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Average of 1 Review
Overall
Video Quality
The Film/Movie
Audio Quality 
Special Features 
All User Reviews
Featured Review
Video Quality
The Film/Movie
Audio Quality
Special Features
Overall
Pros: Highly entertaining documentary
Cons: Cropped for HD, lack of BD-Live features
HTF Blu-ray Review: Dolphins
Toddwrtr
reviewed July 2, 2009 at 1:34 pm
reviewed July 2, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Movie: 
out of
Nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject for 2000, Greg MacGillivray’s Dolphins is an informative and highly entertaining film, originally produced for IMAX exhibition. Narrated by Pierce Brosnan and featuring music by Sting, the film packs a lot of information in its 40 minute running time, but never feels rushed, nor does it speak down to its audience. We learn that there are over 40 species of dolphins, living all over the world, some even in fresh water, and that the bottle-nose is the most intelligent, possibly even more intelligent than most humans. The touching relationship between naturalist Dean Bernal and JoJo, a wild bottle-nose dolphin in the West Indies, is explored. The two developed a strong bond of trust over the years, with Dean saving and nursing JoJo back to health after getting his tail caught in a boat’s propeller blade, and then JoJo saving Dean from a hammerhead shark’s attack. Much time is also spent following Kathleen Dudzinski’s study of how dolphins communicate with one another and how a pod interacts during feeding.
Video: out of
Dolphins has been cropped top and bottom from its original 70mm IMAX aspect ratio of 1.44:1 to accommodate the high definition 1.78:1 frame in this 1080p AVC encode. Colors are vibrant and crisp, the gorgeous blues and greens of the oceans are simply breathtaking. There were some occasional specks of dirt and mosquito noise, but nothing too distracting.
Audio:
out of
The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is also vibrant, but not as active as most IMAX films. Dialogue is clean and intelligible, and is for the most part contained to the center channel. Music and effects are spread across the remaining channels, giving a pleasant, enveloping auditory experience, and discrete effects are used sparingly.
Special Features: out of
Dolphins contains a decent amount of extras.
The Making of Dolphins is a rather in-depth, 37 minute look at how this IMAX film was made. When this film was made back in 2000, the longest possible slow-motion shot was only 90 seconds, due to the large format film. The filmmakers also found that the dolphins were intimidated at first by the large, noisy, bulky IMAX cameras. Presented in standard definition.
Marine Science is an 11 minute featurette, aimed at children, that explores marine biology through interviews with Alejandro Acevedo-Guiterrez and Kathleen Dudzinski, two of the biologists featured in Dolphins. Presented in standard definition.
Film Trivia Quiz is a collection of ten multiple choice questions from the film. This quiz is not very difficult, aimed at schoolchildren. I did notice that the author misspelled the word “oops” as “opps” when you select a wrong answer.
The History of MacGillivray Freeman Films is an eight minute documentary on this small, independent studio located in Laguna Beach, California. The company started out making surfing films, but found its calling in large-format nature documentaries.
About Greg MacGillivray is a text-based biography and filmography of the director and co-founder of MacGillivray Freeman Films.
Trailers is a collection of, well, trailers, of 11 films by MacGillivray Freeman Films. Included are Coral Reef Adventure, Journey Into Amazing Caves, The Magic of Flight, The Living Sea, Mystery of the Nile, Greece: Secrets of the Past, Hurricane on the Bayou, The Alps, Dolphins, Super Speedway, and Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag. All are in high definition video and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, and can be viewed individually or via a “Play All” option.
Dynamic Connection is Image Entertainment’s BD-Live portal, which also includes access to the tuneHD.net portal. Much of the material available is duplicated on the disc, and seven months after this disc’s initial release, much of the content is still Coming Soon. This is one of the more frustrating aspects of BD-Live.
out of Nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject for 2000, Greg MacGillivray’s Dolphins is an informative and highly entertaining film, originally produced for IMAX exhibition. Narrated by Pierce Brosnan and featuring music by Sting, the film packs a lot of information in its 40 minute running time, but never feels rushed, nor does it speak down to its audience. We learn that there are over 40 species of dolphins, living all over the world, some even in fresh water, and that the bottle-nose is the most intelligent, possibly even more intelligent than most humans. The touching relationship between naturalist Dean Bernal and JoJo, a wild bottle-nose dolphin in the West Indies, is explored. The two developed a strong bond of trust over the years, with Dean saving and nursing JoJo back to health after getting his tail caught in a boat’s propeller blade, and then JoJo saving Dean from a hammerhead shark’s attack. Much time is also spent following Kathleen Dudzinski’s study of how dolphins communicate with one another and how a pod interacts during feeding.
Video:
out of Dolphins has been cropped top and bottom from its original 70mm IMAX aspect ratio of 1.44:1 to accommodate the high definition 1.78:1 frame in this 1080p AVC encode. Colors are vibrant and crisp, the gorgeous blues and greens of the oceans are simply breathtaking. There were some occasional specks of dirt and mosquito noise, but nothing too distracting.
Audio:
out of The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is also vibrant, but not as active as most IMAX films. Dialogue is clean and intelligible, and is for the most part contained to the center channel. Music and effects are spread across the remaining channels, giving a pleasant, enveloping auditory experience, and discrete effects are used sparingly.
Special Features:
out of Dolphins contains a decent amount of extras.
The Making of Dolphins is a rather in-depth, 37 minute look at how this IMAX film was made. When this film was made back in 2000, the longest possible slow-motion shot was only 90 seconds, due to the large format film. The filmmakers also found that the dolphins were intimidated at first by the large, noisy, bulky IMAX cameras. Presented in standard definition.
Marine Science is an 11 minute featurette, aimed at children, that explores marine biology through interviews with Alejandro Acevedo-Guiterrez and Kathleen Dudzinski, two of the biologists featured in Dolphins. Presented in standard definition.
Film Trivia Quiz is a collection of ten multiple choice questions from the film. This quiz is not very difficult, aimed at schoolchildren. I did notice that the author misspelled the word “oops” as “opps” when you select a wrong answer.
The History of MacGillivray Freeman Films is an eight minute documentary on this small, independent studio located in Laguna Beach, California. The company started out making surfing films, but found its calling in large-format nature documentaries.
About Greg MacGillivray is a text-based biography and filmography of the director and co-founder of MacGillivray Freeman Films.
Trailers is a collection of, well, trailers, of 11 films by MacGillivray Freeman Films. Included are Coral Reef Adventure, Journey Into Amazing Caves, The Magic of Flight, The Living Sea, Mystery of the Nile, Greece: Secrets of the Past, Hurricane on the Bayou, The Alps, Dolphins, Super Speedway, and Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag. All are in high definition video and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, and can be viewed individually or via a “Play All” option.
Dynamic Connection is Image Entertainment’s BD-Live portal, which also includes access to the tuneHD.net portal. Much of the material available is duplicated on the disc, and seven months after this disc’s initial release, much of the content is still Coming Soon. This is one of the more frustrating aspects of BD-Live.
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