April 7th 2019
Narrated by David Attenborough
No. of episodes 8
Executive producers: Alastair Fothergill, Keith Scholey, Colin Butfield
Production companies: Silverback Films, World Wide Fund for Nature
NOTE: Attenborough, nearing 93 years of age, is limited to the role of narrator. However, he will not put his imprimateur on anything not up to his standards. Credit goes to the three producers listed above.
David Attenborough’s latest release does not disappoint. The Guardian touted it as his greatest work, a capstone achievement that enjoyed the advantages of a far bigger budget and more editorial latitude than was possible under “Auntie” (England’s name for the BBC).
Is it that much better than his previous works? Nobody who saw the scene will ever forget the footage in Planet Earth II of new-born iguanas being chased by snakes. Our Planet doesn’t have anything as spellbinding and dramatic as that.
It isn’t that Our Planet is anything short of enthralling, brilliant, and a product of tens of thousands of man-hours lavished by people who truly love their work, including, of course, Attenborough himself. If Our Planet doesn’t stand above his previous work, it’s only because his previous work is of such an incredibly high standard.
According to reports, the four years of shooting included two thousand hours of ocean dives, journeys to 60 different countries plus Antarctica, and 400,000 hours of ‘trap’ camera footage.
The results are jaw-dropping, as you might expect. There are scenes of animals never filmed before (the 30 foot long oarfish, an eel-like creature that floats vertically in the water—the first time a live one had ever been shot) and behavior never seen before (a bird that has three of his buddies help choreograph a dance routine, his wingmen if you will, practicing on an immature male before taking his show to the birdie of his dreams. The camera work is incredible, and you often find yourself asking how they did that. (One item missing was filler footage designed to address gap between the BBC 57 minute ‘hour’ and American television’s 42 minute ‘hour’ where they showed how they got some of their more spectacular shots and the planning and execution needed).
One curious omission. The Guardian had said that Netflix had more editorial latitude than the Beeb, and Attenborough had been getting some criticism for not addressing the deleterious effect mankind was having on the natural wonders he was bringing to our screens.
So he does discuss the massive and immediate damage climate change is doing. Although he doesn’t specify what is causing the climate change other than obliquely. He (separately) identifies humans as the greatest destructive force on the planet, intoning “WE are the reason this is occurring,” saying ‘we’ with the same didactic emphasis that he uses to identify a species in a new segment. (“The Squir-rel. This industrious little reptile possesses the ability to consume four hundred rutabagas in a single go…”)
OK, it’s possible Attenborough is a bit less fanciful, not to mention more truthful, in his description of animal behavior than I am. But he’s lacking in his direct approach to human behavior.
He does discuss climate change and human behavior as the main reasons many of the items he is describing are vanishing from the face of the Earth, but he still needs to be more direct. Time really is running out.
He does offer rays of hope (population rebounds in sanctuaries, and the general ability of nature to bounce back) but he doesn’t address the fact that climate change is not going to go away, not for thousands of years, and most species simply won’t have the time or ability to adapt. So he remains deficient in this regard.
That all said, Our Planet is extraordinary, superlative, great documentation. Like much of Attenborough’s work, it’s head and shoulders about everything else out there, and this is one of his greatest. See it.
Now on Netflix.