I originally wasn't planning on posting anything here this month. However, while on Christmas/New Year's holiday, I visited the Trevor Zoo for the 1st times in many years ( https://www.instagram.com/p/C1lbhZrMfbr/ ). In honor of National Bird Day ( https://www.avianwelfare.org/nationalbirdday/ ), I wanna share my mementos of said times (+ a Youtube comment) w/you.
Youtube comment) The "Did Raptor Dinosaurs Hunt In Packs? (Paleo Myths #6)" video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdEfu0Kius4 ): I was about to post this journal entry yesterday when Raptor Red Writes posted said video. While not as big a deal as Animalogic's Velociraptor video ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-Please-do-better-Animalogic-983333583 ), it's still very relevant to said entry, hence the inclusion of my comment. Yes, both of my favorite birds are known to hunt cooperatively at least sometimes (See Ellis et al. 1993/Tumlison 2012 & the sources cited therein for the eagle/hawk, respectively).
Again, sorry for repeating myself. I don't wanna keep doing that, especially given how much I relate to you as a non-expert reviewer of dino media. In fact, when I started this video, I was hopeful that it'd be more balanced than your previous takes on the pack-hunting eudromaeosaur hypothesis, mostly b/c you included Maxwell/Ostrom 1995. However, I was quickly disappointed by the following:
-1) Your continued over-reliance on Roach/Brinkman 2007 & Frederickson et al. 2020, which are very flawed for reasons I discuss elsewhere (See "SD: Top 4 most annoyingly-popular dino hypotheses" & "SD: Most annoyingly-popular dino hypotheses addend"). At 1st, I thought you were trying to be neutral & present each argument as is. However, AFAICT, you only did that for those arguments against said hypothesis, seemingly ignoring/downplaying aspects of those for said hypothesis: For 1, you didn't even mention MOR 682, let alone discuss it; For another, last I checked, "the family scenario seems most likely" for the Utahraptor mega-block (See "Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils" & the sources cited therein); For yet another, see #3 below for Li et al. 2007.
-2) Your ignoring pack-hunting in non-Harris' birds despite my repeated references to Ellis et al. 1993 (Most recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97D_mtWqTKU&lc=UgwQXWulSDCNzv3AxlR4AaABAg ). Besides those "many raptorial birds" & others, there are also corvids & shrikes (See Yosef/Yosef 2010 & the sources cited therein) & ground hornbills (See Farlow 1976 & the sources cited therein).
-3) Your Li et al. 2007 claim at ~16:30. In actuality, "it is clear that the animals were not hunting at the time" (See "At long last, Dromeosaur tracks!"). To quote Bakker, "predators don’t usually hang out in groups if they don’t hunt together. Tigers are like this — they mostly hunt alone, and you don’t see bunches of tigers lying around together. But lions are social predators. They hunt and raise their young and sleep and snore together" (See "Raptor Pack"). The "raise their young[…]together" part is especially important b/c "cooperative hunting[…]is generally related to cooperative breeding" (See "Possible social foraging behavior in the Red-backed Hawk"). Li et al. 2007 seems to agree ("The discovery of six parallel, closely spaced D. shandongensis trackways provides compelling, independent evidence for at least occasional[...]“pack” or family group[...]behavior in the track-making animals, comparable to what has been demonstrated in other dinosaurs").
My 98th review for this thread is a negative 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.
When I 1st saw Jackson's The Magic School Bus Presents: Dinosaurs: A Nonfiction Companion to the Original Magic School Bus Series (henceforth Bus), I thought something like, "What's the purpose?" In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is.
1) Despite its title, Bus has almost nothing to do with the OG series: For 1, it's neither authored by Cole nor illustrated by Degen; For another, only characters from the TV series are included; Furthermore, all their looks (illustrated by Bracken) are based on the TV characters, yet all their dialogue is interchangeable, in which case, what's the purpose of focusing on a core cast?
2) While the OG series has an actual story, Bus is just a bunch of stuff happening in no particular order, yet it's formatted just like the OG series (I.e. With a small amount of narrative main text & lots of informational sidebar text). In other words, what's the purpose of "a nonfiction companion" that reads like a lesser version of its fictional counterpart?*
3) The OG series never needed "a nonfiction companion", especially 1 as textually/visually bad as Bus:** For 1, as mentioned above, most of its text is informational (& thus, nonfiction); For another, it lists the American Museum of Natural History, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, & the Museum of the Rockies as sources of "helpful advice and consultation" (& thus, more info).
*In addition to the interchangeable dialogue, the writing is annoyingly redundant (E.g. On page 15, 1 sidebar reads "A hadrosaur's crest[...]would have made the dinosaur's calls sound much louder", & another reads "A hadrosaur's crest might have been used[...]for making loud calls")/simplified (E.g. 1st, see the 1st Jackson quote; Then, see reason #1 in my review of Schwabacher's book: www.amazon.com/review/RZZ4R6IK9VL5N/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 )/weird (E.g. See the 2nd Jackson quote; Where else would one eat meat other than from bodies?; Also, why "T. rex ate by scavenging [AWA] hunting"?; Why not "T. rex scavenged [AWA] hunted"?).
**In reference to textually, see the Jackson quotes, the 2nd of which is especially bad for how much it gets wrong about living animals (I.e. "The biggest sharks alive today" are whale sharks, which don't bite at all hard, let alone that hard; Hyenas aren't "the animal with the strongest bite today", nor are they just "a scavenging animal"). In reference to visually, the paleoart consists almost entirely of poorly-photoshopped stock photos of inaccurate, cheap-looking CG dinos (including Dinoraul's, which aren't even the worst ones) depicted in inappropriately-modern environments (E.g. Grass, grass everywhere, even in the Jurassic).
Quoting Jackson:
Quote :
How did dinosaurs become fossils? by Carlos To become fossilized, an animal must be buried soon after it dies. Many of the dinosaurs we have fossils for drowned in mud or were buried in rock falls. The soft parts of the body, such as the skin, rotted away, but the harder bones and teeth stayed buried for millions of years. The sand or mud around the bones turned to solid rock. Water trickling through the rocks washed away the bones, leaving minerals in their place. Eventually, a bone-shaped stone was formed — a fossil!
Quoting Jackson:
Quote :
How hard could T. rex bite? by Dorothy Ann Scientists believe Tyrannosaurus rex had the strongest bite of any animal that has ever lived. They think it may have bitten three times as hard as the biggest sharks alive today. The animal with the strongest bite today is the hyena — a scavenging animal that eats meat from bodies. It uses its strong jaws to crack through bones. Dinosaur experts think that T. rex ate by scavenging as well as hunting.
My 97th review for this thread is a positive 1. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a very good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
Is Kuether's The Amazing World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Journey Through the Mesozoic Era (henceforth AW) mostly good? Yes. Is it mostly good enough for me to recommend reading it on its own? No. That said, I do recommend reading it, but in conjunction with Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved. In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is, besides the lack of expert consulting.
1) There are several weirds bits of text throughout AW (E.g. Contra the "Editorial Reviews" excerpt, leaf-shaped teeth are for fine chopping, not cropping; Also, Deinocheirus was a non-ornithomimid ornithomimosaur: www.amazon.co.uk/Amazing-World-Dinosaurs-Illustrated-Mesozoic/dp/1591936454 ), especially in the introductory chapter: -For 1, it begins with a misleading Einstein quote (See the Greenberg quote). -For another, it's claimed that "in the Crystal Palace sculptures, dinosaurs are depicted as gigantic, lumbering, sprawling lizards"; That's not right (See the 1st Naish/Barrett quote). -For yet another, it's claimed that "all of this research doesn't tell us how dinosaurs behaved or how they interacted with their environments or with the other animals in their ecosystems[...]For that, we need our imaginations"; Not only is that not right (See the 2nd Naish/Barrett quote), but it contradicts the previous paragraph (E.g. "We can examine isotopes stored in fossilized bones and estimate how much time an animal spent in water and what it ate. We can identify fossilized pollen grains contained in coprolites[...]and determine what plants they ate"; As you can see, this is also a good example of oddly-repetitive writing).
2) There are several weird bits of writing throughout AW (E.g. "The Pteranodons[...]"; Also, see reason #1 above).
Quoting Greenberg (See Art in Chemistry, Chemistry in Art):
Quote :
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the earth.” He saw and experienced the power of imagination. He did not mean that knowledge is unnecessary; it just does not have the scope of imagination. This is how I see it: Knowledge stirs imagination. Imagination needs knowledge as a springboard.
Quoting Naish/Barrett (See Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved): "
Quote :
The group of animals that we today call dinosaurs was first recognized scientifically during the 1840s. At this time, British anatomist Richard Owen proposed that three large fossil reptiles, all from southern England, shared features of the hip region lacking in other reptiles. The animals that possessed these unusual features were all large, and the key features that Owen regarded as important showed how their bodies and limbs were specialized to carry great weight. He essentially regarded them as 'super-reptiles'[...]as reptiles that, in contrast to the mostly small, sprawling reptiles of modern times, resembled giant mammals like elephants and rhinos. Owen named them dinosaurs, a name meaning something like 'terrible reptiles', but with 'terrible' intended to mean 'awesome'.
Quoting Naish/Barrett:
Quote :
It would be wrong to imply that the fossil record is completely silent on these issues. Enormous numbers of dinosaur eggs and nests are known, revealing much about dinosaur nesting and breeding behaviour, and cases where juveniles are preserved together with adults reveal glimpses of parental behaviour. Variation present within certain dinosaur species can show us how the sexes or growth stages differed and hence what sort of social structure was present. And bite marks and injuries show where dinosaurs interacted with predators or members of their own species.
4) Tie btwn Bonner's "When Dinos Dawned" & "Dining With Dinosaurs: A Tasty Guide to Mesozoic Munching" (which I reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/review/RP5K90YL2VODH/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): If I had to pick a favorite btwn these 2 books, it would be the 2nd book. That said, I think they work best together: To quote Sampson ( http://edge.org/3rd_culture/sampson05/sampson05_index.html ), "The web of life is composed of two distinctly different kinds of threads<those that link organisms at any given moment in time through the flow of energy (ecology), and those that link all lifeforms through deep time via genetic information and shared common ancestry (evolution). Seen from this dual and complementary perspective, the two themes are inseparable. Without evolution, our vision is severely limited to the present day and we cannot begin to fathom the blossoming of life's diversity from single-celled forebears. Without ecology, the intricate interconnections we share with the current panoply of lifeforms cannot truly be envisioned. United in a single theme, evolution and ecology provide a powerful lens through which to view life's web, forming the foundation of an integrated and underutilized perspective on nature. In short, we need dramatic increases in levels of both ecological literacy, or "ecoliteracy," and evolutionary literacy, or "evoliteracy," with this dynamic pair of concepts reinforcing each other"; That's exactly what Bonner does; These 2 books are an especially good example of evoliteracy (in reference to the 1st book) & ecoliteracy (in reference to the 2nd book) reinforcing each other.
2) Tie btwn Hedley's "Dinosaurs and Their Living Relatives" (which I reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1SCM65CLPZD4M/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ) & GSPaul's "Predatory Dinosaurs of the World: A Complete Illustrated Guide": These 2 books are tied at #2 for 3 main reasons: -1) They're both great 1980s dino books on special topics. More specifically, the 1st book is a great children's introduction to cladistics, so much so that it "should be required reading for anyone who talks to laypeople about phylogeny" ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-Ben-s-Phylogenetics-is-Moon-Man-Talk-654612768 ), & the 2nd book is a great natural history of theropods (& thus, "treats [theropods] as a group of living animals, making frequent reference to today's animals as a basis for comparison": https://www.amazon.co.uk/Natural-History-Museum-Book-Dinosaurs/dp/184442183X ). -2) They're both very nostalgic in terms of paleoart. More specifically, the 1st book's paleoart is very "Jurassic Park"-esque (See reason #3 in my review) & the 2nd book's paleoart is very field guide-esque (I.e. GSPaul's "portrayals of dinosaurs [are] similar to that of naturalists in the wild, observing living animals of our own era": https://www.abebooks.com/9780785829027/Field-Guide-Dinosaurs-Essential-Handbook-0785829024/plp ). -3) They're both outdated in ways that are hard to ignore, especially compared to #1 (E.g. For the 1st book, see the Hamilton quote; For the 2nd book, see the Naish quote).
