March 5, 2010
Spielberg Plans to Create a Different “Jurassic Park”
Allosaurus and Stegosaurus are just two of the dinosaurs that could appear on "Terra Nova." Image from Wikipedia.
Steven Spielberg, the director of the first two Jurassic Park films, may not be done with dinosaurs yet. Even though plans for another JP film have only just begun to come together, rumor has it that the famous producer and director will be helming a new television project called “Terra Nova.” Little is known about it so far, but according to the blog io9 the premise of the show will bring people into contact with prehistoric creatures:
Following a family from 100 years in the future who travel back in time 150 million years to the strange and inhospitable environs of prehistoric Earth.
Nobody knows when the show will start filming or when the first episodes might appear, and early reports have suggested that the show’s special effects will be so elaborate that it will bypass the traditional “pilot” phase and go straight into full production. This is may be good news for dinosaur fans. If the show’s protagonists are sent back in time 150 million years, they will almost certainly run into some dinosaurs and other prehistoric critters, and a big special effects budget will ensure that the creatures look much, much better than the claymation monsters of the old Land of the Lost television show. (Ed. — What, you don’t like Sleestaks?)
What sort of animals might the show feature? If it is set 150 million years ago, as early reports suggest, then it would take place during the waning days of the Jurassic during a subdivision of time called the Tithonian. During this time there were already feathered dinosaurs (like Archaeopteryx) and early representatives of famous groups of Cretaceous dinosaurs (such as the ankylosaurs and horned dinosaurs) were already running about.
Unfortunately for fans of Tyrannosaurus, though, the show would take place too early for the most famous of dinosaurs to make an appearance. During the Late Jurassic the relatives of Tyrannosaurus were still pretty small and probably covered with feathers. (Stokesosaurus, an approximately 12-foot-long relative of Tyrannosaurus found in England and Utah, was about as big as early tyrant dinosaurs got.) There were still plenty of other large predatory dinosaurs, though. Allosaurus and Torvosaurus were among the top predators of the time, though (in my opinion, anyway) some of the weirdest and most wonderful large theropods were those present a few million years later during the Early Cretaceous.
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Hmm… Something tells me they might not get too hung up on temporal accuracy. I’m guessing they picked “150 million” because it sounded like a nice round number. I’m sure they will feel free to take the creative liberty to pick and choose from throughout the Mesozoic, who is going to call them on it? Paleo-nuts? They would probably gripe anyway, “Where are the leg feathers on Archaeopteryx!? Geez that’s so inaccurate.” But I heard the show was mostly going to focus on the origin of angiosperms lots of long soft-focus closeups on CGI carpels and ovules.
Comment by neil — March 5, 2010 @ 12:22 pm
I see it’s slated for FOX. In that case you shouldn’t have bothered reporting it; if it somehow turns out to be watchable, it will be yanked after two episodes.
Comment by Kaje — March 5, 2010 @ 3:06 pm
And that’s a pretty big “if”. Schmaltzy “family dramas” are some of the most unwatchable things in the world.
If you’re going to have a TV show with dinosaurs and people together, you don’t have to rehash “Land of the Lost”. Why not do something like DinoRiders, or this manga?
http://palaeoblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/nano-manga-tyrannus.html
THAT I would watch.
Comment by Kaje — March 5, 2010 @ 3:22 pm
Neil; I agree with you, but I thought it would be fun to speculate on what kind of critters we might see (rather than just repeat the news and nothing else). At the very least I figured it would be a way to tell people who are not quite at our level of paleo-geekery what sorts of dinosaurs were around then.
Comment by Brian Switek — March 5, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
Cool! I’ll watch it when it comes on.
Comment by Mike — March 6, 2010 @ 10:17 pm
Of course if the recent Tetrapod track findings have shown us anything it’s that you can push creature appearances back and forward with some flexibility.
Comment by BathTub — March 7, 2010 @ 2:21 pm
pretty good article!
Comment by Harsh Jay Patel — March 7, 2010 @ 2:53 pm
“I see it’s slated for FOX. In that case you shouldn’t have bothered reporting it; if it somehow turns out to be watchable, it will be yanked after two episodes.”
And replaced with another Seth McFarland cartoon.
Comment by jp — March 7, 2010 @ 6:09 pm
I’ve already enjoyed a great show featuring humans interacting with prehistoric creatures — ITV’s (UK) “Primeval”, which is thankfully being brought back for another season.
Comment by El Cid — March 10, 2010 @ 2:11 pm
[...] a long wait, the dinosaur-haunted, sci-fi family drama Terra Nova premiered last night on FOX. The first [...]
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