The Life of Mammals (2002)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Platypus; Elephants; Big Cats Featurette-Video To Music Sequence Notes-Fact Files Scene Selection Anim & Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Cave Bats; Grizzly Bears; Canopies Gallery-Photo Audio-Only Track-Original Score (7) Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	500:56 (Case: 550)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL Multi Disc Set (4)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	David Attenborough
Case	Gatefold
RPI	$99.95	Music	Dan Jones Ben Salisbury

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Eastwards With Attenborough, The Tribal Eye, Life On Earth, The Living Planet, The Trials Of Life, Life In The Freezer, The Private Life Of Plants, Attenborough In Paradise, The Life Of Birds, State Of The Planet and The Blue Planet. When you consider that list, it is very easy to understand why the BBC Natural History Unit is the finest of its kind in the world and why Sir David Attenborough is the finest presenter of natural history programming that the world has ever seen. All of those titles were either written by and/or narrated by the man. That is by no means a complete list of his work either. Irrespective of that point, what immediately stands out is that each succeeding program seems to have been able to top the previous effort with ease. The result is that by the time we get to The Life Of Mammals you are almost wondering whether there is any prospect of seeing anything better in the field in the future?

    Make no mistake - what we have here is one of the best natural history programs I have ever seen. Superbly photographed, wonderfully executed, highly informative, entertaining and even quite funny on occasions. There really is not much that this program does not have. Obviously concerned with the most successful group of animals on the face of the Earth at the moment, even the mammoth task of delving into the varied subject matter has been well executed in the episode set up:

• Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Okay, not really. Episode 1: A Winning Design. In some respects, though, it is about the phantom menace that started out as some insignificant creatures during the age of the dinosaurs, and has since adapted and evolved into the most successful group on the planet. They have evolved to occupy just about every environment on the planet and have been the most successful adapters. The mammal truly is a winning design and this sets the stage for the rest of the series by investigating one of the most unique branches in the mammal family - the marsupials. Obviously this means that a fair chunk of the program comes from our very own neck of the woods, since marsupials are found on only two continents of the globe - Australia and South America.
• Episode 2: Insect Hunters. Many mammals have specialised skills and this episode looks at the group that exploit the insect inhabitants of the planet. A fascinating array of animals sees us looking at a range of those animals for whom the insect is the elixir of life. There is some truly fascinating footage here regarding bats and how they catch insects, but we also get to see the delights of the shrews, the moles and the anteaters in all their diversity.
• Episode 3: Plant Predators. There are plenty of mammals that depend upon plants for their nourishment, even though sometimes that plant material is not exactly overflowing with goodness. Add into the equation the fact that plants have often developed defences and things can get quite thorny for those mammals. Poisons? Spines? The wide diversity of mammals will win out in the end with their own adaptations to wipe out the defences of the plants.
• Episode 4: Chisellers. Ah, those destructive little buggers the rodents. Find them everywhere you will, and for good reason - they are the most successful of all the mammals. You have the cute ones, like the squirrels, and the not-so-cute ones, like the maras. You have the loved ones, like the little cute harvest mice, and the very unloved ones, like the brown rat. All are distinguished by one major characteristic - those big front teeth, so uniquely designed to take advantage of the fact that they continually grow, thereby allowing the rodents to chew their way through anything.
• Episode 5: Meat Eaters. Sounds like a nice pizza from Pizza Hut but in actual fact it describes the carnivores, which are broadly speaking separated into two groups. One the one side you have the dogs, on the other you have the cats. Never the twain shall meat! These groups are the best hunters on the planet, outside of man of course, and in some cases extremely efficient in the hunt like the African Hunting Dog. It stands to reason that Africa is well-blessed with both cats and dogs as there is more meat there than anywhere else on the planet, but you will find examples of either of the groups just about everywhere on the planet. Having seen the magnificent leopard and cheetah making kills in the flesh so to speak, the wonder of these animals is only heightened.
• Episode 6: Opportunists. The omnivores that eat just about anything and everything are the true opportunists of the animal kingdom. That is the reason why they are the most successful of the mammals - they take advantage of whatever they can find. Obviously they also are the most common wild animals that urban dwellers will find as they are the most adaptive to the urban environment. In North America that is the raccoon, in Britain it is the fox.
• Episode 7: Return To The Water. Obviously this episode takes us into the vast waters of the world to look at the intelligence that thrives in that environment - and how they have adapted to that environment. Aside from checking out a swimming elephant, we get to check out the ease of the sea otter in the aqueous environment, the perils of being a sea lion pup, the even greater perils of being a seal pup as well as the intelligent behaviour of dolphins. We also get to marvel at the whales - and the incredible genitalia of the Southern Right Whale - and in particular the magnificent and majestic Blue Whale. The biggest creature to ever inhabit the Earth, it is a pretty impressive animal.
• Episode 8: Life In The Trees. So important is the plant kingdom to most mammals that we return to the trees to look at the mammals that have adapted to that environment. Even mammals not associated with trees have good reason to use them. The varied range of the mammals inhabiting the trees is quite amazing but in general they have some particularly outstanding traits - such as the gracefully rapid swinging of the gibbons. Check out the Hyrax though - I had the good fortune to visit the lodge where they were filmed (Mara Serena in the Masai Mara in Kenya). Believe me, when those suckers fall from a tree, it is a major deal. It rarely hurts them, but it does scare the heck out of them (and us) when that body hits the concrete.
• Episode 9: Social Climbers. We see plenty of them in the society pages, but this episode is looking at a different sort of social climber - the monkeys. Unlike man, they have big brains and use them well. Thriving in their social groups, the monkeys have proven to be very successful. We just really don't completely understand the nature of the social hierarchy of the various monkeys though. Come to think of it, those social climbers are actually just aping (sorry for the poor pun) the behaviour of those monkeys.
• Episode 10: Food For Thought. Obviously the series ends on the high point of mammal evolution - the apes. That naturally includes the supposedly most intelligent example of the ape on the planet - us. The episode looks at the unique abilities of the apes to learn and understand - from the orang-utan to the gorilla. Why the apes stood upright is investigated, before David Attenborough poses the obvious question - when do we stop changing the environment to support the burgeoning human population and stop the burgeoning population to preserve the environment? An interesting parallel is drawn with the demise of the Mayan culture...

