Prehistoric Planet is a new five - part series on Apple TV+ that shows the life and times of Cretaceous - era dinosaurs and pterosaurs as never before . Each sequence focuses on a particular habitat from 66 million years ago , and play the flora and fauna of the time in breathless detail , using the most up - to - date research , to accurately depict each life sentence form . That means velociraptor with feather , T. rex that can float , and plesiosaurs that swallow stones whole .
The series is narrated by David Attenborough , with euphony by Hans Zimmer and Bleeding Fingers Music . The show is filmed in the style of a traditional nature documentary , loan the footage a sense of naive realism independent from the caliber of the computer - generated imagery .
This week , Gizmodo question Darren Naish , a paleozoologist who exercise as the show ’s chief scientific advisor , and Tim Walker , the series ’ manufacturer and showrunner , to discuss the making of Prehistoric Planet . Below is our conversation , lightly - edited for clearness .
A Hatzegopteryx, as shown in “Prehistoric Planet.”Image: Apple
Isaac Schultz , Gizmodo : The very first shot of the show open with a male T. rex swimming with his brood across a consistence of weewee . Why was that shot chosen as the viewer ’s first image of our prehistoric planet ?
Tim Walker : The big ambition of the series is to emulate a BBC Natural History Unit wildlife documentary , the variety of which we ’ve been make for the last 60 years . Over the last 20 years or so , we ’ve produced things like Planet Earth and Planet Earth 2 , Blue Planet , Frozen Planet . These documentaries showcase the natural world like no one else can . We show its looker , we show the behavior of the animal and plants that dwell it in a sure way … one of the things that these series do is they bring unknown bits of behaviour to the viewer .
Although it ’s set 66 million years ago and most of the animals that we feature are no longer with us unluckily , we still want to show unusual behavior displayed by well - known fictional character . And so what skilful way to wreak that to the cutting edge than the series by quetch off with the most famous familiar dinosaur , but doing a very unusual bit of behavior . Now that will hopefully surprise people . It might shock some people . The dinosaur looks slimly different to what the great unwashed have got used to in pop refinement . You know , our T. king has a slightly different anatomy ; the cyberspace has pass away crazy for the room he look . He ’s a father with his brood of immature , and he ’s taking them to memorize a little bit of niche behavior where they see to hunt for themselves .
A Tyrannosaurus rex and juvenile shown in “Prehistoric Planet.”Image: Apple
Darren Naish : [ T. rex ] appear to have been a home ground Renaissance man and it look to have eaten a wide mixed bag of animal fair game , so we have every reason to think that it would have exploited coastal resource the same as big modern piranha do .
Its anatomy shows us that it almost definitely would have been a good swimmer . It ’s got a very muscular , powerful tail . It ’s got monumental spreading feet that mean it would have been quite confident on soft substrate — it would n’t have worried about pass into the George Sand or what have you . And the animals most standardized to Tyrannosaurs today in full term of proportion and body condition are big flightless razz , which are excellent swimmer . They can they can cross massive river and swim at sea .
in conclusion there ’s direct fogey evidence that this group of dinosaurs that include T. rex ( the group is called the theropods , the predatory dinosaurs)—we’ve actually got what we call swim traces — marks made on the ocean floor and lake bed where the tips of their toes have really scraped across the bottom as the animals either gone into shallow water or going into deep water .
A Corythoraptor, as shown in “Prehistoric Planet.”Image: Apple
Add all of that together , I ’d be absolutely certain , even if there was no fossil grounds whatsoever , dead certain as dinosaur expert , that T. rex would have been a good bather , and on function it would have gone swimming .
Gizmodo : How much did recent research soma the series ’ message ? How did your squad balance newer findings from research with more well - established , longstanding consensus ?
Walker : On a Tuesday every week , we have what we call the Dr. Darren Dino Download , in which we all get together as a squad and Darren pay us a slight partitioning of what ’s going on during that hebdomad . And one of the things he tells us is that at the moment , in fact , during the meter that we ’ve been making the series , there ’s pretty much been a new description of a dinosaur or other prehistoric animal one a workweek over the time . So we ’re talk about , you know , 170 , 175 new descriptions that have occurred during the metre we ’ve been making it .
