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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 20, 2023 7:10:48 GMT 5
It could very well be that I have a pretty low standard for Prehistoric documentaries, since I’ve watched majority of them while young and could turn my brain off and go Dinosaurs. I can understand that, really. I used to think just that as well: it's why I used to find crummy, repetitive documentaries like Clash of the Dinosaurs, Monsters Resurrected, Jurassic Fight Club, etc, entertaining. As long as it had dinosaurs duking things out that was good for younger me. Low standards indeed! Thanks! Yeah, I do appreciate your thoughts and it is pleasing to know ours also line up. If a large and vocal enough crowd of viewers can form, it may be hopefully sufficient to convince producers to pay mind to entertainment as a primary facet to help engage the viewers. Definitely not the one, I've never even seen that model before. I hope I'm not making things too difficult, but I won't put the image here because I don't know the creator and therefore can't credit them. It is for that reason that I linked the server channel it is in instead of attaching the image: anyone who is a member of that server should be able to click on the link and be taken there. If you are not a member and want to join for the model then unfortunately it seems like the invite went caput? It would be best if someone who is a member of the server and knows the image source could get it from the server and attach it, I guess. |
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 25, 2023 19:51:39 GMT 5
Ice Worlds:-My second favorite episode in this season! Normally I wouldn't mention episodes besides top and bottom like this, but...this episode deserves the mention for a very special reason. -This episode begins with a Dromaeosaurus at night, hunting in past successful spots on the first day of spring after a lean, dark winter. She has a very nonstandard prey choice of a beetle. -As Attenborough tells us what the Dromaeosaurus is doing, his narration is notably too slow for the CGI pacing in my opinion. First time in the show. -We see the Dromaeosaurus get together with others during the day, to hunt large prey. And it is at this point where my jarring opinions on their color pop up. It's aesthetically appealing but also one I feel is aesthetically discordant with the snowy boreal landscape: colors more akin to a model such as Patch the Troodon in March of the Dinosaurs would be more up my alley. -Same goes for the Edmontosaurus they want to hunt. Something about purplish hadrosaurs in the snow does not sit right with me: maybe because I'm used to only seeing grey Edmontosaurus put against a snow background (it's March of the Dinosaurs again). -From this point onwards, it's difficult for the Edmontosaurus. They must find the safest place to cross an icy river: this is very much akin to what Scar the Edmontosaurus (you know where from!) had to do. But the three tiny Dromaeosaurus seem to cause a very unrealistic amount of panic in the herd that I just don't find entertaining: it reminds me too much of Jurassic Fight Club (ie: one of the few palaeodocumentaries reviewed here that is so bad I won't even review it to mock it). What was shown in March of the Dinosaurs may also play a role in my dislike for what the dromaeosaurs are doing here. They had a big fearsome Gorgosaurus and a whole pack of big, fearsome Albertosaurus to panic their Edmontosaurus herds: both of which were my first impressions of the vast Edmontosaurus herds depicted herein and so set a good, high bar for what dinosaur should be panicking them. -The Edmontosaurus flee from their planned ordinary crossing and a youngster gets separated from its mother, even being swept into some treacherously fast-flowing water. Thankfully they reunite. -At the end of the crossing, the dromaeosaurs are offered a free meal: a casualty of it. Attenborough says there are always casualties, and to me this signaled a huge missed opportunity. I would have found it very entertaining to watch a nonstandard dromaeosaur hunt where all they do is wait until the herd of Edmontosaurus has crossed and then go eat the inevitable casualties without wasting any energy: instead, we get something I found much too reminiscent of Jurassic Fight Club. -Next up are male Ornithomimus building nests on an aesthetically pleasing rocky river island. A latecomer male (whose finding out the hard way that space is tight and banishment to the margins of the island are reminiscent of WWD's Ornithocheirus) must play nest thievery leapfrog to get a head start on his nest. Some attempts are successful, others are not. -He's not alone in playing the thief: it is common enough for some pieces of nest material to have passed through almost all the nests. LOL. -Some potential nest-material-eating Edmontosaurus come along and are warned as doing so. Double LOL. -And here we have another massive missed opportunity: I believe this segment could have been made significantly better with the females stopping by and laying their eggs, or at the very least stopping by even if they don't choose the best nests on screen. As we don't see it, the significance of the nests and competition is very diminished to me. -Now we have the special segment. Some Olorotitan head to warm volcanic soil to nest: their sfx are reminiscent of Dinosaur Planet's Maiasaura. Unlike the Edmontosaurus, I feel their colors go well with the landscape, and it's also a nice touch how Attenborough remarks on the majesty of their neck length. -As the E1 review alluded to, we get a timelapse of the babies growing. It's the first time we get that for babies of any animal in PP, and it's an addition no amount of narration about fast growth can match. -Now for what makes this segment so special. As it turns out, the ecological productivity of the area brings mosquitoes, mosquitoes, and more mosquitoes. -"Hadrosaurs have surprisingly thin skin, and so have little defense against blood-sucking insects". Thank you very much for this statement Attenborough: with it, you caused the longest and most hilarious palaeodocumentary discussion I have ever read. discord.com/channels/410432844209586176/705777314511978538/979692949069770802Infinity Blade is probably going 'Smh' at the mention of this discussion but I just can't get enough of it! LOL. -Of course, for the Olorotitan, the mosquitoes are anything but hilarious. They're so irritating to adults that relief on high, windy mountains must be sought, and can actually drain the babies of blood....which it appears they are doing to an unlucky baby..... -.....which thankfully manages to catch up at the end! Overall a well rounded, funny, and likable segment. -What follows is a Troodon flushing mammals out of hiding by using the flames from a nearby forest fire. Creative execution but I would have preferred this segment to have brighter lighting. In this respect it's a harbinger of what's to come in 4 episodes. -Then some baby Antarctopelta must tough out winter in a den and find their way on their own as they grow. I like how we are shown all