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").
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."
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://archive.ph/lBLFE ), "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 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.
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 66th review for this thread is a positive 1 for Lach's I Am NOT 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 for a mostly good book that deserves more attention. Many thanks in advance.
Short version: Is Lach's I Am NOT a Dinosaur! (henceforth NOT) 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 Howard's Earth Before Us series.
Long version: Read on.
1stly, let's get this reference out of the way: "I am NOT an animal...oh wait, I guess I am...I am NOT a dinosaur!"
2ndly, NOT is mostly good, especially when it comes to having good rhymes & paper collages. I say that because, unlike most of my positive reviews, this 1 is mostly about the not-so-good aspects of NOT.
1) NOT's dinos, while mostly accurate, are a bit problematic ( https://dinodadreviews.com/2018/12/05/i-am-not-a-dinosaur/ ): For 1, the T. rex's pose is a shameless rip-off of the Jurassic World T. rex's poses ( https://wallpapersafari.com/w/Gqo62u ); For another, the Triceratops & Stegosaurus are a bit derivative of the Papo toys (which are themselves shameless rip-offs of the Jurassic Park dinos); For yet another, the parakeet is represented by 2 very different species commonly referred to as parakeets, a paper collage Psittacula krameri & a live action Melopsittacus undulatus; Also, there are 3 representative theropods & no sauropodomorphs; Why couldn't the AMNH's Brontosaurus have been featured instead of (or in addition to) their T. rex?
2) NOT's timeline is a bit too abbreviated for my liking (I.e. It begins with the Devonian Period & ends with the Pleistocene Epoch/Present Day, but skips the Carboniferous/Triassic/Paleogene Periods & the Pliocene Epoch). I think this is because the paragraphs about when the featured animals live(d) take up so much space. If so, then why not have those paragraphs in "About the creatures in this book" where they belong? Also, replace the Miocene/Pleistocene Epochs & Present Day with the Paleogene/Neogene/Quaternary Periods.*
3) NOT is annoyingly & confusingly inconsistent in terms of animal names & descriptions: In reference to names, see the Dino Dad Reviews quote; I think each animal should be referred to by both its scientific name & its common name (E.g. I am Lestodon armatus [pronunciation], a kind of ground sloth, which is a kind of mammal; More on this below); In reference to descriptions, some include size or timeline info; Others include both; Still others include neither.
4) There are no cladograms in NOT: My Guide review shows why it's important to not just tell about the science, but also show it (See reason #2: www.amazon.com/review/RP5K90YL2VODH/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ); From my experience, this is especially true when it comes to what is/isn't a dino & why ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-Ben-s-Phylogenetics-is-Moon-Man-Talk-654612768 ); In this case, NOT is good at telling about the science, but not-so-good at showing it given the lack of cladograms; This is especially apparent when it comes to Dimetrodon ("Although it looks like a reptile, the Dimetrodon[...]was an early relative of mammals") & Pteranodon ("Pterosaurs[...]are flying reptiles, close cousins of dinosaurs but on a separate branch of the reptile family tree").
In some instances it refers to the featured animal by its scientific name, while referring to others by their specific popular names, while in still other instances merely applies the name of an entire taxonomic family to the individual species shown on the page. I found this inconsistency a bit confusing. For instance, why not simply refer to “Lestodon” as a giant sloth? If you’ve got an illustration of Glyptodon itself, why refer to it by the general family name of “glyptodont”?
*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.
Update on the shitty situation I've been in at work. Still not talking with the buddy, although she's been laughing at stupid memes I've been sending her lately. Just sucks because we're in month #2 of not having a full conversation. Also, one of the jackoffs that went around spreading that rumor? Apparently hates having his balls busted in a text message because I sent a joke about him and another woman that everyone was joking with him about and he got super offended.
I have a strange feeling I have to open the application after each skin edit. I'm going to try to pinpoint the crash because it just launched successfully after testing one skin. I was editing multiple skins and then not testing if it would run.
I'll do that and report back.
Edit: The galli's new skin didn't completely cover the old galli skin in hex for whatever reason. I believe that caused the crash. Don't know a solution for that so I'm skipping it.
If anyone can provide some assistance on the footer part of multi-skin tmls tutorial I would greatly appreciate it. I believe that is the only part I'm struggling with that is preventing my multi-skins from working. I've read over all three tutorials on the footer information and I think someone needs to update it or put it in video at this point.
