Some Random Palaeo-Shorts #2

This series for this month is back, if a bit rushed. I apologise in advance.

A Dinosaur Story (2008)



Here is a story by  about a baby t. rex who finds an egg and knocks it down the side of the hill its on, but pushes it back up. It hatches into a baby Brachiosaurus, the implication he has made a friend. The thing I note the most was created by alumni from Sheridan College, which is in my hometown of Mississauga, just down the street from where I live.

I do admit I like the Tyrannosaurus model here, in spite of the blatant Jurassic Park influences. Maybe it's how the thin frame and short head evoke the real growth cycle tyrannosaurs had, based off fossil evidence.

That said, A Dinosaur Story is another short student film, and there isn't much else to it; the CG don't even leave marks on the live action backgrounds nor has any music, and there aren't even much jokes in it. Its story is so short and simple its basically something you'd tell a toddler. If you watched it as a kid I hope you enjoyed it, but if you didn't you honeestly didn't miss much.
  • Accuracy - 4/10
  • Aging - 5/10
  • Visuals - 7/10
  • Music - n/a
  • Storytelling - 5/10
  • Rewatchability - 6/10

Citipati (2015)

Citipati, directed by Andreas Feix, takes place during the K-Pg impact, and follows an oviraptorid (which keep in mind was named after a funeral pyre being from buddhist myth) who exprieces the extinction firsthand. However, it has a vision, and when it comes to, the dinosaur decides to run into and even jumps into the inferno, going out in a firey blaze of glory.

Just gonna also note that the only other living things we see are a generic lizard and a herd of Saurolophus in the background.

Let me just get things out of the way: no big complex feathers are on the CG model (well, save for fire evoking them at the end), just whispy tufts, not to mention is grossly thin, looking like the worst of the Paulian style. Perhaps its to sell the idea of becoming birds in time, and to save on rendering, but even I have my doubts. That's honestly my only complaint about Citipati though - this short is truly sublime. It's truly a work that takes the maxim that "This is about story, aboyt accuracy" often spread by awesomebros and truly used

The short dabbles heavy on the downright mystical. It's one of those works that are hard to describe in words and must be seen to be believed, so I'm not going to describe it in detail, from what I get, the dinosaur is getting a glimpse of the Universe and how extinction is not the end, but new beginings (the pose it makes at the end is even reminiscent of an embryo - as someone poineted out). It's an exellent concept, what I'm saying, it's a refreshing break from "dinosaurs do things/fight and roar".

Did I mention the animation is fantastic? Because the animation is fantastic. Everything is downright tangeable, whether dusty or burning, or otherwise just hot, aided by great lighting that reveals every detail, or is the detailing. The music by Petteri Sainio is also stellar, fitting the epic scope it presents.

Citipati is beautiful palaeo-short that defies words and will capture your attention, so good it makes nekkid theropods tolerable. It's well deserving of its own review (though I'm not going to start it now). Go watch it now.
  • Accuracy - 4/10
  • Aging - 5/10
  • Presentation - 9/10
  • Visuals - 9/10
  • Music - 9/10
  • Storytelling - 10/10
  • Rewatchability - 9/10

Dinosaur Telephone Call (2008)


This short from Jason Steele (the Charlie the Unicorn guy - I bet most readers not from the 2000's know what that was) features a guy who is called by a T. rex who wants desperately to hang out with him, but he keeps refusing.

The Rex's design is of the Knightian upright tail-dragging school of design. Because its a talking one, its jaws flex and move in an odd way that can only happen because its well, a cartoon. 
It's also voiced by a woman Jennifer Alex, resulting in an odd dissonance between the monstrous appearence and the high voice, part of the joke.

Speaking of, I did find the increasing desperation of the dinosaur and the annoyance of the man funny, though I didn't laugh outright at it.

Dinosaur Telephone Call is a decent short from the Golden Age of Youtube. That's all it is.
  • Accuracy - 4/10
  • Aging - 5/10
  • Presentation - 9/10
  • Animation - 7/10
  • Jokes - 6/10
  • Storytelling - 10/10
  • Rewatchability - 8/10

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