this time in the babies' lives as they grow, like the above. -I am also a fan of the aesthetics of this scene, it reminds me of WWD's Spirit of the Ice Forest. However the Antarctopelta are also very similar to some toy ankylosaurs I had as a kid....which really exacerbates the not-completely-real-CGI that I mentioned in E1. -Now for my favorite scene in the whole series with my favorite soundtrack too! Woo woo! -We begin with seeing some pachyrhinosaurs trying to find lunch under thick snow and resolve domestic squabbles. -Quickly, however, they are put in their place by the actual bull-in-charge. At the same time, he has problems of his own: with less food, rebuilding strength and healing wounds is more difficult. -And as it turns out, the whole herd has problems. They are a target for the fiercest predator in the Arctic: Nanuqsaurus. I love the howl-like roars of the nanuqsaurs over the forest view, the ominous start to the soundtrack, and the equally ominous tone in Attenborough's voice here. Their color scheme of brown with a little orange on their heads is appealing too. -This isn't a conflict that will be quickly resolved. The pachyrhinosaurs react to the initiation by moving out of the more dangerous forest...where they are followed and chased by the nanuqsaurs as the soundtrack picks up. "Out here, the herd will be able to close ranks, and form an impenetrable wall of armored heads and muscle". I love this line with this scene! -One of the Pachyrhinosaurus rams and fells a Nanuqsaurus, which then gets up and flees. It's going to regret not finishing the job. -A blizzard descends upon the dinosaurs, and then we are told that these confrontations can last for days. That really cements the seriousness of things! As safe as the herd might be together, though, the nanuqsaurs ain't going anywhere. Even if they have to literally sit and wait it out. -The blizzard's ending brings my favorite part of the whole scene. Such a long wait has made the pachyrhinosaurs very nervous: one animal breaking ranks causes the whole herd to flee and gives the nanuqsaurs their best chance yet. The soundtrack picks up (my favorite part of it!), and shortly after we get an aerial view of the chase. -"As the chase goes on, one tiring bull fails to keep up with the rest. Until all he can do is turn and face his attackers". Very telling! -We end with the nanuqsaurs tucking into a feast, and Attenborough telling us the war will go on all winter. Even though this is my favorite PP scene, this to me leaves something to be desired in the form of a big cliffhanger: it would have been quite nice to see how the tables turn and how both species are affected over the long and hard winter. Overall verdict:A rating I would give this episode's unique mix of factors would be about 2/3, or 67%. Besides the previously-seen contributors to the rating of extra-enjoyable scenes, the occasional nice soundtrack, good/bad aesthetics, and lots of arc-specific improvements to be made, the reminiscence of a shockingly bad palaeodocumentary and a hilarious discussion-causing statement are things it has that no other episode comes even close to.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Sept 25, 2023 21:40:17 GMT 5
No, it's just that you can only view this discussion if you can log in and are actually a member. Otherwise, you'll need to get an invite to the server just to see it, and I doubt most people would care to join a server just to see some long-winded discussion on whether or not some dinosaur had thin or not.
But as for the discussion I had on there, Darren Naish himself seemed to actually agree with the point I brought up on Twitter (i.e. it's skin from a juvenile, so of course it's thin), so I remain firm in my belief that I had a point.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 25, 2023 22:05:18 GMT 5
No, I'm just not sure if we should publicly link to Discord servers on the board, unless we're specifically going out of our way to invite. Granted, you can only view this discussion if you're logged in and actually a member, but I'm still not sure if we should. creature386 what do you think? But as for the discussion I had on there, Darren Naish himself seemed to actually agree with the point I brought up on Twitter (i.e. it's skin from a juvenile, so of course it's thin), so I remain firm in my belief that I had a point. Oh, my apologies if I'm causing any trouble by doing so. If you and creature386 decide the direct links are not a good idea, I am happy to stick to non-link methods like copypasting the relevant Discord text into a quote box. As for your second point, depending on context, it might actually go hand in hand with another one of my observations of this episode (the Jurassic Fight Club resemblance). I have no idea whether Darren Naish had any say on the thin-skin hadrosaur part: if he agreed with your point even before you mentioned it to him, it may be that he did not have say in it. And if this kind of thing (not all of the advisors having a say on everything) was the case, it might be that that's how the Jurassic Fight Club resemblance in the final product came to be: it may not have been noticed by someone who may have seen it. This is of course blind speculation on my part and I may be very off, but it's an interesting thought as to the cause of the unexpected resemblance. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Sept 25, 2023 22:09:42 GMT 5
No, I'm just not sure if we should publicly link to Discord servers on the board, unless we're specifically going out of our way to invite. Granted, you can only view this discussion if you're logged in and actually a member, but I'm still not sure if we should. creature386 what do you think? But as for the discussion I had on there, Darren Naish himself seemed to actually agree with the point I brought up on Twitter (i.e. it's skin from a juvenile, so of course it's thin), so I remain firm in my belief that I had a point. Oh, my apologies if I'm causing any trouble by doing so. If you and creature386 decide the direct links are not a good idea, I am happy to stick to non-link methods like copypasting the relevant Discord text into a quote box. As for your second point, depending on context, it might actually go hand in hand with another one of my observations of this episode (the Jurassic Fight Club resemblance). I have no idea whether Darren Naish had any say on the thin-skin hadrosaur part: if he agreed with your point even before you mentioned it to him, it may be that he did not have say in it. And if this kind of thing (not all of the advisors having a say on everything) was the case, it might be that that's how the Jurassic Fight Club resemblance in the final product came to be: it may not have been noticed by someone who may have seen it. This is of course blind speculation on my part and I may be very off, but it's an interesting thought as to the cause of the unexpected resemblance. It's all good. Actually, I edited my post because I'm no longer certain if it's that big of a deal if we publicly have a link to the server (it's not like we're shady people doing shady things on the server, anyway), but I got ninja'd by you. Bigger thing I have to say now is that most people are not going to be able to view it (or probably care to). If you want, you can basically just summarize the gist of the discussion. Naish did bring up the basis for the hadrosaur skin in a tweet, but I replied to him with the fact that it belonged to a juvenile, which is what made him reconsider. |
