Walking with Monsters - Life Before Dinosaurs |
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Genre | Documentary |
Developed by | Andrew Wilks |
Narrated by | Kenneth Branagh |
Theme music composer | Ben Bartlett |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of episodes | 3 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Tim Haines |
Producer(s) | Chloe Leland |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company(s) |
BBC Natural History Unit Impossible Pictures |
Distributor | BBC Worldwide |
Release | |
Original network | BBC |
Original release | 5 November 2005 |
Chronology | |
Related shows | Other shows in the Walking with... series |
External links | |
Website |
Walking with Monsters (also distributed as Before the Dinosaurs - Walking with Monsters or Walking with Monsters - Life Before Dinosaurs) is a three-part British documentary film series about life in the Paleozoic, and briefly into the Mesozoic, bringing to life extinct arthropods, fish, amphibians, synapsids, and reptiles. As with previous Walking with... instalments, it is narrated by Kenneth Branagh. Using state-of-the-art visual effects, this prequel to Walking with Dinosaurs shows an epic 300 million year war between creatures before the dinosaurs. The series draws on the knowledge of over 600 scientists and depicts Paleozoic history, from the Cambrian Period (530 million years ago) to the Early Triassic Period (248 million years ago). It was written and directed by Tim Haines. As with some of the other BBC specials, it was renamed in North America, where its title was Before the Dinosaurs: Walking with Monsters. It has also aired as a two-hour special on the Canadian and American Discovery Channel with yet another narrator, although Branagh's narration can still sometimes be heard. At the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2006 it won the Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More).
Unlike previous series, each period begins with "tech specs" highlighting specific traits of that period (location of fossil finds from that period, oxygen content/global temperature, and hazards)