THE REMARKABLE STORY OF THREE FAMILIES AND THEIR AMAZING JOURNEY ACROSS THE PLANET WE ALL CALL HOME.

The BBC documentary series Planet Earth received much attention and this is the feature version, telling the story of three families (polar bears, elephants and humpback whales) and their day-to-day struggle in very different places of our planet. The story of the polar bears bookends the film, leaving us with a heartbreaking illustration of the dangers of climate change and a direct appeal to the audience for action before it’s too late to save this miraculous planet. The movie has less of a profound impact than the full TV series, but there’s plenty of amazing visuals here as we drop by snowy landscapes, vast oceans, imposing mountains, thick rainforests and dusty savannas. The music is a bit intrusive at times, though.

2007-U.S.-Britain-Germany. 96 min. Color. Produced by Sophokles Tasioulis, Alix Tidmarsh. Directed by Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield. Music: George Fenton.

Trivia: The U.S. version is narrated by James Earl Jones; the British version by Patrick Stewart; and the Japanese version by Ken Watanabe.

Last word: “I think the success of ‘The Blue Planet’ and ‘Planet Earth’ is, yes to a certain extent, it is cinematic and certainly the vision was to do that but that isn’t just technology. What makes it cinematic is the whole style, the editing, the pace of the programme, the whole approach. One of the things about ‘Planet Earth’ is it had half the number of cuts of the average 50-minute film at that time. It had around 250 cuts in a 50-minute show. Many shows have 700 plus and I remember people saying, ‘do you think it’s going to be too slow for BBC1?’ and I thought if every shot is a Rembrandt and you have real, real confidence in your images then it will work and that is why it felt epic but it’s not just the technology. The technology tail should not wag the dog.” (Fothergill, How Did They Do It?)

IMDb