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 29, 2023 7:53:04 GMT 5
Forests:-Beginning the episode are some Austroposeidon eating lunch in the woods and being unafraid to knock down trees if they have to in order to get said lunch. Unfortunately, what stands out most here is the need for some arc-specific improvement. I really dislike how we are not told the weight in spite of being told the length (80 feet), which would have been very easy for Attenborough to do and greatly increase the detail/immersion - yet we still don't get it! -Afterwards, there's a montage of plant growth filling in the space the Austroposeidon cleared. A welcome addition to a documentary with ample time for it like WWD (ie: Spirit of the Ice Forest), but I personally feel it would be preferable to show the Austroposeidon a little more: it seems like we only get 2 minutes of them on screen. -Now for Triceratops. I like these models very much aesthetically, but....there's the need for the exact same arc-specific improvement as with above. We are told they can be 26 feet long, their weight is not specified despite the great ease of and resultant immersion from doing so. To counteract the poison in plants they eat, antidotes must be sought - a fascinatingly nonstandard plot twist. The way to said antidotes.....is through treacherous pitch-dark underground cave tunnels in which baby Triceratops can and will lose their way. Oof. -For the Triceratops that haven't lost their way, the antidote at the end of the tunnel is clay licks. Nice touch. -Suddenly the lost baby reappears. I feel it would have been better to have seen some footage of it trying to find its way in the dark, as opposed to suddenly reappearing when we see the rest of the herd get to the destination - that way, I would feel more concerned and immersed. -And following that, Carnotaurus. Everyone's favorite semi-stock theropod for palaeodocumentaries. -A breeding male Carnotaurus must impress a female with a paradise bird-style dance that showcases his tiny and colorful arms. He has to clear himself a spot in the forest to do so - like with the above arc, this nonstandard plot is great to have. -He's failed at doing so - all under some very suspenseful inspection by the larger and more powerful female. Back to litter-picking until the next female - plenty of pathos here. -Arc-specific improvements I would suggest include both a less upbeat soundtrack (the one playing would go better with something like ballet than mating carnivorous dinosaurs in my opinion) and actually seeing some beforehand footage of our male clearing his space foundations, not just clearing the last bits. The latter would be particularly immersive because we'd get a much better sense of the effort he has to put in to get a mate, and the scale of it. -Following this, we get Corythroraptor and Qianzhousaurus. I loooooove the aesthetics of both models: the bright blue Corythroraptor and the tiger-ish striped Qianzhousaurus are right up my alley. -And of course, the former is prey for the latter. A female Qianzhousaurus is stalking some Corythroraptor having gathered round fallen ginkgo fruits - however, she fails at ambushing them, and Attenborough gives a very telling explanation of how "most hunts throughout the history of life, fail, most of the time". -Nice sfx for both animals too. -As the harsh winter approaches, the leaves on the trees change and drop, giving our female a better chance to try again in an autumn storm amongst the distraction of gusting wind and blowing leaves. She succeeds - although this is another example of the lack of gore problem mentioned in Deserts: the Corythroraptor carcass has no blood, bite marks, or ANYTHING on it. -I probably feel differently about this than most viewers because I am so interested in climatology, but I think there was a huge missed opportunity (in arcs following this one) with regards to the importance of seasons/fall foliage to the dinosaurs. Specifically, the shown premise of fall foliage heralding a harsh winter certainly does not apply everywhere. I'm referring to modern-day examples in my climactic expertise area of the Southeast US. Jacksonville and the Everglades - both in Florida - get fall foliage very similar visually to the arc, but neither has winters anywhere near 'harsh'. Jacksonville is decidedly warm in the winter and the Everglades are decidedly hot, in fact.   https://www.reddit.com/r/jacksonville/comments/e2rsfk/fall_leaves_in_jacksonville_florida/   A similarly-themed following arc with another species of dinosaur in a Jacksonville/Everglades-like climate would be great to include some climatological context and the nuances of what fall foliage does or does not indicate. -Then, Edmontosaurus herds must get away from a forest fire, while Atrociraptor and Anodontosaurus return to make the best of the aftermath. I would have much preferred for them to either stick to one species here and focus well on it, or find some way to focus on all 3 at once, given the short length of the arcs. Not big on this arc for that reason. -Afterwards, a more entertaining and nonstandard arc of honey eating baby Therizinosaurus - who have the beehive eaten by an adult before they can have any. It's at night, though, and too dark for me. -Finally, some Zalmoxes juveniles must run a treacherous gauntlet of predator-filled forest. I aesthetically like their models and forest backdrop. -But one gets abruptly eaten by a Hatzegopteryx, who then strolls the beach with a few glimpses of other dinosaurs and flies into the sunset. The aesthetics of the Hatzegopteryx model are not to my taste, and I find this season ending anticlimactic for my taste as well - though I can see how some would like a flying-into-the-sunset-ending. Overall verdict:A rating of 59% is probably best for this episode. Lots of arc-specific improvements needed, a missed opportunity, a total lack of soundtracks I liked, and 2 arcs just plain not being interesting to me would contribute to that decrease in rating from older episodes - but on the other hand lots of nonstandard depictions plus nice aesthetics and dinosaurs is the episode's biggest plus to a degree no other episode yet has.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Sept 29, 2023 8:12:38 GMT 5
I don't know if they had any paleoclimatological basis for this, but from a more speculative perspective, it could be they wanted to demonstrate that even in a generally warm Mesozoic world the winters can be surprisingly harsh in the way we'd imagine a winter to be. Granted, they have the episodes in literal ice worlds for that too, but it could also be that they additionally wanted to demonstrate that an area that's normally hot/warm could also have a real winter-y side.
