Walking With Dinosaurs was a hit documentary in 1999, while it may have not aged as well as we remember it, at the time the effects felt movie level, realistic and the greatest dinosaur documentary up to that point, it was no match. It felt like the real deal, so much that it continued to air with this reputation in tact. A stage show was mad called the Exhibition shortly after but it wasn’t until the mid-00s that it got The Live Experience which evolved into The Arena Spectacular which toured for many years until it was replaced by the Jurassic World live tours.
I had gone to many dinosaur shows as a kid and hte animatronics while cool were always well animatronics. These howerver were hyped by people as saying they were hyper realistic and that they felt they were real. It was also hyped by the paleo communities as the best dinosaur show ever made. My expectations were really high. Now when I finally got the chance to go to it, I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed, they were clearly costumes and not the real dinosaurs in front of your eyes I was lead to believe. I was fairly close since some events that lead me to arrive late to the show got me better tickets for the show after thanks to the magic of luck.
My memory is a bit hazy but I did rewatch a recording of the show which appears to be official to remember better and yeah that was pretty much the show that I watched. I don’t know how much the show changed over the years but it seems for the most part the experience did not change much, although I’m sure there’s smaller details that were perfected over time and even some removed due to costs.
It’s like a documentary and as a stage show makes it seem not that interesting as it would on TV. Now they do plenty of stuff that is impressive, the stuf fhtat they do can be captivating, the platforms and stutns distract a bit. The commentary track helps guide the story but it’s still a documentary style overview. I give them props for the design, I mean how do you make a realistic documentary about dinosaurs into a stage show.
The confrontations and fights between dinosaurs can look silly at times, like when they do things the puppets and costumes were not really designed to do like going backwards. They have a whole bunch of dinosaur species as well to change things up. The live stage show goes through the hwole history of dinosaurs, there’s aciton, history, provieds, everything. It’s high production and high quality with the suits and props. They do try to add some emoiton though they don’t always succeed.
Rewatching it was still a fun experience, although I think for these type of shows, the actual live experience can never be recreated. It’s meant to be experienced in one way and by doing it in a different media you don’t get the full experience. Luckily I did get to watch it when it was touring. Some impressive stuff liek watching the size of the Brachiosaurus would just never hit the same. The energy is also lost as well and it’s a shame most people won’t get to experience it.
Overall, the show was perhaps not as amazing as the reviews from the dinosaur community lead me to believe but I can’t say it wasn’t worth going to. Without any expectations I would’ve not been left disappointed, with that said, is it worth watching as a recording? If you’re a fan of dinosaurs and the Walking with.. series then I’d say you should go for it. You’re getting half the experience but it’s good enough to entertain you for the 1 hour 20 minute run time it has.