March of the Dinosaurs: A Review

 

With winter season in full swing, I think its as good as time as any to focus on a rising star in palaeo-media, the Prince Creek Formation of Alaska, which has been seen in quite a few documentaries over the last decade and even a movie (which I swear I am avoiding) as a snowy wonderland. Among the first is today's subject March of the Dinosaurs (2011), a feature-length documentary (with a name that references another certain documenary about (avian) dinosaaurs in arctic conditions) written by the Trilogy of Life's Jasper James, and directed by Matthew Thompson (Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough). 

The film is about a herd of the duck-bill giant Edmontosaurus and the hornless horned dino Pachyrhinosaurus migrating from the PCF in Alaska to Alberta across Laramidia for the winter, but run into much trouble along the way; occasionally we cut back to the PCF to follow a Troodon named Patch struggling to survive in the winter up there.

However, the main focus of the film is Scar, a baby Edmontosaurus who earns his name when an attacking Gorgosaurus grazed his head trying to escape from it. His migration sees him face many hardships, particularly when he gets separated from the herd in an Albertosaurus attack during a volcanic eruption, but he is aided and acconpanied by an old bull until he tragically passes away, and reunites with the herd after crossing a river with the herd of Pachyrhinosaurus his herd butted heads with before.

First, some context for March: the film came out in 2011, which could be considered the tail end of the golden age for palaeo-documentaries before interest and quality of them waned heavily in the rest of the 2010's; the same period still went out with a bang with Dinosaur Revolution and Planet Dinosaur. Most of the designs and conventions are of the Beebian kind, but as we shall see there a few bits Awesomebro period coming in.

Edmontosaurus gets its time to shine as the lead species in MOTD, and boy it does well. When a dinosaur has multiple mummies that preserve skin, there is litrtle room for error, but they do incredibly well even for the time. The mode even has skin covering the feet to form a hoof and lobes along the back. They even get moments of aggresion, rather then being wholly passive creatures that only serve as dinner for the theropods that most other media keeps portraying them as.... even though a creature which dwarfed T. rex wasn't a pushover.

Scar himself is pretty decent as a lead individual and a POV. Now as a very yong juvenile he's obviously unable to do much but despit what I've heard some people say he's not annoying. Then there is an old bull who helps protect Scar over the course of the film. He's definitely one of the most memorable characters in March of the Dinos thanks to how imposing he is.

The Pachyrhinosaurus are also quite good even for the time. Like most ceratopsids in media are portrayed, they are the more overtly aggresive herbivores of the work, even engaging in a fight with the edmontos (love is what I'm saying, nice interspecies combat). Meanwhile both have distict sexual dimorphism: male pachyrhinos have orange frills the females lack, and the female edmontos lack stripes, which I like. Its a nice touch that helps give the dinosaurs more character then just copy and paste.

Oh, and there's a nodosaur in here as well, an old female. It's pretty well-depicted. I like how at one point it eats wood and bug larvae for protein, which is plsusible yet a nice touch of speculation.

The story itself and presentation is also good. It's like Walking with Dinosaurs or a classic nature documentary the way it's all dinosaurs with no cut to a talking head in sight, which we all could use more of. The setpieces, mostly consisting of the herds being imperiled or running into trouble, but never in reptiutive way, one that makes you worry for Scar to survive. Patch's segments meanwhile are set in the perma-midnight of thr arctic circle, with moon illuminating snow, making for beutiful sights. It's all narrated by Stephen Fry*, stately yet patheos-filled, resulting in more character to it then most palaeodoc narrators.

* At least in the British verson. Americans got the blander Simon Kerr.

The cinematography, while wholly CG, is pretty good, employing lots of crane-like panning shots that emphasise scale that. There are a lot of pretty neat aerial shots of the herd casting shadows parallel to them. They remind me of the famous camel shadow photograph.

The music by Mark Russell does well to convey the epic scope of March.

Now for what I don't like about March of the Dinosaurs....

Unfortunately, the theropods of MOTD aren't up to par, particularly where feathering is concerned. Both albertosaurines that appear in the doc, Gorgosaurus and Albertosaurus (this was before Nanuqsaurus got described), are lipless and overfeathered, and are antagonised constantly.

