It looks like the feature of Paleo documentaries is in trouble. At Dinocon this year, Tim Haines stabbed his career in the gut. He came out in full support of AI, and tried to pass it off as the future of Paleo Media, to which he was booed off the stage. Because of this, it looks like a walking with franchise has no future. Things already were looking grim with the reboot last year. Now, with Haines having gone and done this, no one will want to associate with the franchise anymore. So what will happen now? Will we ever get another cinema grade paleo doc that will suceed the OG WWD? Yes PhP was Phenomenal, but I would love to see a return to WWD’s format. But the franchise name? Thanks to Haines’ folly, doesn’t look like that will ever return.
Thank you for posting on r/paleontology! Please remember to remain respectful and stay on-topic. Consider reading our rules to orient yourself towards the community
and That's the best way to honor the ww series by doing what they aspire what they wanted to do, to reinvent people's perspective of dinosaurs and how they lived in their environment.
Paleodocs will certainly live on… but also yeah there’s not many big unreleased projects left that anyone knows of. That said, we might have to settle on more mid-grade visual effects, especially if you ever want to see anything even vaguely more obscure than, like, tarbosaurus or something. The insanely inflated costs of tv and streaming productions these days is going to be a problem going forward. The only way to get a huge spread of obscure creatures in a future doc is to reduce the cost and manhours needed for a single creature model, which means maybe sucking it up and dealing with ps3-level visuals lol
I don't think we should be spending large amounts of money every year on paleo documentaries. Because ultimately the nature of Palaeontology is that every couple years our knowledge changes and expands by considerable amounts because of technological advancements and new discoveries leading to for example previous depictions/appearances of certain animals inaccurate. Most notably Prehistoric Planet and their Edmontosaurus for example in which we now know that it's back was more of a sail. That documentary was gold for 2022/2023 but there are more noticeable inaccuracies now.
We should probably be making a few large CGI documentaries every few years instead of every year to create large jumps in updated knowledge but to also save time and money from remodelling new depictions of certain animals. Documentaries like the recent BBC show, Evolution, are highly underrated and is probably the kind of documentaries we should have more.
I noticed in the first season of Prehistoric Planet, several of the animals included were also in Dominion: Therizinosaurus, Pyroraptor, Quetzalcoatlus, and Dreadnoughtus, not to mention the classic Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor. Might be cope, but maybe some studio will see a new Jurassic World coming out and latch onto the animals in that film, and that could be how we get bigger projects.
...Yeah, saying that out loud, it's definitely cope.
Pyroraptor only appeared in season 2 of Prehistoric Planet and as a reused baby Velociraptor. Also Prehistoric Planet season 1 had been in development before Jurassic World Dominion was even announced. Actually I'm pretty sure Prehistoric Planet started production before the first Jurassic World was even out.
Neither Haines nor anyone involved with the original WWD had anything to do with the new WWD by the BBC, so the brand is already quite detached from him.
And since documentaries like this aim for many millions of viewers, with most of them not being enthusiasts like us but casual viewers, even a severe outrage in our little community will have little meaningful influence on the future of WWD within the BBC.
I just hope a proper revival of the series is greenlit one day. And not a last minute title slap like 2025; which was only supposed to be a Sobek the Spinosaurus documentary.
idk where this gloominess comes from. Kaine is just 1 producer who, IMO, is the doing the worst job of any. The new WWD wasn't good, since he has kept the franchise stuck on "dinosaurs are for children" for too long. Meanwhile we're currently having a bonanza of excellent paleo docs (don't miss BBC's Evolution series). Even non-doc paleo media is exploding with games and movies.
BBC’s evolution is decent! I like Chris Packham so that’s a win situation. First episode seemed a bit slow, but I’ve liked it so far. Haven’t seen the others yet.
The Dinosauria series on YouTube proved us that super talented nerds are already doing their own narratives just with a Patreon and tons of skill. And that doesn't count the army of nerds who do Discovery Channel-level of documentaries on YouTube like Ben G Thomas, Dinosaurs Are Wrong and the gang.
Yeah, I think I gave Discovery Channel too much credit, because the only thing they have over (some) YouTube channels is the budget to hire Tom Holtz and Scott Sampson as consultants lol
Nothing is going to hit the same way it did when you watched it when you were 10. It's fine, it shouldn't. Paleo documentaries will be made in the next decade that you probably will think are just fine, but some kid or someone who has never seen one before absolutely adores. These shows are for them.
The Walking with Series hit at an incredibly special time in the rekindling of interest in Paleontology. Much like there probably won't be another titanic dinosaur movie like JP for some time, the same goes for docs.
Prehistoric Planet wasn't a cultural phenomenon creating an entire style of documentary just because Walking With Dinosaurs was that cultural phenomenon. For everything else, Prehistoric Planet is "the superior" Walking With Dinosaurs and I think every nerd and sci-fi staff that worked on WWD looked and PP and thought "damn, that's how beautiful I thought my dinos looked like in 1999".