Quoting Hamilton ( https://books.google.com/books?id=-XI9PLx2uFYC&pg=PA889&dq=%22taxonomically+extinct%22 ): "So the birds are closely related to some animals that we call dinosaurs. This means that the classical idea of the dinosaurs (Dinosauria) is only tenable if the birds are included. But we cannot validate the group Saurischia and cannot establish relationships with the Ornithischia. Therefore, as Charig suggests, it may be necessary to include the crocodiles and pterosaurs which would make the Dinosauria and Archosauria synonymous. Not much future in this: the group Dinosauria seems to be taxonomically extinct."
Quoting Naish ( http://tetzoo.com/blog/2018/8/16/could-we-domesticate-non-bird-dinosaurs ): "A girl and her ornithomimid. Greg Paul said of theropods in Predatory Dinosaurs of the World that "Their stiff, perhaps feathery bodies were not what one would care to have sleep at the foot of the bed" (Paul 1988, p. 19), but maybe he was wrong. This is another of Mike Skrepnick's illustrations from his 'Would Dinosaurs Make Good Pets' project. Image: Mike Skrepnick."
Follow-up #1) On 8/24/17, I messaged Dinosaurs In The Wild on Facebook: "What kind of parental care do these Dakotaraptor have ( http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/parentalcare.html )? I'm guessing either subprecocial or semiprecocial, but wanna make sure. Many thanks in advance." On 12/1/17, DITW replied in a very informative way (See the DITW quote).
Follow-up #3) Bonadonna illustrated "a mother caring for her brood" based on AMNH 3015. As you may remember, 1 of his illustrations is on the cover of "National Geographic Magazine (October, 2020) Reimagining Dinosaurs" ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-My-favorite-aspects-of-Camp-Cretaceous-882741250 ). The other is in the interior of said magazine ( https://twitter.com/jasontreat/status/1305871995494596608 ). I especially love said illustrations for showing the family life of my favorite dino from interesting perspectives (I.e. Directly above & inside the nest, respectively) in addition to the realistic colors, textures, lighting, etc.
Quoting DITW (I added the brackets for clarification): "Hi Herman, we've checked with our resident paleontologist[...Darren Naish...]who says: We have found that the specific grades of parental care used for modern birds do not translate especially well to some of the non-bird dinosaurs we've been studying. Dakoraptor babies would be classed as 'subprecocial' within avian terminology, since they initially stay within the nest and are fed by the parents, even though they are able to leave it. However, they are actually able to leave the nest almost immediately and forage for themselves, making them more toward the 'superprecocial' part of the scale if they were birds. Our working hypothesis is that dromaeosaurids (and maybe some other Mesozoic theropods too) have evolved a brief bout of post-hatching parental care for reasons related to the intense predation of juveniles that happens in some faunal assemblage. In other words, while the babies have the anatomy and biology that might allow them to leave the nest and live independent lives almost immediately, a behavioural specialisation has evolved that keeps them in - or, at least, next to - the nest for their first few weeks."
4) Tie btwn Sattler's "Dinosaurs of North America" (which I reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/review/R3IRL42USNECN7/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ) & Wallace's "Familiar Dinosaurs" (which I reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2YZX033VMS8SY/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): I can't decide which of these 2 books is better. They're both great for reasons that remind me of Stout's "The New Dinosaurs"/"The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era": -Like Stout's book, Sattler's is a 1981 book that extended its relevancy w/supplementary info. One could argue that said info + the larger & more consistently-good paleoart make it a better natural history for kids. -Like Stout's book, Wallace's has a day-in-the-life format. One could argue that said format + the more colorful & naturalistic paleoart make it a better natural history for kids.
1) Tie btwn Bakker's "The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs" (which I reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2INIHTO7ANTSM/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ) & Chuang/Yang's "Age Of Dinosaurs" (which I reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1JA1ASNYXD7W6/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): Before reading Chuang/Yang's book, Bakker's was the obvious #1 contender for reasons discussed in my review + the inclusion of Random House websites for supplementary info. However, I've since realized that the former does almost everything the latter does, but bigger & more beautiful. In fact, for reasons discussed in my review, Chuang/Yang's book is basically a more beautiful version of Bakker's + a more beautiful version of Stout's.
Honorable Mention) Gaffney's "Dinosaurs: A Fully Illustrated, Authoritative and Easy-to-Use Guide" (which I reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2JTBGQ68Z5STT/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): Similarly to Norell's "The World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Tour", I do think that this book is 1 of the best children's NHDs, but I'm not sure where it should be listed relative to the other books. My review sums up why.
We all know that Kash is gonna get his comeuppance eventually. What I'm wondering is how. I'm thinking either 1) via Velociraptor b/c he antagonized them w/invisible fences & golf balls, or 2) via Spinosaurus b/c he put it in the desert biome & told Darius to chip it.
Before S4, I was indifferent to ships w/the 4 single campers: For 1, any combination of Darius/Kenji/Brooklynn seemed equally plausible; For another, Ben seemed more in love w/Bumpy than anyone else. Now, I have to admit that Kenji/Brooklynn are surprisingly cute together. Also, I'm glad they didn't do a "Love Triangle" like some fans thought b/c that's 1 of my least favorite tropes. "Liar Revealed" is probably my #1 least favorite (which is partly why S1Ep6 is so hard for me to watch).
No Sarcosuchus in S4. Maybe in S5, presumably in the Swamp Biome. If so, it'd be kind of amazing if CC's Sarcosuchus scenes had a musical reference to the Tic-Tock scenes in Disney's "Peter Pan": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOzlgbWEjzI
I've said this before, but it bears repeating: -S4 is, at its core, pretty on-brand for a Michael Crichton-based story (I.e. All his stories are basically about humans trying & failing to use science to control what they don't understand; In fact, the original JP is basically Westworld w/GMO dinos instead of robot cowboys). I get not everyone likes seeing the JP/JW franchise progress in that way, but to claim it doesn't fit/make sense for the overarching story despite all the progressions that preceded it (E.g. JWFK's human-cloned Maisie & laser-controlled Indoraptor) is just plain nonsensical/inaccurate. -On a related note, it's hard to take ppl seriously when they claim that S4 "jumped the shark"/"is a bridge too far", yet excuse JWFK's lava-/pyro-proof Owen & 4th-wall-breaking Indoraptor.
My 89th review for this thread is a positive 1 for Chuang/Yang's Age of Dinosaurs. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
As you may remember, I referred to Bakker's The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs as "the best children's natural history of dinos" ( www.amazon.com/review/R2INIHTO7ANTSM/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). However, that was before I read Chuang/Yang's Age of Dinosaurs (henceforth Age, originally published as THEM: Age Of Dinosaurs: www.amazon.com/PNSO-THEM-Dinosaurs-Book-Chuang/dp/7116094911 ). I can't say that either book is definitely better overall, but I can say that Age is probably the most beautiful NHD for kids or adults (hence the title of this review). In fact, in some ways, it's basically a more beautiful version of Bakker's book + a more beautiful version of Stout's The New Dinosaurs/The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era ( www.amazon.com/review/R163RH76269WJS/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ): Bakker's book because it has a safari vibe, a chronological format (I.e. It begins with a pre-Age Of Dinos story & ends with a post-Age Of Dinos story), & LOTS of technicolor dinos; Stout's book because of the reasons listed below.
1) Remember what I said about Stout's stories (See reason #1 in that review)? The same goes for Yang's, but even more so: For 1, Age tells even more stories representing even more species (105 representing 96); For another, Age's stories are even more varied, ranging from Aesop-esque fables to Wind in the Willows-esque vignettes & everything in between;* Some of my favorite examples of the former & latter are the Megalosaurus story ("The Megalosaurus would later learn that to be a good hunter, it had to abandon its arrogance and act more cautiously") & the Qianzhousaurus/Nankangia stories (which tell the same story from different POVs), respectively; For yet another, even more of Age's stories flow into each other; This is especially apparent in "The Lonesome Triassic Period" (I.e. Each story also represents a step in the dinos' gradual rise to dominance).
2) Remember what I said about Stout's illustrations (See reason #2 in that review)? The same goes for Chuang's, but even more so: -I wouldn't describe Chuang's paleoart as "cartoonish" per se, but there IS a lot of stylistic variety. Don't take my word for it, though. Google "Them: Age of Dinosaurs" & see for yourself. -Similar to how Stout's 1981 work is the most extreme product of the Dinosaur Renaissance, Chuang's Age work may be the most extreme product of the Dinosaur Enlightenment. In fact, to quote Conway ( https://johnconway.art/log/why_dinosaur_nerds_are_mad_at_jurassic_world ), "when a new Jurassic Park film[...]comes along, we might hope that it will be like the first one. Up-to-date, challenging people’s old notions, and leaving a fresh impression of what the word ‘dinosaur’ actually means. Not perfect[...]but an authentically enthusiastic look at what we know about these strange animals." Put another way, I like to think that the Jurassic World dinos would look like Chuang's if JW's creators cared about dinos as real animals (as opposed to movie monsters).
*Just to clarify, there is some anthropomorphism, but no more than you'd expect in Disney's True-Life Adventures. The Anchiornis story is as anthropomorphic (& adorable) as Age gets: "The Anchiornis excitedly woke up its lover, and both headed toward the forest, which by now was covered in sunshine[...]"Slow down! I can't catch up with you!" its lover called gently. It turned around and smiled softly, "Take your time, I am running ahead of you to make sure that the path is safe."" That said, there is 1 story that stands out as weird. It's about a lonely Velociraptor that "never once laid eyes on its parents", but was determined to find them, yet there's no explanation of how it survived "for many years" without them. Speaking of weird, there's also several weird examples of misediting throughout Age (E.g. "Anchiornis belonged to the Troodontidae family of the Coeluridae group"; Should read: "Coelurosauria group").
My 80th review for this thread is a positive 1 for Wexo's Dinosaurs (Prehistoric zoobooks). If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a very good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
As you may remember, I've always wanted a sequel issue to Wexo's Zoobooks - Dinosaurs (henceforth ZD: www.amazon.com/review/RAVE9K9147YWQ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). I've since realized that ZD has had an unofficial sequel since 1989, Wexo's Dinosaurs (Prehistoric zoobooks) (henceforth DP). If I didn't know better, I'd say ZD & DP were made to be read together because of how well they complete each other (hence the title of this review): -On the 1 hand, ZD is very authoritative (I.e. It's consulted by Colbert, Ostrom, & Olshevsky), but poorly-organized. Furthermore, it covers MUCH more about the human significance of dinos, the dino family tree, & the evolution of small dinos into birds than DP. -On the other hand, DP is very well-organized (I.e. It has a roughly chronological format, beginning 225 MYA & ending 65 MYA), but not authoritative. Furthermore, it covers MUCH more about the evolution of dinos from earlier reptiles, biology/ecology/behavior, & the geological timescale than ZD.
I recommend reading ZD & DP both together & in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Howard's Dinosaur Empire! (Earth Before Us #1): Journey through the Mesozoic Era).
My 79th review for this thread is a positive 1 for Scott's Planet Dinosaur: The Next Generation of Killer Giants. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a very good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
Short version: If you have to choose between the Planet Dinosaur doc (henceforth PD #1) & Scott's Planet Dinosaur: The Next Generation of Killer Giants (henceforth PD #2), I recommend reading PD #2 in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved).
