Antarctica Dreaming
June 2007 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: HD DVD/DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Penguins have been featured in many movies. They range from Willy, the sweet-as-sugar animated penguin who couldn’t get warm enough, to The Penguin, the malevolent foe of Batman. These wingless birds in full formal dress have always been a fascination. During 2005-6, we had a bumper crop of cinematic penguins. It started with March of the Penguins, the Academy Award winning documentary that told the story of the emperor penguin. It culminated in another Academy Award winner that let us revisit the emperor and discover two additional species, the animated feature Happy Feet.

But there are many more species than those, and this eye-popping documentary introduces them. We discover Gentoo, Adelie, Chinstrap, and King penguins, and one of the supplements lets us revisit the Rockhopper penguins that we first discovered in Happy Feet. Each of these groups has its own distinct character. They don’t all waddle. The King penguins sort of march, and the Rockhoppers, well, they hop. They nest differently and their survival rates are wide ranging. All of this information is made clear in a very good narration on the first audio track.

This enjoyable movie is not only about penguins; it’s also about Leopard seals, Fur seals, Elephant seals, Albatrosses, and ice. There are many memorable scenes: the little Gentoo penguins arching from water to air as they swim like dolphins; the magnificent flight of the albatross with its 12’ wing span on display; the comical mating antics of various sea birds; a humorous moment as a penguin hopping out of the ocean bumps into an elephant seal; majestic blue icebergs; ice cliffs crashing into the sea; and an awesome crowd scene, a gathering of 750,000 King penguin couples. Talk about extras.

The movie was photographed in HD by a team of cinematographers headed by producer David Hannan, Emmy Award winner for Coral Sea Dreaming. To say that the images are spectacular is an understatement. As indicated in this month’s editorial, we are staying within a format when we give ratings, thus this release has 4.5 SD video and 4.5 HD DVD video. It is a combo disc with the HD version on one side and the SD on the flip side, so everyone can play it. The SD is as sharp and clear as any I have seen, but on looking at the HD one perceives more detail and depth, giving a greater three-dimensional feeling. It appears as if the fur of the seals or the feathers of the penguins have not only detail but texture. They look touchable on the HD, as does the water, ice, and rare glimpses of grass.

One has a choice with the audio. You set the narration to on or off. It is likely that on a second viewing you might like to experience just the natural sounds and music. The 5.1 sound is very good, with excellent use of surround to convey a sense of environmental space.

There are significant extras, all in both SD and HD, depending on which side you are watching. There are six bonus mini documentaries: "Antarctica," "Falklands," "South Georgia," "Whaling," "Tourism," and "Climate Changes." Each provides a good look at its topic by coupling razor-sharp video with intelligent narration. Some of these segments seemed just to stop rather than end. I might hazard a guess that they are a combination of outtakes and scenes from documentaries yet to be released.

The advertisement found in the HD DVD box indicates that other titles are in preparation by HD Scape: Star Gaze II, Visions of the Sea, Hawaii, The Great Southwest, and Southern Seas. If this disc is an indicator of the general quality of this series, I’ll await those titles with keen anticipation.

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