Mesozoic Mind

  There were plans for an animated series based on Jurassic Park pitched, and even got a trailer made. But Spielberg, growing numb to the sheer amount of merch of the film, refused to see it. presumably why it was shelved. For years since, there was only a few pieces concept art (including by Wiliam Stout) and the pitch bible to go off of. As for the latter itself, not too much of the story this would have had of the park reopening and Biosyn opening their own. But not anymore! It's been posted to the public at last! What a lovely halloween treat!

Guess who? And me too... Ah, the Jurassic Park - style Raptor. What hasn't been written about it? Scaly skin, slit eyes, pronated hands, it's all but certain based on the fossil record that its nothing like the real dromaeosaurs. And yet even next to 35 years after Jurassic Park, and decades on from the Dinosaur Renaiscance, it persists in pop culture, from video gamrs, all the sway to being stripmined by AI scraping. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I regard Raptor as the Modern era's equivelent of the dragon (or at least the western kind). First, there came accounts of a real reptilian creature being observed and described. Dragons have a basis in europeans and middle easterners' descriptions of crocodilians and snakes, plus existing myths of serpents. Meanwhile, the dromaeosaurs were reconstructed as scaley and with pronated hands, becauase that's what palaeontologists and artists thought at the time, plus absorbing the "reptiles are lower and e...

  Ornithomimids are rather underrated as far as dinosaurs go. Most often they are either depicted as fast runners, or in older works, egg thieves... which admittedly I show both of in the vid. My only regret is not including the ones from the Doraemon dinosaur movie, Nobita's Dinosaur .

A long tme ago in the 2000's, Youtube was filled with animations. You had your Flash, and your Pivors, and those made in MS Paint. And in particular, there was  deadspinosaur . These are youtube animated shorts made by an account not active since 2011. I advid,ly watch it as a ki, only remembering it this year, and it was not until I saw it in a compilitation of 2000s palaeomedia like it, called sauriancore. All of the channel's video are all to some degree of fights betwern different animals. Most notable? The Spinosaurus series. Every video featured the sailbacked pharoah fighting other creatures or chased by them. The more famous of the series is the second line, done in MS Paint. Eps are: the raptor pack   - Spiny recreates a scrapped eding for Jurassic Park III and fights raptors. munch!  - Spiny attacks a very oblivious brachiosaurus. charge! - Spiny attacks triceratops. family disputes - Spiny feuds with a Suchomimus. splashing! - Spint gets chased by a plesiosa...

Sigh. Yes, that terrible sign, to start off with that utterance Man, I really wanted to like Surviving Earth . But god damn it was less then we all wanted.  It felt like reheated Trilogy of Life leftovers/Greatest Hits album, with an overly safe to to appeal to as many without offending pearl clutchers, so we get little violence and less stakes. On top of that, Tim Haines turmed out to be an AI shill. Frankly, choosing NBC to air it was a mistake. It should  Bu still, we can't entiely write SE off: it still introduces a lot of creatures to general audiences, has g So what do I think of each episode? 8. When the Asteroid Fell You'd think the K-Pg extinction would be among the best episodes, but unfortunately they really droppd the ball on it. It has the most egregious case of toothlessness in the series: the dark winter fails to leave longterm impact, and the Nanunqsaurus  are already 2010s relics. Still, I love they didn't do Hell Creek for the umpteenth time. Accuracy - ...

I like The Dinosaurs , Netflix's spinoff/sequel to the otherwise-mediocre Life on our Planet  that's not to be confused with PBS' 1992 series. Dare I say it, it's even better then Surviving Earth . But this isnt to say it's perfect. It often oversimplifies evolution and is way too focus on interspecies fights. Here's what I would do if I were making it. General Rename the series from the generic The Dinosaurs. Call it…  Age of the Dinosaurs . I would further away with the “Le Epic Clash of Evolutionary Dynasties” angle that LOOP was huffing. No taxa goes unnamed, everything is by name or an onscreen title. Rise Rhyncosaurs are deopixted going extinct not because of conifers alone, but because the low-lying ferns they were specialized in eating were mostly replaced with new low-lying flora (such as conifers) they couldn't eat, much like the stegosaurs of the Early Cretaceous in the same documentary. Replace the Procompagnathus with a young Liliensternus . Th...

  I generally found "When the Asteroid Fell" to be a step down from the last twoepisdes, but I legot cracked up when the dromaeosaurs did this to the Nanuqsaurus . Feels like Looony Tunes, or Dinosaur Revolution , and of course I had to set it to Yakety Sax. See Also Surviving Earth: Initial Thoughts on ep 1

Raptor Red (1995) Yes, I did indeed purchase Bob Bakker's legendary book and finished it after the 14th. For those not in the know,  Raptor Red is a fiction novel by the paaeontologist and godfather of the Dinosaur renaissance about a female Utahraptor forced on the move. It should come as no suprise the book has aged like milk, like the utahraptors being scaley, or it and Deinonychus , Astrodon , and Acrocanthosaurus living in the same time and place (reasonable when it was thought Utah lived 125 mya, not 140). Also, the episodic plot of the story results in a feew interesting things being forgotten. All that said, the writing is generally excellent weaving in and around all sorts of of prehistoric denizens in poetic prose that elevates them, anthromorphising them without being over the top or obnoxious. All without ever making the dinosaurs talk. Likewise, I love how Bakker draws all sorts of attention to other creatures and how they fit into Red's story, like symbiosis betw...

  I really went with the idea of the beauty and mejesty of mammals emerging from the ashes of the K-Pg extinction.

  Well, it's official: Tim Haines is BACK! After years of waiting, Tim Haines has made a new palaeo-doc. Surviving Earth , which covers many of the extinctions of Earth's history. The first episode, "When the Earth Burned" , naturally starts things off with the Permian Extinction. Set in Russia, we follow a family of the gornopsid Inostrancevia . Pretty inspired choice. Without spoilers, what are my thoughts on it? The effects and design are excellent. The cinematograohy is alsao very lush, with the Californian forests . The animal behaviour is up to par. I like the gorgonopsids have a lion-influenced social structure... though I do object to them fighting even as lava looms to be the alpha (which is a bunk term). The species selection is great, showing both the big guys of Permian Russia (Ino, Scutosaurus) and the dicynodont Elph  (no joke I genuinely thought they said elf and was wondering why they were calling them by snything other then their real name) and Sumini...

Yes, you read right, the legendary Nigel Marven made another palaeodoc series.... kind of. In 2023 he did some prmotional shorts for Shropshire's Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World, a zoo with a dinosaur attrctio attached to it, Nigel Marven's Prehistoric World . In these shorts, he wanders around the Dinosaur World portion (Hoo-Rassic World, har har) and pretends if he's back on time, just like in the olden days. Its clearly aimed at young viewers then Chased By Dinosaurs or Prehistoric Park . Still,  Nigel is an enthustiatic and charming enough to make it work. I love he mentions Chased by Dinosaurs' eps by name. The information he tells is basic, though sometimes it is a bit off, like Nigel calling Dimetrodon a reptile. The cinematography on the other hand is well shot, at least in the sense you cant tell there's a fence just metres away. The designs are just the park's animatronics, and they look fine at best. Otherwise, they all have tons of issues the plague all ...