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.
I know some fans are cynical about our Rex Spino rematch petition but what those fans fail to see is that by asking for a Rex Spino rematch we are also very clearly asking for Isla Sorna to become an important part of these new sequels and also sending a very clear message to Universal that fans do not want The Lost World or Jurassic Park 3 ignored at all.
Even though JP3 is still considered the most unpopular film in the franchise due in large part to the whole "There is no contest between a Rex and a Spino" fans don't want to pretend it does not exist (myself included).
Also, fans need to realize that if a rematch were to happen (wich I admit seems very unlikely at this point) just because one Spino dies does not mean there can not be another Spino in the movie. Even I want to see more Spinosauruses have more action and cool scenes besides the rematch.
Well, Id say that in a few days Spinosaurus is going to graduate to being the #2 controversial thing in this franchise lol
(yes referring to that massive FK plot twist which will be more public now bc the advanced screenings start tuesday)
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.
My 44th review for this thread is a negative 1 for Miller/Blasing's Dinosaur George and the Paleonauts: Raptor Island. If you haven't already, I'd greatly appreciate you reading & voting "Yes" 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 "Yes" 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: As far as I know, most dino time travel books aren't meant to be educational. Of those that are, I recommend reading White's Dinosaur Hunter: The Ultimate Guide to the Biggest Game in conjunction with other, more educational books (E.g. Naish/Barrett's Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved). Miller/Blasing's Dinosaur George and the Paleonauts: Raptor Island (henceforth DG) fails at being either a decent educational book or a decent science fiction book.
Long version: Read on.
As you may remember, I said that Jurassic Fight Club is 1 of the worst dino docs ( www.amazon.com/review/R2FFY9S77ANRTK/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 ). Despite this, I originally thought that DG was going to be better than JFC given that dino books are usually better than dino docs. Boy, was I wrong about DG! Not only is DG as bad as JFC in some ways, but also as bad as the movie The Lost World: Jurassic Park (henceforth JP2) in other ways. In this review, I list the 4 main reasons why I think that is, besides the annoyingly-repetitive writing.*
1) In DG, George is the only well-defined/developed character, & not in a good way: He's basically an 18-year-old male version of Sarah Harding from JP2 (I.e. A "naive, impulsive paleontologist[...]whose dumb decisions constantly put the team in greater danger");** This is especially apparent when he 1st compares the Saichania's poor eyesight to that of rhinos, but then makes a sudden move; Similarly, in JP2, Sarah 1st explains "the dangers of the bull rex tracking the group with its powerful olfactory sense, but[...then...]brings the jacket coated in the infant's blood with her as they flee."** The other Paleonauts are just character archetypes. More specifically, Vince Witmer is "The Lancer", Lloyd Lance is "The Big Guy", Parker Holtz is "The Smart Guy", & Sonya Currie is "The Chick".** There's also Professor Stone & Dr. Morgan, but they're only in Chapter 1.
2) In some ways, DG's dromaeosaurs are better than JFC's (E.g. They're more fully feathered, though not entirely). In other ways, DG's dromaeosaurs are worse than JFC's (E.g. They have whip-like tails). In still other ways, they're about the same (E.g. They're "super persistent" predators of "impossibly large prey").** This is especially apparent in Chapter 8, when a pack of 30 flightless, blue jay-sized "mini-raptors" attack George over & over again despite being blasted with a surge gun & attacked by a 20-ft constrictor, among other things. Put another way, Chapter 8 is basically an extreme version of JP2's "Compy Attack" scene.
3) I have 2 major problems with DG's story: 1) It's dependent on the reader caring about the characters; See reason #1 above for why that's a major problem; 2) As indicated by its sub-title, DG mostly takes place on/around Raptor Island in Southern Asia, presumably the Gobi region given that that's where all the dinos are from; The problem is that's near the center of the continent, & it's not like Asia ever had an inland sea like the Western Interior Sea of N.America; In other words, DG's story is dependent on a setting that could never have existed.
4) DG's text is hit-&-miss in terms of getting the facts straight. This is especially apparent in "PaleoFacts" because the misses stick out more with less text.*** However, the main text misses may be worse in degree: Like JFC's misses, some of DG's are due to being very outdated (E.g. Compare the Miller/Blasing quote to the Naish/Barrett quote); Also like JFC's misses, some of DG's are due to being very nonsensical (E.g. "A creature, about the size of an owl, suddenly swooped down from its perch above and grabbed the lizard in midair. At first, George thought it must have been some sort of bird, but when it landed on the ground it quickly ran into the woods on only its back legs. It was no bird. It was a flying dinosaur!").
