Walking with Dinosaurs (2025)

The Golden Age (1993-2005)

This was the age of Jurassic Park and the Walking with Series, and a few mid range docs

(Walking with Dinosaurs is a great example of this era)

The Jurassic Fight Club Era (2006-2010)

This was the era when every company started spewing out dino docs (usualy violent) there are a few exceptions (Prehistoric Park)

(This image sums up this era. One word: VILOENCE)

The "Decent" Age (2010-2012)

This was an era of some pretty solid shows, like Planet Dinosaur.

(A pretty good age)

The Age of Spinosaurs (2010-2020)

This was the time we people started raving about spinosaurus and every doc had it in it.

(Read the title)

The Second Golden Age (2020's)

This is a second golden age of paleo media seeing shows like Prehistoric Planet, and Walking with Dinosaurs (2025)

(Showing them just as animals, beautiful)

These are my thoughts after watching the first episode of the new documentary named after the 1999 masterpiece. Minor spoilers.

Many of you are probably quite disappointed with the reboot, while others of you are nostalgic and impressed by the "revival". In my opinion, people are overboard on both sides, honestly the greatest on the former.

To begin with, let's consider the cutscenes. In episode 1, 'The Orphan', the story regularly turns to a current expedition instigated by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in the Hell Creek badlands of Montana. While I have seen some complaining about this formatting, I personally don't mind it. It's interesting to see the process of actually unearthing the legend, piece by piece, so long after featured species faded. I was surprised to see the use of the UV-scanner drone technique - something I hadn't heard of prior and plan to seek updates on. I will admit that some cutscene were a little unnecessary and some of the dialog seemed forced.

The story itself was, in general, very exciting. Pacing was spot-on for me, and the ending satisfactory. On the flipside, the "hero-villain" narrative - Clover being the former and T. rex being the latter - was pretty ridiculous and unrealistic. The introduction of Tyrannosaurus could have been more subtle and engaging.

Animal designs were above-average throughout the program. The tyrannosaur looked fairly accurate to my knowledge, with an amazing head design. Other than with the Infernodrakon, no colourations in the episode wowed me. Clover was adorable and fun to follow.

Now, the CGI. Paleo-enthusiasts are whining far too much about this aspect online. Sure, it's not quite Prehistoric Planet or even Life On Our Planet level, but it is decent for a BBC project. It reminds me aesthetically of WWD 2015 and failed to take away significantly from my enjoyment. If anything movements were choppy at times but not insanely so.

Some gripes I have with the episode lie with the animal behaviors. The only shown T. rex individual was such an incompetent hunter - what sort of hunting tactic is just walking up to a prey item that is perfectly capable of harming you? I saw not a scrap of an ambush; the only successful hunts were due to equally idiotic prey behaviors. The Infernodrakon was unbelievably unalert and literally turned down free food snooping around it's nest. Rhino-like goring charges exhibited by the bull Triceratops were a bit unrealistic when its anatomy is considered.

I also feel like the Edmontosaurus group was quite diminutive - but, who knows if small families occasionally lived isolated from herds?

In conclusion, this does not feel like Walking With Dinosaurs. That said, it isn't a terrible documentary. The mysterious and speculative story of an orphan trike was indeed satisfying. As far as dinosaur documentaries go, I'd consider this episode a high 6/10. I'd probably find myself rewatching and enjoying it comparably to Planet Dinosaur.

I hope that the tales improve in subsequent episodes.

I didn’t watch Walking With Dinosaur 2025 Yet.

Some art of the WWD 2 rex, that I have name 'Rogue'. Finally found a better way to draw shit, Muro on deviantart. Far easier than drawing on Word again. Hope y'all like it!

Clover's death was caused by the asteroid, surely being starved and buried would leave no mark on her

Just watched 1st ep of wwd 2025, absolute cinema

But when was clover discovered, i need to know when she died, because if 66 mya then this theory is plausible

But hey! It's just a theory! A prehistoric theory!

