Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3051 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-08-07
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 400 minutes

Synopsis
Stunning documentary following scientists in various locations around the world - at the bottom of the ocean, in an active volcano, up the Himalayas etc - as they explain the story of the Earth.

From The Studio
Heralding the new age of digital television, this masterful BBC documentary was one of the first major programmes to usher in the new era, back in 1998. Aubrey Manning takes viewers on a voyage of discovery across our very own planet, and the wonders within. Earth Story unravels the secrets of our planet and brings it alive. The series took three years to make, cost £3million and was filmed all over the world, from the craters of active volcanoes to the ocean floor. Where the cameras could not go, in both time and space, the latest animation techniques take over. Combining live-action footage with state-of-the-art computer graphics which enable us to travel back and forwards through time, this is a fantastic journey of scientific discovery and a comprehensive history of life--in all its forms--on the planet.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding
This to me is the pinnacle of modern (sic!) scientific television documentary making. It is entirely non-polemical, reasoned, well argued and brilliantly presented by Aubrey Manning. No gimmicks or tawdry special effects. Just calmly presented facts. But the sheer joy and excitement shines through.

I found this so enlightening in 1998, when first broadcast, watched it's repeat a few years later, badgered the OU to release it on DVD and following it's release have since watched my DVD version innumerable times.

The Natural History Museum in London needs to study this carefully to work out how to tell this amazing, awe inspiring story about this glorious planet on which we live. Horrifyingly the NHM does not even sell this DVD!

In years to come all we will need are supplements relating the latest discoveries and resultant theories or modifications to theories here presented.

A must have for all science lovers - should be 6 stars!
I was enthralled by this series when it was originally broadcast on TV. I waited years for it to come out on DVD, putting up with an increasingly fuzzy VHS home recording, even writing to the BBC to implore them to publish it. So imagine how pleased I was when it was eventually released on DVD!

Aubrey Manning's velvet broadcasting style takes the viewer on a deceptively deep and fascinating journey into one of the great mystery areas of science - the nature, composition, origins and working mechanisms of our home planet. Seemingly inaccessible principles are covered effortlessly, principles which are difficult to find anywhere except in the most specialist text books. The mechanics of plate tectonics, subduction and ocean floor spreading, mantle convection, mountain root drop, rebound and flow away, all are explained clearly in a relaxed, informative and entertaining style. How else would we learn so delightfully of the large scale fluid behaviour of seemingly-solid rock, the long term carbon cycle, the role of water in maintaining the dynamic nature of the Earth's deep interior, the unique partnership between life, water and geology which has given us the one habitable world we know of.

You know this stuff is good for expanding your mind, but it's so nice and easy and great to watch. It's like eating bran that tastes of chocolate, spinach that tastes of lemon sorbet, exercising that feels like a caress.

A truly great documentary series, a must have for all science lovers. I would award 6 stars out of 5 if I could!

Wonder of the World
I gave up biology and chemistry in my fourteenth year. I carried on with physics but failed the `O' level. I did well in geography, but my interests at school were more geared towards arts and languages. At university, I did some modules on the philosophy of science and on geology. And I have always had an intuitive regard for landscape history, in which geology is a prime ingredient. In addition, from childhood days I have pondered on the creation of the universe and of the Earth.

Why am I telling you this? Because I think it is important to know where I am coming from in order to appreciate the review that follows, to judge whether I am being too naïve. I do not have a detailed scientific background to comment on the veracity or otherwise of the theories proposed in this series. On a number of occasions, it seemed to me that supposed causal links relying on chemistry and physical forces were not described in enough detail for me to grasp in any depth. But on a general level, the series met my intellectual expectations.

I learned a lot; no, I learned a hell of a lot! I learned just how fragile our life is on this planet, how it could quite easily be wiped out by some cosmic event or by an eruption of one of those huge concentrations of magma that exist under, say Iceland or Yellowstone Park. I also learned how much our evolutionary development has been subject to so many chance conjunctions or oppositions of factors. But I guess the real lesson learned is the one which its presenter and `guru' expresses at the end of his journey, namely how the relationship between life itself and the planet that we occupy has ensured the continuing presence of living organisms, for example in keeping the planet cool enough for evolution to do its work.

The presenter is Aubrey Manning, Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Edinburgh, and what a marvellously engaging character he proves to be. Not at all patronising or with his head in the clouds, he has a wonderful tendency to appear as if he is taking you by the hand and slowly and surely demonstrating to you, in the company of other learned colleagues outside his own area of study, the fascinating insights to be gleaned from the Earth's story. Flying all over the world, reporting from Greenland, South Africa, Australia of the mid-Atlantic ridge, his well-intoned words are accompanied by superb photography and stirring music (composed by Deborah Mollison).

The series was originally broadcast in 1998. Whilst the final two episodes raise the spectre of carbon dioxide levels and climate change, there is no direct link made with present worries about global warming. Indeed, the arguments used might lead one to conclude that the vast differences in the planet's temperature merely show present high levels to be part of a natural cycle. But this series is a history covering huge and unimaginable time-spans, and is not really concerned with the minute timescale - a mere 250 years - that has seen the onset of the industrial revolution to today. It would have been interesting to have had maybe some kind of DVD extra in which Aubrey Manning might expand on this issue. Perusing entries on Google indicates that his concerns are more urgent than may have previously been the case.

Each of the eight episodes was produced and/or directed by a different person, so whereas there is an overarching conception throughout the series, there are noticeable differences between each programme. Some are better than others. But overall I was extremely impressed with this marvellous series. One of my friends, who is a senior lecturer in geology, also rates it highly. You will too.