Prehistoric Park
2006
Features time travelling natural history expert, Nigel Marven, as he rescues endangered dinosaurs from extinction and establishes a prehistoric wildlife sanctuary. Read more
| Starring | Nigel Marven, David Jason |
|---|---|
| Genres | Family |
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Most helpful members' reviews (3)
View all -
20 out of 24 people found this review helpful
Deserves to be extinct…..
Prehistoric Park will polarise it’s viewers into two distinct groups – those who think it’s so reprehensibly bad that it’s unwatchable and those who will find it compulsive viewing purely to see if it can get any worse. If you fall into this second group, like me, you’ll never cease to be amazed as, week after week; the programme plummets to new depths of farce. The palaeontology ‘science’ behind it is appalling, without even getting into the whole time portal thing. The cg work is surprisingly low rent considering it is the same team poached from the BBC who created the popular, and infinitely better, ‘Walking With….’ Series of cg based dinosaur documentaries. This was only emphasised by the fact that at the launch of Prehistoric Park, ITV chose to show it after the original Jurassic Park movie, which at almost 15 years old, made the ITV ‘ground breaking effects’ look like something from a 1940’s claymation cartoon. Ultimately, this is just another dire product from an increasingly desperate TV network that is running out of money, and ideas, fast. Andy Harries, the senior production controller at ITV this week declared the channel ‘unwatchable’ such is the poor state of affairs. Prehistoric Park was commissioned as a direct rival to the BBC’s Doctor Who but in typically bad fashion, ITV only managed to deliver it to the viewers a month after Doctor Who finished its current run. Yes, the actors and experts convey ‘the smell of fear’ in their expressions and performances but I suspect that it is a fear of never working again in mainstream TV after this debacle rather than any supposed menace from the CG beasties. Avoid at all costs unless you feel the need to punish your senses with pseudo intellectual tripe.
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11 out of 11 people found this review helpful
Missed Opportunity
With the people and money that has been thrown at this show you would have hoped for so much more but instead all that is left is a poor facsimile of other people’s work that has gone before it. I have watched most of the episodes hoping for some redeeming moments but they are very few and far between. Any comedy moments that exist are normally unintentional gaffs or ludicrous situations that beggar belief. Continuity and story lines are full of holes as big as Nigel’s magic portal and the whole thing just doesn’t gel at all. I much preferred his earlier programmes such as Sea Monsters, the format of which has been clearly ripped off for this show, as they contained far more balanced and educational material whereas Prehistoric Park offers absurdity and speculation. A good natural history programme is usually that way because of the sum of its parts – the filming, the narration, the soundtrack etc – with Prehistoric Park, the sums just don’t add up. Misses the mark by a wide margin, rent Sea Monsters, or any other Walking With Dinosaurs product for that matter, instead - you and your family will find them far more entertaining and informative.
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11 out of 14 people found this review helpful
Deserves to be extinct…..
Prehistoric Park will polarise it’s viewers into two distinct groups – those who think it’s so reprehensibly bad that it’s unwatchable and those who will find it compulsive viewing purely to see if it can get any worse. If you fall into this second group, like me, you’ll never cease to be amazed as, week after week; the programme plummets to new depths of farce. The palaeontology ‘science’ behind it is appalling, without even getting into the whole time portal thing. The cg work is surprisingly low rent considering it is the same team poached form the BBC who created the popular, and infinitely better, ‘Walking With….’ Series of cg based dinosaur documentaries. This was only emphasised by the fact that at the launch of Prehistoric Park, ITV chose to show it after the original Jurassic Park movie, which at almost 15 years old, made the ITV ‘ground breaking effects’ look like something from a 1940’s claymation cartoon. Ultimately, this is just another dire product from an increasingly desperate TV network that is running out of money, and ideas, fast. Andy Harries, the senior production controller at ITV this week declared the channel ‘unwatchable’ such is the poor state of affairs. Prehistoric Park was commissioned as a direct rival to the BBC’s Doctor Who but in typically bad fashion, ITV only managed to deliver it to the viewers a month after Doctor Who finished its current run. Yes, the actors and experts convey ‘the smell of fear’ in their expressions and performances but I suspect that it is a fear of never working again in mainstream TV after this debacle rather than any supposed menace from the CG beasties. Avoid at all costs unless you feel the need to punish your senses with pseudo intellectual tripe.
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Most recent members' reviews (2)
View all -
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
prehistoric park
I think you need to be in the right frame of mind (and age) to enjoy this DVD.
