Eyewitness - Dinosaur | Eva Mosquera, Marta Sánchez

Eyewitness - Dinosaur | Eva Mosquera, Marta Sánchez | Content and visuals don't seem to mesh well

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Eyewitness - Dinosaur

	Eyewitness - Dinosaur Eva Mosquera, Marta Sánchez Dorling Kindersley Video, 1995 average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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Another fine entry from Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness series. As with their books and computer software, the video clearly presents and dynamically illustrates numerous facts about those beasts from 65 million years ago. Martin Sheen narrates this program that explores what paleontologists have uncovered in the last 200 years (an important find is made every seven weeks on average). Typical fact: Did you know that all the information on Tyrannous rex is attributed to only a dozen skeletal finds? The varieties of illustrations are truly remarkable: computer graphics, animations, Claymation, even wonderful low-tech models. There's so much here that multiple viewings are necessary (and certainly to be requested by the child). It's keen stuff that adults should find as much fun to watch as the kids. The companion book and CD-ROM are also available. --Doug Thomas

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Toddler Delight

I was amazed but would you believe my 3-yr old loves this video? He starts to whine towards the end - hoping to get an encore presentation. There is just enough dinosaur cartoon, special effects to keep him watching. He quotes from the narrative so he is obviously listening too. On the good side, he has learned several dinosaur names and plenty of obscure facts - on the down side, the tape is only about 30 minutes and he is HUNGRY for dino info (but not very patient with the EyeWitness Dinosaur book yet) so we watch it again and again. If you have a young dino lover consider this video in conjunction with the younger DK books (they come in board book style) or the early reading DK books (we bought a fairly simple Level 2 "I can read" to read together).

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Content and visuals don't seem to mesh well

This documentary about dinosaurs is a little too focused on making everything lively, and not focused enough on any particular target market, in my opinion. The narration by Martin Sheen seems to be mostly targeted at a more sophisticated audience, but the graphics are often more kid-oriented. Worse, while the name-and-vocabulary-laden narrative sounds very authoritative, it often makes sweeping generalizations or asserts theories about dinosaurs as though they were facts. I noticed this particularly in reference to assertions about the characteristics of various specific dinosaurs (and when statements are made that presume that all dinosaurs were very large animals, something we knew was false even ten years ago, when the film was made).

One nice thing about the video is that it lays out both sides of a couple of debates, such as whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded or warm-blooded, as well as what triggered their mass extinction. The special effects and constantly changing scenery are pretty well done, considering that it's not a multi-million dollar movie.

Overall, I would say that this would appeal to a particularly inquisitive pre-teen who would like to learn more about dinosaurs. I just have a hard time seeing young kids absorbing the narration considering the language used, but parents who have reviewed on here seem to feel otherwise, so maybe I'm underestimating kids here.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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