Review for Jane Goodall Collection

Conservationist, activist, champion of animals and one of the most fascinating people I have ever watched. This disk goes through Jane Goodall's career within three different documentaries. Each one looks at a different aspect of her career.

Among the Wild Chimpanzees follows her original journey in the 1960s to document the behaviour of chimps in Combe Stream Game Reserve. This archive footage is fascinating to watch the young Jane study the behaviour of the animals and just how alike they are to us. Watching their use of tools to fish out termites and them killing other animals for meat is amazing to watch.

Chimps on the Edge is more a look at the studies of the chimps in West Africa, but also draws on Goodall's past experiences and the development in those communities. This is more a conservation documentary, but also a look at the people who followed in her footsteps to study the chimps.

The Life and Legend of Jane Goodall is a full look at her career, from beginning to end. This has interviews with her former husband and mother, amongst others. This looks at how she studied the animals and what her discoveries meant to the scientific community.

What I enjoyed about these three documentaries is that though they use a lot of the same source material, they add new elements that make you feel that what you are watching is a brand new documentary. The footage from the wild throughout is amazing and even in the days of HD photography and cameras from every angle, this is still some of the best nature or wildlife footage I have ever seen. All three are wonderfully put together documentaries that do not drift into the obscure, but stay on track and tell me exactly what I need to know and at nearly three hours there is a definite feeling that you are getting your money's worth from this disk.

Jane Goodall is possibly one of the most important scientists to the animal kingdom and this disk goes a long way to show this.