Some spoilers in the following text.
For years I have been trying to get people to read Wayne Barlowe's EXPEDITION as an imaginative and entertaining view of what an alien world's ecosystem might be like. In the book there were actual human explorers. I thought that the use of robots was both more interesting and more realistic. The commentary from scientists, artists and film makes was interesting, but lacked depth. I don't think George Lucas, talented as he may be, is an expert on anything involving the hard sciences. The program needed to be at least twice as long as it was. There was a wealth of material in Barlowe's book that wasn't even touched in the show. The amazing Butcher Tree was shown briefly but not discussed at all. The icecrawlers and rimrunners were among my favorite of Barlowe's creations, but they went unmentioned in the show. The Floaters were not shown or discussed at all thus making the Eosapiens seem less obviously related to other life forms on the planet. The brevity of the presentation left the creators less able to paint a picture of a vast and complex biosphere. Perhaps this material might have been better presented in a mini series as was The Future Is Wild.
By all means get the DVD of this program, but also get the book. Check it out at: http://heh.pl/&1yk
For years I have been trying to get people to read Wayne Barlowe's EXPEDITION as an imaginative and entertaining view of what an alien world's ecosystem might be like. In the book there were actual human explorers. I thought that the use of robots was both more interesting and more realistic. The commentary from scientists, artists and film makes was interesting, but lacked depth. I don't think George Lucas, talented as he may be, is an expert on anything involving the hard sciences. The program needed to be at least twice as long as it was. There was a wealth of material in Barlowe's book that wasn't even touched in the show. The amazing Butcher Tree was shown briefly but not discussed at all. The icecrawlers and rimrunners were among my favorite of Barlowe's creations, but they went unmentioned in the show. The Floaters were not shown or discussed at all thus making the Eosapiens seem less obviously related to other life forms on the planet. The brevity of the presentation left the creators less able to paint a picture of a vast and complex biosphere. Perhaps this material might have been better presented in a mini series as was The Future Is Wild.
By all means get the DVD of this program, but also get the book. Check it out at: http://heh.pl/&1yk