Steven Spielberg Teams Up With Netflix for a Brutally Vivid Docuseries

When Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park came out in 1993, it changed the way we looked at dinosaurs. No longer were they drawings in a book or stop-motion in a cheesy movie. Thanks in part to the genius of Industrial Light & Magic, dinosaurs felt alive like never before. Now, the iconic director and visual effects studio are back together again for another dino story. This time, instead of the world of fiction, with dinosaurs impossibly living amongst modern humans, Netflix‘s The Dinosaurs is a four-part docuseries that goes back millions of years to show the rise and fall of their era — and if the story’s jaw-dropping visuals aren’t enough of a selling point, it’s all narrated by Morgan Freeman.

What Is ‘The Dinosaurs’ About?

Steven Spielberg, Morgan Freeman, Industrial Light & Magic, and Netflix have actually worked together before on the 2023 Netflix docuseries Life on Our Planet. The eight episodes covered the history of life on Earth from the very beginning to the animals of today. This was done through a combination of live-action footage, when possible, and CGI when needed, with the technology coming in handy for episodes that covered the reign of the dinosaurs.

The Dinosaurs covers the days of Tyrannosaurus Rex and company in four detailed episodes, but rather than only depicting big names like the T-rex or a Triceratops, Netflix’s docuseries succeeds by digging deep and covering four distinct eras and what came from them better than most history lessons ever could. “Rise” focuses on the beginning, where small dinosaurs from 235 million years ago fight for survival in a new world. In “Conquest,” dinosaurs grow, only for many to be wiped out by the Ice Age. “Empire” is aptly titled because dinosaurs are now giants and the rules of an ever-changing Earth. Lastly, “Fall,” as the name implies, takes us all the way to the end, with an asteroid like a ticking time bomb to the end credits.

‘The Dinosaurs’ Is Treated Like a Brutal Nature Documentary

The Dinosaurs is not only built on the passion of Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment, but also on the know-how of Silverback Films, the creators of wildlife documentaries such as Secrets of the Bees, Ocean with David Attenborough, and Secret Lives of Orangutans. Their influence shows heavily in the best of ways, taking The Dinosaurs out of the realm of stuffy history lessons and narrowed scope. In a large world with fantastical figures from before our time, The Dinosaurs takes an emotional approach, with its subjects fighting to live in a world where only finding food and making it to the next day matters. Each episode plants the audience in the daily life of a little Marasuchus, a mammoth saurpod, or a terrifying carnivore in a world that’s eat or be eaten.

Dinosaurs might be one of the first things kids are fascinated by, but The Dinosaurs is probably not for the little ones. The docuseries is brutal and unforgiving. It sucks you in with the warm blanket of Morgan Freeman’s voice, but he’s narrating a vision of hell and even tells us so. Each episode is one scene after another of getting to know a dinosaur, one usually all alone, before its life is either snuffed out by a predator, a sudden fire, or the inability to adapt to a world that keeps evolving. A few scenes are hard to watch because The Dinosaurs does such a phenomenal job of taking these prehistoric creatures and turning them into three-dimensional beings with personalities and fears who only want to make it through another day.

Industrial Light & Magic Brings ‘The Dinosaurs’ to Life

Industrial Light & Magic, which was co-founded by George Lucas in the mid-1970s, has made the impossible possible in movies such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, before reinventing itself in the early ’90s thanks to CGI. Jurassic Park changed the game, putting the possibilities of our imagination on the screen in a way that felt lifelike. In The Dinosaurs, ILM isn’t there to supplement an existing film; they are the movie. The detail is there in every speck of sand, crack of dirt, and lush vegetation needed to thrive. Some of it resembles the world humanity knows right outside our door, while other scenes might as well be an alien planet. It’s the attention to detail of the dinosaurs themselves that puts the docuseries above anything else like it. CGI is good at making living things seem more alive in the dark. However, The Dinosaurs depicts its subjects right out in the open, blending them seamlessly with the world around them.

The only flaw of The Dinosaurs is the repetitive nature of its episodes. A dinosaur is introduced, it’s shown struggling to survive and eat, then it’s wiped out, and it’s on to the next. What begins as a heavy emotional impact in early episodes starts to become not only predictable but numbing by the end. The series doesn’t overstay its welcome, though. At four episodes of nearly 45 minutes each, The Dinosaurs gets it right. It’s dark and at times all too much, but the mastery of ILM and Morgan Freeman guiding the audience through hellscapes of another era helps the series rise above its limitations. The Dinosaurs will rip your heart out, but it wisely ends on a note of hope and respect. These dinosaurs don’t talk or devour people; they only live and die as they were, their ends brought to life millions of years later through the evolution of humanity, and thanks to Netflix, you’ve never seen them like this before.