*E.g. The fact that George dislikes guns is stated 4 times in the span of 1 chapter, including twice in the same paragraph.
**Google "The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Film) - TV Tropes" & "Raptor Attack - TV Tropes" for reasons #1 & #2, respectively.
***In "PaleoFacts" alone, it's claimed that Nemegtosaurus was 7 m tall & 15.2 m long (More like 2.46 m tall & 12 m long), Saichania was 2.4 m tall (More like 1.3 m tall), Plesiosaurus was 7 m long & 3 tons (More like 3-5 m long & 150 kg), Plesiosaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous (It didn't), Bactrosaurus means "Bactrian lizard" (It doesn't), & Tylosaurus was 20 tons (More like 4.5 tons), among other things.
Quoting Miller/Blasing:
Quote :
George knew this species. His uncle taught him a lot growing up. Because of that, he knew by the end of the Jurassic Period nearly all members of the Sauropod family had become extinct. A few species managed to survive all the way to the end of the late Cretaceous Period when they, along with all other non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct. The majority of the long necks that survived into late Cretaceous were from the Titanosaurus family. Although not as large as their earlier cousins, they were still massive dinosaurs and among the largest living things on earth by the end of the Cretaceous Period.
Quoting Naish/Barrett (See Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved):
Quote :
As recently as the 1990s it was thought that sauropods were a mostly Jurassic event and that they had largely disappeared by the Cretaceous. We now know that this view was completely inaccurate, and that sauropods were a major presence on many continents throughout much of the Cretaceous. And, rather than being stagnant or static in evolutionary terms, they were constantly evolving new anatomical features and new ways of cropping plants.
I know I sound crazy letting this out of my mouth: Afte reading this article which should probably be reported for criticizing a film that hasn't been released yet,
Why 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' Looks Like A Terrible Idea
and seeing this video get posted on the internet...
I've got to ask this: who among these members feels the imposing threat that Jurassic World poses a threat to Jurassic Park? Granted, JW:FK isn't out until June, but apparently JW haters still do just about anything to get their emotionless monsters on a horror island back where they can milk it dry. In fact, these haters even go so far as to say "Jurassic Park should have been the only movie of it's kind, but oh no, Universal just had to make cliche sequels."
I can sort of see why after seeing the following provisos.
Rule #1: no tamed raptors. Apparently, haters want the JP raptors to stay monsters, despite the fact that if we can tame birds of prey, then these raptors are the stretch goal.
Rule #2: no guardians of the galaxy references, and their "super" Chris Pratt celebrity. I see where the haters are going here, since Owen Grady somehow outran a slow pyroclastic cloud (55 mph, but what do you expect out of a 2010's Hollywood cult?
Rule #3: no super hybrids. Apparently, haters hate the hybrids that are the mascots of Colin Trevorrow's take on the park, despite the fact that Dr. Wu's been hybridizing from the start, not to mention how regular dinosaurs get old pretty fast. Plus, don't forget how the Indoraptor has Jay Bayona fingerprints on it.
I'm just saying, haters who hate what the creators of FK are doing with JP5 shouldn't be making videos and/or posting articles about it, especially if they haven't seen the full movie it, and took notes of human kind's bad habits with modern animals.
Then again, that's just me. What do you guys think?
To me, the anatomy and coloring more closely resembles a Tyrannosaur though, although I could just be telling myself that to alleviate my fear of my favorite dino being killed off
Curiously, I haven't seen any talk about this anywhere and I feel that it's something that's been overlooked.
I don't know if this falls under useless, or potentially helpful. I typed this up a while back, because some mods include, or will include, "additional species" such as: Compies, Apato's, Mamenchi's, and so on. With equinox- tool making some things possible for JPOG's future, it appears that more species will be incoming down the road. It was done to make an attempt to at least give some individuality to those "new" species, and to provide a general Unit ID guide. Many numbers seemed to have gone unused, so someone could assign those numbers to a "new" species, so that they don't *flock with the default JPOG animals, or another new species.