My daughter adored it. She is a Nigel Marven fan and very interested in prehistoric creatures so this light hearted DVD was ideal for her. -
9 out of 11 people found this review helpful
Prehistoric Pants
It’s hard to comprehend how this dross received such a high rating here. Universally panned by critics and the viewing public, it has little or no redeeming features. Most who have defended it cite its failings as people misunderstanding it as a children’s programme.
The slot in the schedule it was produced for was the early evening Saturday FAMILY space that is supposed to provide entertainment for all. In this respect it fails on every level - it cannot be counted as educational as the science aspect is purely speculative and almost pantomime like in its presentation whilst the ‘comedy’ entertainment scenarios are too ludicrous to the point of cringe worthy.
I would admit that it was a laudable attempt by ITV to try and break away from their usual fodder of domestic soaps, reality and talent shows and then more repeats of the soaps - but as others here have said - a greatly missed opportunity. If they are to venture into this type of programming again they really need to raise their game and take note of the superior offerings that have gone before them from other channels.
Don’t rent this based on its questionable score here - read all the reviews first…….
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20 out of 24 people found this review helpful
Deserves to be extinct…..
Prehistoric Park will polarise it’s viewers into two distinct groups – those who think it’s so reprehensibly bad that it’s unwatchable and those who will find it compulsive viewing purely to see if it can get any worse. If you fall into this second group, like me, you’ll never cease to be amazed as, week after week; the programme plummets to new depths of farce. The palaeontology ‘science’ behind it is appalling, without even getting into the whole time portal thing. The cg work is surprisingly low rent considering it is the same team poached from the BBC who created the popular, and infinitely better, ‘Walking With….’ Series of cg based dinosaur documentaries. This was only emphasised by the fact that at the launch of Prehistoric Park, ITV chose to show it after the original Jurassic Park movie, which at almost 15 years old, made the ITV ‘ground breaking effects’ look like something from a 1940’s claymation cartoon. Ultimately, this is just another dire product from an increasingly desperate TV network that is running out of money, and ideas, fast. Andy Harries, the senior production controller at ITV this week declared the channel ‘unwatchable’ such is the poor state of affairs. Prehistoric Park was commissioned as a direct rival to the BBC’s Doctor Who but in typically bad fashion, ITV only managed to deliver it to the viewers a month after Doctor Who finished its current run. Yes, the actors and experts convey ‘the smell of fear’ in their expressions and performances but I suspect that it is a fear of never working again in mainstream TV after this debacle rather than any supposed menace from the CG beasties. Avoid at all costs unless you feel the need to punish your senses with pseudo intellectual tripe.
-
11 out of 11 people found this review helpful
Missed Opportunity
With the people and money that has been thrown at this show you would have hoped for so much more but instead all that is left is a poor facsimile of other people’s work that has gone before it. I have watched most of the episodes hoping for some redeeming moments but they are very few and far between. Any comedy moments that exist are normally unintentional gaffs or ludicrous situations that beggar belief. Continuity and story lines are full of holes as big as Nigel’s magic portal and the whole thing just doesn’t gel at all. I much preferred his earlier programmes such as Sea Monsters, the format of which has been clearly ripped off for this show, as they contained far more balanced and educational material whereas Prehistoric Park offers absurdity and speculation. A good natural history programme is usually that way because of the sum of its parts – the filming, the narration, the soundtrack etc – with Prehistoric Park, the sums just don’t add up. Misses the mark by a wide margin, rent Sea Monsters, or any other Walking With Dinosaurs product for that matter, instead - you and your family will find them far more entertaining and informative.
-
11 out of 14 people found this review helpful
Deserves to be extinct…..
Prehistoric Park will polarise it’s viewers into two distinct groups – those who think it’s so reprehensibly bad that it’s unwatchable and those who will find it compulsive viewing purely to see if it can get any worse. If you fall into this second group, like me, you’ll never cease to be amazed as, week after week; the programme plummets to new depths of farce. The palaeontology ‘science’ behind it is appalling, without even getting into the whole time portal thing. The cg work is surprisingly low rent considering it is the same team poached form the BBC who created the popular, and infinitely better, ‘Walking With….’ Series of cg based dinosaur documentaries. This was only emphasised by the fact that at the launch of Prehistoric Park, ITV chose to show it after the original Jurassic Park movie, which at almost 15 years old, made the ITV ‘ground breaking effects’ look like something from a 1940’s claymation cartoon. Ultimately, this is just another dire product from an increasingly desperate TV network that is running out of money, and ideas, fast. Andy Harries, the senior production controller at ITV this week declared the channel ‘unwatchable’ such is the poor state of affairs. Prehistoric Park was commissioned as a direct rival to the BBC’s Doctor Who but in typically bad fashion, ITV only managed to deliver it to the viewers a month after Doctor Who finished its current run. Yes, the actors and experts convey ‘the smell of fear’ in their expressions and performances but I suspect that it is a fear of never working again in mainstream TV after this debacle rather than any supposed menace from the CG beasties. Avoid at all costs unless you feel the need to punish your senses with pseudo intellectual tripe.
