Mesozoic Mind

Yes, that's Mark Witton's art I'M NOT DEAD YET! Anyway, here's an update on an upcoming palaeo-work, its trailer uploded earlier this month. T. Rex is an upcoming documentary released by Giant Screen Pictures and directed by David Clark about what is pretty much the default dinosaur and its biology, following both the lives of one and a palaeontological dig from last year. Funnily rnough, this is the second T. rex-centric doc he's made: the Waking the T. Rex: The Story of Sue  from 2010 was the first. From the trailer features the usual suspects of the Hell Creek Formation: besides Rex, you have Trike, Edmonto, and Quetzalcoatlus , as well as the oviraptorosaur  Anzu  being forced into the classic "Egg thief" role. The trailers also show we will have moments flashing back to Middle Jurassic with Guanlong . As well as that, the website mentions "its carnivorous Cretaceous cousins", which could mean we could see other tyannosaurs too. Now I'll ...

  Just wanted to give this little indie project attention, even more then it already has on other platforms. Concept art This is an animated series created by Ben Mulot and Floating Rock Studio, with a possible game coming too. Pretty ambitious stuff.  Kyōryū (after the Japanese word for dinosaur) is about a post-apocalyptic Japan where genetically ressurrected prehistoric life lives wild in the extinction of humanity, and battle among themselves for survival, like an improved version of Jurassic World Dominion , Tokyo Jungle , or Stray , depending on what you think it's most like out of the three. The CG is astounding, and this is just the teaser; imagine what the full series will do. The creatures move with visible weight and have excellent detailing. They are also stylised, yet still retain accurate designs (for the most part). The samurai-like armour on the Tyrannosaurus stands out, looking badass and fits how they apparently will be Shogun-esque leaders of the world ...

If you've seen compilations of early CGI films from the 1980's and 90's, you may have seen this. I previously mentioned it in my review of Donkin's Dinosaurs , but never got around to reviewing in full... as it were. This is Chromosaurus *, creating by a fledgeling Pacific Data Images, written by animator Don Venhaus (the director however is unknown as of this writing), and released in 1985, the bery fiest CG work to use dinosaurs in any capacity, albiet here robotic ones. It was quite a year for palaeomedia, as it included not just it (the first CG-animated work period), but also the CBS documentary Dinosaur!  with its stop motion dinos and no doubt many's introduction to the Dinosaur Renaissance's ideals, what is known as the Normanpedia that introduced the palaeoart world to John Sibbick, as well as the Disney movie  Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend . It seems to be the year that kicked off the hype for prehistory that led to Jurassc Park in the 90's, and...

Ah, T. rex. It needs no introduction, and even the youngest nor laypeople not familiar with all but the basics of palaeontology know what it is. It has easily solidified itself as THE dinosaur by default, and has studied countlessly more then arguably any other fossil lifeform on Earth. Ironically, being so well known has meant it's been taken for granted, even called overrated versus other dinosaurs, and many, many misconceptions about it, from like merely a scavenger that couldn't even hunt live prey. This is a shame, as Tyrannosaurus is a pretty cool dino on its own, able to crush bone like no other theropods couldn't and had one of the more fascinating growth stages of any of them. T. rex: The Ultimate Predator , organised by NYC's renowned American Museum of Natural History, which came to the Royal Ontario Museum this month and intends to educate visitors on what is known about the dinosaur, from how it evolved from other dinosaurs to how it lived, and bust those m...

David Armsby is a Scottish animator. He's done a lot of science fiction wio, but he has quite the affinity for dinosaurs, as evidenced by the triad of animated shorts he has made over the 2010's and into the 2020's.  Small Beginnings (2013) Small Beginings is about a newly-hatched baby T. rex who goes out with her mother only for another one to kill her, leaving him an orphan. Years later when he is an adult, she returns to the cliff where it happened, and goes back to her own nest to continue . As far quality goes, its fine on its own, although it does have a hefty dose of Early Instalment Weirdness to it: the short is made in full CG, one more cartoonish then realistic. The designs have the usual array of JP or Paulian: lipless jaws and tooth slippage and feel a bit too slender. In other words, there's not much in the way of heavy realistic research going on for the creatures within it, instead opting for something on the lighter side of the awesomebro styles. The to...

It's February, and with only 28 days in it, why not use the time for short stuff? I declare February Short Month = Short Reviews month, and mostly be about various prehistory-themed short form works this month I can find around the internet or remember, mostly animations, though maybe a book or two will be featured. Let's start off with a handful from the golden age of YouTube that was the 2000's and the time I grew up in, when it actually gave a damn about its users and didn't sellout to other corporations. T. rex in the Atrium (2010) There isn’t much to the Welsh short created by students of the University of South Wales. At a Welsh college campus, students find themselces terrorised by a Tyrannosaurus that bursts in and eats people. Where did it come from? We never find out. It's only 1:34 minutes long. The design for the T. rex seems to be the standard "Jurassic Park clone" design with all that entails, with nothing too different then the rest of them...

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...