For example, doesn't Australia sometimes have pretty substantial, snowy winters? I've seen pictures online of Australian marsupials in the snow. Most people think of kangaroos and wombats in a hot Australian scrubland, but the aforementioned pictures demonstrate that they have to weather snowy winters too. Can't speak to what Maastrichtian China was like in climate, though. Plus, good point that winter doesn't necessarily equal hard to endure.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 29, 2023 16:21:48 GMT 5
I don't know if they had any paleoclimatological basis for this, but from a more speculative perspective, it could be they wanted to demonstrate that even in a generally warm Mesozoic world the winters can be surprisingly harsh in the way we'd imagine a winter to be. Granted, they have the episodes in literal ice worlds for that too, but it could also be that they additionally wanted to demonstrate that an area that's normally hot/warm could also have a real winter-y side. I feel as though they should have given much more specification if they wanted to demonstrate either of the bolded, because it's not something I ever got the slightest impression they intended to demonstrate. There was no mention of a normally warm or hot climate having that wintry side whatsoever. If anything I feel it was simply a more cool climate, because if my memory is right Attenborough said leaf change comes early in the forest. For a mostly warm/hot climate having a real wintry side, they could have taken inspiration from Wichita in southern Kansas. Most of the year (7 months) has either warm or hot weather, and although it never gets cold in terms of monthly averages because all months above 0C, a normal year gets to the negative teens Celsius several times with simultaneous chances for snow accumulation - definitely enough to have a real wintry side.  I would be lying if I said I knew enough about Australian climates to pass any judgement on that (haven't really researched any outside North America). But provided that's true - and I see no reason to doubt it at face value - it's another modern day example they could have drawn on besides Wichita. After all, a whole lot of modern animals were the inspiration for the things the dinosaurs were doing. Why not specific backdrops too? Ultimately though, yes, my main interest would be for them to show how leaves changing color does not necessarily equal a harsh winter. And while entertainment is of course the sole factor of my ratings, for those watching to be educated it might be a good learning experience against nonsensical, possibly common impressions about what fall color means that would dictate Jacksonville and the Everglades are closer in climate to Minneapolis than Miami->.Time to begin Season 2's reviews! |
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 29, 2023 20:50:14 GMT 5
Islands:
-To begin, some Alcione and Zalmoxes must make use of treacherous vegetation rafts in the ocean following a tropical storm.
-Alcione can fly away from the hungry mosasaurs that make using said rafts so treacherous, but Zalmoxes is not so lucky. It must swim to a much larger, safer, and more substantial raft...which thankfully it gets to.
-On the large raft, our Zalmoxes sees a female and the two are stated by Attenborough to have potential to start a new species elsewhere.
Love it.
-Then, on some actual European islands we get tiny Tethyshadros.
Although I like their pine sapling backdrop because it looks similar to aesthetically pleasing Southeast US pine forest, I'm not such a big fan of it with the hadrosaurs for some reason. I think it's because their color camouflage is a little too good for my taste - as useful as camouflage can be for herbivorous dinosaurs, I would have preferred the aesthetics of dinosaurs that stand out a little more from their surroundings so it's less monotonous.
-"Hunters like T. rex have never reached this little island, so it should be a safe place for a mother to raise her brood".
Attenborough, you really shouldn't be lying to those poor dinosaurs with statements like the bolded. It's good that you rectify it in time, but if you did not, you might have duped more species of herbivorous dinosaurs and their young into making the mistake of coming here.
-And now we find out the reason for Attenborough's much needed rectification. Hatzegopteryx hunting parties!
They land very fast, can run even faster, and fastest of all can snatch up baby Tethyshadros in an instant. Adults and young alike must run in fear...and all of this is terrifying.
-Once the adults have safely reached the tall tree canopy the Hatzegopteryx can't get to, they realize some juveniles have been left behind in the saplings. And then one adult makes arguably the worst mistake that can be made besides going to get them: calling to them.
The Hatzegopteryx pick up on that, and begin plodding through the saplings to flush out the youngsters. And unfortunately for the youngsters, they run in fear instead of doing the smart choice of staying completely still, which gets one of them eaten.
-It's very much akin to when Babble the Australopithecus' youngster in WWB's Next of Kin calls out to Babble once he was separated from her by a Deinotherium, which the elephant picks up on. Only this time, not everybody gets away from the trouble in one piece.
-Overall, as much as an unpopular opinion as it may be.....I found the Planet Dinosaur Hatzegopteryx hunt more entertaining. The aesthetics were more to my taste, the soundtrack fit better with what was happening, and the impact of pterosaurs eating SAUROPODS was completely irreplaceable with hadrosaurs.
My main arc-specific improvements would of course be the aesthetics (not just the Tethyshadros but the Hatzegopteryx was the same S1 model I wasn't a fan of aesthetically) plus the soundtrack (I felt it was nowhere near dynamic enough to capture the essence of what was happening, a mix of modified and unmodified Lizards OST as I outlined in the mix and match thread would have been very preferable). But for viewers who don't have these gripes, it would be an all around satisfying scene.
-Then Simosuchus. Unusual, herbivorous crocodiles that are so heavily armored that sometimes they can afford to drop their guard.
