So basically, "Life After People" is a series of History Channel documentaries about what would happen if all of the people suddenly disappeared. All of them (at least the episodes I've seen) follow a theme of showing us how important maintenance is to our land & structures, and through extrapolation & past examples, how in only a few generations without people, the earth would largely return to how it was/would have been before our involvement with it. The cinematography is also quite good, and for those of you that're interested, there's a bunch of clips available [here] on the official site. Along with that, the DVDs are out now, and a bunch of people have also uploaded it to youtube.
Ah yes, Life After People...aka "When CGI Buildings Collapse". I'm a big fan of both the series and the original special that inspired it, and own all of them on DVD. It's truly amazing to see how quickly so many of the things humanity has built would fall apart and disappear without our constant maintenance. Between weather, plant growth and the fact we use steel in so much of our construction, nothing lasts all that long. The CGI is a little dated in the earlier episodes, though, and they have a habit of replaying the destruction shots over and over.
Yeah, I really never thought of it like this before, and it really made me think how nothing "man made" is truly made to last, not even our transformers hah. Guess it doesn't hurt my imagination that I've often watched these shortly after watching The Walking Dead, but these are easily some of my favorite shows, and I hope that schools are using them in some capacity now days. Also, I saw another show/special on the History Channel channel called something like "When the world stops turning" (or to that affect anyway) which was about how reliant we are on the planet's rotation, and how without the consistency we have now, we'd end up finding much of our planet to be completely inhabitable.
The only thing to last will be that Christmas fruit cake thing. I love the show and have both series on DVD. I was thinking only today I should watch them again. I have been meaning to pick up the original special on disc too. I saw it on telly ages back before I got the two series last year but can't remember if there's anything different in it to the following series. I don't really want to buy something I've already got in the two series, unless of course it's different enough from them. Those that have it able to remind me what the original special contained and if any of it ended up in the main series in any significant way? I know one thing though: after seeing the series I worry about the condition of my house more. Anything that looks like it's starting to degrade immediately puts me in mind of Life After People.
Makes sense, but its not like you'll be around in 600 years, so fuck it? Oh & to Bellpeppers, history is really only the "past" when looking at it from our current point in time. Plus, much of the show's content & extrapolations are taken from things that've gone down & essentially been reformatted in the past, so I think it qualifies. Plus, until we start seeing shit like Pedophiles in Tiaras on History Channel, I think we're alright. Also if nothing else, I believe Optimus Primal said it best with "The seeds of the future lie burred in the past", so yeah.
It's been a few months since I finished watching through the series, but I do remember some of the things from the original special being covered and/or expanded on during the course of the series. Not always the exact same things, although some of the CGI clips from the special are re-used, but similar general topics. While the show is generally focused on what could happen in the future, most of the projections are based on what has already happened. For instance, every episode of the series has an extended segment where they go out to a location that was abandoned (x) years ago, detail the history of that area, why it was abandoned and how the area has deteriorated since then. They also delve into history to, for example, explain why the Colosseum will remain standing for quite some time but modern structures built out of reinforced concrete won't make more than a couple of centuries.
It's cool how they look at the environment a structure is standing in and how the structure was constructed and of what and extrapolate from that what the future might hold for it. Different stuctures degrade in different ways, and parts of those structures can degrade at different rates too. It's not just 'This building is old' and then it falls down. I dunno - one of the wooden batons along the side of my shed came off in the strong winds here last night and when I went to put it back up I discovered the wood it was mounted on had rotted. Hopefully I can just replace the mounting with a new plank of wood but it's still an annoyance. I only keep just the lawnmower in there anyway so I might just tear the shed down if it's all too far gone and store the mower in the garage. Just can't have nice things... Thanks. I might stick it on the birthday wish list so if it's too much of what I've already got at least I won't have paid for it myself.
I absolutely loved this show when it was on...I still wonder if there'll ever be a third series. I was surprised to learn that the ISS would fall back to Earth in just a few years, I thought it'd remain in orbit for ages, but still, even after hundreds of thousands of years and everything on Earth is gone, we'll still have the landing sites on the Moon as evidence of our existence......unless something happens there :/ I think I remember a documentary like that, except it was the Earth gradually slowing down then coming to a complete stop
Might've been the same one, or maybe something with a similar concept. Edit - The other one I'm thinking of is Aftermath, and the episode I saw was called "When the Earth Stops Spinning". Oddly enough, they also have one called "Population Zero/The World After Humans", which basically talks about the same thing as the Life After People episodes do.
Ah yes, that's the one I was thinking of as well, I remember the red giant and the population growth one as well, the oil one sounds interesting though, I might try to find that, huh, i've also watched the population zero one, as I do remember them mentioning the moon landings Did anyone watch The Future is Wild? That show was fucking weird
I've got the series on DVD. I kinda like how it ends suggesting that squid people will eventually rule the world.
Just read up on this series a little after "squid people" caught my attention. Definitely going to have to get the DVDs for it. I love speculative "nature documentaries" like that, with Walking with Dinosaurs and Alien Planet being a couple of my favorites.
I'd definitely recommend The Future is Wild. It starts out a little slow because each episode deals with an era and it takes a few million years for all the wacky stuff to start evolving, but you get a few episodes in and it's pretty clever and interesting. How could anyone not love squids that swing through the trees like monkeys by using their tentacles as arms and tails? Or an elephant-sized squid who gets its brain hi-jacked by some kind of fungus snot? Also it has the most scientist-looking scientists I've ever seen. Such bad nerd clothes and beards.
Scientist-looking scientists? You mean like Bill Nye or Walter White? I mean, they're both bad in their own right...
I mean huge thick glasses, massive wayward hair and wonkey beards, checkered shirts and brown corduroy slacks where the waistband is almost up to their chins. For the best example, check this at 3:07...
Love the series. I got the original 2 hour documentary on blu ray, but haven't sprung for season 1 because I can't buy it on blu ray. Which sucks because season 2 is available on blu ray and I won't buy it without getting season 1 (I don't like switching back and forth with the formats when it comes to a single series). I haven't actually seen season 2, anyway, so I see no point in springing for it. Did the series come back for a third season or was it just the 2?
There's only 2 seasons listed on the website (and on IMDB), so I'd go with that. I think "Wrath of God" was released later on in 2011, but as part of the 2nd season. In either case, I wouldn't worry about watching season 1 before season 2 because everything follows its own timeline, just in different places for different reasons, etc.
