Mesozoic Mind

 Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays folks! As a christmas day gift, I'll give you all a follow up to last week's post, where I show you sonething made new fashioned out of something old: concepts for new episodes of Dinosaur Planet that fix the balance issues I voiced last time! I'm setting them on landmasses that weren't in the original series' lineup These two episode concepts were actually concieved in 2020 before I even got the idea to start the blog. I've decided to update them with what I know now. They're a what if? excersise, and I will write the episodes as if I were in 2003, using sources and information from at least before that year and nothing after, though there won't be much concern for budget from both Meteor Studios and Evergreen Films, as it is my imagination. Before we get started, I'd like to offer a special thanks to Deviantart user ThalassoAtrox , for inspiring me to write these after seeing a rundown of Dinosaur Planet ...

It's the start of the Spooky Season! What better way for Mesozoic Mind to celebrate it then a concept for a palaeontology-centric horror film? My idea is inspired by all the horror pictures on Twitter (I will never call it X) I've been seeing around the time I wrote this. Like this one for example. Thieving Lizards Our protagonist is palaeontologist Billy DeSantis, a hotshot palaeotologist who begions the film making. However, he starts seeing these ghostly beings who resemble prehistoric life. Some are raptors, some are mammalian creatures, but either way they unnerve the heck out of Billy, who recognises them all as creatures he has studied directly in particular the taptor, which he has named Kleptiasaurus  (from Klepto, the greek). They even start to get more and more aggresive, charging at him, breaking into wherever he is, and snarling in his face. Initially it looks like Billy is an innocent victim who doesn't deserve the haunting, and you want him to escape them som...

Hello again. Here's something to tide you over until the next review, now in-progress. Ashfall From Dean Lomax's book Locked in Time ; illustrations by Bob Nicholls An animated film, inspired by the palaeontological site in Nebraska. It would tell the story of a crash of the ancient rhino Teleoceras as they weather out the ash clouds due to their leader being too stubborn to try and escape in any way even as the other animals start to die out as thr volcanic ash suffocates all that inhates it. Don't worry, it would have a bittersweet ending with most of the lead herd members getting their own moments of closure and solace in their last ones. This movie would all be without dialogue save brief narration. Beasts from Bones A documentary about mythical creatures that may have been inspired or influenced by ancient people discovering remains of extinct lifeforms. Examples would include (but not be limited to): Indigenous tribes of the interior plains creating myths of water mo...

Hello, to start off July at Mesozoic Mind, here's an idea I had in my head for a bit but never got around to writing - until now. Troodont Imagine this game... but with a different kind of parave. The game would be set in the Late Cretaceous and you play as a troodont* living in Campanian North America**. You use the maniraptor's famously big brain and wits to live - but also cause trouble for the heck of it. Just a few of what you can do in the game include: Cause stampedes of hadrosaurs or ceratopsids. Trap predators after you ( Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus , raptors, azhdarchids, and crocodilians) in humiliating spots and escape. Catching prey. And of course, just loudly pestering other dinosaurs and smaller creatures for fun. The tone would be inspired by Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote and other "Chase" cartoons, as well as  Dinosaur Planet and Dinosaur Revolution and their comical quasi-anthropomorphic presentation. The artstyle would be cartoony and cel-shade...

Two years. Two years at Mesozoic Mind , through ups and downs and bringing you the best I could give you, and expanded my horizons in life, to go where I could only dream of. To celebrate, here's what I made for all of you readers as a gift: remaking Walking with Dinosaurs for the 21st century as I'd do it. Yeah, I know, people stopped doing this kind of thing years ago, but what the heck, I wanted to do it myself, and I only really do the big ones for special occasions like these. The episodes would be quite different from the origials in setting, but would stil have enough rocognisable creature archtypes and plot beats to show which corresponds to which. Although I still see fit to tell you which is which. Also, please forgive any anachronisms in the lineups I have created. I tried my best to avoid them. Also also, the pictures used here serve to get an idea of what things would feel or look like, not be direct representations. Episode One - Archosauria Art by Olmagon Set in...