Yeah, that's right. Sometimes, and this is not one of those times: a very hungry female Majungasaurus is hunting them.
-Right here is my complaint about this segment. It's said that the Majungasaurus is blind in one eye, and is finding it hard to make a kill - and as is I don't have a problem with it, but since learning that there was supposed to be some extra context showing beforehand how she became half blind (a Mahajangasuchus attack), I'm quite disappointed there wasn't as that would have greatly increased context and immersion.
-Back to the hunt, the Majungasaurus cannot catch up to most of the Simosuchus before they reach their pre-dug burrows that are inaccessible to her. Reminds me of the WWM gorgonopsid and Diictodon.
-The keyword here is most. She catches up to one....
.....but just because she does doesn't mean it's toast. He's actually able to fight her off by being much feistier than expected and therefore subverting her expectations, long enough to get to a burrow.
-Then, we get another one of Madagascar's unusual animals: a big Mesozoic mammal called Adalatherium. And I like the 'discovery-ish' soundtrack here.
-I too was convinced she would eat the eggs that we aren't explicitly told are hers. And when they hatch I have to applaud the producers for using some real pinkie mice as stand-ins: it's a great step up from my previously mentioned long-running issue with PP of not-completely-real-CGI.
-To ensure all those fast-growing babies have enough milk, she must forage more and more, leaving her babies alone for longer and longer.
The first time around, she does so at night, having to stay completely still to avoid the attentions of the female Majungasaurus from earlier. We also get a harbinger into an event later, with a glimpse of a snake watching from the sidelines.
The second time around, she does so during the day. And things get extra scary!
-A Masiakasaurus is hunting burrows that day, and the soundtrack picks up to an ominous/investigative mix - another of my favorites in PP. It pokes its head into several, and as it gets closer and closer to the Adalatherium burrow....
....we are told that hunters may themselves become the hunted, instead of seeing it eating some of the babies like we were all expecting. A surprise Madtsoia (which was the night snake) attack rounds out the Masiakasaurus' appearance well.
-The mother returns, decides things are too dangerous, and must move her young.
And here we have the need for some arc-specific improvement. As nice a change of pace the Madtsoia attack on the Masiakasaurus threat was, it would have been much more realistic and therefore immersive to see at least a few of the babies get eaten by something to really cement the mother Adalatherium's decision to move.
It could be akin to, for example, the WWD New Blood cynodonts that get some of their babies eaten by Coelophysis.
-Now we move to Antarctica, and the dinosaurs we see are Imperobators, which we get thermal imaging of.
-Right off the bat, there's one gripe I have with the segment. This episode would have fit considerably better in Ice Worlds in Season 1: it's of course not the first time they messed up the theme, but it is the first in this season.
-They must hunt quite a bit to maintain their body heat, although the thick snow works to their advantage by letting them move quietly.
-Their choice of target is a Morrosaurus - an herbivore having a tough time in the snowy and cold winter.
And with the Morrosaurus comes the next gripe with this segment. The sfx are in my opinion much too deep for a small ornithopod: something more akin to WWD's Leaellynasaura clicks would seem a better fit to me.
-The Morrosaurus sees falling snow as an indicator that it's being stalked, and runs for its life, with the Imperobators in hot pursuit. Both come to a frozen lake where things seem to even out....but one Imperobator slips and lets it get away.
The soundtrack is moderately good for me.
-Finally, a Hatzegopteryx male has flown to a small, sandy island with a Tethyshadros kill. He proceeds to set up a mating display with said kill and some sticks.
I like this male's mating colors much more than the standard model, that's for sure.
-As a female arrives, he presents her with his kill to prove his skills and strength, followed by a synchronized dance featuring head lifting and beak clapping.
He gains her trust.....
-.....but someone shows up to spoil the fun: a rival male who scares the female away.
Our male needs to fight off his rival, which he successfully and quickly does, shortly followed by the female returning and their mating. Evidently his ability to fight off a rival so easily is another point in his favor for the female.
And our male will need to repeat his displays over and over to get more females.
-Here we end the episode. I will take this chance to point out some arc-specific improvement: I would have felt significantly more pathos for our male had he been fighting his rival for longer, and had to wait longer for the female to return.
The very short time the fight took, and the fast return of the female, failed to let any immersing concern build up for me. An example of a show they might take inspiration from is WWM Water Dwellers: I felt much more concerned for the male Hynerpeton given his longer fight and wait for a female.
Additionally, a little more context about how our male will repeat his displays would be nice. How often does he need to stop to find food? How often for water? How long until that Tethyshadros corpse rots and he must find a new one? How many females must he attract? And so on.
