Mesozoic Mind

If you haven't been paying attention in the last couple months in the palaeosphere, there's been buzz of a new palaeo-documentary, created by animator and CG palaeoartist Max Bellomio. It's an indie one, named  Forgotten Bloodlines: Agate , about life of denizens of Miocene North America 20 mya, in particular the chalicothere Moropus and the giant entelodont Daeodon . The kicker is that it narrated by none other then Nigel Marven, a hero to many in the palaeo-media community. I am very excited for it ever since I found out about it on the Discord sever I frequent and kept tabs on its pre-production, and have even helped promote it (as I'm doing right now). The Miocene is a very under-represented period in palaeo-media, always overshadowed by the Ice Age and the Mesozoic in spite of its diverse array of life, both from ancient lineages from earlier in the Cenozoic and ones just evolving, all as the world's climate cooled and grasslands spread across the Earth. Even W...

The  Tampa Bay Times  published an article I just had to comment on because it piqued my interest, and it will pique yours too. The basics: Florida Man donates contraband dinosaur to glorified soft play. Concept art from the press release Long story more long, two years ago, the world's largest known specimen of Triceratops (first found by a private group in 2014) was put up for auction in Paris after display in Trieste, Italy for a while, then sold for a whopping 7.7 million and attracted a large outrage from paleontological circles, not wanting a valuable specimen to be lost to science. Now, it has resurfaced as its owner have come forward as Floridian entrepenuer Sidd Pagidipati, and he's apparently going to loan it to the small Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa, FL for three years (or more), now renovating an entire floor and education centre to help accommodate it. I'm quite mixed on the news. On one hand, I'm glad such a magnificent specimen got into a museum ...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. I'd like to tell y'all about recently announced new palaeo-media you may want to keep an eye on and check out once they come. The reason I didn't mention them here is that I posted about them on Twitter before a man child bought and ruined it earlier. Life On Our Planet Hoo boy, consider me excited for this. This is a documentary narrated by God Morgan Freeman to stream on Netflix in late 2023 about the entire history of life on earth, done across eight parts . Not much is shown in the trailer, which is for more nature docs in general, but that's not a problem for me. I'm very excited for it, as the format will allow for not just the Mesozoic, but creatures of the Palaeozoic and Cenozoic to shine. Did I mention the effecrs are being done by ILM? Without the constraints of film execs breathing down their neck like the other dinosaur project they do, the visuals and designs look truly amazing, whether its a pair of the giant ...

 If you haven't heard, two new palaeo-documentaries were announced just a few months ago, right after the success of Prehistorc Planet . While I did miss the initial announcements because I was on vacation, they excite me no less. Surviving Earth https://deadline.com/2022/06/nbc-dinosaur-docuseries-surviving-earth-1235053396/ The bigger announcement is Surviving Earth , an eight-part series intented to be about the many mass extinctions of Earth and how life bounced back. It is notable for two things: the first is that its being created by the legendary Tim Haines, who you may recall also invented the modern palaeo-documentary with a certain 1999 series, as well as the acclaimed exhibition Dinosaurs in their Time . The other is that instead of a streaming service or some cable channel, big network NBC will air it, along with another BBC Natural History Unit documentary. I admit my interested is at the very least not as big as you'd expect. I admit that extinctions are a bit ha...

The first trailer for Jurassic World: Dominion has just been uploaded, and boy is there a lot to unpack. I'll let you watch it first, then share some thoughts on it. The film looks incredibly gorgeous, like on the level of the original trilogy. No terrible blue filter... so far. Horseback riding alongside dinosaurs is quite the aesthetic. FEATHERED DINOSAURS ARE IN. Better late then never for the Jurassic World trilogy, I suppose. I love the Therizinosaurus and Pyroraptor for that, even if they aren't perfect. The new Parasaurolophus designs are also neat. So is seeing a very good Quetzalcoatlus attacking. But I don't like the new raptors (apparently Atrociraptor ), barely a step up from the regular ones we've seen. Grant, Ellie, and Ian are back and together, and hopefully they do it an organic way and not just in a fanservicey one. Well it seems the Prologue  was not messing around. I'm cautiously optimistic for the film and will see it in theatres. Goodbye for n...