Earth: One Amazing Day 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Earth: One Amazing Day 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Around the World in 4K

Reviewed by Michael Reuben February 4, 2018

The BBC's original Planet Earth TV series was followed by a feature film version entitled, simply, Earth. New footage was added, and David Attenborough was replaced by narrators more familiar to moviegoers: James Earl Jones in the U.S. market and Patrick Stewart in the U.K. Released in the U.S. by Disneynature, the film was an unexpected box office hit, second only to March of the Penguins among theatrical nature documentaries.

Now, the BBC is attempting to replicate that success with Earth: One Amazing Day, a new feature film following the highly regarded TV sequel, Planet Earth II. A U.K./China co-production, One Amazing Day has been released theatrically around the globe, including a limited U.S. release in October 2017. But like the television series on which it is loosely based, One Amazing Day's best presentation may well be on UHD Blu-ray disc, where the full resolution of the original 4K digital photography can be reliably exploited and displayed (not to mention graded for HDR10 and Dolby Vision). It's a telling sign that BBC Video has created a standard Blu-ray for One Amazing Day, but they don't appear to be marketing it separately (at least in the U.S.). There's a DVD for those still satisfied with standard definition, but the studio is marketing the Blu-ray and UHD disc in a single package. If you haven't yet upgraded your system, you can buy it for the Blu-ray alone and be all set to watch it again—at its best—when you make the jump to 4K.

As with the previous feature-length adaptation of the Planet Earth series, One Amazing Day has movie stars for narrators: Robert Redford in the English version and Jackie Chan for the Mandarin track. It uses the narrative device of the sun's rise and setting to tie together a series of vignettes showcasing a wide array of animals from all over the world. The title is a bit of poetic license, as the documentary doesn't actually follow the sun around the globe, and the events it selects to knit together don't necessarily happen every day. But the basic concept is sound: On any given day, there are remarkable sights everywhere in the natural world (and even, taking a cue from the final chapter of Planet Earth II, in major cities). All it takes to see them is high-definition cameras and a group of intrepid photographers who are willing to camp in the harshest conditions, scale forbidding peaks and undertake dangerous endeavors like diving into freezing waters under several feet of ice—all the while patiently waiting for something interesting to happen.

The film's screenwriters and editorial team have done the usual impressive job of turning each animal encounter into a mini-drama, and the film is replete with villains, heroes, comic sidekicks and supporting players. A memorable carryover from Planet Earth II is the contest between infant Galapagos iguanas, who must climb out of the sand and scramble to the safety of nearby rock formations, and the hungry packs of racer snacks lying in wait to pounce on their favorite meal of the year. (If you share Indiana Jones's disposition on the subject of snakes, you might want to fast-forward through this section, because the baby lizards don't always win.) Needing no narrative embellishment is a new section in which two male giraffes, one younger and one older, battle for supremacy. In the popular imagination, especially if you've hand-fed giraffes at zoos, they're calm, placid and deliberate creatures, but this remarkable footage will change the way you see them, as these two warriors curve their elongated necks into weapons, striking at each other with furious intensity until one of them finally goes down.

Some of the episodes are intriguing simply for their novelty, such as a sighting of the rarely glimpsed narwhal (or "narwhale") navigating channels opened through Arctic ice as it melts during the annual thaw or a school of sperm whales sleeping vertically. Others incidents have an inherent drama, like the struggle of a young zebra foal to rejoin its mother after it is separated while crossing a river swollen by rains. Some are simply beautifully colorful, like the sight of countless mayflys hovering over the waters from which they hatch, as they mate and die in a single day, or the New Zealand glow worms hanging like illuminated bats from a cave top, their blue tentacles forming an inviting overhang (which is, naturally, a lure for prey). Of course, One Amazing Day also includes beloved standbys like the panda (this one has an adorable cub) and the ever-popular penguin; the latter sequence appears to be cut from the same penguin footage shot for Planet Earth II.

One Amazing Day concludes with raccoons who make their home in the streets and alleys of Toronto, and if you've ever had any dealing with raccoons, you know that it's no minor achievement to make them appear cuddly and cute, as this footage does. It's common for nature documentaries to anthropomorphize their subjects to some degree, but the feature film versions of Earth tend to indulge in it more than the TV documentaries. That's show biz!

