July 29, 2010
Monsters Resurrected: Everything I Love, and Hate, About Dino Documentaries
I knew it was probably going to be bad, but when I saw that the prehistoric critter documentary series Monsters Resurrected was on Netflix, I couldn’t help but hit the “play” button. As I soon found out, the series represents everything I love and hate about modern dinosaur documentaries.
First broadcast in December 2009, the point of Monsters Resurrected is to reconstruct the habits of several extinct predators—Spinosaurus (dinosaur), Titanis (“terror bird”), Tylosaurus (mosasaur), Acrocanthosaurus (dinosaur), Amphicyon (“bear-dog”), Megalania (monitor lizard)—while employing as much hyperbole as possible. Where other documentaries have held back on gore, Monsters Resurrected reveled in blood-and-guts detail, often replaying the same graphic CGI scene selections over and over and over again. Seeing a Spinosaurus rip into the giant croc cousin Sarcosuchus was fairly impressive the first time, but by the fifth replay of the scene I had become inured to the violence.
But, unlike other recent documentaries, Monsters Resurrected does not exclusively feature computer-generated predators stomping about the place and roaring their lungs out. It mixes CGI vignettes with interview clips with scientists, and each show contains a metal shop component in which some part of each animal is cast in metal and set against a variety of objects—from fruit to cars—to show how powerful the ancient predators really were. Being that this blog is called Dinosaur Tracking, I will focus in on the two episodes that feature dinosaurs: “Biggest Killer Dino” and “Great American Predator.”
It is as if each of the two dinosaur-themed episodes had split personalities. On the one side they feature numerous paleontologists —big names in the paleo community including Thomas Holtz, Phil Currie, Ken Carpenter, Ken Lacovara, Jerry Harris, James Farlow and others—ably describing the science of the dinosaurs they knew so well, and on the other the show features scene-after-scene of Jurassic Park-type dino mayhem. In fact, the creators of Monsters Resurrected effectively recreated several scenes from the JP sequel The Lost World by placing Spinosaurus and Acrocanthosaurus in the modern day.
Likewise, the metal shop portions of each show seem to be a bit pointless. Acrocanthosaurus and Spinosaurus were not made of metal, nor did they attack cars or other modern-day objects, so I don’t really see what can be learned by slamming a rigid, metal Spinosaurus arm into a car door. In fact, these scenes are so over-the-top that they remind me of a recent parody of the Discovery Channel and similar networks by the Onion in which television programmers say they can’t dumb down their “science” programming any further.
What concerned me most of all, though, was the fact that the shows portrayed what were real animals as bloodthirsty monsters. The creatures in the show are shown as constantly killing and terrorizing the landscape, roaring every few seconds to announce their arrival. No living predators act like this, and there is no reason to think dinosaurs did. I can understand why the predatory habits of these animals might be played up for the show, but by presenting these animals as monsters, Monsters Resurrected presents a ridiculously hyperbolic view of what they were like in life.
In the end, Monsters Resurrected left me feeling very conflicted. It was wonderful to see scientists describing real fossil evidence and the minutiae of paleontology—in the wake of Walking With Dinosaurs-type shows, it’s good to see scientists make a comeback. Nevertheless, the action sequences of the show make me wonder how much of the scientific content actually got through to viewers. What did they remember after watching the show—the details of Acrocanthosaurus anatomy, or a Spinosaurus ripping into everything it came across with merciless abandon?
Have you seen Monsters Resurrected? What did you think of the show?
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This is some amazing stuff right here. I’m no expert, but:
Is it realistic that a young Paralititan’s spine would give absolutely no resistance to a bite from Rugops? It looks like he bit into a boneless sack of liquid. (And his bites sound like someone kicking a plastic bag full of leaves) How big is that Spinosaurus supposed to be if Rugops is 30 feet long? And of course, I’m pretty sure Holtz was about to tell us that it specialized in eating fish, not flinging other predators around like ragdolls. Should Paralititans be eating grass?
Not wild about the CG or cinematography either.
We saw a couple episodes on Netflix instant as well and thought it was complete rubbish. Although I like the idea of trying to infuse some ‘Mythubster’ elements into a dinosaur show, there’s really nothing to be learned from the way a steel Mosasaur jaw cuts through watermelon or Styrofoam. It wasn’t even entertaining it was just insulting.
I thought the “Walking With Dinosaurs”-type shows were a lot better. They were great at showing dinosaurs (and other animals) as real, flesh-and-blood animals rather than monsters or exotica. Getting to visualize the animals in their natural environment, without “talking heads” or irrelevant commentary about chewing cars, can really teach viewers how we (think) these animals lived.
While I like giving scientists airtime in theory, in practice those types of shows get dumbed down all too quickly (it seems the producers have to add extra gore and sensationalism to compensate for the talking heads). I’d rather see some sort of compromise, such as a scientist narrating over CG “Walking With Dinosaurs” scenes.
“Killing machine” cliches, thunderous footsteps and ominous tail swoosh noises, cheap CGI clips that are repeated several times an episode. I’m not sure why good scientists would want to be associated with such crap.
Great Onion link, BTW.
Whoa, that was not good. The animation looked like cutscenes from a Turok game. And MS is right – that baby Paralititan looked like it was full of jelly. I rarely get to see these shows unless they’re available online, since I don’t subscribe to cable or satellite.
I think that scientists do need to get involved, even after the Clash of the Dinosaurs kerfuffle from last year. It’s the only chance we have at keeping the producers honest. I guess I should watch this now that it’s available… but I’m not kicking it to the head of the queue.
I had obvious problems with the anatomy and size ratios of the dinosaurs. On the whole this series was loads better than several other crapumentories I sat through last year. At least with this you got SOME actual science. I haven’t watched them all yet (I bought the DVD with all of them at Walmart for $12) but maybe I’ll pop it in the DVD player since there’s no Doctor Who this weekend.
I actually like seeing them in real modern places, give you an idea of size. I’d give these a B for effort. While the animation isn’t the greatest, it’s tolerable and they actually move fairly well, not stiff.
Best,
Brett
Ah, yes, the same back-and-forth as with the horrendous “Jurassic Fight Club”, the miserable “When Dinosaurs Roamed North America”, and the incredibly disappointing “Alien Planet”. (I say “disappointing” with the last because I’ve been a fan of Wayne Barlowe’s book Expedition for twenty years, and I hoped to see a reasonable view at his completely fictional ecosystem. Instead, we get maybe fifteen minutes of mediocre CGI cut with talking head gibberish. And I care exactly as much about George Lucas’s opinion on alien biology as I care about Whitley Strieber’s views on SETI.) You can always spot the Canadian film industry workfare projects: when the budgets get tighter, the more the same footage gets reused over and over, with yellow filters for flashbacks.
I only made it about a quarter of the way through one episode, titanus. There’s a shot of a CG bird in modern-day LA bloodily dispatching two pet dogs and that was it for me. I felt the scene (to say nothing of the already glossed metal monster crusher cuts) was gratuitous and disheartening. It’s almost as if these creatures weren’t marvelous and mysterious enough, they needed to be jazzed up with some gore and red bull-laced pseudo science.