A group of Dreadnoughtus, as shown in “Prehistoric Planet.”Image: Apple
It ’s indicative of the fact that we all working very , very closely with the paleocommunity . That ’s not just dinosaur expert . It ’s masses that work across all the creature , all the botany . We also do paleoclimate modeling to give us datasets so we can look to see what the environments were like at the time and we ’re keeping our finger’s breadth on the heart rate to ensure that what we ’re depict in this late series of Prehistoric Planet , is the most scientifically accurate depiction of the animate being , their behavior and the environment .
Naish : We have n’t made a gunpoint of by choice featuring find that are brand raw . I would say rather , it ’s the fact of this remarkable escalation in discoveries that ’s happened . It ’s a combination of people witness young stuff , more people working on this stuff than ever before and more people than ever before applying raw techniques and new technologies to fossils . This all means that some of the most exciting , compelling , and good stand stories have only been discovered since since 2010 . We ’re in the midsection of a dinosaur rotation , which has been going on for X , it ’s going on since the 1980s , it ’s not necessarily young . But some of the most amazing things we make love that will storm multitude .
We ’re mostly reflect the fact that there ’s just this tremendous bombardment of inquiry , which is really exciting , which is mostly happening now , which is one of the reason why this is the honorable time to make Prehistoric Planet .
A baby Triceratops, as shown in “Prehistoric Planet.”Photo: Apple
Gizmodo : When people mean about dinosaur vocalize they may immediately leap to the yowl of a theropod dinosaur . But Prehistoric Planet has a lot of dinosaur grumble , squawks , and chirp . Without soft tissue to guide the way , how did you make your best supposition at how dinosaurs sounded ?
footer : I ’m going to say one thing and then pass it over to him : # Phylogeneticbracketing , okay ? # Phylogeneticbracketing . permit ’s get that trending .
Naish : There ’s so many things where we ’ve sustain direct fossil grounds . But think of all the matter you want to portray in a instinctive history TV show there ’s no fossil grounds for at all . Sounds are an excellent example . In a case like that , we use what Tim has already mentioned : phylogenetic bracketing . You have to know where your out animal is on the tree of lifetime , and hopefully it ’s on a part of the tree of living where it ’s surround by living relatives .
With nonextant dinosaur , we ’re very prosperous because dinosaurs are n’t extinct . There ’s a group of them that ’s still around today : bird . Birds are dinosaurs . And then further away on the tree diagram of life , on the other side of extinct dinosaur , non - bird dinosaur , there are crocodile and alligators . We ’ve got these two living groups that bracket our out one . If there are “ rules”—and an air quotation mark because nature is such a great deal ; there ’s no inglorious and clean , everything is shades of gray — if there are “ rules ” in the aliveness animals that bracket out the extinct one , then you could employ them to the extinct one with quite a level of confidence .
We ’ve got firstly every reason to think that extinct dinosaurs would be very vocal because crocodiles and alligators and birds are . We ’ve bugger off every reason to mean they would have made a cargo of low - frequency grumbles because big birds — cassowaries , emus , ostriches , etc.—and crocodilians actually make jolly similar sounds . They make them in pretty similar way as well .
That ’s the theory . What are the actual sound actually sound like ? Well , we work with a squad of technicians who got accession to like a million creature strait — obviously BBC Natural History united — so we forge with people that have all this hooey really in their subroutine library . Actually , I should n’t say this , because this is giving away Tim .
Walker : We ’ll expose more about how we where we think the sounds and the conjuring trick of the serial in weeks to arrive . Suffice to say that , you know , we ’ve search at the fauna that surround our animals on the evolutionary Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and look to see what is applicable and have create a wonderful cortege of prehistoric sounds .
Gizmodo : The scientific sweat behind Prehistoric Planet speaks for itself . Are you slaked with the makeup of the skill team ? Should we get a season 2 , would you change it in any way of life ?
Walker : There ’d be no variety in approach shot to how we make Prehistoric Planet . We have created a series that looks and experience as though we ’ve been back in a time machine with a group of filmmakers , And that was the that was the ambitiousness right at the start . Many years later , we ’ve accomplish that . I think there ’s a great deal of the prehistorical major planet to explore . There ’s a lot of dinosaur evolution to explore . We would leap at the chance to , you eff , bring more more of that exciting world to the viewer . But in terms of our approach , we ’d persist exactly the same .