Overall verdict:
As with Forests I'd also give this episode a 59%. The soundtracks that fit poorly for my taste, several aesthetics not to my taste, and (like Forests) a ton of substantial yet easy arc-specific improvements are all necessitating the decrease from prior episodes, but the one good soundtrack, plot twists, occasional good aesthetics, and nonstandard plots help make up for that.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Sept 30, 2023 23:08:43 GMT 5
Badlands:-In the first arc, some female Isisaurus are treading through very treacherous volcanic badlands to reach nesting areas. My favorite PP sauropods aesthetically, tied with the Dreadnoughtus. -The main danger they face is not the lava but rather poisonous gas in low lying areas where their necks can't reach out of. Unexpected! -When they reach the nesting grounds inside what looks like a dormant volcano, we are told just how ideal it is for the eggs. There is inbuilt geothermal heating and the surrounding area ensures protection from predators. -I would have suggested seeing the babies hatch out and get out for some arc-specific improvements, but as we will find out later, no suggestion needed. This I have to applaud PP for: it's a case where the near-constant of easy arc-specific improvements being lacking has been thrown as far to the curb as it could have been tossed! Overall, even though it does not fully measure up to them, this arc actually comes pretty close to the sauropod nesting scenes in WWD Time of the Titans/DP Alpha's Egg/PD New Giants that are my favorite depictions of sauropods doing so. Another round of applause for PP from me. -Unfortunately, what follows is a scene for which I would not only retract 2 rounds of applause worth but still have complaints about even after doing so. We start off with some baby Velociraptors being raised somewhere relatively desolate - their chances of growing up well depend on how good the hunting several miles away is. A unique and nonstandard depiction...and it is the only part I don't have complaints about. -Then we see what said hunting several miles away is like. In treacherous rocky canyons, a mixed herd of nemegtosaurs, giant Mongolian Titanosaurs, and Prenocephale must find their way out all while trying to escape some hungry Tarbosaurus. The atmosphere of the scene gets more intense as panic spreads within the herd and the tarbosaurs get closer and closer. Surely we can see these Tarbosaurus attempt a group hunt on some of these sauropods....right? -NOPE. Nein. No way. Nuh uh. Not on your life. Ain't happening. Zero zip zilch nada. All this was just a lead-up to the Velociraptor hunting the Prenocephale who also flee from the tarbosaurs. Been there, done that, and it was more enjoyable for me (DP) because it wasn't a massive disappointment resulting from expectations of never-tread-before-ground abruptly deflating against very much tread ground in not just other palaeodocumentaries but this very same one (we already saw 2 Velociraptor hunts). The only thing we see of the Tarbosaurus afterwards is their gathering round a sauropod that primarily seems to have died because it tripped and broke a leg. SMH. -Seriously though, would it have killed the producers to have depicted something newer for a change? We don't have ONE palaeodocumentary with tyrannosaurids hunting sauropods yet: to my knowledge we've only got abelisaurids (like DP), carcharodontosaurids (DP again, CBD, PD, etc), and Allosaurus (WWD, DR, etc) hunting adults. Literally all of those are the blatantly obvious go-to choices for types of theropod to have in a palaeodocumentary sauropod hunt, and S2's trailers really seemed to be teasing a sauropod hunt on the part of the Tarbosaurus - surely they were aware of this. I don't want to turn reviewing this episode into a gripe-fest about this particular letdown, so I'll get to the next thing about this arc after this. But as much as I like what Patchy the Pirate has to say in Infinity Blade 's comment, there is no meme or word in the English language that can appropriately voice my disappointment at no sauropod hunt - the only thing that could would be some sauropod-hunting Tarbosaurus in a future palaeodocumentary capable of appropriately expressing their hunger for excitedly-hunted sauropod meat via intensifying the hunt after their being denied some by PP. -The final gripe with this segment I have is that it is a particularly badly-executed example of the consistent lack of gore. Given that we've got TWO simultaneous carnivorous dinosaur hunts (one with Asia's answer to T. rex, one with a dinosaur BEING KICKED OFF A GODDAMN CLIFF), the lack of, for example, any sauropod/Prenocephale blood on the rocks after their falling seemed more deliberate than anything. -Next up, thankfully, a very nice segment. The Corythoraptors from S1 return: here is a group of males guarding the nests of females they have mated with. They really don't like doing it in the scorching heat of the day. How understandable LOL. -At night, they finally have a chance to find food and take a break, plus they can reap the advantage of colony life by having everyone else keep an eye out for trouble. But colony life ain't foolproof! A hungry Kuru kulla manages to sneak in undetected and feast on multiple eggs from an unguarded nest, even being able to snatch one to take with her when she is detected and has to flee. -With this egg she feeds her own babies. Reminds me of DP White Tip's Journey where White Tip fed her babies with baby Oviraptors. -After this, a thirsty young Tarchia (which has an aesthetically nice model) must use its memory to trudge through some even more brutal desert heat and get to a waterhole. When it does get there, some greedy and tiny Prenocephale try to make it go away LOL. But a simple display of its club shuts them up. -The other thirsty adult Tarchia is a whole different ballgame. It's twice the size of our Tarchia - Attenborough is spot on that the youngster isn't winning. But thankfully, our youngster has backup! Its companion that it was searching alongside shows up just before things come to a serious fight, and the adult makes the wise choice that there should be enough water for everyone on the basis of being outnumbered 2:1. -For the end we return to the baby Isisaurus: they are finally hatching. And they are quite cute too. The first thing they see is a very literal shitload of benefits. The gargantuan dung pile left behind by their mothers is high in nutrients, a good source of healthy gut bacteria, and a beacon of pheromones to help them find the herds of their mothers. -When they get out of the volcano, they have an advantage their mothers did not: no poisonous gas! Thanks to seasonal wind direction changes (which as a fan of climatology I appreciate hearing referenced), the poisonous gas is blown away at hatching time. -That does not mean their trek to the forest is fully safe. We don't see it die, but there is a baby that slips, falls into a bubbling geothermal area, and can't get out. -There are still benefits on the way for the survivors, though. More dung-related benefits come up when the babies are running