Walking with Monsters (2005) Review

Walking With Prehistoric Life Marathon (Part 5)

Walking with Monsters (2005) Review 

Finally, we’ve reached the end of the Walking with Prehistoric Life marathon, with this conclusive series officially rounding out the “Trilogy of Life” that began with Walking with Dinosaurs and continued with Walking with Beasts. Walking with Monsters looks at life before dinosaurs, going as far back as the initial formation of planet earth and scanning through the evolutionary processes that led to the age of reptiles, with focus on how early life forms developed characteristics that would be passed down to future species. 

As a kid, I was beyond excited for another Walking With… adventure, and it didn’t let me down, except in one regard: instead of having six half-hour episodes devoted to one time and place like Walking with Beasts and Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Monsters has only three episodes, which skip through multiple periods in one episode, with an inconsistent amount of time spent in each place. I think there were a couple reasons for this. For one, a lot of fossil evidence about the earliest life on earth is scarce, making it harder to accurately recreate environments and populate them with creatures that all lived in the same place. Second, there were probably budget concerns, because while Walking with Dinosaurs and subsequent series were huge successes, they were also expensive, with Guinness World Records calling Walking with Dinosaurs the most expensive documentary series per minute to produce. Also, the Sea Monsters special previously incorporated multiple eras within three half-hour episodes, so maybe they just wanted to continue with that model. Whatever the case, I wished there had been more. 

Walking with Monsters is a prequel in the sense that it was made after telling the middle chapter (Mesozoic era) and final chapter (Cenozoic) in the history of life on earth. The Paleozoic era was the true beginning, but it wasn’t done quite the justice in the way Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts did to their respective eras. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s a disservice, but in comparison to the other Walking With… entries, this last one doesn’t quite live up, though it’s still far from being a bad docudrama. 

Episode one begins literally at the beginning, with another planet crashing into earth, forming the moon and setting the conditions right for life to flourish. In the first segment, life is still simple and entirely ocean-based, with the bizarre Anomalocaris as the top predator. The second segment follows a school of ancient fish called Cephalaspis migrating to a spawning ground, with sea scorpions hunting them. The third segment shows the amphibious Hynerpeton trying to win a mate and avoid being eaten by the giant fish Hyneria, which can crawl onto land. Episode two follows several creatures in a dense jungle during the Carboniferious period, then the sail-back Dimetrodon in the early Permian period. Episode three skips to the end of the Permain period, right before a mass extinction wipes out nearly all life on earth. The series ends in the early Triassic, after life has recovered somewhat, but the mammal-like reptiles are about to be usurped by the dinosaurs.

By this point, it’s been established that the Walking With… franchise takes some liberties with scientific facts in order to tell more dramatic stories, but it’s taken significantly further in Walking with Monsters. I won’t get into all the boring details, but they stretch some things pretty far, as well as dramatize some highly unlikely behavior, to the point of taking even casual viewers out of the experience. One small example is when a large four-legged amphibian encounters the giant millipede Arthropleura and somehow pushes the massive arthropod onto a pointed stump, impaling and killing it. It plays out in a completely unrealistic manner. Another example is how the baby Dimetrodon flee from the cannibalistic parents and roll in dung to deter them from chowing down. This speculation, while not outside the realm of very general possibility, is largely unfounded given the fossil evidence.

The animators got really ambitious with the visual effects this time around, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always pay off. There are many more close-up cgi shots in places that probably would have used animatronics had the series been made earlier in the digital effects era, and while some shots are good, many are not. There are numerous creatures that just don’t look real. In one instance, a cgi giant spider attacks a puppet Petrolacosaurus, and the contrast is terrible. There’s still a decent effort made to use practical effects, but not all of them are that good. Easily the worst is the Lystrosaurus and chasmatosaur in the final segment. When the chasmatosaur attacks the Lystrosaurus in the river, the camera lingers on them too long, and they lack much articulation. Their unblinking eyes and stiff movements have always bothered me. 

In Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts, all of the sound effects were original and fitting to each creature, but in Chased by Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters, there were some stock sound effects and roars used, though pretty few. Walking with Monsters re-uses a few creature sounds as well, and while it’s a minor complaint, it still shatters the illusion that these are real creatures when you can recognize the sound from a totally different creature in a whole other program.  

I don’t want to focus solely on the negatives, though, because I actually still really enjoy this series. The segments in the Permian desert with the predatory gorgonopsid and giant herbivore Scutosaurus is my favourite, depicting a harsh world on the brink of extinction. The visual effects are all quite convincing, and the desperation of the creatures makes for some good drama. I also really like the realization of the Dimetrodon in the second half of the second episode. The music throughout, too, is great once again. Of all the Walking With… main title themes, this one is hands down my favourite. It’s so epic, it raised the hairs on my neck the first time I heard it. 

To make Monsters a little more unique and fresh, a few new elements were included. At the end of each segment, a specific creature is shown in an evolutionary process, morphing its body shape until it ends up as a new species, which brings us into the next segment. It’s a cool idea and the effect is very good. Each segment also begins with quick stats, with information such as oxygen content (because it often varied early in earth’s history) and hazards, such as large predators or extreme weather. There’s also another new technique where the camera takes viewers inside certain creatures, to see how their bodies work, and these are created with excellent practical effects. I actually really like all these new additions, but they don’t really make up for the areas where the show is lacking. 

While Walking with Monsters wasn’t quite the epic, perfect completion of the “Trilogy of Life” and conclusion to the Walking With… franchise that it could have been, it’s still a very informative, entertaining, and well-realized series, with plenty of never-before-seen creatures and exciting dramatizations of a bygone age. 

That wraps up my Walking with Prehistoric Life marathon of reviews! Hopefully you found it interesting reading about these programs and choose to watch some or all of them. All are available on DVD, and some are on streaming services, as well.