National Geographic - Lewis & Clark - Great Journey West

This is a fascinating re-enactment of Lewis and Clark's original journey, told with Jeff Bridges doing the voice-over but with real actors and the original locations. It is authentic down to the last detail, including such remarkable scenes as the expedition shooting rapids in canoes made from burn-out trees, and pulling their boats by rope over the mountains of Montana.

If you possibly can, though, catch this one in its IMAX version. The movie's story is entertaining enough but imagine it on a screen several stories high - literally larger than lifesize - with a powerful sound system to match. Imagine how much cooler shooting those rapids is in the IMAX form! If you can't find an IMAX, make sure you've got a big screen and turn the sound up. This is history as exciting as it was when it happened the first time.

I was lucky enough to see this 40 minute documentary in a huge IMAX theater last summer and it was unbelievable. Of course, you don't get the same effect with the dvd compared with the big IMAX screen, but this is still very entertaining to watch at home. While it is limited by the film's short length in telling the full story of Lewis and Clark's journey, what it perfectly captures is the majestic beauty of the American West that captivated the Corps of Discovery as it slowly moved towards the Pacific coast. And you at least get a great summary of their journey, including the major events that took place. After watching this short documentary, you should then see Ken Burn's epic, in-depth documentary "Lewis & Clark: the Journey of the Corps of Discovery". Bonus features for the standard edition dvd of "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West" are a behind-the-scenes program on the making of the documentary, as well as an interactive map. This dvd is highly recommended for all history buffs!

In order to get this film shown in giant screen theaters, I'm assuming NG had to cave in to the time constraints these theaters have for their typical features.This is a shame because the historical recreations, the actors who play the key roles, and the breathtaking photography are so accurate, precise, and authentic that under different circumstances this film could have gone down as one of the most accomplished historical documentaries of all time. Instead it is way, way too short and the story line so condensed you never do get to be engrossed in the details of this legendary accomplishment that to this day still captivates.

That said, then why the five star rating?

Easy. Even in this short capsule form the above mentioned strong points are so compelling you want to watch it again and again.

Sure it's breath taking on the giant screen but your DVD at home will more than suffice to let you join the Corps of Discovery on the epic journey.

I teach 6th grade history and my students really enjoyed this movie. They were excited about the events, were involved with the characaters, and interested in the history.

It would be great for a middle school or high school audience in world history or American history. It is exciting enough and stunning enough to keep middle schoolers interested, and deep and complex enough to challenge high school students.

The photography is stunning and the story is just fascinating. It was perfect. Six months later my students are still telling me how much they liked it!

As a middle school history teacher I was looking for a video that would capture my students interest without glossing over or missing the historical importance of the Lewis and Clark journey. I found this video to not only be entertaining but factually on the mark. I had originally previewed the PBS Lewis and Clark production and found it to be very detail oriented but not suitable for a classroom. So if you are looking for a historically accurate video on Lewis and Clark for your classroom the NG version is the best. If you are leaning toward hidden truths of Lewis and Clark check out the PBS version.

Please note that this film is terrific and rates five stars all the way! I first saw it in an IMAX theater and then had to have it on DVD. Read the favorable reviews of the movie itself to gain an appreciation of what makes it so great, even though it is regrettably very short considering the huge amount of effort that went into making it. It's a timeless masterpiece for better understanding a cornerstone of the history of the United States. Don't be surprised if you watch it a few times!

This review, however, is of the Special Edition DVD. Disc 1 is the standard movie playable in a regular set top DVD player hooked up to your TV. Disc 2, however, contains a high definition 720p version of the film for playback on a fast computer. At first glance of the DVD cover and the generic instructions included inside, one realizes that a fairly recent and rather powerful PC is required. Okay, for a fair number of us, that's not a problem, and it was not a problem in my case. For those of you with a PC slower than 2.4Ghz, your computer doesn't even meet the minimum requirements.

