Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12636 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-25
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 90 minutes

Special Features
Extras- Scene specific audio commentaries from directors Alastair Fothergill and Andy Byatt
'The Making Of Deep Blue': a behind the scenes documentary (50 mins)
Isolated music and effects score
Interview With composer George Fenton
Stills gallery
Educational interactive DVD-Rom content

Synopsis
Filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit this documentary features the oceans and its indigenous life from around two hundred different locations world-wide. Filmed at depths of up to five thousand metres using a submersible, this is the crew that produced THE BLUE PLANET series.

Customer Reviews

A shorter, inferior version of The Blue Planet.
Despite its lovely packaging, Deep Blue is merely a shorter, inferior version of The Blue Planet. If you've already got The Blue Planet, you have no reason to get this product whatsoever.

this is not a documentary and not for young children
I have the 4-disc set of the Blue Planet which I love and bought after reading the commentary here. Funny thing, although I love the series, I find myself wanting to buy or watch Deep Blue again. Most (probably all) of the footage is from the series but I find I like the juxtapositions of the images and the sparseness of commentary better here. In all fairness, the curiousity about what I was looking at spurred my buying Blue Planet which does a fine job of explaining the details but watching this film is more of an emotional experience. It is a paean to the oceans and their denizens in all their splendor, otherness and even frightfulness. I came away with a strong desire to engage myself more fully in supporting measures to protect this treasure.

Caveat for parents of young and/or sensitive children: my 7 year old daughter, who loves Willy, was appalled by the scenes of killer whales snatching baby sea lions from the beach and drowning a baby grey whale while its mother helplessly hovered near. She was in tears, said she HATED the whales now and makes me skip that part. You will need to able to explain carnivores and their place in the world.

Favorite scene? Seeing the animals that depend on herring all together in a gorgeous multi-textured underwater shot (a good argument for over-priced large screen TVs if ever there was one): I was blown away!
See it for yourself.

Unsatisfying
This is a beautifully filmed and scored documentary with a lyrical - if exiguous - commentary. I found it ultimately frustrating, however, and even a little dull, because of the lack of information. For each scene I found myself wondering where I was, what creatures I was seeing, what time of year it was, why were they behaving as shown and a score of other questions.

Seeing this has inspired me to get David Attenborough's documentaries for my children; they are as well or better filmed and give you far more information.