-
9 out of 11 people found this review helpful
Prehistoric Pants
It’s hard to comprehend how this dross received such a high rating here. Universally panned by critics and the viewing public, it has little or no redeeming features. Most who have defended it cite its failings as people misunderstanding it as a children’s programme.
The slot in the schedule it was produced for was the early evening Saturday FAMILY space that is supposed to provide entertainment for all. In this respect it fails on every level - it cannot be counted as educational as the science aspect is purely speculative and almost pantomime like in its presentation whilst the ‘comedy’ entertainment scenarios are too ludicrous to the point of cringe worthy.
I would admit that it was a laudable attempt by ITV to try and break away from their usual fodder of domestic soaps, reality and talent shows and then more repeats of the soaps - but as others here have said - a greatly missed opportunity. If they are to venture into this type of programming again they really need to raise their game and take note of the superior offerings that have gone before them from other channels.
Don’t rent this based on its questionable score here - read all the reviews first……. -
7 out of 8 people found this review helpful
Great graphics, shame about the rest
First let me say, I did watch the Prehistoric Park series avidly on TV, and was cross when I missed one - I loved the computer-generated creatures (my favourites being the cute baby ornithomimuses) and the attention to the detail of the environment they inhabited. Hence 2 star rating rather than 1. End of praise, start of criticism. I assume - from the pedantic, simplistic dialogue and the weekend early evening air time - that this was aimed at children. I am very concerned about what this series was saying to them. 'These dragonflies got to be a huge size because the atmosphere 300 million years ago was 40% oxygen. Let's grab one and take it forward to when there's only 20% oxygen'. What message does that give? 'We've saved this single mammoth from extinction and she's been adopted by this herd of elephants which by chance we have here in the park'. What happens when the poor old girl finally pops her tusks? Break out the time portal, go back and get another one? This isn't rescuing anything from extinction, it's establishing a collection in true Victorian style. These prehistoric creatures occupied a world completely different from ours and couldn't possibly survive now - you might as well 'rescue' them to Mars. Only the treatment of the pair of sabre toothed cats - where the emphasis was on getting them to breed - suggested a glimmer of realisation as to how the material should have been presented. My suggestion for a re-work of the series:- 'Each episode centres on a particular present-day endangered animal. Conservationist Nigel uses time portal to go back and view similarly challenged prehistoric creatures, thus getting ideas for preventing recurrence. Nigel returns to present and applies knowledge gained. Where captive breeding program is required, Head Keeper & Head Vet are seen overcoming problems besetting the Park's inhabitants - which are present-day species only - from both the current and earlier episodes'. I see an earlier reviewer used the title Missed Opportunity. Hear, hear!
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5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Rubbish
This is the worst film I have ever seen. I don't think it is even worth one star!!!
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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
My grandson likes it
I have had to watch each episode several times with my six (and now just seven) year old grandson. Nigel is his hero. There are only three speaking parts. Everyone else is an extra. This makes it seem as if Nigel is working with a team of mutes. I would choose to avoid it if I could.
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
good for the kids
good film kids will like it
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Very captivating
This series is a very captivating and entertaining SCI/FI documentary. If you like dinosaurs and Jurassic Park its one for you.
Strongly recommend. -
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
prehistoric park
I think you need to be in the right frame of mind (and age) to enjoy this DVD.
My daughter adored it. She is a Nigel Marven fan and very interested in prehistoric creatures so this light hearted DVD was ideal for her.
Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop
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- Prehistoric Park
- DVD: £5.43
Free Delivery - RRP £19.79 (you save: 73%)
Features time travelling natural history expert, Nigel Marven, as he rescues endangered dinosaurs from extinction and establishes a prehistoric wildlife sanctuary.... -
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