*showing crown and flocking with another species
Some JPOG dinos, however, seem to have compatible Unit ID's with eachother for whatever reason, so they will flock even though they are not the same species and have different ID numbers.
Here's a list of combinations that I've found so far - Unit ID in ( ):
- Camara (37) and Brach (19) - Para (17) and Cory (25) - Stego (15) and Kentro (30) - Tricera (18) and Styrac (27) - Toro (28) and Styrac (27) - Pachy (26) and Homalo (22)
And no, Tricera and Toro don't mix.
In other words, if your Apato (new species) is using ID #37 (Camara), they will flock with Brach or anything sharing those ID's. If you're like me (picky ), then you would prefer to have your Apato's and Mamenchi's flock with their own. If your animals are isolated within their enclosures in Park mode, then these obviously don't matter - but a mixed sauropod safari tour is too good to pass up!
Also, you probably don't want your Compies flocking with Dilo's and Raptor's.
So, here's what I've gathered so that others have some reference (**scrapped dino/available,* indicates not used/found ):
JPOG Unit ID's
Spoiler:
0. Allosaurus 1. Spinosaurus 2. Tyrannosaurus 3. Gallimimus 4. Velociraptor 5. Ceratosaurus 6. Dilophosaurus 7. **Alioramus 8. **Deinonychus 9. **Baryonyx 10. **Ornithomimus 11. Acrocanthosaurus 12. Albertosaurus 13. **Yangchuanosaurus 14. **Diplodocus 15. Stegosaurus 16. Ankylosaurus 17. Parasaurolophus 18. Triceratops 19. Brachiosaurus 20. **Apatosaurus 21. **Iguanodon 22. Homalocephale 23. **Maiasaura 24. Edmontosaurus 25. Corythosaurus 26. Pachycephalosaurus 27. Styracosaurus 28. Torosaurus 29. Dryosaurus 30. Kentrosaurus 31. **Panoplosaurus 32. **Thescelosaurus 33. Ouranosaurus 34. **Tenontosaurus 35. **Wuerhosaurus 36. Carcharadontosaurus 37. Camarasaurus 38. Cow 39. Goat 40. Food Source 41. Hunt Platform 42. Kiosk 43. Maintenance Depot 44. Petting Zoo 45. Road 46. Stadium 47. Viewing Platform 48. Temp Water 49. Copse 50. Pine Tree 51. Monkey Puzzle 52. Bennett Tree 53. Magnolia 54. Toilet 55. * 56. Cleaner 57. Welcome Center 58. * 59. Wall Crn 60. Wall Crs 61. Wall Pst 62. * 63. Wall Sct 64. * 65. Wall 2 Crn 66. Wall 2 Crs 67. Wall 2 Pst 68. * 69. Wall 2 Sct 70. * 71. Wall 3 Crn 72. Wall 3 Crs 73. Wall 3 Pst 74. * 75. Wall 3 Sct 76. * 77. Excrement 78. Visitor Copter 79. * 80. Food Dispenser Carnivore 81. Food Dispenser Herbivore 82. Hatchery 83. * 84. * 85. * 86. * 87. * 88. * 89. JPI 90. Food Bale 91. Balloon Ride 92. * 93. * 94. * 95. * 96. * 97. * 98. Chk Fern Tree Small 99. Chk Fern Tree Medium 100. Chk Fern Tree Large 101. Tree Ferns Small 102. Tree Ferns Medium 103. Tree Ferns Large 104. Paleo Ben Tree 105. J Palm Small 106. J Palm Medium 107. J Palm Large 108. Paleo JP 109. Tall Palm Tree 110. Paleo Cyc Tree 111. D Palm Large 112. * 113. * 114. Acacia Tree 115. Gate 116. * 117. Gate Small 118. * 119. Gate Medium 120. * 121. Gate Large 122. Picnic Area 123. Ranger Depot 124. Viewing Vent 125. * 126. Viewing Vent Small 127. * 128. Viewing Vent Medium 129. * 130. Viewing Vent Large 131. * 132. Visitor Shelter 133. Balloon 134. Tornado 135. Ranger Copter 136. Spheno Tree 137. * 138. * 139. Viewing Vent P 140. Viewing Dome 141. Viewing Dome 2 142. * 143. Ash Tree 144. Safari 145. Food Bale Big 146. Paleo Bale 147. Ranger 148. Aux Staff 149. Meat 150. Meat Big 151. Dino Vet Depot 152. Dino Vet Copter 153. Dino Vet 154. Jeep 155. Wheel 156. Security Camera 157. * 158. * 159. * 160. * 161. Waypoint 162. Camera 163. Avoidance Beacon 164. Avoidance Beacon 2 165. Turret 166. Lure 167. Lure 2 168. Lure Carnivore 169. Lure Herbivore 170. Fountain 171. Meat Piece 172. * 173. Shop 174. Bin 175. Bench 176. Hatchery Power Box 177. Visitor Female 178. Visitor Female 179. Visitor Female 180. Visitor Female 181. Visitor Female 182. Visitor Female 183. Visitor Female 184. Visitor Female 185. Visitor Male 186. Visitor Male 187. Visitor Male 188. Visitor Male 189. Visitor Male 190. Visitor Male 191. Visitor Male 192. Visitor Male 193. Visitor Male 194. Visitor ? 195. Visitor ? 196. Visitor ? 197. Visitor ? 198. Visitor ? 199. Visitor ? 200. Visitor ? 201. Visitor ? 202. Visitor ?