The behaviour of the Albertosaurus in particular is very suspect, even more so then the Gorgosaurus, which is more reasonable (it even avoids a fight it doesn't have to do at one point). The way the act super-aggresive, jumping into the air even though they were too heavy to, and one continuing to persue Scar even after getting set on fire, swept away in a flood, and still persuing Scar and the old bull for miles on end. This is the behaviour of a Land Before Time sharptooth, not a creature in a (speculative) documentary where most of the other animals' behaviour are otherwise good and realistic. 

Meanwhile, the "Troodon" are also quite bad. The skull seems to be too boxy, and the feathering is the opposite of the tyrannosaurs: they have way too little feathers, with lots of bare scaly skin. Honestly, these really distract from their scenes... and admittedly I do feel they're weaker then Scar's.

The Quetalcoatlus and mosasaur that also appear as antagonistic types to the herd are also quite suspect. The former are bendy-necked and bipedal scavengers, well at a time when it was known they were quadrupedal hunters. The mosasaurs (identified elsewhere as Prognathodon) are also way too slender for the cold water they live in, can drag 2 tonne dinosaurs away with way too much ease even for their size, and must I say it? There were no freshwater mosasaurs simming around Laramidia. These choice must have been done to evoke vultures and crocodiles in East Africa preying on migrating hoofstock, but the result is a mangling of the real creatures. It's a shame, as I like the colours of each of them.

The biggest inaccuracy with March is that the entire premise has been rendered implausible. This was made when it was assumed that fossils of both Edmontos and Pachys were found in both Alaska and southern Alberta because they were the same species migrating across the continent, hence the premise. However, just two years, it was determined the species from each formation were seperate species entirely; this means these dinosaurs. At most likely, you'd see them head to the south shore of northern Laramidia, but that's it. 

One of the the biggest problems I have with the films is that as it's all CG, there are times when it can't help but feel like one long game cutscene. Doesn't help there are some noticable errors to them, like clippung and hovering models. On a related note, most of the film takes place in either barren volcanic plains or dirty brown forests that aren't very interesting to look at. I suspect these were done to save on budget, but its not accurate to what most of Cretaceous Laramidia was like, instead being lush forests and wetlands.

There's a bit where Scar, the Old Bull, and a female Pachyrhinosaurus get stuck together and travel together, Fry setting up an Ice Age-style story of misfits... only to discard it in the next scene. It makes sense since they're not anthropomorphic, but I ask: Why even include it then?

There's also the use of slow-motion, particularly when the Gorgosaurus ambushes a wayward edmontosaurus calf. If these are meant to increase tension, it has the opposite and is rather unintentionally hilarious.

Suffice to say, among the many, many Prince Creek Formation works that inevitably share the exact same fauna, I do feel that it's one of the less good ones in my book. In the list below, March ranks as a #4.

    1. Prehistoric Planet: Ice Worlds (what else would it be?)
    2. Amazing Dinoworld: The Feathered Revolution (way prettier designs and CG)
    3. Walking with Dinosaurs 3D (Same as Dinoworld, but yeah, exec-added voices suck)
    5. PBS NOVA's own episodes (too nondescript to comment)

If I were in charge, March of the Dinosaurs would generally stick to the real thing, and be ser in lush places. The volcanic wastelands that disguise albertos' scents, for instance would be replaced by a sweet-smelling forest of plants. I'd also add additional species to the line up. Among them would be:

• Ornithomimus
• Hypacrosaurus and Anchiceratops, as the other cerapods the herds encounter en route
• Deinosuchus replacing Prognathodon, like what a Walking with Dinosaurs game did

• Accuracy - 6/10
• Aging - 5/10
• Designs - 6/10
• Plot - 7/10
• Behaviour - 6/10
• Visuals - 7/10
• Music - 7/10
• Rewatchability - 7/10

I admit: I really wanted to like March of the Dinosaurs, and I can find a lot to. Unfortunately, the bevy of getting things wrong, the , make for a film doc that doesn't always hold up on rewatch. Neverthless, I'd still reccomend March of the Dinosaurs, and if you can ignore its pretty good, and with the family focus in it, makes a pretty good dinosaur-themed Christmas flick too.

Happy holidays everyone!

Sources/See Also

• Fiorillo, A.R. and Tykoski, R.S. 2012. "A new Maastrichtian species of the centrosaurine ceratopsid Pachyrhinosaurus from the North Slope of Alaska". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 57 (3): 561–573.