low on energy after 2 days: new plant growth from seeds in their mother's dung. I love all the positive plot twists here. -And now it's disadvantage time. The same lack of poisonous gases that makes for safe baby-passage also makes for safe predator passage. Some hungry Rajasaurus show up in droves, and they completely DGAF about the rocky/possibly difficult terrain. To them the babies are the world's tastiest popcorn. -It's reminiscent of what Dragonfly's first hunt in DP Alpha's Egg was like. I found DP's baby sauropod hunt more entertaining of course, but this was none too shabby thanks to showing the determination of the predators which Dragonfly sorely lacked LOL. -We end on a pleasing note with several survivor babies. Ah, yes. Overall verdict:As much as I appreciate the aesthetics, positive plot twists, positive ending, breaking of PP's trend of needing huge numbers of arc-specific improvements, and how this episode favorably compares to my favorite palaeodocumentaries in comparable arcs, I would give it 57-58% - the second lowest rating yet. The disappointment and its sheer scale in the second arc are the reason for that.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Oct 1, 2023 3:00:28 GMT 5
But as much as I like what Patchy the Pirate has to say in Infinity Blade 's comment, there is no meme or word in the English language that can appropriately voice my disappointment at no sauropod hunt - the only thing that could would be some sauropod-hunting Tarbosaurus in a future palaeodocumentary capable of appropriately expressing their hunger for excitedly-hunted sauropod meat via intensifying the hunt after their being denied some by PP. Not that the creators of PhP really knew this at the time, but now I'm curious as to how Tarbosaurus would hunt, especially large prey, in light of a recent paper (which I posted the abstract and link to in the animal feeding apparatus thread). It found that for a tyrannosaurid, it had comparatively less room for jaw adductor muscles for its skull length. As a result, its total bite force was actually somewhat less than that of Daspletosaurus, despite the latter having a skull slightly shorter, while T. rex seems to blow Tarbosaurus out of the water. While it is rather a myth that Tarbosaurus had a narrower snout than T. rex proportionately, it did have a narrower posterior region of the skull, so it doesn't surprise me that it had less room for jaw adductors. anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.25326I don't think it really made up for this with more blade-like teeth either. In cross section its teeth were indeed oval and wider anteroposteriorly than laterally, but they're still only said to be "slightly" compressed ( Maleev, 1955). With this difference between their feeding apparata, it would be neat to see paleontologists' take on how Tarbosaurus would hunt, if it differed at all. Given that we know Tarbosaurus fed on (and sometimes must have hunted) large dinosaurs like Deinocheirus and the resident large sauropods and ornithopods, it was clearly doing something right with that maw. My only guess is it basically just went "f*ck it" and went after big dinosaurs anyway (maybe it just shook and pulled with its neck even more or something idk). Grey wolves, for instance, have weaker skulls and less robust canine teeth than spotted hyenas, but to my knowledge they can take prey every bit as big as what hyena packs can take down with the same killing technique (i.e. multiple shallow, slashing bites from all the pack members). I know dinosaur power scaling isn't your cup of tea anymore, but I do think this is an interesting and legitimate consideration. EDIT: I might actually have been kind of wrong with regards to Tarbosaurus' teeth ( Reichel, 2012). Interestingly, Tarbosaurus had the most amount of variation in tooth morphology out of the tyrannosaurids in this dataset. That included the most labiolingually compressed teeth in it (as well as the exact opposite). So maybe its teeth were at least somewhat better suited for cutting flesh, after all. |
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Post by Supercommunist on Oct 1, 2023 4:37:14 GMT 5
Coyotes despite being mesopredators are known to kill moose in certain conditions. cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/cjz-2013-0160I suspect tarbosaurus had something going for it, but even if it's bite was underwhelming by giant theropod standards just having ziphodont teeth would probably make it better adept at killing much larger animal than itself than many modern carnivores. I suspect the reason North American wolves and coyotes get away with killing large animals is lack of competition. Besides omnivorous grizzlies, wolves only have to deal with cougars which aren't large enough to challenge a pack of wolves. |
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Post by dinosauria101 on Oct 1, 2023 5:02:26 GMT 5
But as much as I like what Patchy the Pirate has to say in Infinity Blade 's comment, there is no meme or word in the English language that can appropriately voice my disappointment at no sauropod hunt - the only thing that could would be some sauropod-hunting Tarbosaurus in a future palaeodocumentary capable of appropriately expressing their hunger for excitedly-hunted sauropod meat via intensifying the hunt after their being denied some by PP. Not that the creators of PhP really knew this at the time, but now I'm curious as to how Tarbosaurus would hunt, especially large prey, in light of a recent paper (which I posted the abstract and link to in the animal feeding apparatus thread). It found that for a tyrannosaurid, it had comparatively less room for jaw adductor muscles for its skull length. As a result, its total bite force was actually somewhat less than that of Daspletosaurus, despite the latter having a skull slightly shorter, while T. rex seems to blow Tarbosaurus out of the water. While it is rather a myth that Tarbosaurus had a narrower snout than T. rex proportionately, it did have a narrower posterior region of the skull, so it doesn't surprise me that it had less room for jaw adductors. anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.25326I don't think it really made up for this with more blade-like teeth either. In cross section its teeth were indeed oval and wider anteroposteriorly than laterally, but they're still only said to be "slightly" compressed ( Maleev, 1955). With this difference between their feeding apparata, it would be neat to see paleontologists' take on how Tarbosaurus would hunt, if it differed at all. Given that we know Tarbosaurus fed on (and sometimes must have hunted) large dinosaurs like Deinocheirus and the resident large sauropods and ornithopods, it was clearly doing something right with that maw. My only guess is it basically just went "f*ck it" and went after big dinosaurs anyway (maybe it just shook and pulled with its neck even more or something idk). Grey wolves, for instance, have weaker skulls and less robust canine teeth than spotted hyenas, but to my knowledge they can take prey every bit as big as what hyena packs can take down with the same killing