatizations of excavations are also included, showing the extent of how sizable certain fossils stretched at the sites. Each of the excavation sequences are stiff, but work towards their purpose: providing talking heads around partially unearthed fossils in exotic locales.
Unfortunately, every ounce of grand scale about the underwater dramatizations, which are of only passable quality on their own, loses their luster when not splayed on the giant screen. Scenes where narrator Liev Schreiber sticks to textual information at least give us a decent description-to-visualization to match what he's revealing to us; however, when there's a dramatization of, say, one of the creatures losing their mother in an emotional push on the audience, the grandeur is simply lost outside of the theater experience. It also doesn't help that many sequences are repeated within the 40-minute timeframe, taking away bits of intrigue intermittently. Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey is a condensed way to learn about the basics of several of history's not-so-mythical monstrosities that populated the waters of the world, but the impact of their size -- the real purpose behind watching this production -- can't be matched to their presence in IMAX.
Here's a list of the creatures featured in Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey:
The DVD:
Note: FOUR pairs of 3-D glasses are made available with SSea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey
Video and Audio:
At least both two-dimensional and three-dimensional versions on this presentation of Sea Monsters are included, because the 3D rendering doesn't cut th emustard. Scenes that looked like they should have been at night, after switching back and forth, actually looked like they occur during the day, while the consistent red and blue coloring of the glasses mask much of the three-dimensional goodness. A few sequences leap out - the neck of a Styxosaurus, floating Dolichorhynchops, and a mediocre scene with a T-rax - but most of them aren't paired well against the backdrop. The two-dimensional presentation is serviceable and clean, though it does have some digital grain present in many sequences.
Audio comes in English 5.1, 2.0 and Spanish 5.1 tracks. The sound effects balance well enough against Live Schreiber's narration, while Peter Gabriel's musical accompaniment becomes the primary source of surround elements with the design. It's not demo-worthy, but it'll serve the purpose of one screening - if needed.
Special Features:
At least we've got a relatively interesting, dense Interactive Timeline which give factoids about each of the prehistoric periods - Triassic Jurassic, etc - though it's the same sort of material that can be found of National Geographic's website.
Final Thoughts:
Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey might be worth seeing once in the seat of an IMAX theater, but watching it at home is a chore of an experience that simply doesn't translate. Even if the 3-D rendering wasn't lackluster, as it is here, this would still be an experience best Skipped.
Thomas Spurlin, Staff Reviewer -- DVDTalk Reviews | Personal Blog/Site
 |
Sea Monsters covers many of the interesting prehistoric beasts that dominated the sea, from long-necked ancestor (Styxosaurus) of the fabled Loch Ness monster and the focused-upon Dolichorhynchops to the giant squids of lore. They introduce computer-generated renderings of each creature, matched with music that accompanies either their viciousness or passivity, and let the grand scale of the construction speak louder than the actual content. Between them, a few dramatizations of excavations are also included, showing the extent of how sizable certain fossils stretched at the sites. Each of the excavation sequences are stiff, but work towards their purpose: providing talking heads around partially unearthed fossils in exotic locales.
Unfortunately, every ounce of grand scale about the underwater dramatizations, which are of only passable quality on their own, loses their luster when not splayed on the giant screen. Scenes where narrator Liev Schreiber sticks to textual information at least give us a decent description-to-visualization to match what he's revealing to us; however, when there's a dramatization of, say, one of the creatures losing their mother in an emotional push on the audience, the grandeur is simply lost outside of the theater experience. It also doesn't help that many sequences are repeated within the 40-minute timeframe, taking away bits of intrigue intermittently. Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey is a condensed way to learn about the basics of several of history's not-so-mythical monstrosities that populated the waters of the world, but the impact of their size -- the real purpose behind watching this production -- can't be matched to their presence in IMAX.
| Dolichorhynchops Cretoxyrhina Henodus Hesperornis Platecarpus | Protostega Styxosaurus Tusoteuthis Tylosaurus Xiphactinus |
The DVD:
 |  |
Note: FOUR pairs of 3-D glasses are made available with SSea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey
Video and Audio:
At least both two-dimensional and three-dimensional versions on this presentation of Sea Monsters are included, because the 3D rendering doesn't cut th emustard. Scenes that looked like they should have been at night, after switching back and forth, actually looked like they occur during the day, while the consistent red and blue coloring of the glasses mask much of the three-dimensional goodness. A few sequences leap out - the neck of a Styxosaurus, floating Dolichorhynchops, and a mediocre scene with a T-rax - but most of them aren't paired well against the backdrop. The two-dimensional presentation is serviceable and clean, though it does have some digital grain present in many sequences.
Audio comes in English 5.1, 2.0 and Spanish 5.1 tracks. The sound effects balance well enough against Live Schreiber's narration, while Peter Gabriel's musical accompaniment becomes the primary source of surround elements with the design. It's not demo-worthy, but it'll serve the purpose of one screening - if needed.
Special Features:
At least we've got a relatively interesting, dense Interactive Timeline which give factoids about each of the prehistoric periods - Triassic Jurassic, etc - though it's the same sort of material that can be found of National Geographic's website.
Final Thoughts:
Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey might be worth seeing once in the seat of an IMAX theater, but watching it at home is a chore of an experience that simply doesn't translate. Even if the 3-D rendering wasn't lackluster, as it is here, this would still be an experience best Skipped.
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