DVDfever.co.uk - Life After People Blu-ray reviewDVDfever.co.uk - Charts, News and Reviews of Blu-rays, DVDs, Games, CDs, Hardware, Laserdiscs, Cinema Films & more
When I first heard about Life After People, I was transfixed by the premise.
Imagine what would happen if all human life no longer existed? What would happen after one day? Probably not a lot,
but after a whole year? There'd be quite a change for sure. Narration and CGI go hand-in-hand to build up a picture
of Earth's eventual disintegration...
There's also a lot of talking heads pontificating on what might happen, mainly featuring Gordon Masterton from the
Institution of Civil Engineers, as well as Urban Ecologist for the US Humane Society, John Hadidan. Note that the story
does indeed pick up from just one day after everyone disappears, even though it's unlikely that we'd just vanish
overnight, unless some huge spaceship hovered overhead and promised to take us all away to Blisstonia, a planet
known for its high levels of bliss.
20 years on, however, and we reach a scene that has already happened in one part of the world - Pripyat, Ukraine. The city was
founded in 1970 to house the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers but, naturally, after 1986 it became a ghost town
after it was abandoned.
Highlights of this documentary include that, much to my surprise, there is quite a change within the first day. As a lot
of power generated only lasts a few hours, without mankind to supply the manpower, that's as long as it takes for the
lights to go out in a lot of places, putting whole cities into darkness. Naturally, as the morning begins, Rover suddenly
wonders why his master and family have vanished into thin air. However, as time goes on rats should die off, as it turns
out they're mostly dependent on all the foodstuffs we leave behind or throw out. Once that and the items in supermarkets
have gone, they'll have to venture outside to do battle in the wild with everything else... at which point they'll get
picked up on most other creatures, since they're bigger than they are. Also, after a few years, plants get into the
brickwork of buildings and those which can take a hold will expand and cause severe structural damage.
The narrator, Struan Rodger, has a suitable 'doom-monger' tone to his voice, but one thing that does seem odd when watching this is
that it's made with expected advert breaks to come, such as that just before the "20 years after people" caption,
after which comes the same words again. Overall, though, this is a fascinating documentary and a must-see for everyone
interested in this sort of thing.
Oh, and as Homer Simpson once said, "The best part was when the buildings fell down." :)s
The film is presented in its original 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio.
The image is fantastically well-detailed, as you would expect from decent CGI, so to combine that with an intriguing
documentary is a double bonus. Also, both the Blu-ray and DVD are on Amazon for the same price, as I type - and in
fact the Blu-ray version is, oddly, a couple of quid cheaper on the retail price, so even more reason to buy it.
Okay, so you don't get CGI *all* the time since there's footage of animals in a staged scene foraging on a tip and an
owl flying about a house as the animals take a hold on our habitat, as well as footage of Pripyat, but either way,
those are nothing to complain about. One thing that I would take issue with is that as the 'camera' pans across CGI/still
footage, it sometimes shimmers horribly and is not pleasing on the eye. Quite why this is happening, I have no idea.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
The sound is in Dolby Surround, which is no great surprise really, but a DTS soundtrack would've been nice to accompany
all the calamity that was due to follow.
The only extra, simply labelled Additional Footage (18:34), looks briefly at the animatics created for each major
structure that they then let collapse with CGI, such as the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, and it looks at other
general areas but it doesn't really add anything that the main show hasn't already said. In fact, it's more like a
repeat of a lot of the information. Halfway through, it then looks at other ways we could be wiped out. This extra
contains 8 chapters which is far, far better than the 10 during the main feature.
The menu is static and silent and there are no subtitles on the disc, which is a great shame.
Also, as mentioned, the chaptering is ridiculous with only 10 throughout the 89-minute film.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Blu-ray: 
When I first heard about Life After People, I was transfixed by the premise.
The film is presented in its original 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio.
The image is fantastically well-detailed, as you would expect from decent CGI, so to combine that with an intriguing
documentary is a double bonus. Also, both the Blu-ray and DVD are on Amazon for the same price, as I type - and in
fact the Blu-ray version is, oddly, a couple of quid cheaper on the retail price, so even more reason to buy it.
Okay, so you don't get CGI *all* the time since there's footage of animals in a staged scene foraging on a tip and an
owl flying about a house as the animals take a hold on our habitat, as well as footage of Pripyat, but either way,
those are nothing to complain about. One thing that I would take issue with is that as the 'camera' pans across CGI/still
footage, it sometimes shimmers horribly and is not pleasing on the eye. Quite why this is happening, I have no idea.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
