Palaeo-Redo: Dinosaurs Alive

Hello, everyone (and boy there's little chance of topping the previous Stratigraphy post for a long time, like holy $#!+). Today, we're gonna do our second instalment of Palaeo-Redo. Specifically, we're gonna give a makeover to the 2007 Imax documentary Dinosaurs Alive! by Giant Screen Films, also the source of the roaring dinosaur so many use on the internet.

While I haven't reviewed Dinosaurs Alive yet, I will tell you there isn't much in the way of Dinosaurs being alive in the film through CG sequences, which are fairly short and few, with most of the doc focusing on palaeontologists of the American Museum of Natural History. While not a bad idea on paper, the fact that there isn't all that much dinosaurs (what people pretty much come for) in it makes it in my opinion a bit of a letdown, not helped by a sluggish pace that makes it hard to get through. This is a shame, as the models for the prehistoric life are all pretty good.

But what if things had gone a different way? What if I was an adult in the 2000's and were making this?

Well first off, I'd expand it outside of being one single short film into a full-fledged miniseries; its not titled Dinosaurs Alive, but Dinosaur Discoveries.

Each episode would be around 25 to 35 minutes long. While Episodes One and Three would be relatively unchanged save for a few more scenes and taxa (don't ask me what they would be), there would be several new episodes covering subjects related to both American Museum of Natural History scientists and dinosaurs of it. It would feature more of an equal mix of talking heads and museum fieldwork and CG sequences in situ in the mesozoic.

Episode Two

This is the original episode and where things get original. It focuses on the western US of the Jurassic Period and Early Cretaceous with emphasis on the sauropod dinosaurs. By extension, it would also discuss three palaeontologists: the first are those of the Bone Wars like Cope and Marsh; the second is Roland T. Bird and his study of the Paluxy River Trackway in Texas.

• Barosaurus lentus
• Apatosaurus ajax
• Stegosaurus stenops
• Allosaurus fragilis
• Kepodactylus insperatus
• Saurposeidon proteles
• Acrocanthosaurus atokensis

This idea was inspired by the original's use of Seismosaurus for a brief sequence in the beginning, using the New Mexico Museum mount, rather then anything at the American Museum of Natural History.

Episode Four

The penultimate episode is about Late Cretaceous North America, and naturally Tyrannosaurus and Barnum Brown feature heavily, as do the Sternberg clan and Henry Fairfield Osborn (that white nationalist cad), and the hadrosaur mummies the AMNH has.

• Edmontosaurus annectans
• Tyrannosaurus rex
• Triceratops horridus
• Styracosaurus albertensis
• Corythosaurus casuarius
• Ornithomimus velox

This episode would also feature Phil Currie as a guest talking head, might I add.

Episode Five

The final episode is about feathered dinosaurs, birds included, many of which are from China and the AMNH's own research on them, such as with Mark Norell.

• Deinonychus antirrhopus
• Zephyrosaurus schaffi
• Confuciusornis sanctus
• Microraptor gui
• Dilong paradoxus
• Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis
• Caudipteryx zoui

Thanks for reading this! Let me know if there's anything that could be added further.