Long version: Read on.
PD #1 (which is decent in its own right) was billed as the new Walking With Dinosaurs (which is the 1st natural history doc about dinos). It didn't pan out that way. As a result, people seem to forget how good PD #2 is. More specifically, PD #2 isn't just a very good companion book, but also a very good stand-alone book that tells the story of dinos MUCH better than PD #1. In fact, PD #2 is an even better stand-alone natural history of dinos than most of the WWD books, especially Haines' Walking with Dinosaurs: A Natural History (which it's most often compared to). In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why I think PD #2 is that good.
1) Most natural histories of dinos have a chronological or day-in-the-life format. This makes sense given that they're the easiest & best ways to tell the story of dinos, respectively. However, unlike the chronological format that makes WWD feel so epic in both book form & doc form, the day-in-the-life format of PD works MUCH better in book form than doc form. This is because, to paraphrase Ben ( https://extinctmonsters.net/2015/01/14/framing-fossil-exhibits-a-walk-through-time/ ), "audiences are predisposed to understand the forward progression of time, so little[...backstory...]is needed." Meanwhile, day-in-the-life requires a lot more backstory to set up the events of the main story & tie them all together. Without said backstory, the main story doesn't make much sense. Part of the problem with PD #1 is that it only has a few sentences of backstory at the beginning of each episode (See the Hurt quote). PD #2 solves this problem with 4 pages of backstory in the Introduction. Also, PD #2 switches up the order of "The New Giants" & "Taking Flight" (I.e. PD #1's "New Giants" & "Feathered Dragons", respectively), making the main story as a whole flow better.*
2) Unlike WWD in general & Haines' book in particular, PD "made the point of showing/stating which bits of evidence have allowed scientists to come to the palaeobiological conclusions that they have" ( https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/vertebrate-palaeontology-at-lyme-regis/ ). Furthermore, while Darren Naish was only involved in PD #1 "on an at-the-end-of-the-phone basis", he "had full, unconditional control" to tweak the technical stuff in PD #2 ( https://web.archive.org/web/20151105233917/https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/happy-6th-birthday-tetrapod-zoology-part-ii/ ). Thus, PD #2 is more complete, in-depth, & accurate. This is especially apparent in the following ways: -To paraphrase Albertonykus ( https://albertonykus.blogspot.com/2011/11/planet-dinosaur-great-survivors.html ), "One of the less desirable characteristics of [PD #1] is that it's very theropod centric[...]Planet Dinosaur probably should have been called "Planet Theropod"." PD #2 solves this problem with profiles of almost every featured sauropodomorph & ornithiscian (I.e. Argentinosaurus, Paralititan, Ouranosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Camptosaurus, & Stegosaurus). -In PD #1, Microraptor & Sinornithosaurus are depicted as being splay-legged & venomous, respectively. Surprise surprise, said depictions are based on debunked BANDit claims (BAND = Birds Are Not Dinosaurs). Anyway, PD #2 solves this problem with critiques of said depictions, concluding that 1) "it was simply impossible for Microraptor to adopt this posture", & 2) "the idea that Sinornithosaurus might have delivered a venomous bite was never well supported and the majority of dinosaur experts regarded it as poorly founded right from the start". For more info about conclusion #1, google "TESTING FLIGHT IN MICRORAPTOR". For more info about conclusion #2, google "Sinornithosaurus Probably Wasn’t Venomous After All".
3) Unlike WWD (which has CG dinos on real backgrounds), PD has CG dinos within CG backgrounds. To quote Dinosaur Guy ( https://whendinosaursruledthemind.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/when-dinosaurs-ruled-the-mind-50-top-10-best-and-worst-dinosaur-documentaries/ ), "You may think this would make the series look cheap, but I think it benefits from this in several ways. First of all, this allows many more species of dinosaurs to be featured[...]Secondly, this allows them to create period accurate dinosaur landscapes. Any modern area they would like to film in would never be 100% accurate to the actual Mesozoic (the Mesozoic had very little to no grass, yet you would never know from most dino docs, which feature vast grasslands all the time). Thirdly, this allows the dinosaurs to flow seamlessly in their environment. In most dinosaur documentaries, you can tell where the camera footage begins and where the CG begins, and can be distracting to some. But here, the dinosaurs actually look like they belong to the environment." 1 of my only problems is that some of the CG is a bit off (E.g. To quote Naish, "the animals didn’t run well, they sometimes looked a bit… well, rubbery, and temporal fenestrae and so on often looked way too ‘hollow’").**
*"The New Giants" is 1st. Thus, the main story begins with non-bird dinos being born & ends with them dying. Also, "Taking Flight" is penultimate. Thus, its short story of 2 Gigantoraptor mating leads more directly into the last chapter's short story of them nesting.
**My other problem is some inaccurate/contradictory text (E.g. On page 42, it's claimed that 40ft = 12.2m in the sidebar & 10m in the main text) & weird/inconsistent writing (E.g. Not all of the profiles list the species epithet; Of those that do, not all of them translate it).
We're living through THE golden age of dinosaur discoveries. All over the world, a whole new generation of dinosaurs has been revealed. From the biggest giants...and the deadliest killers...to the weird and wonderful. From the Arctic to Africa. From South America to Asia. In just the last few years, we have uncovered the most extraordinary fossils, exquisitely preserved and tantalisingly intact. Combined with the latest imaging technology, we have been able to probe deeper and reveal more than ever before. It gives us our first truly global view of these incredible animals.
My 78th review for this thread is a negative 1 for Stamper's Dinosaur Detectives (The Magic School Bus Science Chapter Book #9). If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect). Many thanks in advance.
Short version: If you want a good Magic School Bus dino book, get Cole's The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs & read it in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Holtz's Dinosaurs).* All other Magic School Bus dino books should be avoided, especially Stamper's Dinosaur Detectives (The Magic School Bus Science Chapter Book #9) (henceforth DD).
Long version: Read on.
I wasn't expecting DD to be even worse than Schwabacher's The Magic School Bus Flies with the Dinosaurs ( www.amazon.com/review/R1SNCFJECE6XS1/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ), especially given Holtz's involvement, but in some ways, it is. In this review, I list those ways.
1) DD is even worse in terms of the characters & story. At least with Schwabacher's book, one could argue that 1) the characters act more like they do in Cole's book than they do in the show, & 2) the story is short. Unfortunately, DD is basically a worse version of the show: -In reference to the characters, this is especially apparent in Ms. Frizzle (who acts more like a normal teacher than the wacky, zany character I know/love), Liz (who acts more like a normal pet than the humanly-sentient character I know/love), Arnold (who acts more like a Flanderized version of the relatable character I know/love, so basically, himself in The Magic School Bus Rides Again), & Ralphie: Like each episode of the show, each of Stamper's books focuses on 1 character; In DD, that's Ralphie, who acts more like Carlos does in the show than he does in the show (I.e. He tells more bad jokes & laughs at more of Carlos' bad jokes); See reasons #1 & 3 in my review of the show for why The Magic School Bus should never focus on Carlos-type characters ( www.amazon.com/review/R1A9PA105I2590/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). -In reference to the story, this is especially apparent in 2 major ways: 1) It's more character-driven in DD than it is in Cole's book (which is bad because the characters range from bland to awful); 2) It's filled with so much dialogue that DD reads more like a script than a book (which is bad because the dialogue is poorly written).
2) DD is similarly hit-&-miss in terms of getting the facts straight. This is especially apparent in the sidebars because the misses stick out more with less text (E.g. See all 3 Stamper quotes, especially the 1st one; Dino eggs didn't just hold the baby & a yolk, "big plant eaters" didn't lay the biggest eggs, & sauropods typically didn't lay eggs of that shape & size).
3) DD is even worse in terms of writing (which is saying a lot): -It's annoyingly cobbled together from different parts of Cole's book (E.g. See the 1st & 2nd Stamper quotes). -It's annoyingly redundant (E.g. 1st, in the main text, D.A. says, "They're extinct. That means not one member of their species is still alive"; Then, in her report on the same page, she says, "Dinosaurs are extinct. Not one of their kind is still alive"). -It's annoyingly simplified (E.g. 1st, see the 2nd Stamper quote; Then, see reason #1 in my review of Schwabacher's book). -It's annoyingly weird (E.g. See the 3rd Stamper quote; Why "a" Plateosaurus?; & why did it stand "long"?; Why the "also"?).
4) DD is even worse in terms of art (which, again, is saying a lot): -It's annoyingly contradictory with the text (E.g. According to the text, the baby Diplodocus are green; According to the cover art, they're not). -It's annoyingly contradictory with itself (I.e. Some of the life reconstructions are based on those in the show, others are tracings of those in Cole's book, & still others are original). -It's annoyingly outdated/abominable: In reference to outdated, this is especially apparent in the unfeathered Troodon (Quoting Holtz: "Depicting a Troodon or a Velociraptor without feathers[...]would simply be antiscientific"); In reference to abominable, this is especially apparent in Enik's multi-species scenes (which, stylistically, look like they're from "A Sloppy Art Coloring Book"); Worse still, they're inconsistently abominable (I.e. The same dinos look more realistic in some scenes & more cartoony in others); In reference to both, this is especially apparent when comparing Enik's baby Diplodocus on the cover of DD to Mick Ellison's mostly-accurate baby Diplodocus from around the same time ( https://paleoaerie.org/2013/11/07/day-1-at-svp/ ).
Quoting Stamper (who cobbled this together from Amanda Jane's "WHAT WERE SAUROPODS?" & Molly's "HOW BIG WERE DINOSAUR EGGS?"):
Quote :
Dinosaurs Laid Eggs by Wanda Baby dinosaurs hatched from eggs. Dinosaur eggs held the baby animal and a yolk. The yolk was the animal's food until it hatched. Big plant eaters laid the biggest eggs. Sauropods were heavy, long-necked plant eaters, and they laid football-shaped eggs. Their eggs were 1 foot long and 10 inches wide!
Quoting Stamper (who cobbled this together from the main text & Carmen's "HOW A DEAD DINOSAUR COULD BECOME A FOSSIL"):
Quote :
How Fossils Form by Tim A fossil is created when an animal or plant dies and is buried in the ground. Over time, the hard parts of the animal, such as bones and teeth, are preserved by surrounding minerals. These hard parts turn into rock and become a fossil.
Quoting Stamper:
Quote :
Dino Data File A Plateosaurus was one of the first long-necked plant eaters in the Triassic Period. It stood 27 feet long and weighed 1,500 pounds. It could also rear up and use its hands to pull leaves off trees. Fun Fact: Plateosaurus had weak teeth. These weren't much help against large predators. Its large thumb claw was its best defense!
The positive reviews in "JD-man's Serious Dino Books/Dino-Related Reviews!" ( https://jurassicmainframe.forumotion.com/t479-jd-man-s-serious-dino-books-dino-related-reviews ) are for paleowins. As of this post, there's Gardom/Milner's The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs, Norell et al.'s Discovering Dinosaurs: Evolution, Extinction, and the Lessons of Prehistory, Expanded and Updated, Lessem's Dinosaur Worlds, Wild Kratts, Bakker's Prehistoric Monsters, Sloan's Feathered Dinosaurs, Martill/Naish's Walking with Dinosaurs: The Evidence - How Did They Know That?, Bakker's Maximum Triceratops, Bakker's Dino Babies!, Sattler's Tyrannosaurus Rex and Its Kin: The Mesozoic Monsters, Zoehfeld's Dinosaur Parents, Dinosaur Young: Uncovering the Mystery of Dinosaur Families, & Schlein's The Puzzle of the Dinosaur-bird: The Story of Archaeopteryx (which is where the Jurassic Park Legacy thread left off). I'll add to "Palaeowins Mk. II" as I add to "JD-man's Serious Dino Books/Dino-Related Reviews!".
