Well guys, Jurassic World is only a few days away, and I can’t tell you how excited I am. But since the beginning of the movie’s promotion, all I see in comment sections is this:
The dinosaurs look so fake!! CGI freakin’ sucks these days. Why don’t the dinosaurs look as good as they did in the first movie? Where are the practical effects? Nobody likes CG, it doesn’t look real! It’s a cheap ploy made by untalented hacks who can’t sculpt a model!
Ah, quit your whining.
Anyway, there has been a lot of backlash towards this film saying that the dinosaurs look fake and that there aren’t enough practical effects in the movie. In fact, I’ve been hearing a lot of people condemning CGI in general, and it seems like we are in an age where people are starting to get really sick of computer special effects and are hungry for more tangible effects. And in many ways, I do agree. I love practical effects, especially when they are done well. The Xenomorphs from Alien, the creature from The Thing, and especially the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park; these effects still hold up today and look incredibly convincing in part because they were actually in front of the camera.
However, all this talk against CGI is starting to get a little extreme. I get the impression that some people feel that practical effects are always the way to go and CGI by default is always going to look worse. It also seems that people think that CGI effects are lazy and don’t have any real talent behind them, unlike practical effects that have to be created by hand. This line of thinking I find to be a bit disrespectful.
Yes, practical effects require an immense amount of time, effort, and talent; but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any talent in CGI. I think people forget that there is an entire team of animators behind computer effects, and each animator is incredibly talented in their own right. You don’t just push a button and *poof* a monster appears, someone still has to build that from scratch in the computer. And it isn’t easy. Computer animation still requires an enormous amount of work and effort, it’s just a different medium.
The biggest problem I think people have with CGI is the fact that we can tell when it’s a computer now and it can take us out of the movie. Unfortunately, that’s just a side effect of time. For the last two decades, computer effects have been presented to us in movies, and when at first they were an incredible spectacle, we have now seen enough of it that we can notice the imperfections. Perhaps we were under the false assumption that as more time passed, CGI would get better and better and eventually we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between it and real life. Sadly, even though computer animation continues to advance, we’ve just become so accustomed to it that all we can see is the effect.
But we have to remember, that same thing was going on before CG.
Back in the eighties, audiences were starting to notice the seams in the practical effects at the time. Stop motion creatures that once dazzled movie goers were now beginning to look cheesy to the modern eye. Even when the models and animatronics were good, audiences were still seeing the limitations of those effects and that would take them out of the movie. That’s why CG took off the way it did, it didn’t seem to have the limitations the effects of the time did, and it was only as the years went by that we noticed the limitations CG itself had.
Let’s look at this for an example. Do you remember when people complained about the CGI turtles in the new TMNT movie?
People said the characters looked ugly and you could tell that they were fake. Many longed for the animatronic suit versions that appeared in the 90’s film, but let me ask you this.
Watching this again as an adult, without the nostalgia googles on, without the child-like awe you had as a kid watching this movie, answer this question honestly. Did you ever once think that these guys were real? That living anthropomorphic turtle ninja’s were walking among us. No, you knew it was a suit. Yes, they were well constructed suits, but they were still suits.
That’s the thing, no matter what kind of effect you’re seeing, it’s still an effect It’s not real. And if you analyze any effect long enough, then you can break apart the seams easily. We think CGI turtles today look silly, but I’m sure there were audience members at the time of the 90’s film that thought the suits looked silly and couldn’t wait for the time that CGI would advance enough so that one day we could have a TMNT movie that didn’t look like a bunch of Disney Land mascots running around.
The thing is, when you look at a fantastical creature in a film, the rational part of your mind knows it isn’t real. The point is to put that aside and pretend for a moment that what you’re seeing is actually there. That’s the fun of special effect spectacle. You know it isn’t really happening (to tell you the truth, no movie special effect has 100% sold me) but in the moment that isn’t supposed to matter.
Still, people will say a bad special effect will take them out of a movie, and CGI today is starting to become that for them. And yes, I totally understand that. Movies that overuse CGI because they think computers are a cure all magic wish granter that can make anything look real are tedious to sit through.
I’ll just put this right here.
Yes, the practical effects in Jurassic Park are incredible, and they still look great today. But I think some people overestimate some of the other effects in that film. Take the Brachiosaurus for example. Have you seen that scene lately?
Sure, it’s still an incredible scene, but pay close attention to the actual Brachiosaurus. Seen in modern HD quality, you can tell that it is an obvious CGI model, and not nearly as great as some would make it out to be. It can especially be seen in the texturing. which modern CG has advanced in greatly. A good modern example of that are the creatures from the recent Walking With Dinosaurs movie.
As much as I hate this movie, I must admit that the dinosaurs are probably the best CGI creations I have ever seen. They are intricately textured and blend in almost seamlessly with their live action environment. People who say the CG in the first Jurassic Park is better than anything we have today haven’t really been paying attention to the art form. Then again, this movie was animated by Animal Logic, in my opinion the best CGI animation facility in the world. Forget Industrial Light and Magic, forget Weta Digital, these guys may not have nearly as impressive of a resume but the work they have done id nothing short of awe inspiring.
Look at these owls! This was a movie folks, why didn’t any of you watch it?
Look at the detail! This is a freakin’ Lego movie and they went all out.
So the, what side of this argument do I fall into? Well, I’m certainly a fan of practical effects, and I am on the side that says movies need to use them more again (BTW, super excited for The Force Awakens). But, I respect CGI as a legitimate art form that requires a lot of talent and time consuming energy in it’s own right and said animators do deserve our respect. I also understand both styles have their limitations, practical effects work best in smaller spaces and CGI works best in wide angles. I think both should be used to compliment the other, and we shouldn’t be arguing over which style is superior.
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
They were all glorified toy commercials with limited animation, inconsistent voice work, over the top cheesiness and the same freaking episode plots in every single show!!!!
But what about Transformers?
Barely watchable.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
An unashamed product of it’s time.
Thundercats?
One word. Snarf.
OK, OK, I’m being over dramatic. Not all 80’s cartoons were terrible, and many of them did give us characters that went on to be iconic (I will say that I much prefer later incarnations of the Transformers, TMNT, and Thundercats however). But a lot of cartoons at the time did share many of the same problems. I think the biggest problem with cartoons from the time is that they’re all pretty creatively bankrupt. Sure, they gave us interesting set ups for stories and created worlds and characters that became infamous, but the actual stories they told with these worlds and characters were so incredibly generic. It all looked cool on paper, but in execution nobody seemed to know what they were doing. But that doesn’t matter, because all they had to do was sell toys. So what if the cartoon Cobra Commander is laughably nonthreatening, his action figure is still cool!
But even with all that in mind, nothing compares to the utter lack of originality that this particular show boasts. During the eighties, there was quite the resurgence of dinosaur related children’s media. There were a few animated shows like Dino-Saucers and Dino-Riders, which once again were made to sell toys.
But the most famous animated piece of dinosaur media as well as the least toyetic one of the time was the Don Bluth classic The Land Before Time.
Unfortunately, we aren’t talking about that today. In the words of our Lord and savior JonTron, “With every big fish, there’s a leech on the belly”.
For you to grasp the full meaning of what I am about to say, I advise you click that link. But be warned, what you see may shock and appall you.
So, yeah, doesn’t this look familiar.
Dink the Little Dinosaur was a somewhat short lived animated series that aired from 1989 to 1991. May I remind you that the Land Before Time came out in 1988. Like I said before, lots of dinosaur related media came out during this time, but this show is more than just another random dinosaur cartoon. No person with a sane mind can deny this is a blatant rip off of The Land Before Time.
First we’ve got Dink, and adventurous little Apatosaurus who is the de facto leader of the group. He is kind, brave, and always thinks about his friends.
Hmm, never seen that before….
Oh great, we’re already to a good start.
None of the other characters are quite as blatantly ripped off from The Land Before Time characters as Dink is to Littlefoot, but they all have their parallels.
Dink’s closest friend is Amber, a Corythosaurus whose color scheme does bring to mind Cera’s.
Personality wise, there’s not much comparison. Cera is more bull head while Amber is a much more level thinker. However, like Little Foot and Cera, Amber is paired with Dink most often. not only that, but they also share something that is a little more meta.
A voice actor.
Anndi McAfee voiced Amber, but then later went on to voice Cera in nearly all the sequels.
OK, that one probably is. But wait till you some of the other stuff.
Next we’ve got Shyler, a green Edaphosaurus who is the youngest member of the group. He often gets his words mixed up and is the most overly cutsy member of the bunch. Pretty much a dead on stand in for Ducky, except worse.
Then we’ve got Flapper, and really, the couldn’t be more obvious.
But strangely enough, Flapper isn’t the Petrie of the group. No, the role of annoying tiny character with a lisp in his voice that speaks in broken English goes to Scat, a dinosaur that I can’t identify at all.
It’s like a midget Wally Gator.
I said in my Land Before Time review that I don’t find Petrie as annoying as some other people do. But if you can’t stand Petrie, then you’re going to find Scat insufferable. He is this show’s Snarff, their Scrappy. I think they named him Scat because they knew how crappy the character was.
Also like The Land Before Time, the show refers to different dinosaur species in cute baby names instead of their actual species. At least they have the decency to use different ones (for the most part).
You know, even despite all that, the show wasn’t absolutely terrible. I will admit the some of the episodes did involve conflicts a little bit different than other cartoons at the time, but for the most part the series is boringly generic. The only thing that truly disappoints me is that they decided to go for a full on Land Before Time rip off. They could have still made a cartoon about dinosaurs and not succumb to so much obvious plagiarism, but the fact that they did deeply saddens me. I can’t look at this show without thinking about that, and perhaps that is it’s biggest downfall.
Join me next time as I do a mini review of a movie that’s equally weird but boasts a lot more creativity, We’re Back : A Dinosaur Story.
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
Well, I want to create a top 10 list for both the best and worst dinosaur documentaries out there.
That’s great! Those sound like they will be incredible lists.
But there’s one problem, I’m not sure how I should rate them. Should they be based on the accuracy of the information, the production value of the show, or my own personal enjoyment. If I include ones that I love for purely selfish reasons, I might be giving praise for something that should objectively be on the ‘worst’ list. But I don’t want to just give people what they expect either. There are probably a million lists online that all have the same or similar order. But if I show my honest opinion, I may alienate potential readers. So, what should I do?
You need to make the choices you feel are right. It’s you’re list after all. If you just copy off the millions of other lists out there than there will be nothing about yours that stands out. People want different, they like to see people’s opinions, even if they don’t agree with it.
Raptor, have you ever read a Youtube comment section on any video with over a million views?
If you want my opinion, you should stick to you’re scientific guns. The best ones should be the most accurate, while the worst ones should be the least accurate, no matter the production value. But be careful, only base the science on what was known at the time of the production, or else it wouldn’t be fair.
That’s too much leeway. Any depiction of a tripod T. Rex is offensive towards dinosaurs, even if the work was from 1933.
But why can’t personal enjoyment factor in. Why should he put a show high on the good list if the science is excellent but the show itself was boring? If he didn’t enjoy it, then he shouldn’t be obligated.
Guys, stop fighting! It’s his list, he should do what he wants.
Man, you guys really aren’t helping.
As you can see, I’ve been having a hard time deciding which documentaries I should put on these lists. I new there were a lot of good ones out there, as well as a lot of bad. But when I started breaking down my choices, I found that deciding which ones go where was harder then I imagined. I realized there weren’t as many REALLY bad documentaries out there than I imagined, and there were also some shows that I personally enjoyed but objectively weren’t very good. I had to take into account scientific accuracy, production value, and my personal tastes. They all have an influence on what goes where on these lists. So in the end, this is what I decided. I’ll begin with the Top 10 Best, and do the Worst afterwords. On a side note, if I haven’t yet reviewed a documentary shown on the list (which is most of them to be honest) don’t worry, I hope to look at all of these more in depth down the line. So, without further adieu….
