Review of Future Is Wild, The: 100 Million Years In The Future

Introduction

Steven Spielberg literally unleashed a monster when his wowed audiences with Jurassic Park ten years ago, spawning an incredible interest in Dinosaurs, and simultaneously showing natural history producers what could be done with CGI.

Amongst other things, this led to the very successful BBC "Walking With" series, that combined Jurassic Park style CGI with serious natural history content that appealed to all age-groups.

"Future is Wild" use a similar theme, but instead of looking into the past, looks into the future, in the case of this disc, some 100 years into the future.

Video

The video is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and is of average quality, free from dirt and with a stable image, but a little grainy at times. It is not up to the standard of the Walking With Dinosaurs discs for example.

The CGI is good at times, but all to often looks like CGI, and again isn`t up to the standard of the BBC series - the movement isn`t as natural or fluid, In addition, in some scenes, the contrast difference between CGI creatures in the foreground and the background detail makes the overall scene a little false.

There are also several segments featuring explanations from scientists throughout the program - these are effectively presented and often use a combination of live footage of the person in question and CGI.

Audio

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, and for a nature program sourced from television is very good. The dialogue is very clear indeed, and the programme features appropriate music and plenty of sound effects for the creatures on display - all of which pan around the room very well. Atmospheric effects are also very well presented. Overall, the sound is excellent and producers of other documentaries should take note.

Features

My review copy was in fact a German edition, featuring German menus (although the soundtrack was in both English and German), so, like my fellow reviewers, I struggled with the menus a little. They are however well presented, and the English versions will be more than adequate.

The film features a Matrix style system that allows the viewer to view 3D animations when an icon appears on the screen. Also on offer is some press release footage of the producer, a picture gallery, a sound gallery, an animation showcase, trailers and a booklet (which looked interesting but was of course in German).

Conclusion

I am a great fan of natural history programs and have been watching them for years - this new style "natural future" program was actually quite interesting - despite the content being total conjecture because we clearly have no idea what is going to happen next week, let alone 100 millions years ahead.

The visuals are good and are presented adequately - the soundtrack is excellent and of a very high standard for a television documentary. The disc also contains some good extras, accessible from a decent menu system.

Overall, this program should appeal to most age groups, and contains something for everyone - I`m now quite keen to see the others in the series, which unfortunately were sent to others to review.