Planet Dinosaur: The Next Generation of Killer Giants

Short version: If you have to choose between the "Planet Dinosaur" doc (henceforth PD #1) & Scott's "Planet Dinosaur: The Next Generation of Killer Giants" (henceforth PD #2), I recommend reading PD #2 in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Naish/Barrett's "Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved").Long version: Read on.PD #1 (which is decent in its own right) was billed as the new "Walking With Dinosaurs" (which is the 1st natural history doc about dinos). It didn't pan out that way. As a result, people seem to forget how good PD #2 is. More specifically, PD #2 isn't just a very good companion book, but also a very good stand-alone book that tells the story of dinos MUCH better than PD #1. In fact, PD #2 is an even better stand-alone natural history of dinos than most of the WWD books, especially Haines' "Walking with Dinosaurs: A Natural History" (which it's most often compared to). In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why I think PD #2 is that good.1) Most natural histories of dinos have a chronological or day-in-the-life format. This makes sense given that they're the easiest & best ways to tell the story of dinos, respectively. However, unlike the chronological format that makes WWD feel so epic in both book form & doc form, the day-in-the-life format of PD works MUCH better in book form than doc form. This is because, to paraphrase Ben (Google "Framing Fossil Exhibits: A Walk Through Time"), "audiences are predisposed to understand the forward progression of time, so little up-front explanation [I.e. Backstory] is needed." Meanwhile, day-in-the-life requires a lot more backstory to set up the events of the main story & tie them all together. Without said backstory, the main story doesn't make much sense. Part of the problem with PD #1 is that it only has a few sentences of backstory at the beginning of each episode (See the Hurt quote). PD #2 solves this problem with 4 pages of backstory in the Introduction. Also, PD #2 switches up the order of "The New Giants" & "Taking Flight" (I.e. PD #1's "New Giants" & "Feathered Dragons", respectively), making the main story as a whole flow better.*2) Unlike WWD in general & Haines' book in particular, PD "made the point of showing/stating which bits of evidence have allowed scientists to come to the palaeobiological conclusions that they have" (Google "Vertebrate palaeontology at Lyme Regis: of `All Yesterdays', the `Leathery Winged Revolution', and Planet Dinosaur"). Furthermore, while Darren Naish was only involved in PD #1 "on an at-the-end-of-the-phone basis", he "had full, unconditional control" to tweak the technical stuff in PD #2 (Google "Happy 6th Birthday, Tetrapod Zoology (part II)"). Thus, PD #2 is more complete, in-depth, & accurate. This is especially apparent in the following ways:-To paraphrase Albertonykus (Google "Raptormaniacs: Planet Dinosaur: The Great Survivors"), "One of the less desirable characteristics of [PD #1] is that it's very theropod centric...Planet Dinosaur probably should have been called "Planet Theropod"." PD #2 solves this problem with profiles of almost every featured sauropodomorph & ornithiscian (I.e. Argentinosaurus, Paralititan, Ouranosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Camptosaurus, & Stegosaurus).-In PD #1, Microraptor & Sinornithosaurus are depicted as being splay-legged & venomous, respectively. Surprise surprise, said depictions are based on debunked BANDit claims (BAND = Birds Are Not Dinosaurs). Anyway, PD #2 solves this problem with critiques of said depictions, concluding that 1) "it was simply impossible for Microraptor to adopt this posture", & 2) "the idea that Sinornithosaurus might have delivered a venomous bite was never well supported and the majority of dinosaur experts regarded it as poorly founded right from the start". For more info about conclusion #1, google "TESTING FLIGHT IN MICRORAPTOR". For more info about conclusion #2, google "Sinornithosaurus Probably Wasn’t Venomous After All".3) Unlike WWD (which has CG dinos on real backgrounds), PD has CG dinos within CG backgrounds. To quote Dinosaur Guy (Google "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Mind #50: Top 10 Best (And Worst) Dinosaur Documentaries"), "You may think this would make the series look cheap, but I think it benefits from this in several ways. First of all, this allows many more species of dinosaurs to be featured...Secondly, this allows them to create period accurate dinosaur landscapes. Any modern area they would like to film in would never be 100% accurate to the actual Mesozoic (the Mesozoic had very little to no grass, yet you would never know from most dino docs, which feature vast grasslands all the time). Thirdly, this allows the dinosaurs to flow seamlessly in their environment. In most dinosaur documentaries, you can tell where the camera footage begins and where the CG begins, and can be distracting to some. But here, the dinosaurs actually look like they belong to the environment." 1 of my only problems is that some of the CG is a bit off (E.g. To quote Naish, "the animals didn’t run well, they sometimes looked a bit… well, rubbery, and temporal fenestrae and so on often looked way too ‘hollow’").***"The New Giants" is 1st. Thus, the main story begins with non-bird dinos being born & ends with them dying. Also, "Taking Flight" is penultimate. Thus, its short story of 2 Gigantoraptor mating leads more directly into the last chapter's short story of them nesting.**My other problem is some inaccurate/contradictory text (E.g. On page 42, it's claimed that 40ft = 12.2m in the sidebar & 10m in the main text) & weird/inconsistent writing (E.g. Not all of the profiles list the species epithet; Of those that do, not all of them translate it).Quoting Hurt (who narrated PD #1): "We're living through the golden age of dinosaur discoveries. All over the world, a whole new generation of dinosaurs is being revealed...from the biggest giants and the deadliest killers to the weird and wonderful; from the Arctic to Africa, from South America to Asia. In just the last few years, we have uncovered the extraordinary fossils, exquisitely preserved and tantalizingly intact. Combined with the latest in imaging technology, we have been able to probe deeper and reveal more than ever before. It gives us our first truly global view of these incredible animals."

