With the release of the great National Parks series by Ken Burns, I was surprised to discover other DVDs on the subject through the years.  Although I didn’t expect the same depth from an hour-long DVD that came from his multi-part documentary, I was intrigued enough to check out Touring America’s National Parks.

This documentary from 2002 doesn’t try to cover all of the national parks.  Instead, the country is divided up into five regions and a total of twenty parks are given a few minutes of airtime.  This is by no means a thorough documentary.

On the east coast, Everglades National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Shenandoah National Park, and Acadia National Park are represented.  The DVD shows the wildlife as well as the spectacular vistas present in each park.  There are a few “must see” spots highlighted for each park, although no real information is given on how to get to those spots.

However, the rest of the DVD is heavily concentrated on the western parks and there’s not another park shown which is east of the Mississippi, despite the idea that the DVD is covering different regions of the United States.  Parks shown on the DVD are Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park (which was the first national park), Glacier National Park, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Crater Lake National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Redwoods National Park.

The footage used isn’t original footage.  Instead it’s borrowed from other times.  It’s quite obvious looking at the vehicles and clothing in some of the footage that it is from the 1970’s and 1980’s.  It’s sort of disappointing to see, and although the scenery is spectacular, it left me feeling like there was something missing when I watched this.  The footage doesn’t take advantage of the current technology to create a spectacular feeling while I was watching this.  I had more of a feeling of sitting and watching someone’s home movies of their trip through the parks.

There is some good information here, with some talk of the different seasons in the parks are shown in these, including the toll it takes on the wildlife.  However, there are more moments when the DVD misses out on an opportunity to build on what they are talking about.  In one instance, the narration describes the sound the ice makes in Mount Rainier National Park as it works its way down the mountain.  Yet, there is no recording of it.  I was waiting to hear that as I thought that was what they were building to, but there’s nothing there.

That’s not to say it’s all bad.  There are some good moments when the narration talks about what makes each of the parks unique.  Unfortunately, with just an hour to go over all of this material, it seems that each park only gets a minute or two devoted to it.  I daresay the Ken Burns documentary will be the  new leader in this category and will be the one all others are compared to.  This doesn't come close to doing it justice.

Not quite a travel DVD and not quite a documentary, this one doesn't really fit anywhere.  It's got some nice images, but they are recycled from other sources and don't make the most of the technology available at the time.  There are many better ways to see these national parks than this DVD.


© 2009 Patti Aliventi

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