If there are mistakes, feel free to make any corrections.
Edit: Well, after checking some things, it looks like any new species can only be assigned the unused ID's from 7-35. Makes sense. It's better than nothing, I guess.
Edit #2: EchoGreen's comment reflected in ID list.
All I can say is like you. Atleast they spared him from becoming a fairy or some sh*t.
Yes indeed. But by what you told, him making fairy babies is almost as stupid as becoming one.
Were there other non-background humans left by the final season anymore?
[mention]Mistral[/mention] wrote:
[mention]BarrytheOnyx[/mention] wrote:
[mention]Mistral[/mention] wrote:
Oh, you love Gravity Falls too? Awesome
Spoiler:
Also, I am actually a fan of MLP: FiM as well! I usually don't share that little fact with others because there's still something of a brony stigma, but here folks seem pretty chill about it. As much as I really like it, Gravity Falls to me is just better.
Spoiler:
And yes I'm bit iffy in telling my love for MLP as well, which is you know why I still only mention it in kinda non celebrated way even here. It's not fun to get ridiculed for it. I don't actually really even care for the brony/fandom side of it, just the core show and characters itself. Even years later, it's still the best thing ever for me, and it always cheers me up
For me Gravity Falls is in firm {#}2{/#} spot right behind though
Just to add one thing
Spoiler:
At JPL, I did actually have Nightmare Rarity as my avatar. No-one ever harrassed me for that, which was nice. Especially since that place had bit more hostility than this one. But I think I still refrain from showing of too much. I might just show off my other love, Winona
I hope Alex Hirsch returns some day, maybe in five years or something, to make some "specials" like he has hypothesized of maybe doing, but in any case I'm glad he managed to bring the entire story arc neatly together in the 2 season run. Admittedly it was borderline frustrating how Disney placed the episodes here and there months and months away from each other.
I think most people would say that the two seasons we got were perfect and nigh sacrosanct, so adding to that in a whole other season could sully that beloved self-contained entity. However, I would like to see Hirsch make a series of 30 minute, self-contained, individual televised "specials" that depict the characters' lives after the events in the show, those have the potential to be very funny and charming, a bit like the Wallace & Gromit shorts in the UK, or the Toy Story shorts. To me, the potential is there if the crew and cast (no spoilers for those who haven't seen the show or its ending!), should they want to return.
Spoiler:
Also, I am actually a fan of MLP: FiM as well! I usually don't share that little fact with others because there's still something of a brony stigma, but here folks seem pretty chill about it. As much as I really like it, Gravity Falls to me is just better.
I don't think anyone thinks another whole season is to ever happen again. Not Hirsch, who clearly has given it everything he got. Not audiences either. And Disney, even if they ever wanted another one, I'm not sure they were particularly satisfied with season 2 rating to grant another run. And Hirsch wouldn't agree to fully return anyway, and without him it'd be no-go. He's not there for cash, but for the artistic value of the show. I really respect him for that.
