Quote:
Originally Posted by Romanus
I really enjoyed Alien Planet, moreso than the NGC's more scientifically-rigorous equivalent Extraterrestial. Ironically, I think that's because AP is fundamentally the product of an artist (Wayne Barlowe) rather than a scientist...
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(Some slight spoilers)
I thought it was fun that they presented the various animated life forms "as is" to actual scientists, that is, presented them as "a given" and from that the guests had to theorize or justify what they saw in terms of real science. In some cases the speculations seemed believable - such as the rapidly running and turning animal being chased by a predator early on. It was speculated that the running creature's single melded front and rear limbs had apparently evolved from what were once four separate legs.
On the other hand, the way-out, weird things such as the gigantic (mile long) walking forest, (on a planet approximately the same size as Earth,) caused one biologist to be concerned about gravity and to say something like "I guess that creature has a much lower molecular mass." The main problem with that enormous animal is that it had a gigantic mouth. What does it eat?
Communicating with light or color changes as the Earth probe did with some creatures near the end is not far-fetched, as alien as those life-forms looked. Some squid in Earth's oceans also signal with color pulses.