Like most of the other reviewers, I liked this book. It is a companion piece to an excellent BBC T.V. series narrated by John Hurt. This work focuses on more recent (last 10 years or so) discoveries about dinosaurs. The book is loaded with color pictures (computer generated dinosaur images) on virtually every page. These depict the creatures, their environments, theoretical lifestyles, etc. There is a lot of information presented in bite size segments. You can pick it up, read/view a few pages, then put it down having finished one topic rather easily. The prose is not especially geared for children as there are a lot of technical terms included in the text. However, the author is pretty matter of fact, straight forward in his presentation and does not sensationalize what he covers. He does not have to. It's amazing what scientists can deduce from the fosil evidence presented here. A kid's book? Adult book? I'm choosing a coffee table book (oversized but not unwieldly) that anyone can pick up and browse through.

This is a good book if you have the DVD of the same name - which I do. It reflects back on selected scenes in the DVD of the dinosaurs fighting, eating, walking, etc. and explains those sections in more depth. It does a good job and is easy for a 7 year+ child to follow along. It's a nice book to read together and talk about the movie scenes and spend time with your child too.HOWEVER - if you don't have the DVD and have watched it already, the book just doesn't make good sense and doesn't really depart any valuable information to a young reader. The context from the movie is essential.I can, without hesitation recommend this book and the DVD as a bundle. Perfect for a Christmas or birthday gift!

My 5 year old son is a Dino fan. He enjoy watching the BBC documentary Planet dinosaur, and I am happy to find out there is a companion book. Although he can't read a lot now, he enjoy just looking at the pictures, and ask me to read it out when he was really interested into some pages. The knowledge is reinforced through different media. I recommend both the documentary and the book to dinosaur fans. I was amazed by the great graphics and amount of details in the documentary. The book offers new depth and is interesting to read too.

Not formatted in PAL or Region 2 so I actually got to see it. LOL. Seriously, this is a good book. Great art and good information. I just wish the blu-ray were as easily accessed. I bought both at the same time. My whole family is very disappointed that we can't watch the documentary. DVD's and blu-rays have no business being region specific. They should be as easily read as a book.

My boys (nine and eleven) LOVE this book!! They were into dinosaurs as kids, but this book brought it all back with great updated content and very cool pictures. I am very happy with this purchase and recommend it for all dinosaur-lovers young and old.

I bought this book for my nephew.........He read it,.that means he enjoyed........................I am sure your children will enjoy reading this book............

was a gift...have heard no complaints, yet.

This is a nice book for any dinosaur lovers out there, the pictures are nice and some are graphic but not too much. The book focuses on some lesser known dinosaurs, which is pretty cool! If you love the BBC documentary "planet dinosaur", this is a great addition to your dinosaur books shelf, or if you are just looking for a dinosaur book for your kids, this one wouldn't disappoint them. Excellent pictures and information, well worth the money.