Ken Burn’s highly-anticipated documentary THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA arrived in stores, on DVD and Blu-ray October 6, 2009 from PBS Home Video and Paramount Home Entertainment.  It is loaded with bonus material, including a behind-the-scenes making of a featurette, contemporary stories from the National Parks, outtakes and much more.

Directed by Burns and co-produced with his longtime colleague Dayton Duncan, who also wrote the script, the 12-hour film epic, is the story of an idea that is uniquely American.  We are indeed fortunate, to have the most special places in the nation preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. Filmed over the course of more than six years,it showcases,some of nature’s most spectacular locales — from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska.  It is a story of people from every conceivable background: rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so, reminded their fellow citizens of the full and true meaning of democracy.
Read the rest of this entry »