"Conquest of the Skies" lets you see nature with new eyes
Meta's latest film, "Conquest of the Skies" takes you into the world of insects and birds as only VR can: lifelike and larger than life.
Meta has done it again. Its new film showcases the splendor and beauty of nature - its majesty and cruelty - inevitably causing shivers and goosebumps.
Conquest of the Skies has a visual punch that would be unparalleled if Meta hadn't already shown what VR nature movies should look like with Micro Monsters and Kingdom of Plants. If you own a Meta Quest 2 (review), you must have seen these three documentaries penned by famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
Like its predecessors, Conquest of the Skies is based on older documentaries of the same name shot for 3D TV. The production house Alchemy Immersive once again sifted through rare and valuable archive material on behalf of Meta and prepared it for virtual reality with technical finesse.
The result is impressive. Nowhere else can you see insects and birds at such close range, scale, and detail as in a VR headset.
Conquest of the Skies: Three Phases
Conquest of the Skies consists of three episodes spanning 320 million years of evolution and highlighting the development of flying creatures. The first episode, "Vanguards", is about the oldest species of this kind: the dragonfly, the butterfly, and the blowfly. Witness metamorphosis, graceful butterfly wings, and mad flying skills.
The second episode,"Rivals," is about the emergence of dinosaurs and the first flying lizards, which gradually take the air from the insects. This episode relies mostly on passable 3D animation and doesn't impress to the same extent as the live-action films.
The third and final episode, "Victors," is devoted to feathered creatures. It documents their developmental stages using baby pheasants, hummingbirds, and a white owl on a nocturnal hunt. Sitting in a thicket, shrunk to the size of a mouse, watching the owl with glassy black eyes and outstretched talons silently swoop down on you from the shadows of the night, you see the graceful animal with completely different eyes.
Watch Conquest of the Skies in its best quality
Conquest of the Skies is a visually stunning testament to nature that beguiles the senses but also educates, informs, and enlightens, as director Lewis Ball says in an interview on the Oculus blog. It traces the eponymous "conquest of the skies" through three prehistoric eras and shows the sometimes incredible survival strategies that evolution produced.
There's no reason not to check out Conquest of the Skies. Unless you are afraid of insects, lizards, or snakes.
So you can watch Conquest of the Skies with Meta Quest 1 & 2, as well as Meta Quest Pro (review):
- Open Meta Quest TV. If you can't find the VR movies directly in the selection, type David Attenborough in the search window. Scroll through the search results until you find the VR movies.
- To view them in the best possible quality, follow these steps: Click on the three dots in the image and select Save in High Quality first, then Cache. You may be asked to give permissions for caching.
- If you did everything correctly, the movie downloads in the best quality. This version has a higher resolution than the streamed version.
- Once the download completes, click on Your Media in Meta Quest TV. After the download, the episode appears here under Cached Media.
- To delete the episode from the device, click the three dots again and select Delete from Cache and then Delete.
- Alternatively, you add the VR movies to your watchlist via the browser.
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