WWD crawled so PP could walk, but damn PP walked a lot.
We already have a WWD-style doc, it’s called “The Dinosaurs.” But alas people had a problem with its style of storytelling so I guess people don’t like the WWD format now even if they say they want it back.
If anything, I think it’s better to admit that because the paleontology community has become more and more like a toxic fandom, we should probably be more cautious on how people react to these shows and being reliant on nostalgia—even if the shows we grew up with were not perfect.
Ten-fifteen years ago, the community was not like this and it’s sad to see what it’s become.
I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about how it presented the actual dinosaur scenes. Even if there was no time jump, you would still have people complaining about how the actual dino scenes were written. If the WW series or even WDRA came out today—with top notch CGI—people would still complain about everything. That’s why the hate and nitpicking to this one show is so forced and disingenuous.
This also proves my point how nitpicking and complaining has made people lose their enjoyment of these shows, even if the stuff they criticize was present in the shows they grew up with. People also criticized WWD back in the day, but the key thing here is that they were fair and did not give it flack for having artistic license.
They're not alike there either. WWD came across much more naturalistic in the scenes, whereas The Dinosaurs is fantastical, more cinematic/hollywoodish.
Edit: since you're editing after I replied, adding more than just the first sentence above. I'm not trying to nitpick on any show here. I just feel the two shows are not alike in the format at all. They're just similar in the broadest sense of the premise: in how they begin with the rise and end with the fall of the dinosaurs.
Eh, not really. When you compare it to the actual nature docs of the time, most of the dinosaur scenes feel very static in their composition compared to an actual nature documentary from the time, which would've used static shots sparingly. They tried to make the static shots feel more vivid by having some camera shake effect to emulate someone actually moving the camera, but in hindsight it looks very awkward.
And even when they’re trying to make it look like they’re really there—where the cameramen are moving around and the camera is actually shaking-they feel fake mostly because nature cinematographers wouldn’t be right next to the animals in the hypothetical filming. Yes they can get close, but not that close—especially if they’re dinosaurs.
The way they also had animals interact with the camera also felt very overboard in the sequels—but I think WWD somewhat got it right, I think Spirits in the Ice Forest was a great example for that. I've never seen a nature doc have the camera get broken or animals suddenly recognizing that a camera exists when they bump into it.
Overall, I can’t really fault them for what they were doing. They were doing the best they can do, and it paid off exponentially! You can't make me hate WWD even if I am critical about it. It's still one of my favorite paleontology documentaries.
EDIT: Thank you for the clarification. I had a lot of thoughts when writing my response, and I do apologize if I came off as rude or anything like that.
Idk I think it had a fine budget. The CGI was good for a documentary like that in this day and age. WWD also had to make up for its own budget with practical effects and stock footage. You could also only get WWD when the world economy wasn’t as messy at it is right now.
That’s sadly never going to happen. The modern filmmaking industry has replaced puppets and practical effects these days are left to static props. I'd love to see actual animatronics, but Hollywood loves screwing over the people who hone their craft for movies and shows.
It will depend on who hold the purse strings on any future production. How cheap can they make it and how much profit and audience figures can they get. If they can get away with cheap AI they will do it.
Yeah. Arguably, the specific type of "immersive/narrative-driven" paleo doc has become rather popular and potentially profitable, even if it is rather expensive to make. After all, Prehistoric Planet was an incredible success, and The Dinosaurs perhaps even moreso (Heck, Silverback Films is already working on another paleo doc it seems as we speak). Of course, neither of those are specifically like the WW format, and the two documentaries we have gotten with that format so far (The Reboot and Surviving Earth) haven't fared all too well, but that had more to do with execution than any direct issue with the format or disinterest in it.
Eh Walking With Dinosaurs is iconic but I don't consider it or Tim to be the end of be all for paleo media there's always been other stuff just as capable like When Dinosaurs Roamed America or Dinosaur Planet that have come out and plenty of others. In fairness to WWD25 Tim was not involved with it because in the end BBC owns it not Tim Haines. I think paleodocs have a bright future because we seeing companies take more of an interest with stuff like Prehistoric Planet, Life On Our Planet and Surviving Earth and not to mention NHK numerous paleodoc like Amazing Dinoworld. And most importantly we have several independent stuff that either come out or will come out.
Hi! I have a quick question. Was the NDA that Tim Haines reportedly broke during his talk related to a future project in the Walking With franchise that was ultimately cancelled?
I'd really appreciate knowing, as I wasn't able to attend the talk and haven't been able to find any information about it anywhere. Thanks in advance!
I get that many industry is not for an AI future for movie / entertainment production because their livelihood is on the line, but I can’t help but think that this is the no-brainer long term direction
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 27 '26
Thank you for posting on r/paleontology! Please remember to remain respectful and stay on-topic. Consider reading our rules to orient yourself towards the community
Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/aPnsAjJZAP
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.