We've hit 2000 views this month, a record at Mesozoic Mind! Today (and perhaps to commemorate it - albiet in a rather small and short way unfitting for it), we got some book ideas! You're Dumber then a Dinosaur! This book lists various dinosaur andotherprehistoriclife-themed insults readers could use in arguments and the context behind them. It would also double as rebuttals to misconceptions people have about dinosaurs or facts regarding them. A few examples to get you an idea of what would be inside are: "You mama's so fat, sauropods don't think she can can walk on land!" - Would explain sauropods had had hollow bones and airsacs to lighten them in spite of their massive size, but Yo Momma has no such thing to her. The corresonding illustration would be a morbidly obese woman next to an unimpressed Argentinosaurus herd. " Stegosaurus had more brains then you!" - Stegosaurus didn't have two brains with one in its hip/ass region, but it wasn'...

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind . Man, its been forever snce I did a Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day instalment. Figured I'd be at least in the double digits long ago. Anyways, better late then never. Prehistoric Paradise Inspired by a vacation to Grand Cayman I took in late June, this documentary would document the geological and evolutionary course of the Carribbean, particularly Cuba to its wide variety of fossils preserved and strata there. It would make heavy use of timelapse shots from space showing the landmasses forming and moving overtime, but there would still be plenty of reconstruction . Episode One Art by tuomaskoivurinne Episode one establishes the origins of the Carribbean in the Mesozoic due to the breakup of Pangaea and. A large portion of it is spent in a Mid to Late Jurassic formation known as the Jagua , which has a wide variety of marine reptiles on par with Britain's. Featured taxa would be: The pliosaur  Gallardosaurus The ples...

Yeah, I'm just gonna say it: while its definitely an incredible doc, Prehistoric Planet does falter in some spots. Some groups get shafted entirely, and the series' jumping around locations a la Planet Earth doesn't help give a connection to the animals in my humble opinion. But hey, no work is perfect. Even Walking with Dinosaurs had quetionable creative choices and designs. Here's how I would make the already great Apptle TV+ show into downright, absolute god-tier material in my book, while still retaining as much as I can. In my version, episodes are done by regions or continents instead of environments, as I feel unlike the original, mine can maintain a better sense of focus and continuity. Also, rather then the same intro with the Oxford T. rex over and over each episode, each one is different with a different skeleton of a Mesozoic creature featured. So without further ado, in honour of 6000 views, here's how I would Palaeo-Redo (trademark pending) Prehisto...

Happy holidays to all of ya! Here are some ideas for all the support and views you gave me! Savage Lizards A film about a family which washes up on a Lost World inhabited by mesozoic life, including a race of highly intelligent raptors who take them in and give them sanctuary. However, one member doesn't appreciate it, an asshat teenager who buys into the awesomebro rhetoric of all dinosaurs being violent savage monsters who can't do anything but but fight and kill, and threats them accordingly, refusing to see otherwise, even though A) he acts very violent and bellicose himself, and strains his relationships with his family, and B) the raptors are fairly pacifistic outside of hunting and aren't all that violent, and as a whole the other dinosaurs would act as animals do and avoid conflict. Things get so heated between the three that a fight erupts between them, leading the family to leave the island for home, save the son, whose arrogant beliefs get him disowned and abando...

Hello everyone. Just gonna drop this idea I've had for days, if not months. Land of the Raptor A three-part documentary following the life of the iconic giant dromaeosaur Utahraptor of Early Cretaceous North America 135 million years ago. We would follow the lives of two of them from the same clutch, one female and one male, respectively named Streak and Whitesnout. The story’s told from their birth to adulthood, trying to survive predators, weather, each other, and of course hunt the massive prey they live with. Each episode would be around 48 minutes long. While I haven't really fleshed the story out, and I don't have any plans on doing so, the story would end with Whitesnout, now a leader of a pack, leading it after a herd of  Hippodraco into a mud pit where they will become trapped and become the infamous Utahraptor Megablock , while Streak has also formed her own pack and has hatched her own chicks as they walk away into a sunset. The final scene is in our time with an...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind! We're ending Walking with Dinovember (for realsies this time) with ideas of a trio of docs in the vein of Chased by Dinosaurs , and because stateside there's Thanksgiving weekend, a film appropriate for the holidays. These first two shows would be tributes to nature documentaries of yesteryear, specifically of the kind put out by Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, or Austin Stevens that typically aired on Animal Planet where the host goes on safari and interacts with the creatures, often by grabbing creatures and holding them up to the camera. The third... well, you can read it for yourself. Mesozoic Micro Monsters Much like Chased by Dinosaurs, Mesozoic Micro-Monsters focuses on a human host and camera crew traversing Mesozoic in search of a specific creature of interest, much like Chased by Dinosaurs . However, the main difference it as evidenced from the the title, it focuses more on the smaller creatures of the time and area. These are crea...