“Conquest of the Skies” lets you see nature with new eyes

Image: Meta

Meta’s latest film, “Conquest of the Skies”, takes you into the world of insects and birds like only virtual reality can: realistic and larger than life.

Meta has done it again. His new film showcases the splendor and beauty of nature – its majesty and its cruelty – inevitably causing chills and goosebumps.

Conquest of the Skies packs 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 written by renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

Like its predecessors, Conquest of the Skies is based on older documentaries of the same name shot for 3D television. Production house Alchemy Immersive has once again sifted through rare and valuable archives 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 distance, scale and detail as in a VR headset.

Conquering 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 genus: the dragonfly, the butterfly and the blowfly. Witness the metamorphosis, graceful butterfly wings and crazy flying skills.

The second episode, “Rivals”, is about the emergence of dinosaurs and the first flying lizards, which gradually take on the air of insects. This episode relies mostly on passable 3D animation and doesn’t impress to the same extent as live-action movies.

The third and final episode, “Victors”, is dedicated to feathered creatures. He documents their stages of development using baby pheasants, hummingbirds, and a white owl on a nighttime hunt. Sitting in a thicket, shrunken to the size of a mouse, watching the owl with glassy black eyes and outstretched talons swoop silently on you from the shadows of 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 stunning visual testament to nature that captivates 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 has produced.

There’s no reason not to check out Conquest of the Skies. Unless you are fear of insects, lizards or snakes.

So you can watch Conquest of the Skies with Meta Quest 1 & 2, as well as Meta Quest Pro (test):

• 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 VR Movies.
• To see them in the best possible quality, follow these steps: Click on the three dots in the image and select Record in high quality first then Hidden. You may be asked to give permissions for caching.
• If you did everything correctly, the movie will download in the best quality. This version has a higher resolution than the streaming version.
• Once the download is complete, click Your media in Meta Quest TV. After downloading, the episode appears here under Cached Media.
• To delete the episode from the device, click the three dots again and select Delete of hide then Wipe off.
• Alternatively, you add the VR movies to your watchlist through the browser.

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