Hammond: How to Build a Planet / How to Build a Universe

W

Whitevanwoman

Active Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
297
Location
Deepest Dorset
Richard has been filming for this on and off over the last 12 months including trips to NASA, lots of underground physics facilites, and taking part in a roller derby pretending to be a neutron. It is a 2 parter (a BBC/Discovery co-production) and the first part is airing on the 14th October on Discovery Science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yswaAbh3uUY

Its done by the same team who did the 'Journey to the centre of the earth/bottom of the sea' documentaries. There is no indication as yet of when it will be shown in the UK.
 
Join host Richard Hammond on the ultimate engineering project. How to Build a Planet uses stunning interactive CGI to reveal step-by-step how a world is put together. With a little help from the world's top scientists and engineers, Hammond will build the Earth and Solar System piece by piece.
Click to expand...

It aired, any thoughts? His last few shows weren't that great.
 
I watched it last night. It's good. The CGI is amazing and the non-CGI stints are entertaining. It thought it could have been longer, I felt that some of the explanation was cut out. On the other hand, there was a lot of repetition in the beginning re-introduction phase of each segment. I would have edited the show differently.

I'm looking forward to the second episode.
 
The second episode "Engineering a Universe" is now readily available. It's much like the first. I think the period from the Big Bang to the first star was fast-forwarded through. There was no mention of gravitation. This oversight was more than compensated for by the ending. And I still consider Pluto a planet, regardless of what a bunch of new-age revisionist astronomers say.

Edit: No, I do not think Pluto is a plant.
 
Last edited:
The British versions were quite different to the US ones - full hour with no adverts ...segments were longer and there were several new bits altogether.
 
It feels like it is aimed at schoolkids....I don't know why the BBC chose to make Hammond the face of science but it is not really working for me...
 
D-Fence said:
It feels like it is aimed at schoolkids....I don't know why the BBC chose to make Hammond the face of science but it is not really working for me...
Click to expand...

James does grown-up science with Manlab and whatnot, they can't have them both doing it.

I'm still confused as to why this was shown on Discovery and on the BBC. I downloaded Episode 2 from iPlayer last night, will watch when I find time. :)
 
D-Fence said:
It feels like it is aimed at schoolkids....I don't know why the BBC chose to make Hammond the face of science but it is not really working for me...
Click to expand...

He's not really THE face of science on the BBC, that has to be Prof Brian Cox, however he is the one they appear to turn to for more large budget 'popular' science programmes rather than the more academically minded ones that Cox does. Richard has been involved with science on TV for as long as he has motoring (Brainiac started in 2003), so it's nothing new and he does have a viewer demographic across all age groups. The main mystery is why the BBC chose to run this at 9pm when, I agree, it is obviously aimed at a family audience as shown by the number of tweets from people recording it to show their children and students.

As to why it was on Discovery and the BBC.....it is actually one of the last collaborations between both companies and such was shown on Discovery Science in the US and the BBC here.
 
Has anyone got the UK version yet? I'd like to watch this and if the rumors about the UK version being better edited are true, I'd rather watch that vers?on.
 
TechZ said:
Are the ones on my FTP not the UK ones?
Click to expand...
Yay, it appears that they are. Given all the talk about the bad editing of the US version, I guess I just made a stupid assumption.Thanks for the upload.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top