Earth (2009)

I saw this movie for the first time in April 2009, when it came out in theaters in Italy, and I loved it . After some month I bought it in DVD and I re-saw it multiple times until now.The first time I saw it I was literally blown away because I never saw such wonderful images about our planet Earth (I was 18 years old at the time), and I am a great animal lover (of all types of animals). And the music is just wonderful, in every single scene, from the North Pole scenes to the ending sequence, and the narration of James Earl Jones is just awesome.Here the central roles are of three animal families; Polar bears, Humpback whales and African elephants. It follows in particular a mother polar bear that stays always close to their cubs while battling the harsh elements of the Arctic, a Humpback whale migrating with her baby in the search of warmer waters, and an African elephant with her baby that search, with her elephant group, the Okavango delta, full of fresh water and grass.And there are some spectacular scenes of various environments, and clips of various animals in their daily routines, like New-Zealand's birds of Paradise attracting females, or great white sharks attacking (in slow-motion) sea lions, and even dolphins and sail-fin fish attacking tiny fish.My favorite scene was the one with the male polar bear (the cub's dad) fighting with a walrus, eventually being wounded and scratched by the other walruses's tusks, and I also loved the baby mandarin duck sequence.This movie is also a summary of BBC's ''Planet Earth'', of the previous year, and that was narrated by David Attenborough. I also saw the featurette about the making of Earth, with the cameramen narrating the behind-the-scenes fatigue of getting perfect shots of our planet, and they made it.It's perfect for everybody to see and I never get tired of re-watching it almost once a year because, for me, it's one of the greatest documentary movies I ever seen in my life!

This film is a companion to the BBC TV series Planet Earth. This starts with the polar bears in the North. Spring approaches and the movie moves south with life returning. As the seasons advance, the movie goes further south.Like its TV companion Planet Earth, the cinematography is magnificent. The wildlife and the epic landscape have to be seen. It cannot be described in words. The blue water is so blue. The green leaves are so green. The battle for life is more intense than any work of fiction. The chases are more thrilling than most CGI car chases. Some of my earliest movie memories are National Geographic nature films and I hope some youngsters will have this movie in their memory banks.

The portrayal of nature was amazing, because its clips are taken from the wonderful 'Planet Earth'. It seemed not only the feature film version, but also a more global warming and conservation adjusted version. However, the storytelling seemed a bit loose and the transitions from story to story were a bit clumsy. The narration was a bit let down at first but as I kept watching it became difficult to take. It was so dull. I watched the US version/narration. At some places, it was difficult to understand the wording of the narrator, where I had to rewind and listen to it again to get a better hearing. I'm not complaining about David Attenborough not narrating, it's just that this narrator does a brilliant job at turning this visual masterpiece into a drab and unclear audio experience. Since, in this documentary the narration was absolutely essential to get the information through, this vague narration scored really poorly, in my opinion.

Did not Planet Earth as I do not have cable but I have to say it was stunning. I never saw any blood and some of the scenes were just breathtaking. Now as for the polar bear part,I understannd that animals die every day and I will admit seeing the father bear dying was sad but cut out the stuff about climate change dooming us all. I mean really,we have been here what not even 200,00 years and earth is 4.6 BILIION years old. Earth has been wamring in the past and has been hit many times by rocks the size of Teaxs and yet we are here and so is Earth. i would be more worried about a asteroid wiping most of Earth out then a less then 1 degree rise in temps over less then 100 years. Point is the Earth is not going anywhere,we might but things will go on like we were like the dinosaurs,here but unnoticed.