I've since added Howard's Dinosaur Empire! (Earth Before Us #1): Journey through the Mesozoic Era (page 3).
My 77th review for this thread is a positive 1 for Howard's Dinosaur Empire! (Earth Before Us #1): Journey through the Mesozoic Era. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
I was originally planning on reviewing Howard's Dinosaur Empire! (Earth Before Us #1): Journey through the Mesozoic Era (henceforth DE) the way I usually review good dino books. However, I then remembered that Witton's DE review is so perfect, especially when it comes to outlining "why the Earth Before Us books are so terrific" ( http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2019/12/interview-with-abby-howard-author-and.html ), that I can't possibly top it, so I won't even try. Instead, in this review, I'll point you to Witton's DE review & add my own thoughts as well: -DE reminds me of Cole's The Magic School Bus books in 2 major ways: 1) Ronnie/Ms. Lernin's dynamic is similar to that of Arnold/Ms. Frizzle, but better (I.e. There are no other characters to distract from the story); 2) DE's "smart narrative device" is similar to that of Cole's books, but better (I.e. It's less theatrical & more direct). As you may remember, the characters & story are major reasons why Cole's books are so much better than the "Magic School Bus" show (See reasons #1 & 3: www.amazon.com/review/R1A9PA105I2590/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). -To add to the Magic School Bus analogy, DE's "Learning Centre" reminds me of the reports in Cole's books. More specifically, both "explain a major concept of biology or palaeontology, but otherwise [the characters] move through time and space with pace and fluidity." -In reference to "the interpretations [Howard presents being] accurate to modern science", it's worth mentioning that there are a few weird bits in the text (E.g. Deinocheirus is referred to as a herbivore) & paleoart (E.g. Tsintaosaurus is depicted with the outdated phallic crest). Otherwise, Witton's right. -It's also worth mentioning that DE fills a very important role as a great natural history of dinos for older kids. There have been several great natural histories of dinos for younger kids & adults in recent years (E.g. Chuang/Yang's THEM: Age Of Dinosaurs & Norell's The World of Dinosaurs: An Illustrated Tour, respectively: www.amazon.com/review/R3R6KZA4VWB8E6/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ), but nothing great for older kids since the 1990s.
I recently reviewed Dixon's worst dino book (I.e. "If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today": https://www.amazon.com/review/R2906RZLY2I88D/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ), which was the last straw "that made [me] cease taking Dougal Dixon seriously" as a source of dino info ( https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2011/11/not-vintage-dinosaur-art-if-dinosaurs.html ). Similarly, Jurassic Jabber's recommendation of Blasing's "Dinosaurs! My First Book About Carnivores" (which I'm in the process of reviewing) was the last straw that made me cease taking JJ seriously as a source of dino info ( https://www.facebook.com/JurassicJabber/posts/2682380538690151 ). This isn't the 1st time JJ has promoted a not-so-good dino book, but it IS the most egregious example:* For 1, Blasing's book is educational non-fiction (& thus, should be held to a higher standard than the other books, which are educational fiction); For another, when I questioned/commented on JJ's recommendation (See quote #1), they either replied w/misleading/wrong/irrelevant claims or didn't reply at all (See quotes #2-3). I don't know whether JJ overlooked the many problems w/Blasing's book on purpose or by accident, but I do know that, either way, it shows that JJ shouldn't be taken seriously as a source of dino info.
Quote #1 (me): "I hope you don't mind, but I have to ask: Are you recommending Blasing's new book b/c 1) he's a friend, or 2) b/c you actually think it's a good book? I really didn't wanna have to ask b/c neither answer is good: If #1, it comes off as irresponsible, similar to hiring a friend even though you know they're not right for the job; If #2, it implies that you overlooked the book's many problems; More specifically, it's full of ugly/inaccurate paleoart (E.g. Oversaturated colors, scaly-skinned coelurosaurs, etc) & misleading/wrong claims (E.g. "Did you know a Tyrannosaurus rex had an infectious bite?": https://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-First-About-Carnivores-Beyond/dp/1646114299 ); It doesn't help that he's still promoting himself as a paleontologist even though he still hasn't published any peer-reviewed literature ( https://svpow.com/2010/11/12/tutorial-10-how-to-become-a-palaeontologist/ ); Put another way, he's "impersonating a professional in the field, and in the process, he is misleading the public when he talks so matter of factly about some of his subjects" ( http://reptilis.net/2008/09/14/jfc-lockjaw/ )."
Quoting #2 (JJ): "hello. I’d like to first point out that George Blasing has never once said he was a paleontologists. But a dinosaur enthusiast who has studied and worked with doctors like Larry witmer, robert Bakker, Paul serino. He has also done countless interviews with paleontologists on his podcasts. So the information he is getting is directly from the source. It has been speculated by many paleontologists that it would be very easy for flesh to remain in between teeth of a tyrannosaur and rot. Transferring nasty bacteria to another animal with a bite. It is quite possible as some animals do this today.
George blasing travels to schools and get kids excited about dinosaurs. It’s people like him who help the future of the field. He takes what he learns and passes it on. Never once claiming any of this information is his own.
There are a lot of paleontologists who are just don’t have time to talk to kids.
So to answer your questions. I respect him for what he does for the future of paleontology. Who knows how many kids will enter the field because of him. And two, I don’t believe there is nothing that he has written that is blatantly untrue. Colors of dinosaurs is something that is bran new in the field. We are only just starting to discover the variation and saturation of feathers of the past. Even jack Horner has said there is no reason a large carnivore could not be brightly colors. I think it is unlikely that they were but it is possible.
Thank you for being involved. Healthy debates are good."
Quote #3 (me): "Many thanks for getting back to me. However, I need to correct or clarify a few things.
"I’d like to first point out that George Blasing has never once said he was a paleontologists."
Actually, he's done so many times, including on his website ("Blasing is a self taught paleontologist and animal behaviorist": https://dinosaurgeorge.com/dinosaur-george-bio ), in his new book ("Blasing is an animal behaviorist, podcast host, and paleontologist"), & in JFC ("Paleontology Expert").
"It has been speculated by many paleontologists that it would be very easy for flesh to remain in between teeth of a tyrannosaur and rot. Transferring nasty bacteria to another animal with a bite."
"And two, I don’t believe there is nothing that he has written that is blatantly untrue."
The double negative notwithstanding, he's done so many times, especially in JFC (E.g. "When Mr. Blasing spouts off something patently wrong like “dromaeosaurs could breathe through their bones,” or “megalodon was the size of a jumbo jet,” the audience at home will come away accepting that as a fact": http://reptilis.net/2008/09/14/jfc-lockjaw/ ), but also in his books (E.g. "Giganotosaurus may have been able to run over 30 [mph]"; Not according to what we actually know about similarly-sized theropods: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5518979/ ).
"We are only just starting to discover the variation and saturation of feathers of the past. Even jack Horner has said there is no reason a large carnivore could not be brightly colors."
I think you're confused. I didn't say anything about the likelihood of large carnivores being bright colors. I did list the new book's oversaturated (as opposed to well-saturated) colors as 1 of many examples of its ugly/inaccurate paleoart. Heck, the scaly-skinned coelurosaurs alone should've disqualified it from being recommended as an educational book. Put another way, to paraphrase Holtz, "depicting a [non-tyrannosaurid coelurosaur] without feathers...would simply be antiscientific" ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-Holtz-s-A-Dinosaur-Lover-s-Bookshelf-374321353 ).
1 more thing: I also didn't say anything about problems w/Blasing's intentions (which seem to be good), just w/his execution (which is very bad)."
My 71st review for this thread is a positive 1 for Dixon's The Big Book of Dinosaurs: A Natural History of the Prehistoric World. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
Short version: Dixon's The Big Book of Dinosaurs: A Natural History of the Prehistoric World (henceforth BB) is definitely his best (& maybe only very-good-to-great) dino book. I recommend reading BB in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved).
Long version: Read on.
Based on what I've read, Dixon is a nice guy ( https://matthewbonnan.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/now-the-circle-is-complete-or-a-belated-dinosaur-christmas-gift/ ), but a bad source of dino info. In fact, to quote GSPaul ( http://gspauldino.com/Tertiary.pdf ), "Dixon has a superficial understanding of dinosaur and pterosaur biology, and of their actual evolutionary patterns- i. e. he is not familiar with the technical literature, a necessity since the popular literature remains incomplete and sometimes obsolete[...]In addition, he wants to make archosaurs more mammalian than is appropriate". With that in mind, I was both worried & surprised by BB: Worried that it'd be terrible, that it'd give natural histories of dinos a bad name, & that I'd have to review it as such; Surprised that I didn't know about it sooner, that it's as great as it is, & that it's so underrated. In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why I think BB is as great as it is.
1) BB is very well-organized: Most natural histories of dinos have a chronological or day-in-the-life format; This makes sense given that they're the easiest & best ways to tell the story of dinos, respectively; However, as far as I know, BB is the only natural history of dinos with an ecological format; After the introductory chapters (which summarize how ecology works & how dinos evolved), BB consists of 12 chapters, each of which focuses on a different trophic group (high browsers, low browsers & grazers, big-game hunters, small-game hunters, egg-eaters, scavengers, fish-eaters, marine reptiles, flying reptiles, birds & mammals) plus unsolved mysteries & the reconstruction process. I especially like how BB's organization reminds me of some natural histories of modern animals (E.g. Attenborough's The Life of Mammals). With that in mind, you'd think it'd be a more common way to put dinos into an evolutionary & ecological context, but I digress.
2) BB was mostly accurate at the time of publication. This is especially apparent in its T. rex-related text: 1st, see the Dixon quote; Then, compare it to the T. rex-related text in "Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Age of Dinosaurs: A Photographic Record" & "Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs: Questions & Answers", which are reviews of Dixon dino books published shortly before & after BB, respectively; As you may remember, even some expert-authored books from around the same time got the same info wrong ( www.amazon.com/review/R1XKIJYJI2F8YU/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). I say "mostly" because there are a few weird bits in the text (E.g. Ankylosaurus =/= 35 ft), but that's still pretty impressive for a Dixon dino book.
3) BB is very well-illustrated. Remember what I said about Sibbick's When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth work compared to his later work (See reason #1: www.amazon.com/review/RJ6H99FGIW6CC/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 )? The same mostly goes for Kirk's BB work compared to his later work. However, Kirk's 1989 work was even more accurate for its time than Sibbick's 1985 work was for its time. Also, while I wouldn't describe the former as gritty, I would describe it as atmospheric, so much so that it reminds me of Douglas Henderson's paleoart. Kirk's Stenonychosaurus is an especially good example of that, partly because it's standing against a beautiful sunset, & partly because it has that look that birds have when they know they're being watched. Kirk's head-butting Pachycephalosaurus are another good example, partly because of how they're colored (I.e. Green & blue like Henderson's Saurolophus), & partly because of how they're wincing from the impact (as opposed to being wide-eyed like other, similar life reconstructions). You can see both dinos in Vincent's BB review ( https://chasmosaurs.com/tag/big-book-of-dinosaurs/ ). 1 more thing of note: As mentioned by Vincent, Kirk's life reconstructions are "nicely complimented by [David Nicholls'] pretty modern-looking" skeletal reconstructions.
