Mesozoic Mind

With the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park having come in June, I had to celebrate, first by watching the film itself, but the day after that, I went with my father on June 12 to another befitting attraction: Jurassic World: The Exhibition , a travelling walkthrough attraction organised by Neon Global, which came to my fair city of Mississaga in May, specifically a former sporting good store now used for travelling. JWTE themes itself to travelling to the namesake park of the recent trilogy. It's actually the latest of many tie ins to the frsnchise, from The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park back in the 1990's, to the Japenese-exclusive Jurassic Park Institute Tour , which I eagerly watched as a kid and wanted to go to. But enough of building up and let's begin our tour, shall we? The exhibit begins with a themed pre-show about boarding a boat to Isla Nublar, as video screens of ocean simulate the ride there. It's a nice start to the attraction if I say so myself. Neat post...

Remember my post on May the second ? How I said I was going to Chicago? The one place I've wanted to go for a long long time? I indeed visited the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago earlier this month for a wedding vacation, on the 6th, and although it was not my first visit, I hadn't had a chance to visit in years. the very first exhibit I headed to? The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet  on the second floor, it's palaeontology gallery, first opened in 2006 after the museum closed a very 90's gallery "Life After Time". I LOVED IT. EVERY BLOODY SECOND OF IT. I was like a kid in a candy store seeing one of the most impressive array of fossils I've ever seen and excellent exhibitry. Not even a full bladder could stop my enthusiasm.  Admittedly I was so caught up in the rapture I wasn't really paying specifics and went too fast for my liking, so I'm not going to remember all the details of the exhibit. Forgive me for such and potentially missi...

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 watche...

Happy holidays everyone! What better way to celebrate the festive season at Mesozoic Mind then a christmas film about prehistory? Well options are VERY limited, so the only thing I can find is something from the time-honoured tradition of crappy, cheap animated christmas specials,  The Christmas Dinosaur (2004). Created by the sadly now-defunct PorchLight Entertainment, it tells the story of a young dinosaur-obsessed kid named Jason Barnes who decides sneak into the Christmas presents gifted to him, only to discover the one for him isn't the toy he wanted, but a real egg that hatches into a Quetzalcoatlus . Which is you know, not a dinosaur? Even the target audience knew better, not to mention the film keeps flip-flopping on calling it a dinosaur versus (correctly) a pterosaur. Anyways, he adopts it as a pet, and has fun with it as it grows up while having to dodge his parents and his nosy, grumpy neighbour to keep them from finding out about the flapling, but when Spot gets lone...

  Just like the ROM visit, I got several books for my birthday. One of them is today's subject, The Dinosaur Hunters *, a book about the history of palaeontology and the study dinosaurs, from the origins of the subject to the impact dinosaurs have on pop culture. It is written by Lowell Dingus with help from Mark Norell, both from and book helped by the venerable American Museum of Natural History. * Not to be confused with another non-fiction book of the same name and subject by Deborah Cadbury. The contents of it are fairly broad in scope. It goes chronologically, and a basic list summary is: Origins of Palaeontology, from the Greek Xenophanes observing fossil shells in mountains to Nicolas Steno's work in geology against Church's dogma. England's discoveries, such as William Buckland and Megalosaurus, the Mantells discovering and describing Iguanodon , and Crystal Palace Park. During and beyond the 1870's, Belgium sees the discovery of more Iguanodon that change...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind for the new year! Today's subject of Mesozoic Mind, the oldest work featured so far, may trigger nostalgic flashbacks, whether your a British person growing up in the 80's or worldwide in the 2000's via Youtube. It's Dinosaurs: Fun, Fact and Fantasy , a 1982 Direct to Video documentary oriented at children, courtesy of Pickwick Video. It aired at a time when palaeontology was in the middle of re-evaluating dinosaurs not as sluggish, slow, evolutionary failures but a successful clade, yet the public hadn't yet quite caught on. Also, please excuse the low quality screengrabs. The video ain't even HD. After a montage of dinosaur related B-rolls (and featuring the OG King Kong from 1933), we begin with a stop motion short on life in Mesozoic England, most notably a stooped-over Megalosaurus  on the prowl and eventually felling an Iguanodon , because really, what else is it gonna eat? Cetiosaurus or anything it actually lived...