Top 10 Best Dinosaur Documentaries
10. Dinosaur Revolution
This one was a tough one. It made it on the ‘Best’ list by the slimmest of margins, and almost topped the ‘Worst’ list. Why is that? Well, because I’m not sure what to think of this show. There is a lot here to like about it, but there are also many moments in the show that make me scratch my head and go ‘what the hell was that?!” I don’t want to spoil too much because I do want to eventually look at this series in depth, but I’ll give you both the good and bad this show offers.
First the good; this show has some excellent production value. The computer models for the show are really good (still television grade CGI, but on the higher end of the spectrum). The designs for the dinosaurs are also really cool. Each design is very original, not looking like any other depiction of the creature. They are all distinct, and the use of color is very imaginative without being too distracting. The accuracy is also really good, with many of the dinosaurs depicted being the most accurate I’ve seen from a documentary. Sure, it has many mistakes, as all dinosaur documentaries do, but it also gets a lot right that others before didn’t.
So, what is it about this show that keeps me from deciding whether I love it or loathe it? Well, the main problem with the series is how the dinosaurs behave. They are way too anthropomorphisized, almost like cartoon characters. They have very readable human emotions, reacting in ways a person would to a situation as opposed to an animal. There is a lot of weird slapstick and out of place humor peppered throughout the show too, and ‘antagonistic’ characters often get their comeuppance, as opposed to nature documentaries preferring not to take sides. In fact, the characters are so anthropomorphic they are just a voice over way from becoming Disney’s Dinosaur. It doesn’t feel like a documentary, it feels like a movie (and there are legit reasons for this, which I will get into when I fully review this show).
On a side note, there are also a few instances of speculation that are really out there, and probably would have been better if left out. Nothing about it is too bad, but it can really be distracting if you prefer no speculation in your dinosaur documentaries (good luck finding one without that, though).
So, you can see I was very wishy-washy about my opinions on the show, but in the end I felt like there was enough good in it to merit a spot on the ‘Best’ list. When I take a closer look at this series, I think you’ll better understand what I am talking about. This might be one of those shows you’ll just have to watch yourself and make your own conclusions.
9. Monsters We Met
I’m sure this is one you didn’t expect, as it is rather obscure. But this is one of my personal favorites, as it depicts a time in North America’s history that I am really interested in. The basic premise of the show is following early man in a world that they have yet to dominate, and see the mega fauna that once inhabited our world not too long ago. The first episode is my favorite, as it highlight’s a group of nomads traveling from Asia to Alaska in the Pleistocene. When they reach America, they meet a multitude of creatures that once inhabited the land only a few thousand years ago. They meet woolly mammoths, a short faced bear, a sabre tooth cat, a giant ground sloth, and even lesser known Ice Age mammals like Homotherium. Many modern animals live act themselves to further illustrate the variety of life during those times. This includes lions, bison, musk oxen, wolves, horses, camels, reindeer, sheep, and many others. It really shows just how biologically diverse the area was at the time, and kind of makes me want to have a movie depicting Pleistocene North America accurately.
The other two episodes are less exciting, but have their high points. The next episode deals with the Aborigines making landfall in Australia, and they meet the fabled Megalania, a Komodo Dragon the size of a bus.
The next episode deals with natives making landfall on New Zealand, and facing the gigantic Haast Eagle (live acted by a modern Harpy Eagle with editing making it look larger). I don’t find these segments nearly as good as the first one, but I think that’s enough for you to at least give the special a watch. The CGI isn’t all that great, but it makes up for it in enjoyability.
8. Prehistoric Park
This is another entry I struggled with on whether I should put in on the good or bad list. The premise is admittedly completely ridiculous, but opens itself up to a lot of story opportunities. Through the use of time travel, Nigel Marvin goes back to the age of dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts to bring them back to the modern day and display them in a prehistoric zoo called Prehistoric Park. So, it’s basically Jurassic Park except nothing goes wrong and the method of bringing prehistoric animals back is even more bonkers. It’s not really a documentary per se, it’s more of a science fiction series with a scientific and educational leaning. I know it may sound stupid, and I personally was struggling with the idea of whether it was good or not, but in the end I find it a highly enjoyable series. The stories don’t just involve bringing the dinosaurs back to our time, they also involve taking care of them once they are here. The scientists have to figure out how to help the creatures cope with the modern day environment and make sure they are comfortable. This leads to both some really interesting and silly events.
The science is mostly good, with some noticeable errors here and their however. The CG, on the other hand, is great. I love how many of the animals look in this show.
7. Planet Dinosaur
OK, now we get to the shows that are actually legitimately good. Planet Dinosaur was a documentary made by the BBC and released in 2011. What separates it from other similar shows (like Walking With Dinosaurs, which was made by the same people) is that instead of using real backgrounds to put the CGI dinosaurs in, the entire scenery is rendered in a computer. This cut the cost immensely, allowing ti to made at a fraction of the cost Walking With Dinosaurs was. You may think this would make the series look cheap, but I think it benefits from this in several ways. First of all, this allows many more species of dinosaurs to be featured. Most dinosaur documentaries are impressive to have more than 25 different species depicted. This series has over 50! Secondly, this allows them to create period accurate dinosaur landscapes. Any modern area they would like to film in would never be 100% accurate to the actual Mesozoic (the Mesozoic had very little to no grass, yet you would never know from most dino docs, which feature vast grasslands all the time). Thirdly, this allows the dinosaurs to flow seamlessly in their environment. In most dinosaur documentaries, you can tell where the camera footage begins and where the CG begins, and can be distracting to some. But here, the dinosaurs actually look like they belong to the environment.
The science in this show is really good too, and it’s one of those dinosaur documentaries that takes itself seriously and doesn’t try to dramatize itself (which is a real problem with some entries of the genre). The science displayed in the series is very accurate for the time of it’s production (although some of it now looks outdated thanks to even more recent findings). It also focuses on a lot of dinosaurs that haven’t really had the spotlight on them yet, as well as some old favorites. I highly recommend it.
6. Walking With Beasts
I’ve already talked about this show, so I won’t spend too much time on it, but I do want to reiterate how much I like this series. I’ve always had a soft spot for Cenozoic mammals, but they always seem to get sidelined unless they’re woolly mammoths or saber tooth tigers. This show finally puts them in the spotlight, and rather magnificently so if I must say so myself. Like all in the ‘Walking With…’ franchise, it suffers from inaccuracies and wild speculation, but it’s probably the most accurate of the series, and is really enjoyable overall.
5. Dinosaur! (Hosted By Christopher Reeve)
Remember when I talked about the Dinosaur Renaissance? Remember how I said it caused a giant dinosaur craze and spawned a million dinosaur specials on TV? This was probably the best of the bunch, and yes, it was hosted by Superman.
Sadly, a battle between Superman and dinosaurs doesn’t occur.
What does occur, however, is arguably much better (arguably). I don’t want to spoil too much because I do want to talk about this special in it’s own post, but I will say what is seen is very well done. It sets out to teach the audience new theories about dinosaurs that surfaced in the 80’s. such as dinosaurs being warm blooded and active, to sauropods preferring land over the swamps, to (of course) dinosaurs taking care of their young. There are some animated segments with dinosaurs in the show, which were animated by Phil Tibbitt (of Jurassic Park fame) with a stop motion animation technique he calls ‘go motion’ (which basically means he adds motion blurs in between frames of the animation to make it look smoother). This results in some of the greatest stop motion I’ve ever seen, and some incredible looking dinosaurs. I won’t spoil it until my full review of the show, however.
4. When Dinosaurs Roamed America
One year after the Britain based BBC produced Walking With Dinosaurs, America based Discovery decided to create it’s own dinosaur themed documentary. For it. they decided to focus on the dinosaurs of North America. Now, I know what you are thinking: do American dinosaurs really need more exposure? And I can certainly see your sentiment. However, this series does a lot more then you might think. Sure, it features all American classics like Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus, but it also features many creatures that have yet to have their spot in the lime light. The CGI isn’t nearly as good as it is in Walking With Dinosaurs, but it’s certainly passable for the time. However, I think the most remarkable thing about the show is that it was the first to depict raptors with feathers. I remember this was the first time I saw these dinosaurs reconstructed that way, and my mind was blown. I knew about the theory at the time, but this was the first time I had an idea of what it would look like.
The show has some very good science for the time, and was probably the most forward thinking dinosaur documentary ever when it was released. It also has a really good energy to it, making it very enjoyable. There is also a lot less speculation than in Walking With Dinosaurs, instead keeping mostly with what we know about the creatures (speculation is still present though, it would be impossible not to be). It also has a few problems with dramatizing and romanticizing the dinosaurs instead of really depicting them animals, but it’s still one I really recommend.
3. Dinosaur Planet
Made by the same people as When Dinosaurs Roamed America, this show acts as a spiritual successor to the above special. It consists of four episodes, each based on actual findings and told from the point of view of the dinosaurs themselves (well, kind of; not really). Narrated by Christian Slater (yeah, I know), each episode takes us to a new locale and follows the lives of several dinosaurs whose stories constantly intertwine. One of the great things about this show is that it focuses on dinosaurs that haven’t really had many depictions in media before (who would have thought a Pyroraptor would be the star of an episode?). One episode is about Velociraptor, and it sets out to correct the stereotype of this dinosaur from the Jurassic Park films by showing it how it really was; small and feathered. What’s more, each episode is based around an actual fossil finding, giving more credit to the scenarios depicted.
Once again, the animation isn’t nearly as good as some other dinosaur documentaries, and the stories can get a bit dramatized, it’s still a highly enjoyable experience. The science depicted is excellent for the time, although it has it’s problems like any other show. But it’s still a great series and worthy of more recognition.
2. Walking With Dinosaurs
What can I say about this show that I and countless others haven’t already? It was absolutely revolutionary. Most shows like it before would mostly show paleontologists talking about dinosaurs, the science behind paleontology, and maybe a few animations of dinosaurs doing their thing. Walking With Dinosaurs was the first to use the format of a nature documentary, watching dinosaurs behave like animals in their natural habitats. It has spawned countless copycats (many of which are on this very list) and really changed the face of the genre. sure, it’s notorious for several inaccuracies and rampant speculation, but the final product is still spectacular.
1. PBS’ The Dinosaurs!
Yes, I understand this may not be a popular choice, and some of you may or may not have even heard of it, but trust me when I say it’s one of the bests (however, it may be here purely for selfish and nostalgic reasons). Released in the early 90’s, and very much influenced by the Dinosaur Renaissance, this four part series covered almost all the basics of the science behind dinosaurs; their discovery, the work behind paleontology, and new theories about dinosaur behavior that was coming out around that time. Seems pretty basic, right? Well, one of the most intriguing aspects of this series are the animated segments, which are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before or since. To the untrained eye they may just look like cartoon dinosaurs, but as an animation fan I see some really interesting techniques in the segments. The animation almost looks like an oil painting come to life, and there is so much attention to detail. You can tell that every frame of movement was an incredibly detailed sketch, with each image meticulously drawn to give us movement. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and I wish more dinosaur documentaries used this technique. Here is a sample.
I used to watch this special all the time as a kid, and was always excited when PBS would air it again. Not only are the dinosaur segments incredible, I have yet to see another dinosaur documentary touch nearly all aspects of dinosaur science throughout human history as precisely as this one. It’s a great introduction to anyone who wants to learn about dinosaurs, and really helped to push forward the misconception of dinosaurs being slow lizards.
OK, I’ve showed you my favorite dinosaur documentaries, so now I’m going to have to give you the worst. I won’t spend as much time on these as I did on my other ones, as I’ll probably be reviewing them in full eventually anyway. Also something to consider is that very few of these programs I truly hate or think are terrible (things don’t get really terrible until about the halfway point of the list). It was actually pretty hard to find dinosaur documentaries that were truly reprehensible, so quite a few on the list I do find some enjoyment from. So, let’s move on to….
