Ancient Sea Monsters: A Review of a forgotten documentary


Fifty posts and 5000 views, everyone! It's been a year with my ADHD complicating schedule, but I made it! What better way to celebrate this blog about prehistory then with what I prefer best? Obscure as heck Palaeomedia I'm quite sure no one has reviewed before.

Question: What's everyone's favourite National Geographic palaeo-documentary... that isn't Sea Monsters or Prehistoric Predators? I'll let you wait, but that's quite emblematic of how little National Geographic Channel has put out such content versus Discovery Channel or BBC. This especially applies to the 2010's, as there only a few specials about T. rex to note. The 2000's meanwhile features a lot more palaeodocs, but these are all of the talking head kind (with the exception of the theatrical Sea Monsters) which are 80% talking heads  and fieldwork with scientists and 20% CG in situ reconstructions, which tend to last shorter in consciousness then narratives like BBC and DC have put out. Occasionally, you have more creative premises of looking at modern animals to produce physical models of certain creatures (2003's SuperCroc with Sarcosuchus for instance), however they tend to be far and in between.

One particular documentary falls by the wayside even by Nat Geo standards: 2011's Ancient Sea Monsters, which for the longest time was lost media until it was uploaded to Archive fairly recently. I took a gander at it for funzies and because I hadn't watched a doc that isn't Prehistoric Planet in weeks.

The documentary focuses on ichthyosaurs of early Triassic North America and how it relates to the evolution of the clade, specifically the giant Thalattoarchon prior to its 2013 description (its only called the sharptoothed ichthyosaur here), and how it fits into the evolution of them, with sciuentists from both California and Chicago's Field Museum. Pretty interesting concept to focus on, especially when its one that are oft-overshadowed by other groups. 

And what do I think of it?

It's... not that good. Here's why.

For starters, the presentation is pretty mediocre, not really doing much with it of note. Even at the end, the focus shifts away from ichthyosaurs to mosasaurs and whales, right as an interesting find of an ichthyosaur older then the Thalatto is underway.

The technical side of the special isn't much better either. There's only a few moments of prehistory reconstructions (perhaps because of a low budget), and they consist of the Thalatto and some fish swimming around and another with a fight. I think Julian Johnson-Mortimer of both Sea Monsters and Sea Rex fame may have contributed models, but if so the models are a bit lower quality then usual, whether in movement or detail. All you need to know about how bad the CG is can be seen below in how the flesh bends and collapses when a bite occurs.

YIKES

But who am I kidding? It's a low-tier documentary from 2011, of course the CG sucks.

The sole other effect are two montages of ichthyosaurs evolving into one another via warping into one another in cheap photoshop effects that look really bad. It doesn't help it starts with what is supposed a Neodiapsid reptile ancestor of the ichthyosaurs but looks like a slurpasaur from a very cheap B-movie.


Meanwhile, the sound editing's way off at times, often drowned out by the BGM. Finally, there's this epilepsy-inducing transition that keeps showing up (first seen at the 8:24 point for instance) where the skeletals and the Thalattoarchon flash by against a frog eye as a Jurassic Park rex sound plays, and every time it happens it's very annoying.

Also, I kind of expected the fellow giant Ichthyosaur Shonisaurus to have been brought up, given its been found in the same location as Thalattoarchon, if a bit younger then it. But nope, not even once (unless its one of the unidentified skeletals in the transitional bits).

Mind you, it's not all bad in ASM: the subject of ichthyosaur evolution is rarely covered, and so every time the documentary does focus on it, like with Ryosuke Montani explaining the fins of them, I'm fascinated by it, while the dig scenes in Nevada are fun as well. The music ain' half bad either for a documentary like this, even if it interferes with narration and sound. Also, might be insensitive to say, but I like the European accents of featured talking heads Nadia Fröbisch and Lars Schmitz, as well as the narration of Andres Williams.
  • Accuracy - 7/10
  • Aging - 7/10
  • Presentation - 5/10
  • Visuals - 5/10
  • Music - 8/10
  • Rewatchability - 4/10
Overall, Ancient Sea Monsters looks to have been forgotten for a while for a reason: the intriguing premise is wasted on a boring, poorly-made documentary, and the visual and sound effects are on the lower end of the quality scale. I only recommend for completionists or Triassic and Ichthyosaur enthusiasts.

If I were in charge I'd have made it a whole series, covering a wider variety of marine predators and scientific studies of them. besides the ichthyosaur here, I'd also include:
  • Ancient fish like Helicoprion or Edestus
  • Eurypterids
  • Ancient whales of the early Cenozoic, like Basilosaurus
  • Giant sea snakes from the same time, like Pterosphenus

See Also/Sources

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