technique (i.e. multiple shallow, slashing bites from all the pack members). I know dinosaur power scaling isn't your cup of tea anymore, but I do think this is an interesting and legitimate consideration. I would actually agree with you on the interest/legitimacy: in fact I would be interested in knowing inasmuch as it would affect palaeodocumentary depictions, despite not caring about dinosaur power scaling anymore. Shaking and pulling prey is not exactly standard protocol for CGI tyrannosaurids thus far: might be an interesting twist narrative/plot-wise for Tarbosaurus palaeodocumentaries. However, here's something besides Tarbosaurus I think you should be aware of. One thing that excerpt makes me remember with the mention of Yutyrannus is that shortly before I decided dinosaur power scaling was no longer my cup of tea, I was doing some that suggested at least one Yutyrannus specimen would have had a VERY strong bite force for its size. From what I remember, the specimen in question was one I estimated to be about 418 kilos, but had a larger (80cm) and more robust skull than an Allosaurus (79cm skull) which was estimated to be 1600 kilos (so 3.8X bigger) and have an 8724N bite force.  From what I remember about how to scale bite force, this Yutyrannus would probably have a bite force proportionally stronger than Stan the T. rex given the size estimate of 5900kg I was using at the time. Even assuming said Yutyrannus had the same bite force as that Allosaurus without taking into account the greater depth, width, and fused nasals of the skull, it ends up right within the range of Stan's estimated bite force (5900/418^0.67*8724=51404N, at the higher end of the 35-57kN estimate range for Stan). And if we were to take into account the >8724N bite force the Yutyrannus would have, it would certainly bite proportionally harder than Stan. The reason for Yutyrannus catching up to/beating Stan despite NOT being as specialized for bite force probably is much bigger skull than Stan relative to its size. If I remember right Stan has a 1.4m skull, so a hypothetical Stan sized Yutyrannus would have a 1.93m skull - that's a discrepancy dimensionally of about 38%. All this was on the Discord. You can view the conversation here: discord.com/channels/410432844209586176/410433716666499073/809386967011557396Now, as much as I would be lying if I said I was still interested in or had any idea how well this holds up to what is known nowadays, I figured you could benefit from knowing given how it covers broadly the same thing as that paper. After all, that's what friends are for.  |
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Post by theropod on Oct 1, 2023 20:25:40 GMT 5
@dinosauria
You mean this?
Well, I would say that the most likely issue that the mass estimate is off. The paper just cites Christiansen and Fariña 2004 without giving any detail on which equation they used, but at the very least this method should be somewhat suspect due to the questionable reliability of the base data and the small sample size that study used.
Xu et al. 2011 also estimated ZCDM V5001 at 596 kg, not 419 kg. The latter figure isn’t actually in the paper. Even the estimate that’s in the paper seems curiously low, considering that the sum of all the bone dimensions listed in the supplement for V5001 is about 86% that of ZCDM V5000, suggesting it should be about 64% of the mass, or 906 kg based on their estimate for the larger specimen.
And also, the formula is wrong, it should be (6500/419)^0.667, not "divided by 1.33".
And then of course we don’t know the actual dorsal view of the skull of Yutyrannus, it being compacted. Using the one of much smaller, smaller-headed Dilong isn’t necessarily representative.
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Post by dinosauria101 on Oct 1, 2023 20:58:52 GMT 5
@dinosauria You mean this? I'm not referring to that. I am referring to what I outlined in my above comment, that was indeed a mistake with the formula and was realized almost immediately even back then. My above comment fixes that problem. I never went off of the mass estimates in the original paper in the first place. My memory of this is not particularly good, but here's what I think I was doing: -First off, there was a volumetric estimate for ZDCM V5000 that ended up as 1100 kilos. Considering what I will write below, even that was 314 kilos smaller than the OG paper's estimate, leading to a distrust on my part of the estimates on the basis of very likely being too high. -Next off, the top view for that estimate was Greg Paul's Daspletosaurus. The tail was shrinkwrapped, but although I have done no volume estimates of my own to verify this, it appears fixing that would lead to a much smaller increase than the total decrease from narrowing the torso+hips+probably neck. And although this remains more guesswork on my part, it seems likely that such changes would fit within a 935 kilo estimate for ZDCM V5000 I had seen from around the time the estimate was made (so likely was with respect to correcting the overestimate from a Daspletosaurus top view).  The takeaway here, I suppose, is that I seriously doubt ZDCM V5000 was even 1100 kilos given the trouble that came with that estimate - even if it wasn't 935 kilos. -Finally, what I did was go off of femur length to estimate ZDCM V5001's size. So: 935/(85/65)^3=419 kilos. In saying that, though, I did not know the bolded. I don't know if I would go off of the sum of them all compared to (what I think I was told are) major and consistent bones like the femur because not all the specimens had the same proportions (eg: ZDCM V5001 has a larger skull compared to its femur than ZDCM V5000), but if it can be demonstrated that doing so would be better than femur length, I wouldn't argue with it. Amended. Yeah...that was a problem I discussed with other members on the Discord, which the best suggestion was the closest relatives that have top views for the skull available. The main thing I remember thinking was that despite us not knowing for sure, it seemed very unlikely for Yutyrannus NOT to have at least a somewhat wide skull, given not only how robust it is from the side but the fact that even Dilong, Guanlong, etc are (as I was told) fairly wide even relative to their lack of robust skulls. Now I guess I can provide further comparison to my original point. Just for the sake of comparison I will be using the probable overestimated bases for ZDCM V5001's size of a 1100 kilo ZDCM V5000 and ZDCM V5001 being 64% the size of ZDCM V5000 instead of about half the size - as well as staying consistent with the certain underestimate of 8724N for ZDCM V5001's bite force. So, if we scale a 704 kilo, 8724N bite force ZDCM V5001 up to the size of a 5900 kilo Stan with a 35-57kN bite force, we end up with about 36kN for a hypothetical Stan sized ZCDM V5001 - still within Stan's range (even if within the lower part) despite the overestimate for ZDCM V5001 and underestimate for its bite force. I think the point about ZDCM V5001 having a bite at least as proportionally strong as Stan would stand. |
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