Earth: One Amazing Day 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

(Note: Screenshots included with this review are 1080p captures from the standard Blu-ray disc. They offer previews of the 4K disc's content, but they cannot begin to convey the superiority of its video image.)

Everything that I said about the 4K version of Planet Earth II applies to BBC Video's 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD disc of Earth: One Amazing Day. The combination of native 4K resolution and HDR grading renders the series' wide assortment of creatures with such depth and immediacy that the image achieves a kind of hyper-realism in closeups, rendering fine textures and shadings of fur, feather and scale with an intensity that is almost three-dimensional. The digital cameras bring these creatures much closer to the viewer than one could ever hope to approach them (and, in many cases, survive the encounter), and the UHD presentation reveals the tiniest variations in color and consistency, even in mass groupings of penguins, zebras and swarms of mayflys. The improvements are especially obvious in aerial views or long shots with multiple animals where the camera crew has been able to achieve a depth of field that keeps even distant individual creatures in tight focus.

Reviewers usually have to swap discs to compare the 1080p and 4K presentations of a title, but here the process has been simplified by the inclusion of substantial 1080p footage in the extras, which appear on both the UHD and standard discs. Look closely, for example, at the detail and definition of the panda fur, sloth claws, giraffe markings or the individual birds that make up the penguin flock in both versions, and you can't help but observe the difference. A UHD player's up-conversion from 1080p can't compare with a native 4K source, especially with the added depth and range of HDR encoding. (The disc is also encoded with Dolby Vision, for which Blu-ray.com is still evaluating appropriate options.)

The foliage and landscapes are equally stunning, as they were on Planet Earth II. The time-lapse sequence of bamboo shooting up toward the sky, growing at 1mm per minute according to the narration, is as astonishing as any animal encounter. One Amazing Day may not have the encyclopedic range of the TV series on which it is based, but it conveys the same sense of wonder, equally well-represented on 4K UHD with an intensity that defies verbal description. You have to see it for yourself, and the film's creators have generously included enough new material to make it a worthy companion to its televised predecessor.

Earth: One Amazing Day 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Where Planet Earth II had a 5.1 soundtrack, Earth: One Amazing Day receives an upgrade to Dolby Atmos (but only in English; the Mandarin track is Dolby Digital 5.1). However, I'm not sure the change in format is a meaningful improvement over what can be accomplished with a 5.1 mix, as the mixers have once again not tried to replicate the disorganized racket of a natural environment. As in Planet Earth II, they have selected specific sounds of nature—and some that sound suspiciously like effects manufactured on a dubbing stage—to complement and accompany each scene, and those effects may be placed in front, in back or all around. Rain, surf and insect noises are among the enveloping environmental effects. Countless varieties of animal vocalizations occur both on- and off-screen. All of these effects are seamlessly integrated with the narration, which floats authoritatively over the front center, and with the score by Alex Heffes (11.22.63), performed by an adept Chinese symphony orchestra.

Earth: One Amazing Day 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Except where noted, all of the following appear on both the UHD disc and the standard Blu-ray, at 1080p in both instances (and accordingly without HDR on the UHD).

• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 15:17): This short featurette includes interviews with One Amazing Day's writers, directors and producers. The longest section is devoted to composer Alex Heffes and his work recording the film's score in China, working through a translator with an experienced Chinese symphony orchestra.



• Breaking the Ice (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:16): Each of the remaining extras provides a glimpse of various camera teams' efforts. This one looks at the search for elusive narwhals and the divers who ventured under the ice.



• Clash of the Titans (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:53): The battle of two male giraffes.



• Chasing Shadows (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:56): The rare and rarely photographed white-headed langur.



• Raising a Family at the End of the World (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:48): Penguins!



• Noah's Ark (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:39): The extraordinary collection of insects and other life forms that inhabit a pygmy three-toed sloth that the camera crew nicknamed "Noah".



• Introductory Trailers: At startup, the standard Blu-ray (but not the UHD) plays a trailer for Blue Planet II and a promotion for the BBC's Britbox streaming service.

Earth: One Amazing Day 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

BBC's Earth division remains second to none in the quality of its nature documentaries, both in the material they acquire and in the craftsmanship with which they assemble it into compelling TV and movie experiences. The standard Blu-ray presentation of Earth: One Amazing Day is certainly effective at bringing home this latest entry in BBC Earth's catalog, but as with Planet Earth II, if you want to get the full amazing impact, see it in 4K. Highly recommended.