    This is just an absolutely superb series and one that was eagerly awaited in my home. Each series David Attenborough does seems to top the previous one and this is no exception, with a superb blend of photography of various sorts and computer animation. Whatever you do, check this release out. Superb entertainment as well as being superb education.

Video

    After the disappointment of the Life Of Birds there was a degree of trepidation in approaching the review session. I really need not have worried as this was significantly better from the first episode.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is of course 16x9 enhanced.

    This is really an excellent transfer in most respects, with little to complain about. In general it is very sharp, with excellent detail even in some of the rather extreme photography (ordinary film is mixed with infra-red photography and starlight camera photography). Shadow detail is excellent - even in the infra-red photography in the black-as-night shots in the caves. Clarity is general very good with only a few sections where grain becomes an issue (86:35 and 140:20 on Disc One and 15:03 on Disc Three being good examples). However, in the overall scheme of things these are not really serious issues at all.

    The colours are extremely well done, and wonderfully vibrant. Whilst there is a wide degree of variety in the locations obviously, the high degree of uniformity in the colour presentation is a staggering achievement in all respects. The transfer is very nicely saturated with just a few places here and there where you could have hoped for a bit more depth to the tones - but in over eight hours of programming, this is hardly a major issue.

    MPEG artefacts are not an issue here, although at times the grain does descend somewhat towards pixelization (such as at 7:32 and 122:01 on Disc One). Aliasing is the main problem with film-to-video artefacts - I definitely saw a few instances of it here and there (such as at 6:48 on Disc One). Film artefacts are not an issue at all. Have you got the idea here? Basically terrific, with minor qualms.

    The four DVDs making up the set are all dual layer efforts, with Discs One and Two being RSDL formatted. The layer changes come at 76:16 and 72:53 respectively: whilst noticeable they are hardly disruptive to the flow of the programme.