So, I was fairly excited to see what such high definition playback looked like on my 2.8Ghz PC. I noticed that there was no 1080p version of the film on the disc, as the generic instruction card inside the DVD case indicated, but I later realized that the instructions were indeed that, generic, and simply didn't apply to this particular title. Okay, at this point, the documentation goes from bad to absolute crap extremely quickly.

Putting the disc into my DVD-ROM player began Autoplay. Well, immediately an ActiveX control error appeared and suggested I look at www.wmvhd.com for a solution. Actually, that website couldn't have any less technical support for this problem than if it had been written in Latin with a black pen on a black wall and viewed in pitch darkness. Trudging through the Microsoft website links off the main WMVHD page gives precious little useful information, so after Googling on the problem for a while, I found out that this whole scenario is a Microsoft marketing ploy to sell its five-year-old Digital Rights Management scheme to content providers to eliminate media piracy. Wow, talk about shooting the baby when dumping out the bath water. This DRM anti-piracy product is downright draconian in its implementation.

Setting all ActiveX controls, cookies, and security/privacy settings to the lowest possible did not resolve the ActiveX error, nor did disabling my Anti-Virus, Firewall, or anti-Spyware software. Hunting through the Microsoft Support Knowledgebase came up totally empty. Good grief, is this technology ever poorly documented and supported even in house!

Well, after some more Googling, I finally found a piece of advice in an AV forum to just run the main movie file directly from Windows Media Player, but AFTER running the License Registration executable in the root of the DVD directory. Running licgen.exe doesn't appear to do much at first, but apparently it will authorize the playback of the main movie file by unlocking the key encrypted within it.

Okay, at this point, surely one is thinking "Hey, I finally get to see this movie on DVD in high def on my PC". Well, yes, you do, but here's the kicker: THE PLAYBACK LICENSE EXPIRES IN 9 DAYS!!! While the movie is playing in Windows Media Player and looking and sounding nice and pretty, right-click on the filename in the playlist column on the right of the screen and look at the License information. Sure enough, you'll see that there is a limited duration playback period! What in the world?????? Where was this stated on the DVD packaging anywhere?

Truly pondering if this scheme meant that disc 2 of this special edition amounted to some sort of a self-destructing DVD, I ran the license request executable the next day to see if the playback duration would get reset, but no, it didn't.

Keep in mind that none of these limitations are clearly documented anywhere in the online product description, on or in the DVD box, or even anywhere prominently on the WMVHD website. However, if you dig far enough off of that website into the Microsoft sales information for why content providers should use DRM software, it becomes quickly apparent how very anti-consumer this anti-piracy scheme really is, especially as it concerns limiting the playback options for a movie DVD that is not at all advertised in good faith as having such restrictions.

So, whether or not this High Definition DVD ends up being a frisbie in a week remains to be seen, but the poor support and documentation in getting the movie to run in the first place only to learn that it may be self-destructing is absolutely inexcusable. I wonder for this particular release if National Geographic even fully understands what they are selling here.

Again, the movie content itself is terrific. This MS WMV HD DRM DVD, however, is beyond bizarre.

If you never get out to see the American west, this is lovely viewing. This was done for the enormous IMAX theaters and it is the next best thing to being there. If you want something engrossing and rich in detail, you're better off buying the Ken Burns documentary.

The photography is superb, and the action and sound are enough to keep viewers of all ages engaged. As an Imax movie, this is designed for the eyes and ears, and towards those goal, it provides a great experience. Don't purchase this with an expectation of learning much about history, however. While the general course of the expedition is followed, the short length of the film severely limit the needed details to describe the journey.

This DVD is only 40 minutes long. The visuals are tremendous, and the historical reconstruction detail is excellent. But telling the story of a 2.5 year adventure in 40 minutes makes for a shallow treatment of the actual story. Read "Undaunted Courage" if you want to know more detail.

Just recently saw this film at one of our 3 Imax theatres.
It is fantastic!!!
It is a must for all to see.
And this DVD is a must for all history libraries!
Very well done!