Top 10 Worst (or at least not as good as the ones above) Dinosaur Documentaries
10. Walking With Monsters
Now, I’m not going to say I hate this show, or even dislike it. It’s very entertaining, just like the other entries of the ‘Walking With…’ series. But out of all the ‘Walking With…’ titles, this one relies the most on speculation. Speculative behavior is often presented as fact, animals are shown to be direct ancestors of later species even though we aren’t sure if those creatures are connected in such a way, and it is probably the entry to have the most factual errors present. This has garnered it an unfavorable reputation among some circles who prefer no speculation in their prehistoric speculative documentaries (like I’ve said before, no speculation in a show like this is next to impossible). It’s not a bad show, however. I still recommend it and wish for you to draw you’re own conclusions.
9. Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards
I remember renting this short film from my local library on VHS as a kid. I remember liking it OK as a kid, although I do remember finding it a tad boring. It came out in 1970, but with the science given to us it might as well have come out decades earlier. Dinosaur science between the 40’s and the 70’s seemed to be sort of a progressional wasteland when it came to dinosaurs (except for the discovery of Deinonychus, but even then it would seem he wouldn’t get his due until the 80’s). Dinosaur depictions between those decades were interchangeable, strange considering the modern paleontological climate where dinosaur depictions seem to be updated on a yearly basis. This short (and I mean short, it lasts just under 10 minutes) isn’t bad, it’s just unremarkable. The stop motion is good, though, and the models would later be used in the Land of the Lost series. But the science is very stagnant, even for it’s time. I still enjoy it as an animation fan, however. The entire short can be seen here.
8. Prehistoric:
In this Discovery Channel series, the audience was taken to a famous city in America and learn about how the landscape and wildlife in that area has changed throughout prehistory. Seems like a pretty cool concept, right? Well, what we got was pretty unremarkable. Like the others, it isn’t really bad, it’s just forgettable and boring. We go back in time and see prehistoric creatures do their thing, but it’s not in the least bit engaging. Not to mention the CGI on the animals is very sub par and can be distracting. I think the worst thing about this program is that it’s kind of just ‘there, it doesn’t really illicit an emotional response from me. And to me, that’s an even worse crime then being bad.
7. Chased By Dinosaurs
This two part special, which is technically a part of the ‘Walking With…’ franchise, is much more entertaining and engaging than the previous entry on our list. However, much like Walking With Monsters, it runs pretty heavily on speculation and inaccurate science. The premise of the show is that Nigel Marvin has gone back in time and is studying dinosaurs in their natural habitat (I wonder if this show is a prequel to Prehistoric Park). Certainly an interesting if not outlandish set up, but how is it presented? Well, much like the other entire of this franchise, the program suffers from style over substance; rule of cool over accuracy. There are some glaring instances of misplaced wildlife, and some of the depictions of the dinosaurs a woefully out of date. This program came out in 2002, so there is really no excuse for unfeathered coelurosaurs (Mononykus is shown marginally feathered, but it’s still treated as a rare and new thing). There are also many animals depicted living in times and areas that they weren’t present in real life. The show is very entertaining, and I urge you to see it and draw you’re own conclusions, but there are too many obvious mistakes in it that I have a hard time calling it ‘educational entertainment’.
6. Sea Monsters
This is another entry from the above concept, in which Nigel Marvin goes back in time and meets prehistoric creatures face to face. This time he explores prehistoric seas. Once again, this is an interesting set up that offers itself up to many exciting possibilities, and for the most part it makes the most out of the concept. It is a very entertaining series, but I have a problem with the way it’s presented. It’s another case of sensationalizing the science behind the show for the case of excitement. The creatures are depicted more as monsters instead of animals, and each episode he sets out to find the most ‘dangerous sea’. Although it’s easy to be entertained by these types of shows, it’s hard to call them informative. It kind of borders on the ‘entertainment’ side of ‘edutainment’. It’s by no means terrible, it’s just a bit jumbled for my tastes.
You can probably tell that so far I haven’t really disliked any of the shows on this list; just mentioning that they have some distracting problems. None of them I would label ‘bad’ or even mediocre (for the most part). However, from this point onward we begin to look at documentaries that actually enraged me, programs that actually elicited feelings of anger in me for one reason or another. And these aren’t documentaries about fringe theories about how dinosaurs may still be alive today or once roamed the earth with humans or their connection with aliens (there are documentaries that deal with these subjects), these are meant to be scientifically mainstream, and for one reason or another, fail miserably at what they are trying to do.
Let’s keep going then, shall we?
5. Valley of The T. Rex
This program is, in short, a big fat infected middle finger to all fans of T. rex. It focuses on John Horner’s theories that Tyrannosaurus wasn’t the apex predator that we all thought it was, but instead it was a pure scavenger that lacked the capability to hunt live prey. Some say that Horner came up with this theory simply to garner media attention and was no more than a publicity stunt, but I think he truly believed this hypothesis. I greatly respect John Horner as an influential member of his field, but even I will admit that some of his theories are truly out there. He points out that a T. rex was way to big and slow to chase after it’s own prey, it’s arms were to small to be useful in combat, and that it had adaptations like forward facing eyes and enhanced smell that would be useful to a scavenger. Countless people smarter than me have made rebuttals to these claims; saying that although Tyrannosaurus probably wasn’t especially speedy, it’s prey wasn’t either, arms aren’t really needed in hunting when you have the world biggest mouth with the worlds biggest teeth, binocular vision and a good sense of smell would be useful for any meat eating animal, and the fact that an ecosystem can’t survive without an apex predator to kill the herbivores, and T. rex is the only creature in it’s area that fits that bill. Although the program does make some good points, all it really does it prove that T. rex was probably a hunter and a scavenger, much like nearly all apex predator today. I think Horner has since lightened up with this hypothesis, but he is still the guy that managed to piss off a legion of Tyrannosaurus rex fans (i.e. EVERYONE!).
4. Jurassic Fight Club
When I did a review of this show I said it was a guilty pleasure, and I stand by that statement. The CGI, while nothing spectacular, had a charm to it and it made the dinosaurs look really cool. But in reality, this show was nothing more than a mindless gore fest featuring not actual animals but sensationalized monsters. As far as dinosaur documentaries go, this is very low brow. It’s a whole lot of gratuitous violence disguised by a thin veil of ‘science’ from ‘experts’. This includes some credited scientists, but the majority of the information depicted comes from George Blasing, a dinosaur ‘enthusiast’ who gives some of the more crazy and over the top scenario depicted in the show (like Deinonychus using hand gestures to coordinate an attack and Tyrannosaurus ripping apart it’s opponents as a message to would be challengers). He’s not a paleontologist by profession, but refers to himself as ‘self taught’. So, he’s basically just an imaginative dinosaur geek that happened to book a show. That’s like using me as a scientific consultant on a show. Sure, I know a thing or two about dinosaurs, but I don’t have the qualifications to run an actual program. This is another one of the shows biggest faults; a lot of the info is from George’s imagination but presented as undisputed fact. This leads to some of the weirder moments in the show. Add featherless raptors and outdated into the mix and you’ve got yourself one of the most notorious dinosaur programs in the paleontology circles.
3. Walking With Dinosaurs 3D
What pains me most about this movie is that it could have been good, nix that, it could have been GREAT! It had terrific animation, accurate science for the most part, and the name of one of the mot beloved dinosaur programs of all time. What pains me even more is not the fact that they added voice overs, but the fact that it still could have worked with the voice overs! Have you seen Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron?
It’s one of my favorite animated movies of all time. It’s about the life of a wild horse, and it’s mostly told trough the horses body language. However, every once and a while a voice over (played by Matt Damon) will explain the horses thoughts as if it was from the horse itself. The horse doesn’t really talk, it just narrates every once and a while. It isn’t too distracting, but it’s just enough not to alienate a general audience. That’s the perfect compromise for this sort of thing, and Walking With Dinosaur could have done it too! But no, it gives the dinosaurs cartoon voices and makes poop and fart jokes. None of that was necessary. I know they did that in fear of alienating audiences and not making any money, but honestly, I think that hurt the viewership even more. This movie had so much going for it, but in the end, studio meddling wasted it’s potential.
2. Monsters Resurrected
This was so close to being number 1, I had to bite my tongue until I swallowed it in order from keeping it from being number 1 (there is yet another more deserving). But this only makes number 2 by the slimmest of margins. If you thought Jurassic Fight Club was sensational, this show is a full on exploitation movie. It paints Spinosaurus as the perfect predator, and oh boy does it make sure you know it. This show sucks up to Spinosaurus so much it’s basically it’s ‘yes man’. It doesn’t portray an animal, it portrays a kaiju. This thing is a murderous rampaging monster if you believe this show. It rips animals to shreds and kills everything it sees. And the reason this show does this is because they think Spinosaurus is under appreciated in the eyes of the public (um, did they not see Jurassic Park 3?). I don’t want to say too much else because I want to review this program on it’s own eventually, but trust me, it’s one of the worst things I have ever seen in ANY genre. It physically pains me to watch it.
And it’s not even number 1.
1. Clash of the Dinosaurs
Never have I seen a dinosaur documentary that fails on so many levels. First of all, it’s boring as sin. Even documentaries I hated on a technical or scientific level I found somewhat entertaining. It only has a handful of dinosaurs, and they use the same footage over and over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! The how promises to portray these creatures as actual animals but all I see are prehistoric monsters. It claims to show off new findings and theories but all we get is the same old crap we always get (and some new stuff that is beyond outrageous). The CGI is mediocre, and the dinosaur models range from generic to wildly inaccurate. But that’s not the stuff that pisses me off. Bad science in a bad show is one thing, but some of the things that happened behind the scenes of this program are morally reprehensible. An interviewed paleontologist is quote mined! Editing tricks make what he is saying more exciting and dramatic than he is trying to convey, and in at least one instance his words are turned around to sound like the exact opposite of the point he is trying to convey. In the interview he makes a point disproving the old theory that big dinosaurs may have had a second brain in their hips to control the latter half of the body. No one has taken this hypothesis seriously in almost a century. But the editors change his dialogue up to make it sound like the idea that dinosaurs had two brains was true!
The paleontologist became ridiculed in his field, and he became understandably pissed.
I don’t get it.
I just don’t get it.
What possible motivation did they have for doing this?
Did they honestly think it would make the show more exciting?
For a lot of these I say you should watch the show yourself and make your own conclusions, but I’m not giving this piece of garbage the benefit of the doubt. Avoid it like the plague!
So, there we have it. The list of my favorite dinosaur documentaries and the ones I consider at best sub par and at worst douche baggy. I hope this was informative to you and I hope to eventually review all of these in full.
Join me next time as I do another Dinosaurs Over The Years, except this time we aren’t talking about dinosaurs.
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
Much like The Magic School Bus, Bill Nye the Science Guy was one of those shows that I watched a lot as a kid and really got me interested in science. If you’ve never seen the show before, the basic premise is that Bill Nye (The Science Guy) teaches different scientific subjects in a way that is easy for children to grasp and is also entertaining. Different comedy skits, music videos, activities for kids and pop culture references also help with the learning and making the science fun. It was a really good show, and I still find it entertaining to watch.
Being a show about science, it was inevitable there would be an episode about dinosaurs. And being a show that came out in the early 90’s, I thought it would be interesting to look back at it and see how the science held up. Going into it, I was expecting to see a lot of inaccuracies seen in educational dinosaur specials at the time. What I got was something….
unexpected.
The science in the episode really holds up, and if it were to air today, I think it would still be scientifically accurate enough to be educational. I think it’s because they don’t really talk about any particular species of dinosaur, but just dinosaurs in general: what fossils are, how they went extinct, when they lived, and so on. So I was pleasantly surprised, unfortunately, that doesn’t really leave me that much to talk about.
…..
*cough*
…..
So…
….
…how was your day?
I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.
The episode starts with Bill Nye at a fossil dig site, explaining to the audience what fossils are. He say’s the world fossil is Latin for ‘something dug up’. He then explains the fossilization process, in which a creature or plant is buried in water, mud, or ash and eventually forced underground due to erosion, and later turned into stone. We can tell from this that the episode isn’t really going to tell us about different kinds of dinosaurs, but instead the episode focuses on the science of learning about them from fossils.
We are then treated to a model of the dinosaur Maiasaura….
One of the poster boys of the Dinosaur Renaissance.
