Search - BABY MAMMOTH on DVD

Cute little CGI mammoth makes the science go down.

Greg | Brooklyn Park, Mongolia | 12/15/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The discovery is amazing, the science is wonderful, the scientists were filled with rosy-cheeked enthusiasm, high spirits, and good sportsmanship, but the thing that really makes this DVD work is the computer-generated baby mammoth who runs amok in the documentary, at one point stealing the truck keys out of the pocket of a scientist examining the 35,000-year-old baby mammoth find, and then flinging the keys away where the scientists couldn't find them. The entire documentary is dotted with moments of humor and excitement and is a step above similar documentaries. Much of the credit for this must go to the researchers, who seem absolutely delighted to be working on the discovery, and who project so much excitement for their work. Included in the DVD is a discussion of the ethics of using mammoth DNA to "resurrect" mammoths as a clone or hybrid (using modern elephants as the "medium"). Seeing the adorable and mischievous little mop-top in the movie can make it seem very desirable to bring them back. But before humans start fooling around with processes much larger and more complex than we can possibly understand fully, it might be good for us to consider that organisms go extinct for a reason...and that reason might make it unethical and even cruel to bring an extinct organism back for reasons of our own."