Animal Planet Blu-ray Wave: Africa’s Elephant
Kingdom/The Beauty Of Snakes/The World’s Biggest & Baddest Bugs
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Main Programs: B-
It is
fair to say that the special interest category of nature films and documentaries
have been more successful early on with the Blu-ray format than one might have
first thought, so many companies are putting out product to take advantage of
demand. Genius Entertainment and Animal
Planet have issued three basic editions of three specials they believe
consumers will want to buy. Africa’s Elephant Kingdom, The Beauty Of Snakes and The World’s Biggest & Baddest Bugs
are being issued as part of an early 2009 Blu wave.
Africa’s Elephant Kingdom is the oldest of the shows,
filmed in 70mm IMAX, it is a solid 40-minutes-long journey into these powerful,
underrated, underestimated animals and the world they live in. It is also one of the better programs in
general on the subject of elephants. The Beauty Of Snakes was shot in HD and
gets many great shots (dangerously obtained in more than a few cases) of
snakes, their diversity, talents, skills and unique abilities. Always intriguing, it is a good show at 43
minutes. The World’s Biggest & Baddest Bugs is a crash course on
insects, particularly unique ones, big ones and ones that show the diversity of
the species. It runs 87 minutes, but
might be too long for the squeamish.
The 1080p
image on all three presentations are weak and detail challenged, especially for
a high definition format like Blu-ray. Snakes and Bugs are in the 1.78 X 1 frame, while genius has decided to retain
the block style 1.33 X 1 IMAX frame for Elephant,
though a 1.78 X 1 version might have been preferred and brought out more detail
and depth in what is a fine shoot. Also
disappointing is the sound, where the Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes in all cases are
too much towards the screen with too much center channel action and the Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo sounding better in all cases. There are no extras on any of the discs, but
next time, there should be.
- Nicholas Sheffo