This may sound ironic since I’m talking about a series that hasn’t even released yet, but I’ll just warn you that this post may contain spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen the trailer or any of the clips for the new Walking With Dinosaurs. In a nutshell, the new Walking with Dinosaurs series looks absolutely terrible.

Everything has this plastic-like texture and robotic movement to it which completely ruins the immersion that the audience is actually among the dinosaurs. In the original series, the animation may be dated by today’s standards, but everything has such fluid movement and interacts with the environment in such a way that makes the animals look like they actually exist. This show is edited and animated like a 2010’s YouTube video, and it doesn’t help that the lighting looks saturated and fabricated as all hell.

On top of that, I don’t like how the episodes seem to be deliberately following a single character throughout. Sure, each episode of Walking With Dinosaurs took place in a specific location, meaning some dinosaurs were more central to the narrative than others, but every dinosaur that appeared in every episode had some kind of emphasis and was treated like an actual animal. The episodes seem to be focusing only on a distinctive hero and villain while the animals on the background are little more than canon fodder, which is borderline favoritism and anthropomorphization, something you never want to do in a serious nature documentary.

Additionally, I’m disappointed that the series seems to be going in the direction of Prehistoric Planet and only focusing on animals from the Cretaceous era. The original series explored the beginning of dinosaurs all the way to their end, which meant that not only were a variety of different species depicted, but the series was able to educate the audience on dinosaurs more as a whole, even if many of the facts stated in the original series haven’t aged well. This isn’t my biggest complaint regarding the series obviously, but the fact that the reboot doesn’t seem to be putting nearly as much effort into depicting dinosaurs as the original series did speaks volumes about the production team’s intentions.

Overall, the series feels like another soulless, modern cash-grab made exclusively to sell off its name and expectations, and I don’t believe for a moment that this is going to be the show that saves the Walking With brand as whole.

Will WWD 2025 be peak?

If you didn’t know, each WWD 2025 episode will focus on a specific individual dinosaur protagonist. We have Rose the Albertosaurus, Clover the Triceratops, Salaman the Spinosaurus, Arnie the Pachyrhinosaurus, George the Gastonia, and Old Grand the Lusotitan.

Source: a photo from the website of IQiyi, the Chinese distributor of the show.

https://pages.iqiyi.com/p/zbs/news2025042306.html

Because why not.

1. Tyrannosaurus.

They did a very great job on the Rex, it might end up being the second best depiction of Rex behind Hank. The design is just so cool to look at.

2. Utahraptor.

Fully-feathered with lips, pretty huge upgrade from the OG design, and the red feathers are visually striking.

3. Triceratops.

I am liking these orange eyespots on the frill of the adult. The baby is pretty cute and resembles the PHP one.

4. Spinosaurus.

Seeing a more up-to-date Spinosaurus for the first time in a documentary is such a breath of fresh air. The babies not having fully developed sails is also a nice touch.

5. Albertosaurus.

Good design, the purple splashes on the face remind me of the Tyrannosaurus from Dinosaurs in the Wild (an old project by Tim Haines).

6. Gastonia.

Spiky guy.

7. Lusotitan.

It’s pretty reminiscent of the PHP Dreadnoughtus and I like how it’s a bit more colorful than usual sauropod portrayals. The ball sack head really isn’t that bad.

8. Infernodrakon.

I will never get tired of seeing azhdarchids in paleo docs.

10. Edmontosaurus annectens.

Blue Edmontosaurus is visually appealing, and the baby is adorable. Eager to see what the adult looks like.

10. Pachyrhinosaurus.

It’s pretty much a more up-to-date version of the Pachyrhinosaurus from the WWD movie, nothing more to say.

11. Paralititan.

It may not be actually be Paralititan, but the inderminate titanosaur from the Kem Kem Group that is similar in size to Paralititan.

12. Edmontosaurus regalis.

Looks better than the LOOP Edmontosaurus, which was just a rip off Maiasaura design.

13. Onchopristis.

Glad to see it portrayed as a proper sawskate, not a sawfish like how Planet Dinosaur did.

13. Unidentified azhdarchid.

Might be Cryodrakon or something. No problems with this design.

Anyways, what are you guys’ personal rankings.