Disney's Earth is just repackaged segments of the BBC series, narrated by James Earl Jones.  Had I know that, when I promised to take my kids two weeks ago, I wouldn't have bothered.  While it is a good film, I was very disappointed that it was all recycled. 

I just picked up the BBC set on Blu-ray this past weekend so, when I saw the previews, I didn't know it was the same footage.  I had only watched three episodes by the time I went to see it today, so I was quite surprised that I had already seen most of the movie. 

Since this is the first in a series, I hope the rest aren't done the same way.

Quoting ya_shin:

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Quoting Unicus69:

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I just picked up the BBC set on Blu-ray this past weekend [...]

It's gorgeous, isn't it! ...and they show quite a few things in there (some of the odder exotic animals) I had never seen in my life, and I watched my share of animal-programs when I was young...

Yes, it is visually stunning.  Definitely a 'must have' for any HD collection.

Planet Earth is the original eleven-episodes BBC TV series, narrated by David Attenborough.

Earth is a cinema version, where the original footage has been cut to feature length, and it has Patrick Stewart as narrator instead of David Attenborough.

From what I 've read I gathered that in the US the series has been released on Blu-Ray by both the BBC and Discovery. Check out the reviews of both releases here and
here. The Discovery release apparently has Sigourney Weaver as narrator. Highdefdigest obviously prefers the BBC release.

So now Disney wants its piece of the cake as well? Interesting... Unfortunately, this will only add to the already existing confusion and many people will feel cheated the same way Unicus felt - which is too bad, because the (original) series is just magnificent!

I liked it so much, that when the blu-ray version came out I bought it again, The BBC High Definition Natural History Collection Featuring Planet Earth that also includes Galápagos: The Islands That Changed the World, Ganges and Wild China.

An other series I just finished and inereting is The Story of India.

I read an article yesterday that said "Earth" was re-edited to tone down some of the more "gruesome" aspects of Planet Earth to make it more "Disney" and kid-friendly.  THe article talked about a scene where a wolf, I believe, was stalking a caribou calf.  You didn't see the final outcome (death of the calf, naturally) on screen, but eveyone knew what would happen.  And it was disturbing to little kids, too, even though the editor tried to tone it down for that audience.

Quoting Patsa:

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Quoting dee1959jay:

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Earth is a cinema version

Exactly. I don't see what people are complaining about. I think it's great that people now can enjoy it on the big screen as well.

However: the cinema version we had in our cinemas had Patrick Stewart as narrator, whereas Unicus mentions this new Disney release has James Earl Jones. I wonder if that's the only difference between the two. And in any case, it would appear we now have four versions (two for the TV series and two for the feature-length movie), so I can't blame people for getting confused!