Naish : It ’s been very rewarding and exciting for me to be embedded within the squad powerful from the start and to have contribute to , you cognize , so many of our decisions . I ’ve found it crucial to be embedded in this and it ’s been throb to see it come to life . And we have a whole team of other experts that we consult with harmonize to their appropriate specialization .
Gizmodo : A lot of people will see , the hyper - realism of some of these dinosaurs and just commence to doubt everything that they ’re seeing . What is CGI , what is not ? How much of the paleo surround were CGI versus veridical ? And specifically , I was odd about the time lapses of precious coral and fungi . I mean , were those modeled and then visualized ?
Walker : We ’re not buy the farm to disclose exactly how we did it . Suffice to say that it ’s a blend of actual world placement and CGI creature . In hebdomad to amount , we will in all likelihood be revealing more about the the in - astuteness processes that were demand to make the series .
But we have showcased the natural humankind by great motion-picture photography . We do n’t just focus on the animal , we sport the landscape as well , which is part and portion of the theme song of the BBC ’s innate history output and something that Apple were very bully for us to explore as well , along with Jon Favreau . That marriage of real cosmos locations and CGI beast , I guess has created a toppingly striking visual which carries across the whole serial .
Gizmodo : One element that patently would not have been there 66 million years ago , but I think really added to the spectator ’s experience of the show , was the medicine . What sort of conversations , if any , did the science team have with Hans Zimmer and the Bleeding Fingers squad about what you were try out to get out of every scene ?
Walker : [ jumper lead composers ] Anže and Kara were involved along with Hans right from early doors when , when we were planning the serial publication . We ’ve worked with Hans and the squad before , and the requirement for a cinematic score is once again part and parcel for this eccentric of filmmaking . It brings such an emotional crusade to the serial publication and the ambitiousness with the music was to make a suite of symphonies that typify the different habitats that we showcase in each episode , but with the overlying paper of Prehistoric Planet .
I recall the music is perfectly fabulous . It can prompt you emotionally , it can provoke you emotionally . Both before the issue and after an event it can give you that little fillip that you sometimes need just to make you think about either what you ’re about to see or what you have just seen . It can channelise you through a landscape painting or through a stage set of behaviors that can make you associate certain sounds with either the habitats or the character that are being establish .
Gizmodo : In 20 years , how much do you think the scientific discipline describe in Prehistoric Planet will have change ?
Naish : The get - out reply is we really ca n’t predict the future , so we do n’t know what will be changed . But I think we have to assume that thing will be dissimilar in 20 years clock time . I intend it ’s always worth emphasizing the fact that science is a process . We ’re always changing what we learn according to the fact that we constantly learn new poppycock . It ’s not just collecting facts and saying this is how it is . We have worked as hard as we can to be as up to the minute as possible .
The independent take place would be this is the view of 2022 . This is the view of right now . And we ca n’t presage the future . We have to assume things will be different . But hopefully , cave in that we ’ve been as up to the 2nd as possible , then thing wo n’t be that different . Hopefully .
Gizmodo : Around the time that the Q&A is published , the public will have probably insure one , maybe two episode of Prehistoric Planet . Is there anything that you ’d evoke that they keep an eye out for in the upcoming instalment or any upcoming picture that you may need to tease apart ?
John Walker : I would say just keep on watching because each episode is amazing . In the Freshwater sequence , we showcase dinosaur doing strange poppycock that you ’ve never find out before . From the spectacular to the humourous in the Forest installment , we showcase some dinosaurs that are super coolheaded and citizenry wo n’t really have seen very much on the screen once again going into strange places , performing unusual behaviors . And for the Ice Worlds episode , I mean , what would be cooler than dinosaur and nose candy ? We deposit the two together , so just keep on watching .
Naish : This is a giving affair for scientific discipline nerds like myself . If you see something unearthly in the background and you ’re like “ What was that ? I want to see more of that . ” adhere around . Stick around and watch the rest of the serial publication . Because if we ’ve made a role model of it , we ’re not just going to have it as a background thing , are we ?
The first three episodes of Prehistoric Planet ( ‘ Coasts , ’ ‘ Deserts ’ , and ‘ Freshwater ’ ) are now available to stream on Apple TV+ , and the terminal two episodes will be resign over the next two day .
Hans ZimmerIsaac SchultzJurassic ParkKaraPlanet EarthT. rex
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