…and goes on to explain how we learn about dinosaurs from their fossils. We know that they laid eggs and cared for their young because we have found their nests, and we know what they ate because of the kind of teeth they had. I like how he shows that we infer things about dinosaurs by studying their fossils, and don’t just make things up out of the blue and call it fact (at least we shouldn’t). Instead of telling us facts, he demonstrates them, and that is one of the reasons this show is so great.
I know, I’m such a huge fan.
In the next scene, he specifies how fossils are made further. He uses a little Apatosaurus model to demonstrate this…
Pictured here for visual context.
…by walking it upon a little hill and then covering it completely in sand (while a little voice over quietly says ‘oh no’ while the dinosaur model ‘drowns’, which is actually quite hilarious in it’s delivery). He explains that the bones become ‘per-mineralized’, meaning they’ve completely turned into stone. Then a scientist, which he calls ‘Mary’ in the demonstration…
Hopefully not this Mary, she only found ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pterosaurs, not dinosaurs.
(That’s a little paleontology joke. Get it? No?)
…finds the fossilized bones after millions of years.
This whole demonstration was very visual and hands on, allowing kids to actually see the process with their own eyes. That’s one of the really good things about this show that stands out. There are even many segments with kids explaining activities they can do at home. like making their own ‘fossil’ with a sponge, salt water and some sand. This way they can see the fossilization process hands on.
Bill Nye then continues to explain how we know about dinosaurs (but not before seeing a little clip from ‘The Lost World)…
Isn’t this a little outdated for a show from the 90’s?
…by taking us to a bone bed, presumably in Dinosaur National Park in Utah. He points out bones embedded in the rock from a sauropod. He reiterates how fossils formed, but this time showing us an actual fossil buried in rock. This also really helps a young audience to grasp the information.
The next scene shows a couple of kids going through the brother’s messy room. They use the analogy of things lost in a messy room for dinosaur bones hidden in the earth. The older the bones are, the deeper they are in the ground, kind of like how in a messy room the older things are bound to be deeper in the piles of junk. That is a great comparison, and one easy for kids to relate to.
The next scene is in a segment called ‘Consider the Following’…
…where he explains to us the theory of a meteorite impact killing the dinosaurs. He uses a ball of pepper to simulate the asteroid. He launches it with a slingshot into a pit full of flour. When the ball hits, it creates a crater and flour is thrown into the air. This simulates the dust and debris that would have blocked the sun when the meteor struck, thus killing the plants and in turn the dinosaurs.
He’s such a good teacher!
He even explains the layer of iridium found around the K/T boundary, which is pretty advanced stuff for grade school kids. He then says that asteroids hit earth all the time, and it can happen again, to which a background voice flatly asks ‘what?’ Even those little funny voices add a really good touch. The delivery in some of them is just really hilarious.
The next segment shows an old-timey black and white film with a man running away from a puppet Triceratops. A voice asks what is wrong with this picture, to which a kid replies that dinosaurs and people never lived together, in a somewhat angry and annoyed tone. This happens two more times in the show, with one clip from a classic Looney Tunes short…
Wait, how could they use a Warner Brothers clip if the show is made by Disney?
…and a scene from The Valley of Gwangi.
Each time these clips were shown, another kid comes out to remind us that dinosaurs and humans didn’t live at the same time. It would seem that they really were trying to get this point across. At first I thought it was to get rid of misconceptions from cartoons like The Flintstones and movies like 1 Million BC, but now knowing about Bill Nye’s ‘vocal’ opinion on Creationism, I think he was trying to convince a different group of people.
Like I’ve said before, I don’t like to crap on other people’s belief’s (as a reminder, any comment calling people who believe in evolution stupid or people who believe in religion are stupid will not be tolerated and will be deleted), and even though I definitely don’t agree with the Creationists teachings (like, at all), the dinosaur geek in me just can’t deny how awesome it would be if we used to live with dinosaurs.
Hey, feathers!
Yeah, to bad it never happened.
OK, moving on.
The next scene interviews a paleontologist, who explains why it is important to study dinosaurs. It’s a very nice and informative segment, which makes it even stranger when the next scene is a Cheers parody.
You hear those distinctive piano notes from the theme song, but instead of the show we get a background of interchanging John Sibbick dinosaur paintings with the cast credits naming animals that have been around for millions of years but have changed very little in that time (horseshoe crabs, sharks, crocodiles). The familiar song’s lyrics are changed from ‘where everybody knows your name’ to ‘where everything has stayed the same’ and we get our title.
Ferns.
Get it? ‘Ferns’ instead of ‘Cheers’? Because ferns have changed very little over time as well?
We then get an appearance from JOHN RATZENBERGER!?
You know, star of Cheers. And all those Pixar movies.
Perhaps even this one!
So, I guess the ‘Cheers’ parody isn’t over yet.
John goes on a rant on how the world would be if the dinosaurs were still alive. He says that if he were a dinosaur, he would be a Brachiosaurus.
Pixar, please cast John as a Brachiosaurus.
He then goes on to say that chickens were like little dinosaurs with feathers (as opposed to what?), but then goes on to say that the chicken farmers know that our chickens are actually little dinosaurs, and are trying to cover it up. Which begs the question, what else do they know?
The next scene is another activity kids can try at home. It shows two kids dipping their feet in paint and making footprints on a long sheet of paper. The first time they run, then walk, and then hop, and so on and so forth. They compare the differences between the footprints in each way they moved. They explain this is how scientists find out how a dinosaur is moving when they find fossil footprints.
We then go to another science segment with Bill explaining exactly how we know dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. He doesn’t just give the easy explanation, he actually explained the process of carbon dating; a scientific method that is hard for many adults to wrap their heads around, yet he still makes it understandable for kids. That’s another great thing about this show. Despite the silly sketches and funny sound effects, when it came to the science, Bill never talked down to the audience. That’s one of the reasons I felt so smart watching the show when I was a kid.
The next scene shows a field trip to Dinosaur National Monument and has a paleontologist talk to some kids. He tells them to act like dinosaurs, saying that some walked on two legs, some walked on all fours, some wrestled all the time, and some may have even howled at the moon?
HOOOWLLLLL!!! Dinosaurs of London…..
That’s a song reference. Look it up.
Anyway, the paleontologist says that anyone can become one, all they need is an interest in studying old lifeforms.
Mommy, mommy, I know all about dinosaurs! I want to be a paleontologist one day!
Sweetie, what’s 2+2?
Seven, the answer is seven!
I think you may need a little bit more then that.
Bill Nye returns, and asks why we need to study about dinosaurs, which is actually a pretty common question. There are some out there who think that paleontology is just pouring a lot of money and scientific research into something that doesn’t really benefit humanity. Bill goes on a little rant at the audacity of asking such a question, and answers it pretty well. He says that dinosaurs were animals, and animals lived in an ecosystem. But there ecosystem is now gone, and by piecing together the clues of their lost habitat, we can learn a little more about our own.
The next scene is a sketch involving a football game and using the football field to illustrate the passage of time in earth’s history. It’s a really clever idea, and one that easily puts into perspective how long the earth has been around. The zero yard line stands in for the very beginning of earth’s history, about 4.6 billion years ago. The 20 yard line stands in for the time primitive life appeared about 3 billion years ago, while the 20 yard line on the opposite side of the field stands in for the time fish first appeared over 400 million years ago. The 10 yard line signifies when dinosaurs first appeared 225 million years ago, while the 7 yard line shows when the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. During the game, the team tries to make a touch down but they fumbled the ball, and it lands centimeters just outside the zero yard line, about the time humans showed up. This is a really effective way to explain just how old earth really is to a general audience.
Too bad I know nothing about football.
The final sketch is a rap music video sung by a preteen kid about dinosaurs. It uses the Dinamation dinosaur animatronics in the background, which were traveling attractions from the 90’s than any dinosaur fan who grew up in that time knew about. I would love to do a review of them some day. However, the music video gets off on a bad start, because the first lyric is ‘This is a dinosaur…’ and the first thing the kid points to is…
…a Dimetrodon.
OK.
Sure.
Fine.
Go on ahead.
You know what, that is a dinosaur.
This is also a dinosaur!
So is this!
Everything’s a dinosaur!
I’m a dinosaur!
Sorry, I got kind of carried away there.
After the rap, the episode ends with Bill Nye sending it off. Now, I know from just reading this it may seem like the show was all over the place (because it kind of was) but it really does work. I remember learning so much from this show, and this episode is no exception. Fascinating science, funny sketches, as well as good activities and analogies for the kids. I highly recommend it.
Join me next time as I do a Top 10 Best (And Worst) Dinosaur Documentaries.
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
Type in ‘dinosaur’ in the Youtube search engine and one of the things you’ll most likely find (along with a bunch of ‘documentaries’ using screenshots from Jurassic Park, Jurassic: The Hunted, and stolen Deviantart illustrations as click-bait) is this interesting series: I’m A Dinosaur.
I’m A Dinosaur is a series of Flash animated shorts (each only about 2 minutes long) created by Canadian based kid’s entertainment company HooplaKidsTV. They are aimed at a preschool audience, and each short aims to teach about a specific type of dinosaur.
Now, I’m certainly all for teaching kids about dinosaurs, and putting it in a short, easy to retrieve format is really a good idea. I’m also glad that this series has episodes on pretty obscure dinosaurs, often favoring them over there more famous relatives (we have an Einiosaurus episode, but not a Triceratops one). However, despite the series’ good intentions, things seemed to have goofed up somewhere down the line.
The show tries it’s best to be educational, but for some reason, there are some huge factual errors in many of the episodes. Some of the time, the mistakes aren’t terrible, but noticeable. Take the series’ first episode for example, about Apatosaurus.
BTW, that video has over 1 million views on Youtube.
At first, it seems like a cute and harmless educational video for kids, but if you examine it a little further, there are some serious problems.
First off, even though they have the decency to call this dinosaur Apatosaurus instead of Brontosaurus, it still looks like a stereotypical brontosaur type sauropod. It has a Camarasaurus-like skull, a thick and chunky frame, and elephantine grey skin; all the trope of a classic brontosaur.
That’s one of the weird things about this web series, the information they give seems to be a weird mix of current knowledge, things they read from dinosaur books they had as kids or they just found lying around, or from Jurassic Park. It makes things really weird!
Not only that, but when they do get things right, sometimes the way they explain things doesn’t make sense. For example, in the Apatosaurus episode, the Apatosaur states that he is a sauropod, which means as he puts it ‘he walks a lizard’s walk’. I’m sure he was trying to convey the message that ‘sauropod’ means ‘lizard foot’, but you can’t just leave it at that. If you want to explain to kids what a sauropod is, explain that all long necked dinosaurs were sauropods. Don’t just say “I walk a lizard’s walk’. That doesn’t make any sense!
OK, next example. Here is the Velociraptor episode.
As you can see, even though the episode makes a point to say that Velociraptors actually had feathers, they still make it look like the Jurassic Park raptors, with the grey skin and the allosaur skull. This is what I mean about the weird mix of information.
Sometimes, the episode will even contradict itself within the episode! Look at this short featuring Nqwebasaurus.
Once again, I applaud the series for making episodes of little known dinosaurs (heck, I think this is the first use of Nqwebasaurus in popular media EVER!), but please, please get your info right! First off, the episode brings out the point that this dinosaur is the first dinosaur to have a tongue click, a phonic quirk seen in several African languages, in it’s pronunciation. So, the name of this dinosaur should be pronounced ‘tongue click’-webosaurus. But even though the character mentions that he is the first dinosaur to have a tongue click in his name, he continues to pronounce his name ‘Nick-webosaurus’.
That just comes off as incredibly lazy.
Sometimes, the episodes do things that make you think they just didn’t care. Here is an episode on Eotyrannus.
One of the things it points out is that most tyrannosaurs are known from America and Asia, so it was a surprise to find one in Europe. However, that’s not really a huge surprise since we know Europe and Asia were connected at the time, just like today. If tyrannosaurs are found in Africa or South America, then we can stop the presses. But the weirdest thing that happens in this episode is that the Eotyrannus’ are hunting Compsognathus.
