Great idea to reach authentic reality, overcoming technical limitations of the time. The only (subjective) beef: when my attention concentrated on the colour, I couldn't care less about the suffering, the corpses in a ditch, the blood. It just becomes a colorful landscape, which sorta negates the purpose. If I concentrated on the story, I completely forgot about the coloring they made (which killed their work) and wanted better story coverage (which is pretty sketchy). And - the 'accents'. If it had been all brit, whatever, I'd loved it. The 'accents' spoiled it beyond repair. Instead of a true story - another puppet theatre. I an profoundly sorry.

For all of us,when we think about ww1,we imagine everything in black and white.This excellent documentary change this for good. The picture is not perfect,but is very good. The narrator(Kenneth Branagh)is excellent,and the music is epic.Actually the narrator is one of the best i have ever heard in a war documentary,along with Sir Michael Redgrave and Sir Laurence Olivier. Now on the actual content,the details about the battles,the weapons and the statistics,the colored footage and the interviews from the veterans,all combined together in every chapter works fine.As a matter of fact everyone wants to see Red Byron's plane flying as it really was.Red. Too bad that the veterans are only British,i would also like to see and hear an interview from the other side,but that's OK.Also there are not so many details about the politics or a prologue chapter about the era before the war,but you can see queen Victoria in the late 90s for example,and hear some information about politics of that time. Great job,this is one of the best docs about ww1

World War 1 in Colour (2003) is not of the high standard of the "in colour" series of documentaries that includes Britain at War in Colour (2000), The British Empire in Colour (2002) and Japan's War in Colour (2005). The reasons why World War 1 in Colour (2003) is so inferior to the documentaries listed above, is because the narrative is not dictated by the authentic colour footage available. So in effect World War 1 in Colour is a light weight and omissive overview of the whole conflict.The colour footage is not real colour footage but tinted black and white footage, which gives a very ugly look to the whole documentary. The look of this digitally coloured footage is similar in quality to hand tinted black and white footage from the silent era of motion pictures. This means the colours look like what they are; colour overlays over black and white stock.This digital process has many faults because the black and white stock remains dominate. A case in point are the scarlet tunics of the colourised footage of the Coldstream Guards on parade. The correct scarlet colour is rendered impossible to attain because the red tint is layered over dark grey or black. The grody and unsubtle impression of digital colourised footage makes World War 1 in Colour almost unbearable to watch.The narrative of the series is also defective. The history is generally simplified to the point that the documentary is often misleading. For the authoritative documentary on World War One, The Great War (1964) narrated by Michael Redgrave cannot be surpassed.

Everything unknown is taken for magnificent...Since we have so little to compare the visuals to... whereas the narrative.... If you wish to find a documentary that speaks of the suffering of the world, which visibly and glaringly surrounds us, the boys in World War I, and of confusion, passion, evil -- This is not it.....A war without politics!! Without Junker greed! Without rape nor rotting Doughboys in the trenches... the Clean war in color... flying things and heavy iron rolling in color.... However, it's a great way to copyright public domain footage.The Latins had a phrase for this "omne ignotum pro magnifico: Everything unknown is taken for magnificent.. and for the first time color is added to World War I -- magnificent try!Someday I'd like to license some of the footage for my own version of the war... maybe not a commercial as producer Martin's "Greatest SAS Missions" (2004) (mini) TV Series (producer)but certainly more of the reason the French and English dreaded the subject.... The Great War...