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Dom Robinson reviews
The Ballad of Big Al Distributed by
- Cert:
- Cat.no: BBCDVD 1066
- Running time: 58 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 0 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 14 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Stereo (Dolby Digital 2.0)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing, Dutch
- Widescreen: 16:9 (1.77:1)
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £14.99
- Extras: Booklet, Photo Gallery, Storyboard Comparison, DVD-ROM content
Producer:
- Tim Haines
Narrated by:
- Kenneth Branagh
Everyone’s heard of Walking with Dinosaurs,the BBC part-fact, part-speculation six-part TV series about those inhospitablecreatures that roamed the Earth, but it was interesting to see how JurassicPark-style special FX could be translated to the small screen and implementedin an educational way.
And now we have The Ballad of Big Al, a one-off 29-minute episodeabout the life of the Allosaurus, affectionately known as “Big Al”, the knowledge of its short life being brought abouta few years ago when a fossil was unearthed in Wyoming, USA and its almost-completeskeleton was found, despite having been left there for 145 million years.
Accompanying the main programme is Big Al: The Science, actuallybroadcast as Big Al Uncovered, in keeping with the popular trendof ‘..Uncovered’ reality TV shows. Again, running for 29 minutes, it’s acombination of a ‘making of featurette’ and a Q&A of why Big Al did the thingshe did and behaved in that way.
Like theWalking with Dinosaursseries, the quality has been reproduced here perfectly. Zero artifacts and acrisp, clear anamorphic 16:9 widescreen image with plenty of colour to itscheeks.
The stereo soundtrack is perfectly fine with clear dialogue and dino roars, but there’snothing to stretch your sound system over such a brief period of time.
When it comes to the extras there’s a plush silver Booklet containingsome info about Big Al and the reasoning behing the programme, a 56-picturePhoto Gallery and five minutes of Storyboard Comparison.
Finally, the DVD-ROM content included is the “Walking with DinosaursCD-ROM sampler”, containing: Dinosaur sounds, Desktop wallpaper, Stillsscreensaver, Icons, Cursors and eight video files.
There are 14 chapters in total (8 for the main programme and 6 for thesecond), subtitles are available in English and Dutch and the main menucontains subtle animation and music from the programme score.
Overall, this DVD is recommended to anyone who enjoyed the WWD seriesand can’t get enough, but for the casual viewer, fifteen pounds for an hourof material that’s more like a piece of supplemental material on its ownmay be too high a price.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.