Compsognathus! ‘
You know, from the Jurassic?
And not from the Cretaceous?
And don’t get me started on the Compsognathus episode!
You see that feathered dinosaur that the Compy is arguing with? Bavarisaurus, was it? You know what Bavarisaurus actually was?
It was a lizard!
But the worst offense has to be the Herrerasaurus episode.
It would be OK, if the Herrerasaurus didn’t say he was a small dinosaur ‘about the size of an elephant’.
A small dinosaur the size of an elephant.
First off, that is an oxymoron.
Second off, Herrerasaurus was the size of a big dog.
Third, any dinosaur the size of an elephant can officially not be called a ‘small dinosaur’!
I mean, did they even care? How could an error that big be made?
Episodes by episode is filled inconsistencies like that. We have an episode with Plesiosaurus with a nest of eggs on the land (what?) an episode dedicated to Ultrasauros, whose existence science has discredited since the 90’s, and even an episode with Megaraptor depicting it as a scaly dromaeosaur (it was more likely a carcharodontosaur or even a spinosaur, and this was known since 2003!).
Yeah, this series kind of fails at being scientifically accurate a lot of the time, and it’s really hard to forgive it because of that. Even though it put’s forth it’s best efforts to be educational, to many mistakes have been made down the line. If I were to give this series a grade of accuracy, I would give it a 4 out of 10. The only thing keeping it from getting a lower score are the things it gets right!
Join me next time as I return to the Walking With…franchise, but this time not on television, but live.
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
Ahh, the Flintstones, the godfather of all those ‘cave-man 1 million years BC’ tropes. Well, it may not have been the first to use these tropes, but it certainly helped popularize them. And when many people think of a prehistoric Stone Age past, this is the cartoon that comes to mind.
Yep, the cartoon that has modern day appliances made out of rocks signifies what most people think of when they hear ‘prehistory’.
For those of you who have been living under a rock your whole life (pun not intended, I swear), I’ll give you the run down of the series. It takes place in a generic prehistoric time period, where dinosaurs and mammoths and weird modern animal/reptile hybrids live. Also in the mix are cave men, but for the most part, they talk and act like typical 60’s American suburban families. They also had most of the same amenities that 60’s middle class people had, only the TV’s and cars are made of stone and the vacuum cleaner’s a tiny mammoth. The series focus on the Flintstone family; composing of Fred, a typical blue collar worker, Wilma, his wife, and their daughter Pebbles. Their friends are the Rubbles; consisting of Barney, Fred’s best friend, Betty, Barney’s wife, and their adopted son Bam Bam. The series was notable because, despite the fantastic setting, the plots were relatively low key and modern, with the characters dealing with problems only adults would really relate to. Really, when the show started out, it was actually targeted at adults more then kids, and it was only later when the really outlandish and ridiculous elements came out.
Seasonal rot, it happens to the best of us.
So, I’ll be honest, I was really having a hard time deciding how I was going to attack this thing. I knew I wanted to talk about this series, but I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. I can’t really compare it to actual science, because I’m pretty sure most of us know that cave men didn’t really have vehicles.
At least I would hope so.
So instead, I decided to tackle how this series’ depiction of prehistoric earth has effected what people think of the Stone Age in pop culture.
So, despite the characters living in an otherwise contemporary setting and dealing with mostly contemporary problems, being set in the prehistoric past is bound to have some bearing on the plot. And it does, of course. But the way it does so makes every paleontologist cry.
I’m not going to blame this show exclusively, but works of fiction like The Flintstones have given some people a pretty strange idea of what prehistoric times. This certainly applies here, since The Flintstones basically survived on prehistory tropes.
One of the most prominent misconceptions this theory has popularized is that humans and dinosaurs lived together alongside Ice Age mammals (and not just from people with a fundamentalist viewpoint). The series does paint prehistory as one blank slate, where everything from the past all happened at one time and place. We’ve got dinosaurs…
Brontosaurus crane operators.
Is that a giant pterodactyl with feathers being used as an airplane?
Hey, when you think about it, those tufts of hair on his head could actually be feathers!
…prehistoric mammals…
Mammoths as both vacuums…
…and shower heads.
Could you keep a sabre tooth tiger as a pet?
…weird mammal/reptile hybrids…
Why does that pig have spikes?
Why does that kangaroo have plates?
…any other prehistoric animal they could think to make appliances out of…
A bird and a turtle being used as a record player. Someone needs to call PETA on this.
…and oddly modern looking animals to boot.
Really? Monkeys too?
This has caused a lot of comparison with this show to the ideology of creationism, which is a belief that the earth is only a few thousand years old and at one point humans shared the world with dinosaurs. And when you think about it, yeah, the comparison is valid. Even with the cave men and the shows many references to evolution, the world this cartoon takes place in seems like a creationist’s wet dream.
Now, I’m certainly not one to crap on someone’s beliefs (I think that doing that is one of the douchiest things you can do and I will tolerate no religious or scientific hate in the comments section, that means no arguing against religion and no arguing against evolution), and don’t get me wrong, half of me wishes there really was a period of time that dinosaurs and man lived together. But sadly, this just isn’t the case.
You know, despite how awesome this would be.
But even without the creationist standpoint, there are still some people who have this misconception of a mish mashed prehistoric earth. These people usually don;t really have a strong opinion for or against evolution or creation, and don’t know much about prehistory besides passing knowledge, but instead get the idea that all things in history happened at one time in some ‘History Land’. Is that viewpoint really healthy?
Well, I’m going to say yes and no.
Yeah, I know you’ve heard me rant and rage again and again when prehistoric animals from different time periods are shown living together, and really, any show that has a Brontosaurus and a sabre tooth cat living in the same place should get my blood boiling. But in the end, we have to remember that this is a sitcom. It’s a humorous cartoon meant to entertain, not educate. I’ve read many a blog that got angry over this show’s scientific accuracy, but come on, it’s a show that uses dinosaurs as household appliances! It’s not supposed to be accurate, it’s just supposed to be funny.
I just want to hear some Brontosaurus rib puns, god dang it!
It’s just supposed to be a humorous depiction of a normal family in an otherwise fantastic setting, which just happens to be inspired by the past.
And full of rock puns.
The Flintstones and their little girl Pebbles are friends with the Rubbles who live in the town of Bedrock and work for a man named Mr. Slate…
THAT’S FIVE ROCK PUNS IN ONE SENTENCE THAT’S ONLY TRYING TO EXPLAIN THE SETUP!
But really, we can’t really think of this show as something that may have happened in our world. It’s their own entire universe, completely different from ours. We have to think of it that way, as it’s own world. And in the end, it’s a pretty creative one.
I know that was somewhat short, but that’s the point of these mini reviews: to get my point straight across on something I don’t think I can create a full review on.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, will I review the movie?
No.
Maybe.
If I start getting desperate.
Join me next time as we do another Trope-osaurus, this time dealing with those head butting Pachycephalosaurs.
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
Ah, the Magic School Bus; one of the greatest cartoon’s of my childhood. For those of you who are either too young or too old to have grew up with this show, I’ll give you the run down. The premise of the series is that a teacher, named Ms. Frizzle, uses a magical school bus to take her class on adventures and learn about science and the world around them (So, she uses magic to teach about science? Is that an oxymoron?). She shrinks them down to see germs and molecules, turns them into animals to study ecosystems, and has even rocketed them into deep space and had them eaten by a classmate to learn about the human digestive system.
Sounds totally safe, right?
The series was originally a book series, with each entry dealing with a different facet of science. These books were eventually adapted into an animated television show, which is what we are discussing today (the book series also has a great entry on dinosaurs, which I would like to review one day if I can get a cheap copy of it).
So, with this unlimited god like power at her disposal, it was inevitable that she would eventually break the laws of space time (the very laws of science she probably has taught at some point) to meet the dinosaurs face to face. But this episode does more than introduce the children to different kinds of dinosaurs or time periods. You see, this show came out when Jurassic Park was still a thing, and the image that all dinosaurs were bloodthirsty monsters was pretty evident. But this episode sets out to prove that not all dinosaurs were carnivorous killers, but that most were plant eaters. I’ll admit, that’s a fairly noble goal to teach, as it is true that most dinosaurs were in fact herbivores. But unfortunately, the episode kind of fails at this premise, but perhaps not in the way you’d think. I’ll show you how.
The episode begins at a normal field trip. Well, actually it’s not a normal field trip, it’s a trip to a massive dinosaur dig. But after you’ve gone to Pluto, been turned into a reptile, and explored the lungs of your own teacher, a dig site is relatively dull. But this is definitely no ordinary dig site, for the paleontologists have uncovered a complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton!
Sue, eat your heart out!
This skeleton garners the attention of Carlos, the class clown/attention hog and master of all things puns.
Look at that smug face, I just want to slap him!
Carlos retorts that all dinosaurs were bloodthirsty killers, out to fight anything that got in their way. Some of the class isn’t so sure that this image is right, so what does Ms. Frizzle do? Why, the only logical thing to do, of course. Travel back in time!
Alright class, it’s time once again to put you all in terrible danger for the sake of an elementary education!
She takes the class 67 million years in the past (usually shows like this go for the even 65 million years, the very end of the Cretaceous, but at least this way their still a couple million years away from ground zero). The students are understandably terrified, especially when they meet their first dinosaurs; a herd of Alamosaurus.
I’m glad they identify these sauropods as Alamosaurs, as they were the only sauropod (that we know of) that was present at the end of the Cretaceous in North America. However, I don’t like the fact that they just look like generic brontosaurs. Alamosaurus, being a member of the titanosaur family, was probably a pretty weird looking sauropod, but I’ll let it slide because in the 90’s all we knew of Alamosaurus was that it was a sauropod, since all we had of it were neck vertebrae.
When the class see’s the sauropods, they begin to run in panic. A few of them climb up a tree, afraid that they might eat them (seriously, who out there actually doesn’t know that sauropods were plant eaters). Some of the class begins to connect the dots, and realizes the dinosaurs only want to eat the trees. However, Carlos insists that the animals are dangerous, which does raise some questions, but I’ll get to that later.
Meanwhile, Arnold, another classmate, realizes that the fossil egg he was carrying earlier in the episode has turned back into a real egg (which begs the question; why did the egg revert to it’s former state if it was in the bus/time machine with the kids yet they didn’t suffer any similar effects?). The egg, unfortunately, is stolen by an ornithomimus.
It’s funny seeing that naked lizardy look for ornithomimids after being so used to them covered in feathers, but I’ll let that slide here. It’s still surprising, however, to see the trope of Ornithomimus and kin being egg stealers. I can see why some thought this was plausible at one time, but it’s kind of hilarious now that it’s pretty certain that these creatures basically fed like modern day ostriches.
Still, at the time of the episode, it was very much disputed what ornithomimids ate, as they were theropods (who are traditionally carnivores) with no teeth. Even the episode doesn’t give us a straight answer besides eggs. Arnold asks fellow classmate Phoebe if she thinks it’s a meat eater, and she say’s maybe it only eats eggs. The episode labels it purely carnivore, but this was probably unlikely.
Anyway, the class notices that Arnold and Phoebe are missing, and go to search for them. In doing so, they run into a group of Parasaurolophus in the water.
Now, this raises a few points.
First off, Parasaurolophus didn’t live 67 million years ago, as it went extinct about 70 million years ago (that’s of course if Charonosaurus doesn’t turn out to be just a species of Parasaurolophus, which did exist at the very end of the Cretaceous, but only in Asia).
Second, Carlos continues to insist that these creatures are carnivorous, and that they probably ate Arnold and Phoebe. The other classmates tell him they’re just minding their own business. Carlos sees the Parasaurolophus’ drinking, and claims that they’re washing down Carlos and Phoebe with water. But as is not, for they finally spot them in the distance, still chasing after that Ornithomimus. Carlos says it looks a bit small to be a dinosaur, but Ms. Frizzle tells him that dinosaurs came in all shapes and sizes.
Even weird, plucked ostrich lizardy shapes.
Ahh, that’s better.