Those potential 'specials' would be one off(s) me thinks. Dipper and Mabel in their teens / early adulthood, returning to GF and meeting everybody else grown up and aged, would be neat. Maybe Dipper would finally have a chance with Wendy lol
Spoiler:
And yes I'm bit iffy in telling my love for MLP as well, which is you know why I still only mention it in kinda non celebrated way even here. It's not fun to get ridiculed for it. I don't actually really even care for the brony/fandom side of it, just the core show and characters itself. Even years later, it's still the best thing ever for me, and it always cheers me up
For me Gravity Falls is in firm {#}2{/#} spot right behind though
Nr {#}2{/#} here too, but it was inevitable from all the lore you got from season 1 already.
Ser Barristan's death was probably the most pointless, because A) That's not what happened in the books at all (not that I've read them but his fate was more interesting) B) What exactly did his character achieve between seasons 3-5? His arch really ended in season 1 already, they stopped developing him after that. He became just another counselor that was there. But instead of doing something with him they just ended up killing him anyway many seasons later for no reason.
Second worst is Pycelle. Poor Pycelle. 6 seasons with most of the development in season 1-2 and then again he's just there until pointlessly killed in season 6 finale. In pretty unimaginative way anyway.
The third worst are the pointless minor character shock deaths.
I hate those as well. I liked both of their characters alot. I also thought it made no sense to not just let Pycelle go the Sept, and get blown up with everyone else. Just to have him die at the hands of kids. Maybe to make it more personal? IDK but the kids killing him made me laugh.
It was also stupid how Pycelle's season 1 finale revelation never paid off whatsoever in later episodes, but rather was completely forgotten
There are many side characters that were developed in some episodes, but then completely forgotten and usually killed off for no reason. I think they might have had too many writers and directors in the mix at times.
Anyway, I can't lie, there are still many many amazing and satisfying deaths, even in these later seasons. None of them really pass of what I consider be the greatest death scene ever, Titus Pullo killing Cicero in Rome*, but many are still pretty great. Even beyond the plain obvious ones (Red Wedding, Ned Stark, Oberyn etc)
*Cicero death
Spoiler:
Can you remind me what the revelation was? I forgot
Nr #2 here too, but it was inevitable from all the lore you got from season 1 already.
Ser Barristan's death was probably the most pointless, because A) That's not what happened in the books at all (not that I've read them but his fate was more interesting) B) What exactly did his character achieve between seasons 3-5? His arch really ended in season 1 already, they stopped developing him after that. He became just another counselor that was there. But instead of doing something with him they just ended up killing him anyway many seasons later for no reason.
Second worst is Pycelle. Poor Pycelle. 6 seasons with most of the development in season 1-2 and then again he's just there until pointlessly killed in season 6 finale. In pretty unimaginative way anyway.
The third worst are the pointless minor character shock deaths.
I hate those as well. I liked both of their characters alot. I also thought it made no sense to not just let Pycelle go the Sept, and get blown up with everyone else. Just to have him die at the hands of kids. Maybe to make it more personal? IDK but the kids killing him made me laugh.
It was also stupid how Pycelle's season 1 finale revelation never paid off whatsoever in later episodes, but rather was completely forgotten
There are many side characters that were developed in some episodes, but then completely forgotten and usually killed off for no reason. I think they might have had too many writers and directors in the mix at times.
Anyway, I can't lie, there are still many many amazing and satisfying deaths, even in these later seasons. None of them really pass of what I consider be the greatest death scene ever, Titus Pullo killing Cicero in Rome*, but many are still pretty great. Even beyond the plain obvious ones (Red Wedding, Ned Stark, Oberyn etc)
*Cicero death
Spoiler:
Can you remind me what the revelation was? I forgot
Nr {#}2{/#} here too, but it was inevitable from all the lore you got from season 1 already.
Ser Barristan's death was probably the most pointless, because A) That's not what happened in the books at all (not that I've read them but his fate was more interesting) B) What exactly did his character achieve between seasons 3-5? His arch really ended in season 1 already, they stopped developing him after that. He became just another counselor that was there. But instead of doing something with him they just ended up killing him anyway many seasons later for no reason.
Second worst is Pycelle. Poor Pycelle. 6 seasons with most of the development in season 1-2 and then again he's just there until pointlessly killed in season 6 finale. In pretty unimaginative way anyway.
The third worst are the pointless minor character shock deaths.
I hate those as well. I liked both of their characters alot. I also thought it made no sense to not just let Pycelle go the Sept, and get blown up with everyone else. Just to have him die at the hands of kids. Maybe to make it more personal? IDK but the kids killing him made me laugh.