Quoting Dixon:
Quote :
The accolade of the biggest and most ferocious hunter that ever lived has always been given to the enormous tyrannosaurid Tyrannosaurus. Some 40 feet[...]long it was, towering almost 20 feet[...]high and weighing 7 tons. The skull was 4 feet[...]long and bore teeth like steak knives. The bones of the skull were quite loosely articulated, so that the skull could flex and allow the animal to swallow huge chunks of meat. Yet in the 1960s some research was done that suggested that this beast could not have been as active and ferocious as it appeared. The shape of the hips seems to show that it could have taken only very short steps and must have moved at a speed of only about 3 miles[...]per hour. The teeth seem to have been more adapted to slashing up dead meat that to killing live animals. All this suggests that mighty Tyrannosaurus was actually a scavenger, not a hunter. On the other hand, the eyes of Tyrannosaurus were positioned so that they could focus forward. Only hunting animals have eyes like this, since this arrangement gives a three-dimensional image and allows distances to be judged accurately. The skull and neck were very robust, suggesting that they were built to withstand the shock of delivering killing blows. All in all, it looks as if Tyrannosaurus was a hunter after all. It may have hidden in undergrowth and ambushed duckbills, killing them with a blow of its wide-open mouth. However, an old Tyrannosaurus may have been too slow and heavy for this kind of action and lived as a scavenger, feeding on the corpses of animals that were already dead. Tyrannosaurus had ridiculously small arms, with only two fingers. They could not possibly have been used in any killing or eating function. They were probably used to help the huge animal to get to its feet after resting on its belly. A massive foot on the end of the pubis bone in its hips and a set of extra ribs along the belly suggest that it spent much of its time lying on the ground. This may have been its customary eating position. When it rose to its feet it would have done so by straightening its huge hind legs. The little arms would have prevented it from sliding along onto its face while it did so.
My 69th review for this thread is a positive 1 for Rey's Extreme Dinosaurs! Part 2: The Projects. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's for a great book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
Short Version: At the time of publication, Rey's Extreme Dinosaurs (henceforth ED) was the best summary of the most extreme dino discoveries. Now, Rey's Extreme Dinosaurs! Part 2: The Projects (henceforth ED2) is the best. I recommend reading ED2 in conjunction with ED (which shows how far dino science & art has come in just 18 years) as well as "Luis V. Rey Blog" (which provides more info about most of Rey's ED2 work).
Long version: Read on.
As you may remember, I reviewed ED ( www.amazon.com/review/R1D5YN9OJS6MXU/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). ED2 is both a sequel & a reboot, similar to Mary Poppins Returns, but actually good. In fact, in some ways, ED2 is even better than ED. In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why I think that is.
1) ED's Introduction begins with Rey's backstory ("Dinosaurs haunted my childhood") & ends with a description of ED's organization (See the 1st Rey quote). ED2's Introduction is very similar, but also very different: 1st, it not only continues where ED left off ("Ever since Extreme Dinosaurs was published almost 20 years ago, I have been intermittently involved in many publications"), but also adds to it ("When I was 10 years old, my main ambition in life was striving to live one day in my museum where people could come and discuss and enjoy science... and art!"); Then, it describes ED2's organization as a series of "more specifically themed concepts" along the line leading to "Dinosaurios Hechos En México" (See the 2nd Rey quote), similar to walking through a series of more exclusive clades along the line leading to modern animals. The differences make ED2 even better than ED: For 1, the extra backstory helps to explain ED2's organization; For another, it also adds depth to the main story without slowing it down; For yet another, to paraphrase Ben ( https://extinctmonsters.net/2015/02/26/framing-fossil-exhibits-phylogeny/ ), I'd argue that ED2's organization is "an attempt to train [readers] to look at [dinos] the way [Rey does]".
2) ED2 is more complete & in-depth than ED. In reference to "in-depth", this is especially apparent in "Project one. Dinosaur rEvolution. Secrets of survival": Rey "divided the project into two main tiers: two groups[...theropods vs. ornithischians...]and subgroups[...tyrannosaurs & "clawed enigmas" vs. thyreophorans & marginocephalians, respectively...]with different strategic paths that would encounter and battle each other all along the way"; Most of ED's chapters only briefly describe the most extreme dinos on a given continent. In reference to "complete", this is especially apparent in "Project four. Mexican Dinosaurs": Not only does it feature multiple photos of fossils like all of the other projects (including a very nice close-up of a "fossil muzzle"), but also skeletal drawings for 15 Mexican dinos (which are very incompletely known, but I digress); ED is full of great life reconstructions, but only features 2 photos & no drawings of the fossils on which they're based.
3) I couldn't say much about Rey's digital paleoart before ED2 other than that it was 1) overall not as good as his traditional paleoart, & 2) still some of the best paleoart around (See reason #1: www.amazon.com/review/RGGG87Q9W2PHE/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). Now that I've seen it fully progress from Dinosaurs! in 2005 to ED2 in 2019, I can say that it's just as good as his traditional paleoart. While I'll always prefer the aesthetics of the latter, the former makes up for it in the following ways, among others (Again, see reason #1): -To quote Witton ( https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-daleks-xenomorphs-and-slasher.html ), "Completely flat, horizontal ground stretching way off into the distance seem to occur in the overwhelming majority of palaeoart scenes[...]Sure, there may be some highlands and forests as a far-off backdrops and even sometimes in the middle distance, but the animals themselves keep to flat stages without inclination or slope. What's more[...]said animals often occupy patches of bare earth without vegetation." The same goes for many of Rey's traditional paleoart scenes, but not his digital ones. This is especially apparent when you compare ED2 T. rex scenes ( https://luisvrey.wordpress.com/2018/03/26/the-next-bone-of-contention/ ) to ED ones ( https://luisvrey.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/svpca-in-edinburgh-most-spectacular-of-settings/ ). -Remember "Customising a life-size Velociraptor" from ED? Not only has Rey customized even more dino models since then, but he's also blended photos of them into his paeloart scenes. Put another way, to quote Holly Stuart Hughes (in reference to "Behind the Walls by Paolo Ventura"), Rey "continues to stretch not only his imagination but the techniques he uses to bring his imagined worlds to life." This is especially apparent in "Velociraptor attacks Avimimus" ( https://luisvrey.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/sneak-preview-dinosaur-revolution-embarks-in-its-first-tour/ ) as well as when comparing ED2's cover to ED's (hence the title of this review).
2 more things of note: 1) Officially, my only gripes are a few weird bits in the text (E.g. Saichania is referred to as "North American" & Tarchia as its "Mongolian relative" even though both are Mongolian) & writing (E.g. "T. rex" is incorrectly pluralized as "T. rexes"); 2) Unofficially, there are MANY missing/wrong words & punctuations throughout ED2; However, I can't hold those against Rey as they're not his fault; "Since [ED2] is a very personal book that no publishing house has been able to take on board, I decided that to preserve the original concept and intention, the only way it would have been properly published is by yours truly. With your support this might become a reality" ( https://luisvrey.wordpress.com/2019/07/08/extreme-dinosaurs-ii-the-projects/ ); The Kickstarter campaign didn't pan out, so he had to edit ED2 himself despite being neither a professional editor nor an English native speaker.
Quoting Rey:
Quote :
More bizarre dinosaurs are being found all the time, all over the world. The first dinosaurs were found in Europe, the United States, and Canada. But today, China, Mongolia, Africa, and South America have become the dinosaur hunters' paradise. Let's circle the globe and see some of the most weird and wonderful creatures ever.
Quoting Rey:
Quote :
The “Extreme Dinosaurs II, The Projects” chapters are not by chronological order, but by their evolutionary significance. I start with the wide-scope Dinosaur rEvolution, which is in itself my interpretation of the new evidence on dinosaur external appearance and their relationship with birds. This has been an age-old personal struggle that also was pretty evident in the original “Extreme Dinosaurs”. The rEvolution is followed by more specifically themed concepts, like the Maniraptora Family Tree in “Dinosaurs Take Wing”; next is dinosaurs as living, breathing animals represented by their family behaviour in “Hatching The Past”... and finally a monograph of a rare specific fauna in one part of the world, that not only has been virtually overlooked, it has special significance to me since I grew up there: “Dinosaurios Hechos En México”. And that completes the circle.
My 68th review for this thread is a negative 1 for Jenkins' Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect: www.goodreads.com/book/show/2662424-big-golden-book-of-dinosaurs ). Many thanks in advance.
You know how the Godzilla of the 1998 movie "is commonly called G.I.N.O. (Godzilla In Name Only)[...]to distinguish it from the "real" Godzilla" ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/Godzilla1998 )? Despite its title, Jenkins' Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs (henceforth BG) is nothing like Watson's childhood classic or the remakes by Elting (which is decent) & Bakker (which is the best natural history of dinos for kids: www.amazon.com/review/R2INIHTO7ANTSM/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why BG is the GINO of dino books.
1) While the Watson, Elting, & Bakker books are all natural histories of dinos with a chronological format, BG is basically just another Dinosaur (DK Eyewitness Books) wannabe: For 1, there are many sidebars scattered all over each chapter with no apparent rhyme or reason; For another, there are many 2-page chapters scattered all over BG with no apparent rhyme or reason.
2) Remember what I said about Schwabacher's The Magic School Bus Flies with the Dinosaurs (See reason #1: www.amazon.com/review/R1SNCFJECE6XS1/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 )? The same mostly goes for BG in terms of text & writing. In fact, "How fossils form" on page 6 of BG is basically just a wordier version of "THE STORY OF FOSSILS". Furthermore, not only does BG avoid using the word "evolution", but it synonymizes "developed" with "evolved" ( www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/2/l_042_02.html ).
3) Remember what I said about Theodorou's I Wonder Why Triceratops Had Horns ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3493788414 )? The same mostly goes for BG in terms of paleoart. In reference to BG's "more realistic reconstructions", this is especially apparent in the abominable T. rex & the outdated Brachiosaurus on the alternative cover. The former is so abominable, in fact, that there was a "Caption Competition" making fun of it as such ( https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2012/03/caption-competition.html ).
Quoting Bakker (See "Raptor Red"): "Female dominance is a powerful piece of evidence that permits us to reconstruct the private lives of Cretaceous predatory dinosaurs. A family structure built around a large female is rare in meat-eating reptiles and mammals today, but it's the rule for one category of predatory species — carnivorous birds. Owls, hawks, and eagles have societies organized around female dominance, and we can think of tyrannosaurs and raptors as giant, ground-running eagles."
Quoting Bakker (See Wolberg's "Dinofest International: Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored By Arizona State University", page 62): "A striking difference exists in modern communities between cold-blooded predators and hot-blooded predators. Most bird and mammal species feed their young until the youngsters are almost full size; then and only then do the young set out to hunt on their own. Consequently, the very young mammals and birds do not chose food items independently of the parents. Young lions and eagles feed on parts of carcasses from relatively large prey killed by the parents. Most snakes, lizards, and turtles do not feed the young after birth, and the new-born reptiles must find prey suitably diminutive to fit the size of the baby reptilian jaws and teeth. A single individual lizard during its lifetime usually feeds over a much wider size range of prey than a single individual weasel or hawk, because the lizard begins its life hunting independently. Therefore, a predatory guild of three lizard species with adult weights 10g, 100g and 1000g would require a much wider range of prey size than a guild of three mammal predator species with the same adult weights. If allosaurs had a lizard-like parental behavior, then each individual allosaur would require a wide size range in prey as it grew up. The evidence of the Como lair sites strongly suggests that the dinosaur predatory guild was constructed more like that of hot-blooded carnivores than that of lizards or snakes. This theory receives support from the shape of the baby allosaur teeth. In many cold-blooded reptilian predators today, the crown shape in the very young is quite different from the adult crown shape. For example, hatchling alligators have the same number of tooth sockets in each jaw as do the adults, but the hatchling crowns are very much sharper and more delicate. In the hatchling all the teeth are nearly the same shape, and the young gators have less differentiation of crown size and shape along the tooth row; the hatchlings lack the massive, projecting canine teeth and the very broad, acorn-shaped posterior crowns of the adults. Young gators feed extensively on water insects, and the sharp crowns are designed for such insectivorous habits. Adult gator species use their canine teeth for killing large prey, such as deer, and employ the acorn crowns to crush large water snails and turtles (Chabreck, 1971; Delaney and Abercrombie, 1986; McNease and Joanen, 1977; Web et al, 1987). If allosaur hatchlings fed independent of adults, I would not expect the hatchling tooth crowns to be the same over-all shape as that of the adult. However, the over-all tooth crown shape in the tiniest allosaur IS identical to that of the adult (figs. 3,4). Thus it appears that hatchlings were feeding on prey tissue of the same general texture and consistency as that fed upon by adults."
