Mesozoic Mind

So on April 16, I watched a feature-length (87 minutes!) dinosaur documentary hosted by the legendary David Attenborough. No, its not the upcoming Prehistoric Planet , as it hasn't come out yet. Rather, it's  Dinosaurs: The Final Day , about the extinction of the dinosaurs via an asteroid impact, and studies of the North Dakota fossil site Tanis , which actually preserves a very close time right up to the asteroid impact. Now I admit the extinction of the dinosaurs never really interests me and I usually prefer to skip it when it comes up, out a mixture of just being talked about too much and being to tear-inducing for me, instead preferring what celebrates their success and diversity, birds included. I presumed it would be like the previous palaeo-docs David has been in, with mostly talking heads with a few short CG reconstruction sequences here and there, but nothing much to it, and would viewed as minor compared to Discovery Channel's Last Day of the Dinosaurs (which is ...

Hello, and welcome back to a Palaeo-Redo instalment for Mesozoic Mind, where I try and look at how I would either do a palaeo-work if I were making it, or how I'd remake and update it. Given that we celebrated our first anniversary with it, how about we do Jurassic Park? The Lost World: Jurassic Park Starting off  The Lost World , I would actually split the film into a two-parter film for more breathing room for the story. The first part would move the freeing of the captured dinosaurs more to the climax, with the finale being the village chase and the escape. The ending is of the bull T. rex, as well as several other dinosaurs (three  Triceratops , some raptors, procompsognathus , and a Mamenchisaurus  just for a full other Lost World homage), being captured and ready for transport. The second part (no doubt released in 1998) would be about the dinosaurs on the mainland in San Diego and the efforts to recapture them (the much beloved Roland Tembo helps out with this) an...

 Happy 4000 views at Mezosoic Mind, everyone! To celebrate, here's the last Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day, and we're going into a place never been to but should hsve been to long ago. Shadow of the Giants This rather pretentiously-named game would be an open-world photography game in the vein of 2009's Afrika or Endless Ocean . The game is about an expedition back in time to any time in the Mesozoic, and your goal is to capture photos of all kinds of species, not only dinosaurs, but pterosaurs, crocodilians, and mammals, in various behaviours (raising young, feeding or hunting, fighting) or simply their specific features of them, all while trying to avoid getting spotted or attacked. For instance, one instalment I have in mind would take place in the Morrison Formation, while for another would be in the Dinosaur Park Formation. Just a few of the many genera that would be featured in them would be. Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus Camarasaurus Diplodocus Allosaurus fragil...

It was on this day a year ago I started writing Mesozoic Mind, everybody. Its means a lot to me, helping me give meaning in the Age of COVID. What better way to celebrate this blog about so much that's Mesozoic (and build up to Jurassic World: Dominion ) then the daddy of all Palaeo-Media, the Jurassic Park franchise! While I'm saving the Jurassic World films for later (spoilers they're bad), lets for now look at the OG trilogy from the 1990's and early 2000's, which practically redefined dinosaurs and palaeo-media for every generation that followed. All of which I loved, especially on VHS, and naturally it fed my love of all things prehistoric and mesozoic and eating up every JP-related thing on the internet. I even had a JP3 Tapejara toy for a while. Okay, enough nostalgically waxing, let's get to what we came for: ranking all of the films to see how they stack up after 25 years and counting. (Note: Originally I was gonna do the VHS short Dinosaurs: Fun Fac...

 If you've been keeping up with palaeo-media for the last couple of years, you may have heard of Prehistoric Planet , a documentary on the streaming service Apple TV+ that shares its name with at least two recuts of Walking With... properties ( Shameles plug link to my thoughts one of them ), from both BBC Natural History Un it and Jon Favreau, using the same CG used in his previous works at Disney. For months no further came of it, and many, including me thought nothing would ever be, even being quietly cancelled. But today the trailer dropped, and OMIGOSH ITS AMAZING. The whole series is looking absolutely astounding. Hans Zimmer is composing the score and the snippet here is already breathtaking, THE David Attenborough is narrating, the cinematography and the dinosaurs. Just the Dinosaurs.  We start off with a herd of what are presumably  Alamosaurus   Dreadnaughtus . By any rate they're stunning and imposing to look at. The inflatable sacs along the neck are al...

 Hello to all, and Mesozoic Mind still exists. Today, we will discuss perhaps the most infamous piece of palaeo-media anywhere, from 2010, a bright light in the dark age of the Awesomebro period, Tyrannosaurus Sex . *Heavenly choir* Even the release art is awe-inspiring. It is said that David Krentz saw it as a child and inspired him to make some of the most accurate prehistoric life depictions ever That is one of the best titles for any work ever, let alone palaeo-media. It's not generic, and its a clever pun that tells one all they need to know: this is about the sex lives of dinosaurs. That is all. Don't believe me on how good this documentary is? Just watch this clip, as the full thing could choke you with its brilliance. Absolute genius, discussing sauropod penis size in the most eloquent way imaginable. The script is such, and the narration is pleasing to hear, even better that pretentious lowlife Kenneth Branagh. if that weren't enough, guess what the star of the sho...