Whats wrong with Oprah narrating? She is clearly articulate, smooth and flowing, and is not plugging her fame in any way. I think its a racist issue here.

3/23/2010 12:15:28 PM

her voice be annoying man

we've already given a few specific examples

no racist

3/23/2010 12:23:50 PM

^^Honestly - she puts a lot of inflection on things and detracts from what you're watching. Rather than paying attention to the video of what's happening, I'm thinking about why Oprah is emphasizing words that don't need emphasis.

3/23/2010 12:59:18 PM

I thought that what some narrators do?

3/23/2010 1:01:33 PM

Quote :

" I think its a racist issue here."

are you fucking kidding me?

3/23/2010 1:05:42 PM

i, too, hate disembodied, obviously-black voices

3/23/2010 1:12:13 PM

she said "ecko-sphere". i've never heard anybody pronounce that differently than "eeco-sphere". there were a couple of other weirdly-pronounced words. her voice doesn't bother me too much though.

3/23/2010 1:25:24 PM

Oprah has a nice, soothing voice. She is a very nice lady as far as I know, but simply giving her a script to read does not make her a good narrator, especially for a program of this magnitude. Hell, I love Avery Brooks as a narrator (although I am not sure how well he'd fit for this show), so playing the "race card" is simply uncalled for.

3/23/2010 2:16:26 PM

I just don't like the fact that Oprah would more than likely hate to be in any of those locations shown, and here she is talking about ecology in a way that's not condescending, but she speaks like she's addressing grade-schoolers when you know Oprah knows next to nothing about the subject matter that she's talking about.

I can't help but imagining her reading off a script when I hear her narrating this. Yeah I know all the narrators use scripts, but because it's Oprah, it's hard to take it very seriously.

3/23/2010 2:19:01 PM

for shows like this, I would prefer to not recognize the narrator, that way more of my attention goes to the footage

3/23/2010 2:28:46 PM

^ ding ding ding

3/23/2010 2:29:50 PM

Well, if she's reading a script then she is not to be taken serious, its the script that should be taken serious. Obviously whatever tone she uses, they like it, and maybe even coached her, otherwise they would have not published it.

3/23/2010 2:31:08 PM

Quote :

"Obviously whatever tone she uses, they like it, and maybe even coached her they love the attention a big name like Oprah brings, otherwise they would have not published it."

Fixed.

[Edited on March 23, 2010 at 4:14 PM. Reason : ]

3/23/2010 4:14:21 PM

Thx!

3/23/2010 4:14:52 PM

[Edited on March 23, 2010 at 7:16 PM. Reason : no oprah]

3/23/2010 7:16:01 PM

i'm glad i'm not the only one that found oprah distracting. i'm not hating on her for the sake of hating, but her cadence and emphasis just not a good fit for this type of narration.

3/23/2010 10:50:08 PM

she is distracting cause i fucking hate her


so there

3/23/2010 11:55:37 PM

I don't like the way she emphasizes the "mating" scenes. I feel like an audience full of middle-aged women are going to squeal afterward.

I don't think it's Oprah though...I feel like the series is lacking in that we don't get to see as much as we did in the Planet Earth series. PE had shorter snippets of different animals and Life spends way to long on certain ones. Maybe it's just me.

3/29/2010 10:23:16 PM

i still feel like planet earth is better up til this point

3/29/2010 10:29:06 PM

without question

It's been good, but it's a slight letdown after seeing Planet Earth.

3/30/2010 12:47:26 AM

the Fish episode dragged at points, but the baby sea dragon kind of blew my mind

and yeah, Oprah sucks.

3/30/2010 1:17:20 AM

yeah the fish episode was boring...

3/30/2010 7:47:35 AM

the title sequence where it's melting in the Target logo is the biggest problem I have. It just makes it so cheap. As far as narrating, the Attenborough version is far and beyond better, I dont understand why there has to be a different narrator for America.

3/30/2010 8:14:21 AM

it probably helps to draw in a different audience.

my mother would never watch something like this, but as soon as she heard oprah narrating then she became interested..

3/30/2010 8:27:19 AM

I, too, wish the narration was different. I think Oprah, or really any American female voice, artificially provides personality to the animals and situations that isn't there.

3/30/2010 8:29:54 AM

keep in mind that this simply cant be as cool as planet earth....the idea of redefining the nature documentary with super sweet cameras and HD was pretty insane when it came out

this is still super awesome, and I think there are parts that are much cooler than planet earth, but i can see how people aren't nutting themselves over it

i think its probably the same thing that is happening with The Pacific

3/30/2010 12:36:51 PM

I'm really liking this "Creatures of the Deep" episode. The starfish sequence looked like an alien landscape.

4/4/2010 9:19:07 PM

Im not watching this SOLEY based on Oprah's annoying voice and as mentioned before her condescending attitude like she's talking to 3rd graders.

4/4/2010 9:23:51 PM

^^yea only prob is Planet Earth did almost the exact same thing...

4/4/2010 10:15:41 PM

meh

4/4/2010 10:43:31 PM

Has anyone else noticed that the show seems disorganized? Planet Earth would focus on a location and spend a long time there. The mating rituals episode went straight from the stalk-eyed fly to ducks in Oregon. WTF? It's just haphazard. Maybe the other episodes are better but so far I like Planet Earth a lot more.

4/4/2010 11:32:05 PM

did it creep anyone else out when the pelicans started eating the other birds

looked like something out of a horror movie

4/5/2010 2:38:07 PM

Yes... I pictured them swooping down and gulping down somebody's baby.

4/5/2010 2:50:52 PM

i used to like pelicans. i do not anymore.

that was sick. coughing up half digested yet still alive baby birds. WHAT THE FUCK

4/5/2010 11:04:45 PM

that underwater bay in Antarctica was fucking awesome

4/6/2010 10:12:39 AM

i feel like this is planet earth b sides...they showed some footage in the birds one from planet earth!

i still just think PE was better overall and interesting...maybe if there wasn't commercials and it didnt have oprah, i'd be more engaging

4/6/2010 6:47:53 PM

BBC / Sir David > DSC / American-PopStar narrators

4/9/2010 6:09:00 PM

i'm feeling a little cheated. they recycled 2 or 3 segments in the mammals episode from earlier life episodes...

4/11/2010 9:15:38 PM

the difference is that planet earth had a TON more money shots than Life has ended up having.

Life is much more a regular old nature documentary.


Planet earth wasn't cool because it was in HD - there were plenty of other nature programs in HD at that time. Planet Earth was awesome because of the insanely cool footage that they managed to collect.

4/11/2010 9:24:32 PM

Grass cutter ants...


Step one collect grass
Step two ....
Step three Profit!

4/11/2010 10:05:04 PM

i didn't realize Oprah was a pop star

4/12/2010 9:12:31 AM

heads up for my fellow Planet Earth and Life fans...

http://slickdeals.net/?pno=33274&lno=1&afsrc=1

use code COX10 to get all 8 blu-ray discs for $40....$130 off the list price

4/22/2010 8:12:27 PM

Website seems fucked, can't get through the checkout process.

4/22/2010 10:48:27 PM

worked fine for me

4/22/2010 11:12:13 PM

Weird it didn't work with Chrome but it worked in Firefox.

4/23/2010 12:08:11 AM