5 Stars Documentaries (011)
Miracle Planet (2004)
Produced by: NFB Canada & NHK Japan
This is a five-part series that recounts the profound and gripping story of Earth’s mysterious evolution. Narrated by Christopher Plummer, it reveals the surprising role that sheer chance has played in the development of life.
Over its more than 4-billion-year history, Earth has been home to repeated violent climactic changes, which have caused mass extinctions. And yet, life has survived. In fact, these same catastrophes that devastated life on Earth also helped bring about its evolution from the simplest microbes to the complexity and diversity that is found on the planet today.
Filmed in High Definition this series features location footage, interviews with the world’s foremost scientists and cutting-edge computer technology.
>> List of episodes:
1. THE VIOLENT PAST
Featuring astounding high-definition visuals and interviews with prominent scientists in the field, this episode reveals the startling earliest history of life on Earth – its microscopic manifestations and the unimaginable challenges to its survival.
2. SNOWBALL EARTH
This episode takes us back more than two billion years, to this first ice age that gripped the Earth for what scientists believe was millions of years. Snowball Earth reveals the startling secrets of how life survived this devastating cold and how this extreme climate shift forever changed the development of life on Earth.
3. NEW FRONTIERS
For billions of years, life existed only in the Earth’s oceans. But about 350 million years ago, some of those earliest life forms began to explore New Frontiers on land. This episode recreates the remarkable adaptation of these animals that first came ashore and reveals the fascinating theories of how and why they did.
4. EXTINCTION AND REBIRTH
This episode follows the dinosaurs through life and death and chronicles the early rise of the mammal as the dominant creature on the planet.
5. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
This final episode walks us down the incredible evolutionary pathway that has brought humans to their dominant position on the planet and openly questions our role in the future development of life on earth.
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* Review by Ambrose Video Publishing
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