The class wants to get to Arnold and Phoebe, but the Parasaurolophus are in the way. That’s when they notice their crest, which Ms. Frizzle says they use for communication, but Carlos at first says they’re for stabbing innocent victims.
Not the weirdest theory I’ve seen.
The class get’s the bright idea to try and communicate with the dinosaurs, and Ms. Frizzle has just such a device that can do so (because of course she does).
She blows a horn that emits a Parasaurolophus cry (which is actually just a stock dolphin cry) and it works. The Parasaurolophus get out of the way, but accidentally knock the bus far off, and the children into a nest of Maiasaura.
Of course, we know that Maiasaura didn’t live 67 million years ago, but instead over 80 million years ago. However, they needed a dinosaur to demonstrate that dinosaurs weren’t all vicious and were even good mothers, and what better dinosaur to use than the one who’s name even means ‘good mother lizard’ (you know, despite the fact that most if not all dinosaurs took care of their young and Maiasaura really isn’t that special). Still, Carlos in insistent that all dinosaurs were killers.
They eventually find the bus, and see that it is surrounded by a herd of Triceratops. Carlos still thinks that they are dangerous, but Dorthy Ann, another classmate, responds that the Triceratops won’t hurt them for they are plant eaters. And they just stroll into the herd with little baby Triceratops in it and the adults remain calm and docile.
OK, this is where I make my statement.
I get what this episode is trying to teach; not all dinosaurs were carnivores, and most of them where in fact plant eaters, but they’re forgetting one little issue. Just because an animal eats plants doesn’t mean it’s docile. It’s like walking through the African savanna and saying ‘the rhinoceros won’t hurt us, for they are plant eaters’ or ‘the hippopotamus won’t hurt us, because they only eat plants’. These dinosaurs are still wild, powerful animals that would protect themselves if they feel threatened, especially with their young around. I understand the trope ‘plant eater good, meat eater bad’ in fiction because those stories are usually told from a herbivore’s perspective. But when an educational program tries to teach that dinosaurs weren’t all dangerous because most ate plants, it makes me want to put them in a pen with an angry bull and see how docile that herbivore is (I’m kidding of course, I’m not a sociopath).
However, the Triceratops do begin to act aggressively when a pack of Troodon try to capture a baby.
The Troodon (shown featherless, of course) run scared when the adults intervene (and they hide the babies in that hypothetical defense circle you keep on seeing in paleo art that is actually something modern day musk oxen do but is thought to be fact for ceratopsians to some because they see a bunch of artwork ripping each other off by presenting one person’s theory as probable fact).
You know what I’m talking about.
The Troodon then put their attention on the classmates (even though a Troodon would pose about as much a threat as a modern day jackal would). In order to scare away the predators, Ms. Frizzle gives the classmates a little invention of hers; shields that look like a Triceratops’ head creatively called Tricera-Shields. The ploy works, and the Troodons run off.
This is when the episode tries to teach it’s second lesson; even though there were still many carnivorous dinosaurs, it didn’t mean they were bloodthirsty fighters, but instead animals looking for an easy meal and not wanting to get hurt. Now, this I understand a lot more then ‘herbivores are friendly’. Animals today don’t go around fighting each other like you see dinosaurs do in Hollywood movies. I’m mean, yeah, that image is irresistible…
FIGHT!FIGHT!FIGHT!
…but sadly, not plausible.
Anyway, Arnold and Phoebe finally get back the egg, only to run into a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Oh crap.
Naturally, they run the heck out of there, and find there way back to the bus. The rest of the class is astonished to see a real live T. rex, but Ms. Frizzle remains calm as she always does, and explains that Tyrannosaurus was (or in this case, is) the biggest carnivore ever to walk the earth.
Um, actually….
Back off Giganotosaurus, you’re bigger by what, three feet?
And you have no room to talk either, shorty.
Phoebe makes it to the bus, but Arnold slips in some mud and falls to the ground. I love how after that, he nonchalantly says to himself “well, I’m dead meat now” in the most casual way possible. One thing that still really holds up in this series is the humor, despite it getting corny some of the time.
Arnold hides under the bus, and the Rex starts attacking it Jurassic Park style.
You know, the class has gone through quite a few terrifying experiences, but I have to admit, I think this is the most horrified I’ve ever seen them.
Let’s go see dinosaurs, she said. It’ll be fun, she said.
Ms. Frizzle, of course, remains as unfazed as ever. She casually goes over her insurance policy to see if it covers dinosaur damage, and then ponders that this would be the perfect opportunity to study the digestive system of a Tyrannosaurus…and I think Ms. Frizzle is a tad bit bonkers.
Meanwhile, Arnold showing the most bravery he has shown in the entire series (he’s normally a nervous mess) actually stands up to the T. Rex.
Wow, when did Arnold suddenly get nerves of steel?
In any normal case, this would get the kid bitten in half, but with Ms. Frizzle, it’s never a normal case. So, what does she do? Why, make Arnold grow 20 feet tall so that he is the same size of the T. rex.
Because, obviously.
And guess what happens next? Arnold does a bunch of fake fighting moves, and actually scares off the Tyrannosaurus.
Dude, this actually worked!
So, the point they were trying to make here is that the Tyrannosaurus would much rather find an easy meal then fight something it’s size because it doesn’t want to get hurt, and that’s an admirable thing to teach. But the way they went about doing it is a bit perplexing. First off, you turned a kid who’s at best 10 years old 20 feet tall. I think a Tyrannosaurus would be able to sense that he would have the upper hand in this fight. You’re not going to scare off a predator by doing fake kung fu moves and silly Bruce Lee noises. I know he’s the same size, but it’s still like facing down a lion or tiger. It’s still stronger, and would probably sense that. Arnold shouldn’t have gotten out of this unscathed, in reality he would probably leave missing an arm at best.
But of course, the plan works.
The episode ends with Arnold saving the day, the class returning to their own time, and finding a giant tennis show print in the rock.
And that’s why you shouldn’t mess with the past.
So, this episode did try to do something new in teaching it’s audience about dinosaurs. It did more than teach us about different dinosaur species and time periods (because really, what dinosaur special from the 80’s and 90’s didn’t already do that, not to mention this was during the Jurassic Park craze and kids already knew their dinosaurs). It tried to dispel some of the myths and stereotypes associated with dinosaurs; the idea that they were all bloodthirsty monsters. But in doing so, they accidentally portrayed them as too friendly or too cowardly, and we can just look at modern day animals and know that wasn’t the case. Dinosaurs weren’t monsters, but they weren’t defenseless either. The dinosaurs themselves are mostly accurate circa 1995, despite a few instances of misplaced wildlife, so I’ll give this episode a score of…
7.5 out of 10. It tried, and for the most part succeeded, but may have overreached it’s boundaries.
Join me next time as I do a mini review of everybody’s favorite modern stone age family….
This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
For movies/TV shows/anything else that has dinosaurs or prehistoric creatures in it that I want to talk about but I don’t think I can make a full review of, I’ll be doing these shorter mini reviews. I did something similar with the Dinosaur sitcom a few posts back, and I’ll be doing it a lot more in the future. They should be shorter than my normal reviews, but some may end up running a bit long if I end up finding more to talk about. But for the most part, they’ll be short and to the point. I’ll also be doing this format for media I haven’t personally seen or read but still want to talk about because of the dinosaurs.
Anyway, let’s talk about Gravity Falls.
As I said in my Disney’s Dinosaur and Fantasia review, I am a big fan of Disney and animation in general. As such, I still watch a lot of cartoons, despite being almost 20.
I haven’t breathed a word of this to my father.
Anyway, one of the cartoons currently running right now that I love the most is Gravity Falls on Disney Channel. The series revolves around a pair of twins named Dipper and Mable Pines that are sent to live with their Great Uncle (or G’runkle as they call him) Stan over the summer in a small Oregon town called Gravity Falls. While there, they run into all sorts of weird creatures, from trolls and monsters to inter-dimensional demons and psychopathic computer games. There is also an unfolding mystery surrounding the town and it’s weird occurrences, involving an ever unfolding conspiracy that may involve everybody in Gravity Falls. I love the show for a couple of reasons. First off, the characters are all completely fleshed out and identifiable. Second, the actual mystery behind the show is genuinely intriguing. Third, and probably most of all, the writing and humor is hilarious, and a lot of the jokes seem more in place in The Simpsons than in a Disney Channel cartoon.
I like this style of humor.
Of course, with a series that deals with so many different kinds of monsters and creatures, eventually something prehistoric was going to appear. So, we have an episode that deals with a Pteranodon wreaking havoc. So, what does it look like?
OK, allow me to go into irrational geek mode.
As I have made very clear on the blog before, one of my biggest pet peeves is the whole ‘Ptero-Soarer’ image that pterosaurs in media have. I’ll link you to this TVTropes page that explains things in a bit more detail.
First off, I’ll just mention that all the characters refer to the creature as a ‘dinosaur’. As a paleontology geek, this sets me off immediately. I know it’s not exactly common knowledge that pterosaurs were not actually dinosaurs (at least to the public) but it is one of those mistakes that takes me out of it immediately. It just bothers me, for some reason. I know it sounds irrational, but it does.
Some people get that feeling when people refer to all pterosaurs as ‘pterodactyls’, like they do in the episode. This doesn’t bother me that much, and if they only referred to the creature as that I would be fine (what else would they call it, it’s not like it looks like any known pterosaur). But many times they do go out of their way to call the creature a dinosaur, so it still bothers me.
However, I do find it funny when a couple of the characters discuss the pronunciation of ‘Pterodactyl’. Soos (the chubby guy in the question mark T-shirt) constantly pronounces the name with a hard ‘p’. Dipper (the kid with the pine tree cap) tries to correct him, but Soos remarks that nobody actually knows how it was pronounced because no one was around in dinosaur times.
That there is some insane troll logic.
Anyway, let’s take a look at the creature itself.
Sigh…
Well, many a dino nerd have voiced their rage with Pteranodon depictions with teeth, even though the name Pteranodon means “winged and toothless”. And I know I’ve voiced my rage on that subject.
No, just no.
However, there actually is a pterosaur out there with the crest of a Pteranodon but a mouth full of sharp teeth. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Ludodactylus.
Yes, this is real.
But let’s be honest, the team behind this show didn’t really have Ludodactylus in mind when they designed this thing.
Other things include the leathery hairless (or should I say featherless) skin, the slit pupils added to make him look more evil, the fact that it is ABSOLUTELY HUGE…
Creature not to scale.
…but the thing that gets me more rowed up than anything is the one thing I can’t stand.
Pterosaurs didn’t have eagle talons. They could not pick up prey with their feet, they did it with their mouths. Grabbing anything with their feet would not only be impossible (the toes can’t grasp or perch), but it would also throw off the equilibrium of the animal and it wouldn’t be able to fly. I’m always seeing this cliche, fueled by old dinosaur movies that did this.
Well, most of them are old.
We also have a baby pterodactyl, in an egg that is comically over-sized.
How adorable.
While the group is trapped in the nest, the way they escape it is by standing right in front of it. As Soos puts it, their eyes are so far apart from each other that if you stand right in front of it they can’t see you.
That is a very hurtful stereotype.
Yeah, I’m not buying it.
Really, the only cliche this pterodactyl doesn’t display are those weird multi fingered bat wings some depictions have.
Pterosaurs were not bats.
Hey, at least it walks on all fours.
You know, if that’s any consolation.
But you may ask yourself, how did a pterosaur make it’s way into the modern world? Why, it was preserved in tree sap, of course.
And he’s not alone.
I’ll go on record in saying that I absolutely hate the trope where things that are encapsulated in some form of liquid or ice or something are still alive when freed and didn’t you know, suffocate or something. Those dino’s should be long dead.
That’s different, his healing factor kept him alive. Totally logical.
Anyway, about these dinosaurs, it’s obvious the designers or someone got all their dino knowledge from Jurassic Park.
Look at that Isla Sornian Velociraptor.
Heck, this episode actually has a lot of references to Jurassic Park. In the beginning of the episode, a mosquito is shown trapped in tree sap, foreshadowing what happens in the episode.