    There is just the one subtitle option on these DVDs, that being English. The subtitles are generally quite good but here and there words are missing or changed around, even though they do not really change the context of the dialogue.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is just the single soundtrack on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

    There is nothing at all wrong with the soundtrack other than the fact that a 5.1 soundtrack would have been even better. Dialogue comes up very well and the animal noises are likewise very well dealt with. There are no apparent audio sync issues with the transfer.

    The original music score for the series comes from Dan Jones and Ben Salisbury. In a word - superb! From the opening credits to the end credits, there is pure excellence all the way through each episode. The result is a significant contribution to arguably the finest natural history series ever presented.

    This is just a really good soundtrack in every way. Sure a full blown 5.1 soundtrack would have done an even better job of presenting the ambient sounds of the rainforest environments (for instance), but you would have to be pretty anal to find this soundtrack unsatisfying. Wonderfully clear and open, just about every ambient sound is presented crisply and cleanly. There is not a blemish in the whole set as far as I could tell.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras are spread across discs three and four of the set, which contain only two episodes rather than the three episodes of the first two discs.

Menus

    Very nice presentation with classy audio and animation enhancement.

Disc Three:

Featurette - Behind The Scenes

    This really is three separate featurettes that look into the filming of the sequences relating to the Platypus (8:30), Elephants (8:37) and the Big Cats (8:39). In particular, they look at the difficulties in obtaining the footage that was desired - and how much the effort was truly worth it when rewarded with the footage such as the baby platypus, footage that had never been shot before and provided a huge boost to our understanding of these fascinating creatures. With interview footage with the people who were responsible for the filming, this is very interesting stuff. These are presented in the same format as the main feature.

Featurette - Video To Music Sequence (10:21)

    In reality this is simply an extended ten minute long trailer for the series, the sort of thing that would probably be aired at the launch of the show before David Attenborough came out to answer questions from the gathered journos. Not too shabby within itself but really hardly in the league of the above featurettes. Again presented in the same format as the main feature.

Notes - Fact Files

    Exactly what it says - a collection of fact files of varying lengths about mammals featured in the programme. There are twenty animals featured. Actually quite interesting potted details about the animals, and quite informative as regards their status (quite a few are endangered or threatened).

Disc Four:

Featurette - Behind The Scenes

    Not as good as those on Disc Three, but still more than worthwhile. This one is more focused on the actual difficulties of photographing Cave Bats (5:29), Grizzly Bears (3:20) and Canopies (8:58), with the persons responsible for the filming or the setup being the subject of the narrative. Again presented in the same format as the main feature.

Gallery - Photo

    Featuring 77 annotated (!) photos of creatures from the programme. Whilst the photos could perhaps have been a little bigger, these are actually quite nicely done.

Audio-Only Track - Original Score (7)

    Seven audio tracks lifted from the superb music composed for the series. Including both the excellent start and end credits pieces, this only serves to indicate just how good the music is - and makes you really wish there was a genuine Isolated Music Score on the DVDs!

Web Link

    A clickable link for www.bbc.co.uk/nature/.

    From the limited information that I can find regarding the Region 1 release, it differs from the Region 4 release in the following ways:

• Additional fact files - 31 compared to 20.
• Different presentation of some extras.

    Whilst the fact files on the Region 4 release are very good, I would have a hard time suggesting that an additional eleven of them would be a persuasive argument in favour of Region 1. Call this one even I would suggest.

    Those visitors who have been checking this site for a while might recall that the last time I reviewed a David Attenborough series - Life Of Birds - I was quite critical of the transfer. The result was that I inducted the release into the Hall Of Shame. So, there was a degree of trepidation when I sat down to review The Life Of Mammals. Those fears were almost completely unfounded, and whilst the transfer is by no means perfect it is more than acceptable. With the series itself setting further benchmarks for natural history programming, this is an excellent release that just begs to be added to your collection. I have no reason to stop you from picking this release up.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall