cinephile-27690 Thanks to the link above, I saw this 88 minute documentary that tries to tell the history of Earth in 2 hours. (Yes, I know-commercials-it's a joke!) There is a ton of neat information throughout this documentary-but there are issues. One is the pacing. The slow speaking narrator makes this long period of time drag, even for 1 1/2 hours.Then, while the movie claims to be about the HISTORY of the world, there is mostly science. Nearly the first half is about the Big Bang and human "evolution." There is so much more they could have covered had they shortened this. And I have mentioned my 3rd flaw. Creationists, like me,may be irked by this documentary because while Jesus and the start of the major religions are mentioned, the documentary talks about The Big Bang and evolution many more times.Oh, and a scientist uses Genesis 1:3 with a huge smile to make his point on The Big Bang too. Finally, as I would like to expand on, there is SO much more this documentary could have covered! More American events, world leaders, pop culture, modern technology, etc. are all missing. This should have been called The Science of the World-it would be more accurate!Boredom, Science not history, Big Bang, and not enough events. Those are my 4 major flaws,and so I am removing 4 stars. It's not bad, but those not into documentaries or evolution talk may not enjoy it. I thought it was just okay. But it could have been so much more.

TxMike I found this program on DVD from my public library. It is a "2-hour program" I suppose with commercials but the actual running time is about 87 minutes. This is a very good presentation, however bible fundamentalists who believe the world we know can only be a few thousand years old cannot watch this without risking a cranial explosion. Because it starts with the (theoretical) Big Bang billions of years ago. While the Big Bang remains only a theory, and not one that all experts buy into, there are enough sources of scientific evidence that show our universe is indeed many billions of years old.So this program starts with the Big Bang theory and concludes in present time. Along the way it explains how early gravity worked on energy and matter to form masses that eventually with enough pressure and heat ignited into stars. Eventually some of those stars exploded sending hydrogen, helium, and select heavier elements into space. After enough billions of years some of that resulted in our Earth in orbit around our Sun.Of course almost everything we think we know about the development of the Earth, accumulation of water and oxygen, evolution of various animal and plant species are based on analysis of artifacts that have been found over the years, and there can be no doubt that some of it is incorrect. But science overall is pretty good and I'd bet most of what is in this program is pretty close to what actually happened.The program includes input of quite a number of experts and we see short snippets of what they contribute. It traces some of the extinctions, like the big one that caused the dinosaurs to disappear, the rise of the primates, and the rise of the alpha primate, the Human species. Plus how we spread all over the Earth as tectonic plates and land masses moved, oceans swelled and receded. But my own summary, as I watched this highly accelerated view of the History of the World, we the Human species are not good stewards of the world we inherited. We are on a fast track to extinction, moving as fast as we can towards new technology and new ways to entertain ourselves, but also figuring out newer and better ways of going to war and killing our opposition. A bit sobering. But a good program.

grantss Great documentary.As the title suggests, a history of the world in 2 hours (though, once you remove the ads it is more like 1.5 hours...). From the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago to the present time we see how first the universe was formed, then our galaxy, then the earth. From that we see how life began and evolved and how the planet changed.Very informative, yet succinct. Covers the important moments in the 14-billion year history of Earth with just enough detail to make you understand, and less than the amount required to make you confused.On the negative side, the narration does seem rather overly dramatic at times and some of the experts interviewed unnecessary or verbose. It does diminish the credibility of the documentary, making it seem like an action-drama. A bit more gravitas was needed.

Mitadru Banerjee Chowdhury How convenient it is that a title that says" history of the world", it leaves out one of the most important civilizations of the world that is referred to as, "India". You talked about the Arabic numerals, but forgot to mention the country that discovered geometry, you mentioned the pyramids and failed to mention the "Taj Mahal", and more importantly the cave paintings of France were mentioned, but the "Ajanta and Ellora", was forgotten, you talked about the Chinese traders, but failed to even mention and devote even a minute on the richest country in the ancient world. The spice trade, Indus valley civilization, Architectural wonders of "Khajurao", and "Ellora", built over nearly 3000 years found no mention in one of the most biased documentaries i have honestly ever seen. And by the way the Arabic numerals you were talking about were actually derived from the country which discovered "zero", guess what it again is "India".