Quoting Maxwell ( https://www.naturalhistorymag.com/htmlsite/master.html?https://www.naturalhistorymag.com/htmlsite/1299/1299_feature.html ): "Nobody knows for certain what took place at the Shrine site. We do know, however, that whether hunted down and killed by a pack or simply scavenged after death, Tenontosaurus was the preferred food of Deinonychus. Approximately eighty occurrences of Tenontosaurus remains have been discovered in the Cloverly formation to date, and thirty-five include Deinonychus teeth. While Deinonychus fossils are rarely found with other possible prey animals, three or four Deinonychus teeth typically turn up wherever there are Tenontosaurus remains. And at a site discovered in the Cloverly formation in 1992, there were even more.
Laid out in its death pose at this new site was a beautifully preserved, near-complete specimen of a young Tenontosaurus. Four Deinonychus teeth were found alongside the bones; later, in the laboratory, seven more teeth were uncovered. It's possible that a few more teeth were missed in the field or unwittingly discarded during preparation because they were concealed within small lumps of rock. So we have a subadult Tenontosaurus no more than fourteen feet long (compared with a length of about twenty feet for the adult at the Shrine site), preserved with at least eleven Deinonychus teeth.
But how can we distinguish between the remains of a victim hunted down and devoured by a pack and an animal that simply died and was scavenged by a few passing Deinonychus? As is the case at the Shrine site, this Tenontosaurus was preserved where it died. After death, the desiccation of the abundant supporting tendons that line the vertebrae of the neck and tail cause these parts to coil. The tail of Tenontosaurus, which accounts for about one-third of the animal's total length, is particularly heavy with supporting tendons. In this specimen, the pronounced curvature of the tail and the neck toward each other effectively counters any claim that the bones were carried to the site by water currents. The Deinonychus teeth were found in the region of the abdomen and pelvis, suggesting that the predators lost their teeth while feeding on the viscera. Most modern carnivores begin with the areas around the anus and abdomen when they feast on freshly killed prey, and it's likely that carnivorous dinosaurs did the same.
The number of teeth indicate that more than one Deinonychus was involved with the carcass. Like all other theropod dinosaurs, Deinonychus shed and replaced teeth throughout its life. The teeth would fall out upon the animal's reaching maturity but also could be wrenched out earlier by the stress associated with the biting and tearing of flesh. Because of this, theropod teeth are very common in sediments containing dinosaur fossils. The teeth from this site vary from recently erupted to fully mature ones. Given that Deinonychus had only sixty teeth in its jaws at any one time, it's unlikely that all eleven were wrenched from the mouth of just one feeding animal. This would leave the Deinonychus toothless after five similar meals. The possibility that Deinonychus was replacing shed teeth in a few weeks or months, and therefore had the ability to sustain such dramatic tooth loss, was quashed by Greg Erickson, who, as a master's degree student at the Museum of the Rockies, worked on replacement rates of teeth in various dinosaurs and living reptiles. After CT-scanning portions of the lower jaw of Deinonychus and studying individual teeth, he came up with an estimate of 300 days for the time it took Deinonychus to replace a shed tooth with a mature one.
We know that this Tenontosaurus was not yet an adult, so it didn't die of old age. Of course, this doesn't rule out death from disease or injury and doesn't confirm that it was cut down by a pack, but it's a start. Next, we have a concentration of teeth around the abdomen and pelvis. This may indicate that the pack fed on the abdominal contents while they were still warm and moist. If, after the viscera had been consumed, the remainder of the carcass was scavenged over time by many individuals, we would expect a much more disturbed carcass and a wider scattering of teeth. Similarly, if the Tenontosaurus had been killed by a larger predator-such as the unknown owner of the three-inch-long serrated teeth that occasionally crop up in the Cloverly formation—then whatever remained of the carcass would have been strewn around the area."
*I'm specifically referring to his 1980s Iguanodon work (which reminds me of Dollo's 1880s Iguanodon work in terms of changing our views of how Iguanodon looked & behaved).
Quoting Gardom/Milner: "Why feathers? It is generally agreed that birds evolved from small meat-eating theropod dinosaurs. Obviously these dinosaurs did not sprout feathers overnight and become birds, so there must have been a long period when some of the small theropods were experimenting with feathers, which are only a different version of scales."
Quoting Naish ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/156954631577624/permalink/318195005453585/?comment_id=318639152075837&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D ): "Hi everyone. A load of drama has happened in my few days of absence from this group. I can't make any sense of what's happened nor do I understand what the source of argument is. But one person here has been accused of bullying, of sending vindictive personal messages, and of displaying an attitude that is very contrary to the group-minded, co-operative discussions I most want to see here. I have therefore decided to remove that person from the group and I would advise other parties involved not to engage further via DM or whatever."
The old dinosaurs will be in, no JW dinosaurs though.
I'm actually planning on putting it on Moddb once I have some more pictures since you need at least 5 pictures to post your mod and I don't want to be the guy who posts the same picture over and over to reach the limit .
Mamenchi will be in the mod; it's a perfect candidate since we can edit models and animations now. This means the animations won't be so janky (the old one had very strange things happen with the neck when it bent).
I'm usually not very good at reviewing things in the moment, but I'll try.
What I liked: Almost everything about this course, especially how thorough it was (even more so than some books I've read in terms reconstructing a dino ecosystem as completely as possible), how concise each video was (which made it easier for me to focus on learning the topic at hand & re-watch the video multiple times for good measure), the use of images in each video (which made the video less static for me & helped me better understand what the ppl were talking about), the inclusion of transcripts & CC (which gave me the option of reading & listening at the same time AWA helped me better understand the ppl w/thick accents), & the practice questions (which helped me better understand why the correct answers were correct).
What I didn't like: I previously mentioned a few things that were mislabeled or presented not-so-well...but those are easy fixes. The only 2 things I didn't like that might be not-so-easy fixes were 1) Brusatte's Week 2 video being hard to take seriously, & 2) Weeks 5-6 having too much content for that amount of time. In reference to #1, I previously mentioned the weird factual errors in Brusatte's popular work in general & said video in particular...The other problem w/said video is Brusatte's presentation (which was less like that of the credible expert I know he is & more like that of a George Blasing-esque dork: http://web.archive.org/web/20150906025457/https://tyrantisterror.deviantart.com/art/Jurassic-Fight-Club-Formula-136354754 ). More specifically, his voice got high & giggly several times throughout said video, as if he was trying not to bust out laughing for some reason. I get that Brusatte's excited to talk about his professional interests, but so are Dr. Pittman & the other course experts, yet they had no trouble showing that while also being dignified. In reference to #2, this course should've been 8 weeks long w/Weeks 5-6 being Weeks 5-8. In Weeks 1-4, I was able to spread the content out over 1 week & focus on (re-)watching 1 video per day without taking time out of my busy schedule. In Weeks 5-6, however, there was so much content that I had to stay up later every day & (re-)watch multiple videos on a given day.
Overall, 8 or 9/10, highly recommended to anyone w/an interest in dinos, especially non-expert dino fans like me.
My 52nd review for this thread is a negative 1 for Brooklyn's If You Were Raised by a Dinosaur. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Helpful" for said review in the bolded link below. Besides wanting to make sure said review gives a good idea of what to expect, it needs all the "Helpful" votes it can get because it's outnumbered by opposing reviews (which don't give a good idea of what to expect: www.charlesbridge.com/products/if-you-were-raised-by-a-dinosaur ). Many thanks in advance.
Short version: If you want the best baby dino book for older kids, get Zoehfeld's Dinosaur Parents, Dinosaur Young: Uncovering the Mystery of Dinosaur Families & read it in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Holtz's Dinosaurs in general & Chapter 36 in particular). Brooklyn's If You Were Raised by a Dinosaur (henceforth You) may be the worst. It just goes to show what a difference some expert consulting & personal research can make.
Long version: Read on.
Many popular baby dino books are OK, but not great. There are 3 main reasons for why I think that is: 1) They're mixed bags in terms of paleoart (Quoting Miller: "I bought the book expecting a more technical discussion of the animals discussed therein[...]but was surprised to find beautiful paintings of questionably-restored dinosaurs"); 2) They're confusing messes in terms of organization; 3) They fail to cover many baby dino-related subjects & those that are covered are done so in an insufficient manner (I.e. Sometimes, they simplify things to the point of being meaningless; Other times, they're just plain wrong). In this review, I focus on reasons #1 & #3 & why I think they make You the worst popular baby dino book.
1) Not only is You's paleoart very questionable, but also very ugly. More specifically, it consists of cheap-looking paper collages of anachronistic assemblages of mostly gray/green/brown animals with wonky anatomy in inappropriate environments: In reference to "anachronistic assemblages", see the cover; There's a generic rhamphorhynchid pterosaur, a Massospondylus family, an Apatosaurus family, & a T. rex family; In reference to "wonky anatomy", see "Review update 52 (It's a big 1)!" for everything wrong with the cover in terms of anatomy ( www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/Review-update-52-It-s-a-big-1-772428585 ); In reference to "inappropriate environments", the cover depicts a grassland environment despite the fact that, to quote Holtz ( www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G104/lectures/104shadow.html ), "grasses seem to have been relatively rare in the Mesozoic, and did not form grasslands until much later. Ground cover in the later Mesozoic was a mixture of ferns and herbaceous angiosperms. So as far as we know, no dinosaur other than birds ever wandered in prairies or savannahs".
3A) In reference to "Sometimes", You's writing is overcomplicated (as opposed to oversimplified). More specifically, it's like "when Joey wrote a recommendation letter for Chandler and Monica to send to an adoption agency, but he used a thesaurus on every word to sound smart" ( www.buzzfeed.com/hopelasater/joey-friends-best-moments ). The Brooklyn quote in "Review update 52 (It's a big 1)!" is the best example of that ( www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/Review-update-52-It-s-a-big-1-772428585 ): For 1, it's also the best example of incorrectly pluralized dino names (Seriously, "T. rexes"?); For another, it shamelessly rips off Chapter 17 of Holtz's Dinosaurs.
3B) In reference to "Other times", this is especially apparent in the Brooklyn quote below (which fails on so many levels that I need to quote the UCMP just to demonstrate): It fails to understand that Geist/Jones are 1) not dino experts, & 2) known for "publishing with a hidden agenda" ( http://web.archive.org/web/20171216234814/http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/07/17/birds-cannot-be-dinosaurs/ ); It fails to understand "modern-day[...precocial...]birds and alligators", most of which DO need parental care, including most of those in Geist/Jones's study; It fails to understand Maiasaura (which, to paraphrase Anthony J. Martin, "is arguably the best understood of nesting dinosaurs, only rivaled by its neighbors in the same field area, [Troodon]"); It fails to understand that Geist/Jones's study was at least 9 years out of date at the time of You's publication.
1 more thing of note: To quote Dussart (See Biosciences on the Internet: A Student's Guide), "The speed and ease of email, plus its association with the web, mean that it is relatively easy to find and contact experts"; Thus, there's no excuse for You to not have expert consulting, especially given that some experts make a living from consultancy (E.g. Darren Naish: https://darrennaish.wordpress.com/ ); At the very least, having it would've helped prevent many of the textual fails (if not the visual ones too); In fact, said fails are so basic that they could've easily been avoided with up-to-date personal research; Unfortunately, there's very little of said research in You & it's mostly used incorrectly; In contrast, Sattler's Tyrannosaurus Rex and Its Kin: The Mesozoic Monsters shows how good a non-authoritative book can be with a lot of said research ( www.amazon.com/review/R3INFL96O3PWAS/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ).