However, I find this to be somewhat confusing. If it was meant as a callback to Jurassic Park, then that brings to mind cloning. But, these dinosaurs didn’t come to be from cloning, they were just stuck in the tree sap. If the intended analogy was that the mosquito was also trapped in the sap, then you succeeded. But if you meant to bring to mind Jurassic Park specifically, then you’re insinuating cloning, which has nothing to do with this story.
I’m probably over thinking it.
On the Jurassic Park referencing note, Grunkle Stan comes upon these dinosaurs frozen in amber and thinks he can run a theme park off of it. The name he thinks would fit?
Jurassic….
Sap Hole.
Seems to fit just fine.
You know, before we leave, I could have sworn there was another dinosaur in this series. Oh yeah, the one in the time travel episode.
Wait, doesn’t that look kind of familiar?
Oh, I see what you did there Disney.
So yeah, this episode may exhibit some of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to pterosaur depictions, but I’m not going to boycott it or anything. The episode is still entertaining, and the show itself is still really good. However, I know this isn’t going to be everyone’s thing, so just because I love it doesn’t mean you have too. There are plenty of things people recommend to me that I can’t get into, even though I fully admit that they’re good, they’re just not my thing.
Weird anime stuff usually tops that list for me.
Join me next time as I do another Trope-osaurus, this time dealing with those ever present dangers of volcanic activity.
Have you ever asked yourself, why is there always a volcano in the background?
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review. New to the blog? Start on the introduction.)
Today, I come to you to speak about a terrible injustice. Millions of individuals for more than a century have been subjected to hurtful stereotypes. These presumptions of how these individuals live have haunted them even to this day. These stereotypes are hurtful and cloud people’s judgement, keeping them from looking at how wonderful these beings are. But still, these ideologies persists, and I think it’s about time they stop.
I am here to bring an end to dinosaur racism.
For too long have dinosaurs only been seen as dumb, slow-moving, tail dragging lizards who only hunt and kill. People have the misconception that these wonderful creatures were dull, dumb, and ugly. The stereotype of dinosaurs as primordial monsters still persists to this day, and this image is not helped with the popularity of dinosaur media.
Sure, some movies and television shows at least try; they’ll make them move a bit faster or even add some feathery quills on top of their heads. But the old ‘fossil lizard’ view of these creatures has remained even to modern times, and no show has been so offensive in this area as the one I bring before you today.
I know, these images are shocking to behold, but this is what Homo sapiens thought of Dinosauria even as late as the 90’s, when a scientific dinosaur revolution was taking place. These images are from the television sitcom simply titled Dinosaurs.
This show follows the life of an ordinary family of dinosaurs, or at least what humans perceive as an ordinary family of dinosaurs. The family exhibits many horrifically racist stereotypes towards dinosaurs; they all resemble scaly lizards more than any actual species, they walk upright with their tails dragging on the ground, they are slow, dim-witted, and voracious carnivores. The series also perpetuates that all dinosaurs were the same, and they all lived at the same time.
They live in a cave home in a steamy hot jungle environment filled with volcanoes and threats of meteor showers. Their world is basically the world of the Flintstones except the dinosaurs are on top instead of the cavemen.
The series neglects to show the variety of habitats dinosaurs inhabited, especially in the end of the Cretaceous. Not all dinosaurs lived in warm climates, and they weren’t in danger of volcanoes and comets any more than humans are today (you know, until the actual end).
The father in the family circle, Earl Sinclair (Sinclair, get it? HAHAHAHAHA!! Not funny.) He’s supposed to be a Megalosaurus.
See the resemblance? No. Of course you don’t.
He exhibits many negative stereotypes; he’s slow, dumb, boorish, and otherwise unpleasant. His wife may not be as offensive, but she still resembles a mix match of dinosaur tropes more than the actual species she’s supposed to represent, an Allosaurus.
The children are even worse. The daughter looks like a Protoceratops, even though her parents are both theropods (just another example of TV producers mixing together what they think are the best dinosaur traits even when they make absolutely no sense).
And the son, I don’t even know what to think of the son. He looks like an anthro iguana!
And all of them walk around like Godzilla, dragging their tails and what not. Ughh, rule of thumb guys:
DINOSAURS WERE NOT GODZILLA!!!
Oh, and how cute it is to see them eat their talking frogs and mammals, and claiming how all the best dinosaurs were voracious meat eaters. Not all dinosaurs ate meat, you know. most dinosaurs ate plants, and even many of the carnivores had more specialized diets. It’s so offensive how they think all dinosaurs like to eat the same things.
This show is just downright offensive. It reminds us of how hollywood looks at dinosaurs, and the very notion that thew think this will appeal to dinosaur lovers is sickening. It’s wrong, it’s horrific in every way. This series shows everything wrong with society today.
This is dinosaur black face.
This is Dino Face.
If there was a Dinosaur Martin Luthor King, this is the kind of thing he would be fighting against.
I had a dream, that all dinosaurs would be feathered equally, and that no theropod shall have to drag it’s tail upon the ground, or live in fear of a caveman’s spear.
That is it! Good day!
Well, kind of.
There is a lot of truth to what I said, but don’t worry, I’m not some crazy dinosaur rights extremist.
On the other hand, it would seem I have a new recurring character.
Truth be told, I love this show. I know many people say it’s just a Simpsons rip off, and yes, this show owes it’s very existence on those yellow peeps.
And they knew it too.
I just think this show has an incredible amount of charm to it, the same charm that comes with any Jim Henson production. Not to mention the show’s amazing production values. But a scientific endeavour it isn’t.
Then again, it isn’t that kind of show.
I couldn’t really do a full review of this show because of that fact. It’s not trying to portray dinosaurs, it’s trying to portray characters. And in that regard, it succeeds.
Join me next time as I take a look at Jurassic Park.
But DG, you already reviewed Jurassic Park. I was there. It was the first thing you did.
(New schedule! In between big reviews of movies, television series, games, etcetera; I will post two smaller reviews, either a ‘Dinosaurs Over The Years’ , a ‘Trope-osaurus’, or something else entirely. So the schedule will be big review, small review, small review, big review. This allows me to give your more content in less time and decreases burnout.)
(This blog is not for profit. All copyrighted images belong to their respective owners and are used for review.)
Dinosaur Train is a show I wish I had as a kid. It combines two things that boys love: dinosaurs and trains. Not only that, but the show tries really hard to educate and have up to date information, and a lot of the time it succeeds. Not only that, but it really encourages the use of scientific names, even the really hard ones. In the Land Before Time generation kids referred to dinosaurs as ‘long neck’, ‘sharptooth’, and ‘three horn’; while Dinosaur Train encourages names like Palaeobatrachus and Therizinosaurus.
However, despite this, the series isn’t perfect. Even though the show tries really hard to be accurate, it does make some glaring mistakes. some of these mistakes don’t even make sense in the context of some of the things they’ve already said in the show. Really, the most obvious mistakes are made with the main characters, as they are drawn in a cartoony, exaggerated style. For the most part, the other dinosaurs are designed to be as accurate as possible. So, let’s take a look, shall we?
Like I said, pretty much all the main cast are exaggerated caricatures of their actual species. For example, look at the Pteranodon family.
These are our main characters: Mrs. Pternodon, Mr. Pteranodon, Shiny, Tiny, Don; and their adopted son, Buddy the Tyrannosaurus. As you can see, they’re pretty much stereotypical Pteranodons (except Buddy of course). Given that they’re supposed to be audience surrogates, they walk and stand like human beings (upright), when real pterosaurs walked on all fours. Of course, I can forgive that, They are supposed to be human analogues anyway. What I can’t forgive, however, is the wings.
Bat wings on a pterosaur are a big no-no, yet they are a common thing in many cartoon renditions of Pteranodon. However, if you look at an actual wing from the creature, you will be able to see the difference instantly.
This is especially jarring when the show talks about the Pteranodon scientifically, especially in regards to wingspan. You can’t really use the character models for that because they are too darn inaccurate. Another jarring fact is that none of the other pterosaurs have these wings, only the Pteranodon family. It’s one person worked on the design of the main characters and another did the designs for the rest of the dinosaurs.
Now, let’s look at Buddy, the Tyrannosaurus.
Once again, he is designed to have the basic body structure of a human, specifically a small human child. This is evident in the arm length, the head size, and the upright stance…I’m reading way too into this am I?
Maybe you were in the Land Before Time reviews, but you shouldn’t feel bad about judging a show’s scientific accuracy when the point of the show is to teach scientific accuracy.
I guess you’re right. Should I point out the backwards facing heel claw as well?
Go for it!
OK. The backwards facing heel claw is inaccurate.
Did that really accomplish anything?
Just keep goin’,dude.
Alright.
Our next main character is Mr. Conductor, a Troodon.
Being the smartest dinosaur, naturally they can invent a device that can break the laws of time and space and travel throughout the Mesozoic Era.
Not bad for someone with the intelligence of an emu.
Sorry, sometimes I think we give Troodon a bit too much credit.
His body shape is also changed to have a somewhat human like profile, and his featherless body reminds me of those skinny alien looking depictions this dinosaur used to have. I wanted to do a ‘Dinosaurs Over The Years’ post on this guy, but figured it would be too similar to my Raptor one. So instead, I’ll show you here what Troodon used to look like.
These depictions always gave me the creeps. At least now we know it has feathers and it actually looks like a real animal.
Although he isn’t portrayed with a coat of feathers, one episode reveals he has a small tuft of them under his hat, and his mother has a full head of them.
An episode that features the Arctic also depicts a species of Troodon fully feathered.
I think this is them trying to cover their tracks for giving us a naked Troodon in the first place. Oh well, they do a lot better on the other dinosaurs. Although I do wonder how these guys would look like if depicted accurately.
Oh, cool. Thank you.
OK, let’s move on to some of the other dinosaurs. First I’ll bring up another recurring character, Laura the Giganotosaurus.
As you can see, the attention to detail in the dinosaurs get’s a lot more evident in the other characters. Laura’s design seems pretty good, and seems to take inspiration from this commonly seen model.
Many of the A-list dinosaurs look pretty much exactly as you’d expect them too, so I’ll just skim over them to avoid repeating myself, and you can draw your own conclusions.
Tyrannosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Stegosaurus
Triceratops (no quills, but that’s OK)
…and so on and so forth. As you can see, the famous dinosaurs are pretty standard, with the same accurate and inaccuracies as normal. what I really want to talk about is how this show portrays some of the odder members of the dinosaur kingdom, starting with how it depicts feathered dinosaurs.
I remember when I first saw this show back in 2010, and figured that the reason the Troodon didn’t have any feathers is because feathers are really hard to do in computer animation. But then I saw the episode ‘Now With Feathers’, which introduces the concept of feathered dinosaurs. Notably, they didn’t use a dinosaur that has direct evidence of feathering, like Sinosauropteryx or Caudipteryx, but the very famous Velociraptor.
You know, I can cry and complain that the wing feathers aren’t long enough or attached to the second finger, or how the hands are in a more human like position instead of the folded bird position they should have…
You call that not complaining?
…but honestly, I don’t care. This was 2010, which means this was probably in production back in 2008 or 2009, before all that was really a concern. The fact is, they gave Velociraptor feathers, and I was happy. This may bite them in the butt later (and you’ll see why), but at that moment I had no reason to complain.
A telling sign of the times, however, was the fact that the episode treats dinosaurs with feathers as a somewhat unusual thing, mostly based on the characters reactions. They couldn’t wrap their head around the idea that a creature other than a flying bird would need feathers. Sure, this is meant to teach an uninformed audience, but now it’s kind of snicker worthy, seeing how we now think that feathers on dinosaurs were the rule, not the exception. Really, it may have been rarer to find a dinosaur that was completely scaly.
And it’s all thanks to you, ya furry %#@!.
Anyway, we continue to see many examples of birds and feathered dinosaurs as the series goes on. This includes prehistoric birds like:
Avisaurus
Enantiornthine (not a genus, but a group of birds that went extinct some time after the dinosaurs)
…and even the infamous Chinese bird-dinosaur Microraptor, with an entire episode focusing on it being one of the smallest dinosaurs ever (a refreshing choice over the over saturated Compsognathus).
