August 10, 2011
The Dark Tyrannosaurus Rises
The Dark Tyrannosaurus - a dinosaur dressed up to celebrate the filming of the third Batman movie in Pittsburgh. Photo by Flickr user Anirudh Koul.
There ain’t no humor like dinosaur humor. While Christopher Nolan has been busy directing the final chapter in his Batman series—The Dark Knight Rises—in the City of Bridges, students at the local Art Institute of Pittsburgh decided to dress up a Tyrannosaurus statue in honor of the film. I can’t imagine that a crime-fighting theropod would follow Batman’s strict moral code against killing criminals, though.
For me, at least, dinosaurs plus Batman is an obvious win, but you might be wondering what a tyrant dinosaur is doing in the middle of Pittsburgh in the first place. According to photographer Anirudh Koul, the Tyrannosaurus is a holdover from 2003′s Dinomite Days, when 100 dinosaurs were placed around the city and painted by local artists. No word yet on whether any remaining Stegosaurus or Torosaurus sculptures around town have been dressed up as other characters from the forthcoming film.
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
8 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
This particular Tyrannosaurus gets quite a lot of costumes: he was Harry Potter just last month! (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2011/07/photo-of-the-day-dino/1) I love this dino
The T-Rex/Batman combo might be better because Batman’s working title here is Magnus Rex.
And yeah, I don’t think the other dinosaurs still in the area are dressed up for Batman, nor are they usually dressed up at all. There’s another T-Rex a little north of the city that I think was wearing a winter scarf this year, though I don’t recall for sure.
LMAO.
Wonder full photograph. Well done. God Bless Anirudh.
I go to this school and they dress up the dinosaur (his name is Creation Rex) all the time. He’s been Harry Potter, Lady Gaga, Darth Vader, a penguins fan with a full grown play off beard. He’s worn a bowler hat, skates and a steeler’s jersey. The list goes on. He use to have a blog too and loved talking about stealing the Stanley Cup when the Pens.
The dinosaur is awesome and gets dressed up for every holiday and event imaginable. He’s a great mascot! Oh, and there is a Trex statue in bloomfield that is dressed up as Mr. Rogers, complete with a sweater and hand puppets!!
@Katie – Yes, the Brontosaur (I believe?) in Oakland outside of the Carnegie museums was wearing a scarf earlier this year.
T-Rex has been dressed up as Lady Gaga, Troy Polamalu, Harry Potter, and a pop-tart eating monster! It’s always fun to turn the corner on my way to class and see what they’ve come up with next.
This school should spend less money dressing stupid avatars with trendy garbage and LOWER TUITION AND STOP SCAMMING THE GOVERNMENT.
I can’t imagine that a crime-fighting theropod would follow Batman’s strict moral code against killing criminals, though.
Criminals, Commissioner Gordon? What criminals? (burp)