Quoting Brooklyn:
Quote :
Not all scientists agree with the interpretation that Maiasaura babies needed parental care. Scientists Nicholas Geist and Terry Jones examined the hip and knee bones of different birds and alligators. They compared the hip bones and knee joints of Maiasaura to that of modern-day birds and alligators, which don't need parental care. The Maiasaura hips were at least as well developed as the birds', and the knee joints were no weaker than the birds' or alligators'. This might mean that Maiasaura babies did not need care from their parents as Horner believed.
In their original description of embryonic remains from the Willow Creek Anticline, Horner and Weishampel (1988) cited degree of ossification of the leg bones of Maiasaura and Troodon (then thought to be Orodromeus) to indicate the level of mobility of young after hatching. Subsequently, Geist and Jones (1996) compared extant perinatal (the developmental stage immediately prior to and following hatching) birds and crocodilians to fossil dinosaur embryos and hatchlings. They found that the extent of hip bone development was more important than leg bone development for recognizing precocial versus altricial hatchlings, and that the leg bones of Maiasaura, Troodon, and other dinosaurs did not reliably indicate the mobility of a hatchling. Geist and Jones suggested that the hatchling dinosaurs studied were likely precocial upon birth, although this does not preclude the provision of extended parental care. Horner et al. (2001) countered Geist and Jones' (1996) argument after an extensive histological analysis of turtle, crocodilian, non-avian dinosaur, and bird embryonic and perinatal bones that compared bone developmental patterns and growth rates. The authors correlated ossification and growth rates with life-history strategies. Horner et al. (2001) concluded that developmental differences (including growth rates) in embryonic and perinatal dinosaur bones from the Willow Creek Anticline indicate a precocial lifestyle for Troodon and Orodromeus hatchlings and an altricial lifestyle for hadrosaur hatchlings that necessitated parental care; this work supported their original hypothesis (Horner and Weishampel 1988).
So, I've recently been reading some of the Jurassic Park's scripts, and one in particular caught my attention. It's the march 1992 draft, written by Malia Scotch Marmo (apparently there was also involvement by Crichton himself), that was after the first Michael Crichton draft and before the final David Koepp drafts. There's a lot of concept art for this draft floating around the internet. It's... kind of schlocky, to be honest. There's some really silly dialogue and it reads too much like a B-movie. But I found kind of fascinating to think that this could be the Jurassic Park movie that we got, and started writing down some of the things I found interesting. You can find it here, if you're interested.
Let me get the most interesting stuff out of the way first:
- The first time a dinosaur appears on the flesh is only fairly late into the script, on the jeep tour ride itself. No "Welcome to Jurassic Park" scene here. We are actually TOLD that the Park houses living dinosaurs and how they were made waaaay before we actually see one. There isn't even a hatchling waiting for them in the hatchery or anything. - On a similar note, Hammond himself only appears in the Visitor Center during the tour ride. Gennaro is the one that picks Alan and Ellie on the dig site. - Remember that exciting sequence from the novel where the T. rex chases Grant and the kids on their raft through the river? Spielberg has been quoted saying that early during pre-production that it was one of the first sequences he scrapped, because it would be too complicated to recreate. Well, that sequence is present on this draft, but there's a catch: there's no T. rex. Or any other dinosaur, for that matter. Instead, it's just a whole sequence of Grant and the kids looking for a raft on the maintenance shed, finding it, and descending the river while fighting... rapids. - Nedry isn't stealing dinosaur embryos in this version... he's stealing dinosaur EGGS (he uses a portable incubator instead of a barbasol can). And what's more, he actually makes it to the boat and delivers them! The boat's captain is in on the whole theft, and is actually waiting personally for Nedry to arrive. And the visitors witness the whole smuggling business from afar. Remember that ticking clock subplot from the novel where the visitors need to get the phones working so they can stop the boat before it reaches the mainland? This is basically an adaptation from that, with the difference being that they are trying to stop a smuggling operation instead of stopping two juvenile Velociraptors from reaching the mainland. - As they're leaving in the rescue chopper, Hammond outright refuses to go with them, ignoring Grant's protests. Instead, he stubbornly walks back into the jungle, and his parting words to Grant is that he'll "amount to nothing", and he'll "be a bone-brusher for the rest of his life". - After that, the group has a final face-off with the T. rex as it tries to attack the helicopter. Until then, the T. rex was totally absent from the third act. The last time we saw it was after it took down a juvenile hadrosaur. - Finally, the most interesting aspect: remember that sick Triceratops? They never do find out what's wrong with it in the movie we got, but we know from the comic adaptation, the novel and the final script that the reason it got sick was that, whenever it swallowed gizzard stones, it swallowed some poison berries accidentally. In this draft, the protagonists also come to this conclusion... at first, that is. Later that night, after the T. rex has broke out, Ellie goes to one of the laboratories to analyse a tissue sample from the Triceratops ("Freda", as she is called here) under the microscope, and we learn that the mysterious disease is also affecting the other animals. Grant even notices the same tiny bumps on the tongue of a hadrosaur when he's making his way back to the Visitor Center with the two kids. The answer to the mystery? Ellie finds out from looking at X-Rays of the Triceratops bones that all the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park aren't adults, but instead juveniles pumped with growth hormones. The reason for this (explained by Hammond himself) is that there's a problem with the cloning process that causes the cloned dinosaurs to die very young, and the Park is on a deadline, so "Wu uses growth hormones to achieve the desired size in a short amount of time". Hammond also reveals to Ellie that the main reason he invited her and Alan over is so that, once the tour survey was over, they could help him figure out how to solve that. Naturally, they don't. Everyone just leaves and the implication is that the dinosaurs will all die out.
Characters omissions:
- Probably the biggest character omission here: there's no Ian Malcolm on this draft. Instead, his roles are given to both Grant and Gennaro. Grant is the one constantly at odds and getting into moral discussions with Hammond, and they don't see eye-to-eye. On the other hand, Gennaro is the one accompanying Grant and Sattler on the tour vehicles, and he's the one that gets injured by the T. rex and that later spends the rest of the time high on morphine. This change actually kind of works, but the script ends up missing on a good comic relief (we're basically stuck with Nedry and Lex) - Oddly enough, there is no Dodgson here (see what I did there it's like a pun). Instead, he's replaced by a character named Bill Baker... that serves pretty much the same purpose, to a point where I was asking myself why did they even change the name. Also, he meets with Nedry on his company's headquarters instead of San Jose.
Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom déjà vu's:
- Lex rides a baby Triceratops. This was later referenced in the lawsuit-waiting-to-happen Gentle Giants scene from Jurassic World. - This draft constantly mentions a Dilophosaurus umbrella being sold on the gift shop. While it doesn't happen on this draft, there's a concept art showing Tim and Lex using that umbrella to fend off a Raptor (here). That might have influenced the scene in Jurassic World where Gray activates a Dilo hologram to distract Delta. - After Ellie tries to reboot energy in the generator, she runs back to the fence surrounding Hammond's quarters with a Raptor hot in pursuit. Muldoon leaves the gate half-shut for Ellie, and she rolls through it. Muldoon shuts the gate just in time before the Raptor can get inside, and the Raptor gets stuck in the bars of the gate. The scene where Owen holds off Blue, Charlie and Delta and rolls through the closing gate before they can pounce on him is reminiscent of this. - At one point, Ellie enter Hammond's quarters, and there's a large model of the park with plastic dinosaurs. She even briefly picks up the plastic T. rex like Maisie did in an unused scene. - The T. rex reveal is mostly done by the storm's lightning. Four movies later, Bayona would use the same visual artifice for the T. rex reveal in Fallen Kingdom's prologue. - There's also the raptor-type dinosaur being killed in the climax by the head of a dinosaur skeleton in a display.
Direct similarities with the novel that didn't carry over to the final script:
- Gennaro is young and athletic. Also, he plays a major role, like in the novel. - Grant likes kids. - Tim is older than Lex, and Lex likes baseball and is an insufferable brat. - Nedry accompanies Grant, Sattler and Gennaro on the helicopter to the island. - Grant and the kids are woken in the tree by a hadrosaur instead of a Brachiosaurus. - The stampede scene involves a group of hadrosaurs, not Gallimimus (although the latter are still present here). - Muldoon actually discovers Nedry's dead body. - Lex makes friends with a baby Trike. - Hammond is an asshole, and he dies (or at least it's implied) in the end. - Both Harding and Wu stay on the island, and Wu is killed by one of the raptors. - Muldoon survives. Yay! - Ed Regis is here, accompanying Tim and Lex. Like in the novel, he abandons them during the T. rex breakout, and is later killed by the T. rex (only it's the adult instead of the juvenile). - The Dilophosaurus is as big as the actual animal, like in the novel. As a bonus, they are already described as having the Chlamydosaurus-esque frill. - Hammond mentions to Gennaro that they are gonna make a miniature pet Triceratops, like Dodgson hypothesized during the BioSyn boardroom meeting in the novel. - Grant has his showdown with the Raptors on the hatchery here. The difference is that there's only one Raptor, instead of three. Booo. - Lex makes friends with a juvenile Triceratops, and actually rides it, like she wanted to do in the novel.
Assorted musings:
- The opening scene is - like the first trailer - a microscopic view of a mosquito in amber being drilled for dinosaur DNA. After that, we cut to the dig site. There's no scene of a Velociraptor being unloaded into its pen. - There's a whole scene in Gennaro's law office where he and his boss discuss his upcoming inspection of the park. It's... kind of redundant. - Nedry is incredibly obnoxious in this. Like, much more than in the actual movie, almost like a Jar Jar Binks. - The tour goes like this: Brachiosaurus > Gallimimus > Dilophosaurus > Triceratops > T. rex - The "T. rex can only see movement" rule is kind of all over the place here. It's never brought up, other than Grant telling Gennaro and Tim "don't move" when the T. rex breaks out, and then when they see the T. rex attacking Ed Regis, Grant says this: "It's Regis and the Rex is after him. But it's okay. Regis knows the Rex can't see him. Evidently, he can only see movement. Regis'll be ok if he stays still". - Ed Regis tries to appeal to the T. rex's good side. It was already silly in the novel, where he did that to a juvenile, but here he tries to do that to an adult T. rex. Also, Grant just kind of watches from a distance with the kids as Regis is comically killed off. He doesn't even try to intervene, or to shield the kids eyes. - Apparently there are flamingos in the herbivore enclosure. John Hammond really was keen on destroying that leased island's ecosystem in every way possible. - As aforementioned, there's a scene where Lex finds a baby Triceratops and rides it for a while like a horse. Maybe it's the cynical adult in me, but I'm glad this scene didn't make it into the final movie. The way it's described makes it sound way too whimsical and kid-friendly for my taste. On a different note, it got me wondering how the hell they expected to pull a scene like that off back in 1992. - There's a recurring motif of mosquitoes buzzing around the characters at certain moments. After the visitors leave to resume their tour, a mosquito buzzes around the sick Triceratops before being smashed by its tail. A mosquito buzzes around Grant as he sleeps on the tree with the kids before being swatted away. Finally, on the second-to-last scene, a mosquito lands on the hand of a dying John Hammond. Poetic justice, I guess. - Hammond has a sort of 'throne' in the Control Room from where he watches the tour ride. It sounds pretty stupid. - Instead of an Alamosaurus, the display in the rotunda shows a Velociraptor skeleton fighting a T. rex. Strangely, this draft alludes this encounter numerous times without ever actually showing it in the flesh. There's the display in the rotunda, the climax in which Grant uses the T. rex bones to kill the final raptor, and during the early dig site scene, Ellie mentions that type of encounter (even though neither Velociraptor nor Deinonychus coexisted with T. rex). It's a wonder that it took so long for Spielberg to have the insight to include that fight in the actual movie. - I'm not sure if Alan and Ellie are supposed to be an item in this. For the most part, it just seems like their relationship is purely platonic, but there's a part where they gaze into each other eyes for a while during the Brachiosaurus scene, and in the end, Grant puts his arm around her when they are escaping in the helicopter, and she pulls it closer. - For some reason, there's a short scene of Muldoon and Ellie manually moving a fallen tree out of the road. That's it. - Muldoon essentially leaves Wu for dead. Wu is running towards Hammond's quarters while being chased by a Raptor, and Muldoon closes the door on Wu's face so the Raptor won't get in. He and Ellie only hear Wu's screams from the other side. Jesus, that's really mean-spirited. - At one point, Lex and Tim are cornered by a Raptor inside the Visitor Center's gift shop. There's a whole sequence where they defend themselves by throwing lots and lots of toys on it, and then make a run to the kitchen. It sounds really silly, almost home alone-esque. - Muldoon is described as having a constant limp. - Instead of a max-security fence, the raptors are enclosed in a pit whose opening is covered with wire mesh. - There are five Raptors. There's no mention of a leader. Here's the death tally: Raptor #1: exploded by Muldoon's rocket launcher. Raptor #2: locked into freezer by Tim and Lex. Raptor #3: killed after eating poisoned egg. Raptor #4: gets electrocuted by the electrified bars of Hammond's quarters when Tim gets the power back on the Control Room. Raptor #5: squashed by the fallen head of the skeleton T. rex in the rotunda. - As the main characters are getting aboard the rescue chopper, Hammond mentions they got a batch of Iguanodon eggs due to hatch on Tuesday when trying to convince them to stay. Too bad the park is already chapter 11. - The final shot of the movie is the survivor's helicopter descending on the cargo ship that was trying to smuggle the dinosaur eggs. I'm not sure what that's supposed to imply, especially considering Grant already convinced it to turn around back to Nublar when he was with the kids on the Control Room.
