10 years ago a BBC documentary series called planet Earth was released it completely revolutionized the way nature documentaries are made.
"A hundred years ago, there were one and a half billion people on Earth. Now, over six billion crowd our fragile planet. But even so, there are still places barely touched by humanity. This series will take you to the last wildernesses and show you the planet and its wildlife as you have never seen them before."
— David Attenborough's opening narration
Now, its second installment took it one step further
“Visually, where Planet Earth took an almost God-like perspective and said ‘Let’s look down on the Earth and see the scale of the planet’, what Planet Earth II is doing is saying ‘Let’s get ourselves into the lives of the animals, and see it from their perspective,’” - producer Mike Gunton
Today we will talk about the first episode, islands
We start off on an island near Panama. It is home to the pygmy sloths. They're shown to be slow through the year except when it is mating season
Then we teleport to an island of Indonesia where world's largest lizards, the Komodo dragons live. They remind us of dinosaurs that walked on these lands millions of years ago
But the real interesting part starts on Fernandina island , an active volcano . Here, survival is extreme. Yet we see a breed of iguanas dwelling here. They lay their eggs in the center of the island but live on the edge. They hunt for preys by diving into the sea. But they're not alone.
They share this island with the enemies of their newborns, the racer snakes
Watching them race to grab the iguana baby before it reaches the shores and the iguana run for its life brings more rush than any fictional superhero film ever could
Then we see an army of crabs on Christmas island wanting to mate
But the most interesting and inspiring part of the episode was the segment about the chinstrap penguins of Zavodovski Island.
S U I C I D E E E E E E
No it's not.
These penguins live on an active volcanic island called the Zavodovski Island.
In search of food they have to battle with ferocious waves every day just to be able to provide for their family. Some do not make it back. I think animals have never been shown in such humanizing manner before. It was truly motivational
The episode closes with the shooting staff showing and talking about their experience while shooting it
Obviously Hans Zimmer's music adds to the atmosphere
That's it for today, signing off