It was also stupid how Pycelle's season 1 finale revelation never paid off whatsoever in later episodes, but rather was completely forgotten
There are many side characters that were developed in some episodes, but then completely forgotten and usually killed off for no reason. I think they might have had too many writers and directors in the mix at times.
Anyway, I can't lie, there are still many many amazing and satisfying deaths, even in these later seasons. None of them really pass of what I consider be the greatest death scene ever, Titus Pullo killing Cicero in Rome*, but many are still pretty great. Even beyond the plain obvious ones (Red Wedding, Ned Stark, Oberyn etc)
Nr #2 here too, but it was inevitable from all the lore you got from season 1 already.
Ser Barristan's death was probably the most pointless, because A) That's not what happened in the books at all (not that I've read them but his fate was more interesting) B) What exactly did his character achieve between seasons 3-5? His arch really ended in season 1 already, they stopped developing him after that. He became just another counselor that was there. But instead of doing something with him they just ended up killing him anyway many seasons later for no reason.
Second worst is Pycelle. Poor Pycelle. 6 seasons with most of the development in season 1-2 and then again he's just there until pointlessly killed in season 6 finale. In pretty unimaginative way anyway.
The third worst are the pointless minor character shock deaths.
I hate those as well. I liked both of their characters alot. I also thought it made no sense to not just let Pycelle go the Sept, and get blown up with everyone else. Just to have him die at the hands of kids. Maybe to make it more personal? IDK but the kids killing him made me laugh.
Nr {#}2{/#} here too, but it was inevitable from all the lore you got from season 1 already.
Ser Barristan's death was probably the most pointless, because A) That's not what happened in the books at all (not that I've read them but his fate was more interesting) B) What exactly did his character achieve between seasons 3-5? His arch really ended in season 1 already, they stopped developing him after that. He became just another counselor that was there. But instead of doing something with him they just ended up killing him anyway many seasons later for no reason.
Second worst is Pycelle. Poor Pycelle. 6 seasons with most of the development in season 1-2 and then again he's just there until pointlessly killed in season 6 finale. In pretty unimaginative way anyway.
The third worst are the pointless minor character shock deaths.
Well, from my perspective, it is impossible to overtake JP in the {#}1{/#} spot, and that goes for any flick in the world. There is absolutely no question about that. It is in the league of it's own.
So right at the start the highest possible position for JP5 to achieve is {#}2{/#}. Now, given that I don't really love TLW, in fact not even think of it as great film but merely as "alright", you'd think such feat to not that difficult of a task at all. And in a way, it isn't. What you just need is a good solid sit through that I enjoy and that I can see enjoying years later. However, TLW even with it's faults, at least has all the excuses of being the very first sequel. JP5 does not have the same liberties. So even if the new film would have flawless execution in every other area of film making, be it in cinematography and characters and action and effects and whatever else, if the old "island dinosaur escape" and other very much rehashed theme lines from the 90's are there again in any meaningful form, it will rank immediately below the {#}2{/#} spot. I do not appreciate seeing the same thing over and over again - something needs to happen finally to break off the generic formula chains. That is the benchmark of reaching number {#}2{/#}. On top of that almost all of the aspects that made me hate JW would have to be removed and turned into workable solutions, including technical aspects which means making it look like a film and not video game. And from everything I've seen of the production and rumored premise so far, it strongly suggests that there needs to be a miracle to reach this level. I suppose it's still possible, it's not really asking *that much*, but I'm not believing in it.
Now, spot {#}3{/#} is the hot seat. This is the realistic best chance as far as I'm concerned, and I said the same for JW when the new park premise was leaked for the first time. To beat JP3, but still rank below TLW, I merely need a competent film. There can be semi-serious flaws in places, but not so much that one can make giant list of them. What you need first off is decent coherent plot and themes that actually move the series ahead as whole and have some sort of meaning, even if it's minor. On top of that, likeable characters, proper animatronics, no in-your-face fanservice, and canon/continuum of TLW/JP3 should not be totally ignored again. The Nublar return would have to be only a very minor part.
For {#}4{/#}, the requirements really aren't that high. Just something generic that resembles somewhat/barely passable product there or thereabouts. I don't know what else to add there.
Finally to be in the last position {#}5{/#} would require it to be total and utter garbage. It's yet unclear to me how this could be managed to be achieved.
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.
. 
