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Episode list 1. Hawaii: A New Eden 2. Madagascar: A World Apart 3. Madeira: Island Ark
Richard Fortey investigates why islands are laboratories of evolution. Examining some of the crucial influences on natural selection that are normally overlooked – like geology, geography, isolation and time – the series reveals that there is much more to evolution than ‘survival of the fittest’.
Professor Richard Fortey journeys high in the Rocky Mountains to explore a 520-million-year-old fossilised seabed containing bizarre and experimental lifeforms that have revolutionised our understanding about the beginnings of complex life. Among the amazing finds he uncovers are marine creatures with five eyes and a proboscis; filter-feeders shaped like tulips; worm-like scavengers covered in spikes but with no identifiable head or anus; and a metre-long predator resembling a giant shrimp.
Professor Richard Fortey travels to northeastern China to see a fossil site known as the ‘Dinosaur Pompeii’ – a place that has yielded spectacular remains of feathered dinosaurs and rewritten the story of the origins of birds. Among the amazing finds he investigates are the feathered cousin of T-rex, a feathered dinosaur with strong parallels to living pandas and some of the most remarkable flying animals that have ever lived.
Professor Richard Fortey investigates the remains of ancient volcanic lake in Germany (Messel pit) where stunningly well-preserved fossils of early mammals, giant insects and even perhaps our oldest known ancestor have been found. Among the amazing finds are bats as advanced and sophisticated as anything living today, more than 50-million-years-later; dog-sized ‘Dawn’ horses, the ancestor of the modern horse; and giant ants as large as a hummingbird.
timespace coordinates: 1931 – 1941 French Guiana
Papillon is a 2017 biographical drama film directed by Michael Noer. It tells the story of French convict Henri Charrière (Charlie Hunnam), nicknamed Papillon (“butterfly”), who was imprisoned in 1933 in the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony and escaped in 1941 with the help of another convict, counterfeiter Louis Dega (Rami Malek). The film’s screenplay is based on Charrière’s autobiographies Papillon and Banco, as well as the former’s 1973 film adaptation, which was written by Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr. and starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1891 – 1893 France – Tahiti / French Polynesia
Gauguin – Voyage de Tahiti is a 2017 biopic / period drama directed by Edouard Deluc The film stars Vincent Cassel and Tuheï Adams,
In 1891 Gauguin settles down in Tahiti, where he hopes to find inspiration for his work as an artist and live as a free man in the wild, far from all the moral, political and aesthetic codes of civilized Europe. In the jungle, he faces loneliness, poverty and disease, and he meets Tehura. She eventually becomes his wife and the main subject of his greatest paintings.
timespace coordinates: 1968 – 1975 Harlem / Golden Triangle
American Gangster is a 2007 American biographical crime film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by Steven Zaillian. The film is fictionally based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by detective Richie Roberts. The film stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in their first lead acting roles together since 1995’s Virtuosity. The film also co-stars Ted Levine, John Ortiz, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Norman Reedus, Ruby Dee, Lymari Nadal and Cuba Gooding Jr. Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts were on-set consultants to director Ridley Scott and the crew throughout filming.
“I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it.” Frank Lucas
timespace coordinates: the primal wilderness of 1983
Mandy is a 2018 American action horror film directed by Panos Cosmatos and co-written by Cosmatos and Aaron Stewart-Ahn. The film stars Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough. It is one of the last films scored by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. (wiki)
Pacific Northwest. 1983 AD. Outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire. (rt)
timespace coordinates: 2010’s Isla Nublar, off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica / Northern California
Jurassic World is a 2015 American science fiction adventure film, the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park film series, and the first film in a planned Jurassic World trilogy.
Set 22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World takes place on the same fictional Central American island of Isla Nublar, which is located off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, where a theme park of cloned dinosaurs has operated for nearly a decade. The park plunges into chaos when a genetically-engineered dinosaur escapes from its enclosure and goes on a rampage.
Lego Jurassic World: The Indominus Escape (2016) / Lego Jurassic World: Employee Safety Video (2016)
Themes and analysis / Scientific accuracy / imdb
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a 2018 American science fiction adventure film and the sequel to Jurassic World (2015). Directed by J. A. Bayona, it is the second installment of a planned Jurassic World trilogy. Derek Connolly and Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow both returned as writers, with Trevorrow and the original Jurassic Park director Steven Spielberg as executive producers. (wiki)
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