Comments on: Monsters Resurrected: Everything I Love, and Hate, About Dino Documentaries

By: Jeff Lovewood

Jeff Lovewood — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:12:40 +0000

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.

By: Paul Riddell

Paul Riddell — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:59:55 +0000

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.

By: Brett Booth

Brett Booth — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:44:43 +0000

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

By: David

David — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:49:15 +0000

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.

By: BJN

BJN — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:49:13 +0000

“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.

By: Dom

Dom — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:23:18 +0000

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.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:54:04 +0000

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.

By: Michael Stearns

Michael Stearns — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:33:28 +0000

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.