The Set
March of the Penguins is a National Geographic documentary, meaning you can expect lots of excellent footage and an interesting narrator. In this case, the narrator is one of my favorite actors: Morgan Freeman. Freeman’s excellent voice work is a huge plus, similar to Patrick Stewart and James Earl Jones with the Earth BBC documentary.
The actual film runs eighty minutes and follows a large group of emperor penguins. Each year, these penguins battle harsh conditions and predators to breed and raise their young. It’s a theme you’ve seen before, but perhaps never quite this way. Much focus is paid to a particular family of penguins. March of the Penguins manages to capture a variety of emotions including joy, sorrow, fear, and others thanks to its captivating presentation and relatable subject material.
With this Limited Edition Giftset, you’ll also get a new documentary on a second disc known as On the Wings of Penguins. This new documentary runs just shy of seventy minutes and follows the African penguin breed. Better known as — or simply as known as, I should say — jackass penguins, these warm-weather penguins will give viewers a slightly more lighthearted look at our feathered friends. The lives of these jackass penguins isn’t always a picnic, with oil spills and the like to contend with, but much of the film focuses on the cute, fun side of their lives. While not as sharply edited or put together as March, On the Wings is still well worth a watch and a very significant bonus to this set.
As for the other extras, there are several. The first disc, which features March, contains “Of Penguins And Men,” “National Geographic’s Crittercam: Emperor Penguins,” and “Classic Looney Tunes Cartoon: 8 Ball Bunny.” The Looney Tunes cartoon is, truthfully, my favorite part of this set as the movies don’t hold any replay value for me. That said, the inclusion of this cartoon seems completely random at first, I agree, but the episode revolves around Bugs and a penguin, so there is a connection there.
“Of Penguins And Men” runs about fifty-four minutes and is actually quite good. In it, the two cameramen of March, Laurent Chalet and Jerome Maison, are featured. This documentary follows their lengthy journey to capture the footage for the movie and is narrated by Maison. It’s similar to other nature features that act as a documentary of the crew while simultaneously providing bits of extra footage for the film and other anecdotal information. Good stuff.
“National Geographic’s Crittercam: Emperor Penguins” rolls for twenty-three minutes and offers more information on penguins. As you might have guessed, a camera is attached to a penguin for portions of this feature too, which is pretty neat. If you’ve already watched this much about penguins, it couldn’t hurt to watch this as well, although it doesn’t carry a lot of replay value.
In terms of presentation, March is presented in widescreen while On the Wings is full screen. While March features English and Spanish 5.1 audio with subtitles, On the Wings has only English Stereo to offer. It goes to show that March was a full blown production while On the Wings was, well, not quite as nicely done. But overall, the presentation quality is fine, no major complaints.
Several other non-video goods are included with this set, and those are: a small, plush penguin toy, eight penguin postcards, and a wallet sized seafood guide. The penguin toy is basically just a stuffed animal, but it’s made well enough and is cute I suppose. The postcards are just that, standard-size postcards with a high res photo of a penguin (or two). The seafood guide is a concise list of various seafoods you might run into while shopping or eating at a restaurant. The guide cautions against eating certain types of seafood due to their poor or inhumane harvesting practices.
Let’s get to the summary…
