LA 10,00 BC review

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. Let's begin again, to close out winter with an ice age palaeodoc!

L.A. 10,000 BC is another one of those forgotten documentaries from the early 2000's. Naturally its from Discovery Channel. Man, I really need to branch out more and watch other docus not owned by a certain conglomerate now....

The docu's premise is of using Hollywood stuntmen (Greg Fitzpatrick, Cheryl Lawson, and Richard Bucher) to demonstrate how ancient Indeginous people would have survived and even hunted the megafauna in Reality show-style challenges. Wow, the 2000s were something else. 

We first see three people, played by the stuntmen, having bad days as the narrator talks up how no matter how bad it seems to get these days, the past was way more difficult when all the megafauna were still around... and then its completely forgotten. It's a shame, as I feel like a potential set up of snooty rich folk getting a taste of real survival would be a novel premise for a palaeodoc, if one that's... weird.

We're then introduced to the Columbian Mammoth, specifically the Page Museum's mount as well as talking head the late Larry Agenbroad, resulting in an admittedly cool sequence of CG fossil ressurection at South Dakota. The other creature we are introduced to is a Teratorn via Georgia's Bob Chandler and another fossil ressurection bit, here restored as a giant condor as per the usual palaeomeme of the time as opposed to an eagle. Then come two animatronics of them as they are assembled and experts offer feedback.

They test its offensive capabilities and discuss the bird itself via the animatronic. Its oversized and incorrectly depicted with a nail on its beak, so its not scientifically informed as it could be.

We're also walked through an introduction to the Clovis people by Wyoming's Nicole Waguespack., which is pretty good a segment in my book.

The three stuntpeople then take a crash course in making weapons and tracking a mammoth, the latter where there are cut outs of the big three predators of Ice Age CA: Short-Faced Bear, American Lion, and of course, Smilodon. Worth mentioning the CG models of them appear earlier, dissolving over brown bear, lions, and leopards, The designs of the bear and lion aren't good in my book: too much like their modern counterparts when they didn't, especially the bear: while it probably didn't look exactly like one, the Short-Faced Bear did not look like a grizzly in colouration and proportions.

The final test is with the mammoth, forming the climax of the docu, where the stunt people and Bertram see how a mammoth could swing its tusks and stomp. I will admit, watching them fly is fun to watch, and the big robot is cool even if rather barebones.

LA ends with a final thesis on social life in the Ice Age and how mammoth hunting isn't that different from clout climbing. Interesting suggestion to make.

So what do I think of LA, 10,00 BC?

The slick reality show presentation is a decent idea and a good hook for casual audiences, even if mny in palaeonerd circles would find it... stupid, and I admit only the tracking bit is done well. I wouln't have minded an entire series about it

The talking heads like Larry Agenbroad, Nicole, and Bob Chandler are doing their best go try and educate viewers based off the script given how the rest of the special can charitably be called cheesy as hell. The stunt people though are more generic types however with only mild amounts of ri-erm, charisma and screen prescence.

LA also uses copious amounts of footage from other documentaries, namely Monsters We Met and Before We Ruled the Earth. They seem pretty good on their own, but when you see them put next to the lower grade Original CG, they just seem all the worse.

A major problem I have is that LA10,00BC has a tendency to monsterise the animals in narration and presentation, as if it was admirable to wipe out entire species for humanity's own benefit. In an era of mass extinction caused by paranoiacs and greedy rich folk, this is just wrong to put out.

I pretty much came and stayed for the animatronics, and while I am a bit disappointed its just the mammoth and teratorn and both are oversized, they're still pretty nice. I wish we got at least one more, maybe a predator as opposed to the cut outs, or perhaps an ungulate on a rail the stuntmen had to chase and catch up.

Frankly, I wished they went with that weird skit about spoiled hollywood types getting sent back to encounter real struggles amongst the ice age creatures, like that one NBC show, only... good and actually make use of the premise.

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

Overall, L.A. 10,000 BC isn't particularly good. It seems to be part of the transition from the naturalistic Beebian to the Awesomebro period and by extension pure documentaries to more sensationalist misinformative stuff. Even the interesting stuff, like the Survivor angle or the initial fiction go either nowhere or aren't done. Still, I won't deny I enjoyed the "doc" a bit.

Sources/See Also

• Witton, Mark (2019-08-30). "Mark P. Witton's Blog: We need to talk about teratorns". Mark P. Witton's Blog. Retrieved 2025-01-22.