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Walking With The Dinosaurs Live Show Offers Stunning Visuals

by T.O. Lawrence
11/28/2007

[Editor's Note: We incorrectly identified Felix Nobis as the narrator for this performance. Felix Nobis was not, in fact, involved in the September productions and had left the performance after its August showings. After multiple emails, Immersion Edutainment has yet to send information on the correct casting for this role.]

Silence. A dark stage, empty but for a single granite mound. Behind it, a gaping maw toothed and black, a doorway to prehistory. A voice rumbles through the rafters with the sound of waves and thunder. Lights flash and the ground trembles with life. This is Pangaea, the supercontinent. Here there be monsters.

Based on the BBC television show of the same name, Walking with the Dinosaurs offers audiences a real-life version of Jurassic park without all the hassle of death and dismemberment that generally comes with playing God. Ranging from the tiny to the colossal, you can feast your eyes on some of the most realistic live animatronics you’ve ever seen. Universal Studios ain’t got nothin’ on the BBC.

Featuring 15 life-sized dinos from the Stegosaurus to the Tyrannosaurus Rex and spanning 200 million years through the Jurassic, Triassic and Cretaceous periods, the show is a $12 million geek-gasm for the 13 year old boy inside all of us. Each of the creatures moves with stunning realism, an illusion created by suspended “muscle sacs” under the skin and specialized carts below the larger dinos to move them around. The smaller ones, like the raptors and baby T-rex, are portrayed by actors in detailed costume and are absolutely real to the observer. When combined with the booming sound system at Phillips Arena and the beautiful, stylized light show which gives the flying dinos life, it’s hard to take your eyes off the spectacle.

The narrative recounts the age of the dinosaurs from beginning to end, highlighting evolutionary progress with some of the more popular dinos you might remember from third grade. For the most part, it remains a theatre of attractions with a timeline instead of a plot punctuated by a couple of (slow moving) dinosaur battles in between and era-specific plants sprouting magically from the edge of the stage.

The story of the dinosaurs is recounted by a narrator, a poor-man’s Levar Burton who hardly complements theatrics of such gargantuan proportions. His job is to lead you through the ages of the dinosaurs, inserting facts and trivia along the way to make your journey more interesting. Really, the dinosaurs alone should be enough to grab our attention but I suppose he’s there for the kids in the audience. But for anyone else who has to suffer through it, bring fruit. Lots of rotten fruit.

Occasionally, between your glee at almost seeing Nobis squished by a Brachiosaur and the wonder of witnessing a 20 foot tall T-Rex, spots of humor shine through. Touching moments had amongst dinosaurs and their parents, pitting their squeaking caws against their mothers’ roars are so stupid cute that you just have to laugh a little. The drama is as good as anything out of a National Geographic video, I only wish James Earl Jones would kick this Nobis kid out of the picture to give the narration a little class.

Though primarily meant for children, this show can thrill people of all ages and should please pretty much anyone who attends. The dinosaurs never disappoint though the human element leaves much to be desired. But trust me, you’ll get what you pay for and in the end you will feel as if you really had walked with the dinosaurs.