Another cool thing this series does is that it’s not afraid to classify birds as a kind of theropod, and in fact Buddy the Tyrannosaurus makes some bonds with these characters for that fact alone. Yep, it would seem that this show was going to take every opportunity to put feathers on these guys, even if they forgot about old Troodon.
But then, this happened.
Wait, what?
No, you were doing so well…
Yes, the show suddenly decided to have a case of Jurassic Park syndrome. Despite having a feathered Velociraptor in an earlier episode, the show runners still decide to keep these guys naked. Not even a mohawk of feathers on it’s head; straight up scaly.
Heck, even I find that embarrassing.
Well, despite that little flub, we do continue to see some gloriously feathered characters, including:
Saurornitholestes
Hesperornis
Jeholornis
Oviraptor
Confuciusornis (complete with Fu Man Chu mustache)
…and even some beautifully feathered Therizinosaurus!!!
AWESOME!!!
We also get the infamous Archaeopteryx, although another sign of the times is the fact that it’s treated like the very first bird, or at least the very first bird like dinosaur. We now think of Archaeopteryx as a fairly standard theropod dinosaur, and similar bird like creatures have since been found in the Early Jurassic! Not only that, but feather like filaments were probably present in the earliest dinosaurs, and probably found on archosaurs long before dinosaurs!!!
Get used to it.
Oh well, Archaeopteryx is still a cool creature to see, although I wish they waited a couple years later so they could use the actual color Archaeopteryx was, which we know at least the primary feathers were black.
Yes, we now have the ability to determine what some feathered dinosaurs color was. Isn’t science awesome?!
Of course, we still have to deal with dinosaurs that aren’t nearly as feathered as they should be. For example, the Sinovenator (a close relative of Troodon) is only shown with tufts of feathers here and there.
All ornithomimids are also pretty devoid of feathers, especially considering we now think they took the name ‘ostrich mimic’ almost completely literally.
And if you really want to get technical, all the large theropods should have feathers too, but this show was made before Yutyrannus, so what are you going to do. Still, seeing a feathered Allosaurus would be pretty cool.
Speaking of large carnivores, we do get to see quite a few interesting ones in the series. We do have the standard Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus, but we also get a few out of the box species as well. First off, we’ll talk about the interesting depiction of Spinosaurus in this show.
Obviously, this was before the revelation of Spino’s actual figure (which is still a subject of debate that I hope get’s resolved soon) so forgive it for walking on two legs. An interesting thing about it’s depiction are the long scaly bits around it’s head and neck, probably inspired by this picture.
They do also show Spinosaurus living pretty much exclusively on fish, which is a cool choice, if not a bit weird. It’s not weird that they’re depicting Spino as a piscovore, it’s weird they haven’t used it’s more famous fish eating relatives like Baryonyx to show this. Heck, one episode features a fishing contest, and the other dinosaur competing against Spinosaurus isn’t another spinosaur, but Megaraptor!
Well, at least he’s not a dromaeosaur.
They probably did this because Megaraptor’s long hand claw was similar to those of spinosaurs, but the depiction is completely hypothetical.
We also see Cryolophosaurus, which was nicknamed by its discoverers ‘Elvisaurus’ (why they didn’t go with that name I don’t know), due to the shape of his peculiar crest. Knowing that, the show decides to make Cryolophosaurus a prehistoric Elvis Presley, named King.
And naturally, he sings and dances.
I personally think this is a great idea, as it brings an otherwise pretty obscure dinosaur species into the foreground and makes a very memorable character out of him. Plus, he sings an awesomely catchy song about the function of his crest and being a theropod.
Another dinosaur we get is Masiakosaurus, a dino known for its over-sized teeth. Naturally, it has a lisp.
It’s shown as a fish eater, which is one theory for the use of those big honking teeth. Unfortunately, those teeth probably would have been a lot less noticeable on the living animal, making it look a lot less unusual.
We also get the Tyrannosaurus relative, Daspletosaurus, who for some reason always depicted as purple.
Barney The Dinosaur confirmed as Daspletosaurus.
Speaking of Barney, get a load of this Daspletosaur kid.
Hmm, looks like Barney had a child.
Yeah, pretty much all the children look like half toddler/half reptile hybrids, and it’s pretty weird.
Anyway, i guess it’s safe to move on to some of the other dinosaurs. how about the sauropods?
There are a lot of sauropods seen in this series, including the usual’s like Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Diplodocus. Strange enough, however, Apatosaurus and Diplodocus didn’t appear until much later in the series. Brachiosaurus was present since the beginning, but more obscure sauropods were seen before more famous ones.
This included such dinosaurs as Argentinosaurus, hailed as the largest dinosaur ever to live.
Or nah.
Another one of my personal favorite sauropods is featured, the weird-looking Amargasaurus.
We also get a cute little Sauroposeidon, one of the largest dinosaurs, being adopted by a family of Microraptor, one of the smallest.
I see what you did there.
Another commonly seen group of dinosaurs in the series are the ceratopsians, the horned dinosaurs. We’ve got our standard Triceratops and Styracosaurus, but we’ve also got a few weirder types as well, including Einiosaurus, the dinosaur with a bottle opener for a horn.
We also get what I think is the first media appearance of Kosmoceratops, a recently discovered ceratopsian.
This is probably because one of the scientists that worked on the fossils of this guy and named it, Dr. Scott D. Sampson, is a scientific consultant on this show and has his own segment every episode.
You cheeky little devil.
Oh yeah, did I mention that the Kosmoceratops is a mayor in a big city in Laramidia? What’s Laramidia you may ask?
This is why the show is awesome.
We also have the pretty famous Protoceratops, but I’m kind of disappointed in the lack of quills.
I guess now we can move on to hadrosaurs. We get many varieties of duck billed dinosaur, but most shown are the most famous ones, like Corythosaurus, Parasaurolophus, and Maiasaura. Most of them also stand pretty upright, contrary to modern depictions.
Some don’t take this look, and instead walk more like a T. rex; walking on two legs but with body held horizontally.
The hands also form human like fingers, which would have been impossible given that they probably formed together into a leathery hoof.
An Iguanodon shouldn’t be able to do this any better than a horse could.
Now, let’s talk about Ankylosaurus, because for once, I’m happy.
This is how an Ankylosaurus should be armored! No side spikes, no spikes on the armor; this is how you do it.
Not this…
Not this…
…Oh God No!!!
I’m sorry, I’m just really picky about Ankylosaurus, and it’s so easy to get the depiction wrong. This show put forth effort, and I’m glad they did.
But it’s still wrong.
As you can see on this toy, they give the tail a double sided club, but Ankylosaurus only had one solid club of bone.
The kind of tail they give the Ankylosaurus is actually that of Euoplocephalus, which also appears in the same episode as the Ankylosaurus.
The show still makes the tails on the individual dinosaurs look different, but it’s still not enough. It’s a common mistake to make.
OK, let’s take a look at pterosaurs. Now, remember how the Pteranodon’s look?
Yep.
Now, look at these guys.
You see a problem?
The other pterosaurs are devoid of bat wings, yet the Pteranodons have them. This makes comparing the two in the show very awkward, and it seems like the show knows this too. Oh well, all the pterosaurs have severe problems anyway. They walk on two legs, which would look just as weird as bats walking on their feet back feet (unless your David Peters, or Rogue the Bat). This gives them a human quality, probably to make them at least somewhat similar to the Pteranodon’s, which are audience surrogates. I’m not sure about the wingspans, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t accurate. Yep, Pterosaurs have it hard in media, almost never being portrayed the way they should be. And imagine if David Peter’s hypotheses are true. Than everybody everywhere is way off!!!
Or perhaps, David Peters is just a little bit off.
Well anyway, besides pterosaurs, this series doesn’t show just the dinosaurs of the Mesozoic. It makes sure it paints a complete ecosystem for the series. We see prehistoric insects, mammals, lizards, turtles, amphibians, fish, marine reptiles, and pretty much everything else that shared the environment with dinosaurs. I mean, the marine reptiles are pretty standard. We’ve got our plesiosaurs, our pliosaurs, our mososaurs, our icthyosaurs…
…but other creatures aren’t so stock, like entire episodes focusing on Michelinoceras (a Triassic squid-like creature) and Cretoxyrhina, a prehistoric shark.
…but then we look at some of the other creatures. When this show has a frog, they don’t just call it a frog. No, it’s a Palaeobatrachus.
All hail the hypno-Palaeobatrachus….
Oh, and it’s not a turtle, it’s an Adocus.
No joke, I knew a paleontologist who called these guys Ninja Turtles.
You see, quote unquote ‘normal’ animals are also referred to by their scientific name. But some of the other creatures they show are really weird. The series does have mammals, like the fairly typical Mesozoic mammal Cimolestes.
But then we get creatures like Volaticotherium, basically a Mesozoic mammalian equivalent to a flying squirrel. The episode he was featured in (being a Halloween episode) seems to liken him as more of a bat like creature. They even name him Vlad and give him a Hollywood Transylvanian accent.
So, if he’s this universe’s version of a bat…
…where did Mr. Conductor get this from?
Oh yeah, right.
But yeah, this series is great for trying to paint a complete ecosystem for the dinosaurs. Even where and when the dinosaurs lived is important. One episode features a neighborhood party where the Pteranodon’s live, and all the creatures present lived in the same time and area. The episode went on to teach ecosystems and niches in an environment.
Well, the Giganatosaurus was a guest.
Still, despite the effort to keep up with dinosaur science, paleontology just moves too quickly. Some of the things that this series teaches have since been discredited by newer discoveries. For example, Eoraptor is shown to be a theropod, but newer theories classify it now as an early form of sauropodomorph!
Plus, two genus’ (Stygimoloch and Raptorex) have since been shown to be juvenile forms of other dinosaurs.
Man, the dinosaurs with the coolest names always get debunked. Raptorex, Stygimoloch, Dracorex, Tatankaceratops, not to mention classics like Brontosaurus, Trachodon, Stenonychosaurus, Monoclonius…
Ah, shut up!
Alright, sorry.
Oh well, this series still did pretty well in showing kids pretty obscure species. Heck, when the series did a Dinosaur A to Z episode, they actually made characters of those dinosaurs that you only see in Dinosaur A to Z lists! I mean really, do you ever see Jaxartosaurus and Xenotarsosaurus outside of those lists?
I mean, what exactly is a Xenotarsosaurus?
Dinosaur Train, in the end, is an exceptional show. Not only does it create an interest in dinosaur science, but it also encourages knowledge of science in other areas, with episodes focusing on ecosystems, natural phenomena, geography, geology, conservation, and even astronomy! So basically, it’s an educational show about science, but hosted by dinosaurs! I think that’s a great way to get kids attention. And sure, it has a lot of inaccuracies, but every show about dinosaurs is going to have them, and this show goes above and beyond to be as accurate as possible. In terms of accuracy, I give this show an….
8 out of 10 points. The effort it takes to be scientific greatly outweighs the occasional featherless coelurosaur.
Still, I wonder how a bunch of Troodons can figure out how to break the rules of time and space?
Howdy Ya’ll!
Mr. Conductor! What are you doing here. Wait, are you just Philosoraptor in disguise?
I wish.
Oh, so it’s really you. So tell me, how did you and your fellow Troodon’s figure out how to bend the laws of space time?
Oh, I can’t tell you that.
Why not?
Because then I’ll have to kill you.
o_o
What you on about?
And that would be unfortunate, because you deserve a fate worse than death.
What?
I will give you a hint though, as I think you’re smart enough to figure it out yourself. I have some friends in high places.
Oh no.
Surprise, surprise.
Dang it! What do you want?
Last time we met, I thought making you face your past mistakes was the way to break you. Now I know I need to take a different approach. I’m going to force you to review a movie I know you’ve been putting off.
What? Valley of Gwangi?
What? No.
Dinotopia?
Um, no.
Please don’t let it be Dino Crisis. If it’s Dino Crisis I swear to God-
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whendinosaursruledthemind 