Some descriptions I found funny:
- "It's A RAPTOR, lean and ferocious. More like a cyborg than a hunter, it studies the kids from just outside the gift shop entrance. " what - "The raptor stops gnawing, its ears perked up" what - "The raptor licks its lips, lizard-like" what - "The raptor is almost on the kids. Grant coughs conspicuously. The raptor whirls, studies Grant. He looks back at the children" I lost it reading this. Jesus, Grant, are you even trying? - "The Rex paws after it, then drops down to four legs and gives the copter a final swipe with its tail". Did the writer forget the size of the T. rex's arms?
Some cheesy lines:
- "Extinct animals should stay extinct!" Gennaro, after panicking and running from the jeep. Maybe you should've waited until you're out of the T.rex earshot before screaming that. - "You don't want to hurt Mr. Regis. Go away. Ed's your friend. Back off!" Ed Regis, to a fully-grown T. rex. - "Yo ho, I'll close this place down ..." Gennaro singing a shanty while high on morphine. - "Oh good, 'cause I love the park! It's more than we ever dreamed! Those brachiosaurs are so big! And those Spitters - (he spits) - incredible! I only have one problem. Aren't we going to have pterodactyls? - (he frowns, smacks his forehead) - Oh, they'd fly away! (Gennaro looks off, watching the imaginary pterodactyls fly away.)" Gennaro to Hammond, while doped. - "There's a raptor on the roof of this building. Open that gate and you're a dead man" Ellie's succinct warning to Alan. - "I just remembered something. Raptors are born in large litters. There's probably more coming" Clutches, Tim. Clutches. - "Hey you cretaceous dromaeosaur, you can't catch me. Hey, come and get me, you flat-snouted Mongolian beast. Hey!" Ellie's idea of an insult to a Velociraptor. And the Raptor actually gets distracted by that. - "And then there were none" Grant's one-liner after the last Raptor is killed. Slow clap.
My vote was for Maisie. That little girl, Isabella Sermon, did a fantastic acting job, and she was definitely the heart of the movie. Easily the best child character in the franchise, and I'm glad the final scenes implied she will be returning for the next movie. Although I guess it wouldn't be above the Jurassic Park franchise to just write her out (Trevorrow: "Oh, they were just dropping her off at Iris's house. Now here's a new child character for this movie!")
I also really liked Mills. Sure, he was slightly cartoonish - especially with his murdering of Lockwood - but he was a very enjoyable villain, and kind of the perfect asshole victim that you can't wait to see his comeuppance. He's kind of how I imagined a proper movie version of Dodgson would be, personality-wise. If we never get a return from Dodgson, I will happily accept Mills as a stand-in for him.
Fully agree with you about Maisie. She's the best kid of JP franchise. They handled her very well. People know that I was the #1 HATER of kids in movies here and when they announced JW FK would have a kid I got super mad. I have to burn my mounth now because she was amazing. Maisie is clever, not annoying and USEFULL. All I wanted for a kid.
About Mills, loved him also (forgot to add him lmao). IMO he's the best villain of the franchise, I like how he's charismatic and flamboyant at first, and then starts showing his darker side (first screaming with Maisie, then with Wu, showing his real intentions to sell the dinosaurs...)
You also like Maisie because....
Spoiler:
She is Wu's greatest creation
Pssst Sickle, no way it's because of that too, I'm not biased.
Yeah, I confess I like her also because of that twist.
My vote was for Maisie. That little girl, Isabella Sermon, did a fantastic acting job, and she was definitely the heart of the movie. Easily the best child character in the franchise, and I'm glad the final scenes implied she will be returning for the next movie. Although I guess it wouldn't be above the Jurassic Park franchise to just write her out (Trevorrow: "Oh, they were just dropping her off at Iris's house. Now here's a new child character for this movie!")
I also really liked Mills. Sure, he was slightly cartoonish - especially with his murdering of Lockwood - but he was a very enjoyable villain, and kind of the perfect asshole victim that you can't wait to see his comeuppance. He's kind of how I imagined a proper movie version of Dodgson would be, personality-wise. If we never get a return from Dodgson, I will happily accept Mills as a stand-in for him.
Fully agree with you about Maisie. She's the best kid of JP franchise. They handled her very well. People know that I was the #1 HATER of kids in movies here and when they announced JW FK would have a kid I got super mad. I have to burn my mounth now because she was amazing. Maisie is clever, not annoying and USEFULL. All I wanted for a kid.
About Mills, loved him also (forgot to add him lmao). IMO he's the best villain of the franchise, I like how he's charismatic and flamboyant at first, and then starts showing his darker side (first screaming with Maisie, then with Wu, showing his real intentions to sell the dinosaurs...)
My vote was for Maisie. That little girl, Isabella Sermon, did a fantastic acting job, and she was definitely the heart of the movie. Easily the best child character in the franchise, and I'm glad the final scenes implied she will be returning for the next movie. Although I guess it wouldn't be above the Jurassic Park franchise to just write her out (Trevorrow: "Oh, they were just dropping her off at Iris's house. Now here's a new child character for this movie!")
I also really liked Mills. Sure, he was slightly cartoonish - especially with his murdering of Lockwood - but he was a very enjoyable villain, and kind of the perfect asshole victim that you can't wait to see his comeuppance. He's kind of how I imagined a proper movie version of Dodgson would be, personality-wise. If we never get a return from Dodgson, I will happily accept Mills as a stand-in for him.
Fully agree with you about Maisie. She's the best kid of JP franchise. They handled her very well. People know that I was the #1 HATER of kids in movies here and when they announced JW FK would have a kid I got super mad. I have to burn my mounth now because she was amazing. Maisie is clever, not annoying and USEFULL. All I wanted for a kid.
About Mills, loved him also (forgot to add him lmao). IMO he's the best villain of the franchise, I like how he's charismatic and flamboyant at first, and then starts showing his darker side (first screaming with Maisie, then with Wu, showing his real intentions to sell the dinosaurs...)
After many hours of research. I have compiled a master list of every prehistoric fauna to appear across the Jurassic Park franchise (films, books, comics, toys, video games, and as artwork or part of the dinopedia/glossary on the JP institute website).
What I did not include in the list were unidentifiable animals from the comics, cancelled toyline figures/video games, or animals that are only mentioned but do not show up on a population count/list or make any sort of physical appearance. Current nomina dubia that haven't been reclassified are placed in a separate section.
Parentheses indicate the following:
* Junior synonyms.
* Specific appearances for the Unspecified Ammonite genera.
* Extant status for certain animals.
* Descriptors indicating that Eucnemesaurus and Unaysaurus are incorrectly depicted.
Jurassic Park: The Game: * Ardeosaurus (skeleton visible on Menu Screen) * Chaohusaurus (poster of skeleton visible in Marine Facility) * Mixosaurus (poster of skeleton visible in Marine Facility)
The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Lost World: The Life and Death of Dinosaurs: * Catopsalis * Macromesodon macropterus * Megazostrodon * Mongolemys * Oreochima * Proganochelys * Trionyx triunguis
Jurassic Park Institute: Dinosaur Field Guide: * Chirostenotes
The Lost World: Jurassic Park Toyline Series 1: * Estemmenosuchus
Jurassic Park Redemption Issue #5: * Gracilisuchus
Funny you mention the Avengers movies. I think we have to keep the possibility of Infinity War going on a rampage like Black Panther has been doing and how it might affect Fallen Kingdom.
Infinity War very well could go on a rampage like Black Panther because it is perhaps the biggest single event movie in years. Honestly when the year is all said and done, it is probably likely the Black Panther and Infinity War are #1 and #2 in some form. Unless we see another run like Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom will probably be finishing in the #3 spot, which is still amazing since #1 and #2 are likely to each gross $650 million+ domestically.
Anyways, with all that said, I don't see Infinity War having much of an impact on Fallen Kingdom directly. There is just too much of a gap between films and that gap only got bigger when they moved Infinity War up a week. When Fallen Kingdom hits theaters(in the US) that would be Infinity War's 9th weekend. It will be a spec on the radar by mid/end of June. For example Black Panther made $26 million last weekend and that was only week 5 for that film. By the time Black Panther hits weekend 9 it is probably only making $3-4 million. Even big event films like TFA($6 million) and JW($1.9 million) were no threat to anyone 9 weeks later.
I would say the worry wildcard is maybe Solo. I don't think that movie is going to do amazing because there seems to be minimal hype and anticipation even from most Star Wars fans. But because it is Star Wars I am sure it will still make a lot of money, just no where near the levels of TFA, Rogue One and TLJ. But even then, that's the 5th weekend for that film when FK comes out.
Deadpool 2 is 6 weeks before, so again shouldn't be much concern by June 22nd. Really I think the only major threat to put a dent in it is Incredibles 2. Its a different target audience than FK, but there is only so much money to go around that weekend and that movie imo will open huge the weekend before. But if Incredibles 2 maybe only makes like $90-100 million its opening weekend, then I think it could be possible that the potential for a $190-200 million weekend for FK could be on the table.
But I think $180 million is probably a more safer and realistic prediction. At least as of right now.
Black Panther has not only made over $1 billion dollars, but has become the first MCU movie to stay at #1 at the box office for 4 weeks in a row. Not even the first 2 Avengers movie have done that.
This movie has destroyed record after record as if they were nothing. Not only that, but I saw that if it stays number 1 for this weekend, it will be the first movie to do so since Avatar.
Topic: 
Subject: 
Sat Jan 27, 2024 12:07 am
(E.g. This bonus feature clip: 
blatantly untrue. Colors of dinosaurs is something that is bran new in the field. We are only just starting to discover the variation and saturation of feathers of the past. Even jack Horner has said there is no reason a large carnivore could not be brightly colors. I think it is unlikely that they were but it is possible.
. 
