Prehistoric Warfare Episode 4: Apatosaurus vs Saurophaganax

Now for something different. In 2004, Animal Planet showed as new series called Animal Face Off, a series reconstructing conflicts between coexisting animals. While the execution was clumsy and lacking, the concept is strong and I think easily applied to prehistoric fauna.  Ideally, there would be professionals discussing the situations, but unfortunately, you have only me. First I will compare the animals, and then depict their behavior, before concluding with the final battle.  The outcome will be my personal opinion; and there would be many times when the outcome would be decidedly different. This is not a scientific consensus, but one researcher’s opinion.

We all love dinosaur battles. They’re always a high point in a film. It’s childish, but it’s just plain fun. So, I’m hoping to use this opportunity to use this almost-universal appeal to get people thinking and talking about ecology, biomechanics, and behavior. Only one or two of these stories will be based on actual fossils-the rest are likely possibilities that must have happened sometime or another. In real life, animals usually don’t fight on even terms, but it does happen. Sometimes prey turn the tables, sometimes predators quarrel between themselves, but it can happen. I hope you enjoy this. Again, first I will have two scenes, one for each animal showing them in their habitat and showcasing their particular skills, then finally concluding with a battle between the two.


I MUST WARN THAT  THIS WILL BE VIOLENT. IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULARLY VIVID IMAGINATION, OR HAVE AN AVERSION TO GRAPHIC NATURALISTIC VIOLENCE, I STRONGLY SUGGEST NOT CLICKING ON THE CUT

Top 10 Dinosaur fights in fiction

Everyone loves dinosaur fights. All the best dinosaur films have them. What’s better than big, bizarre prehistoric creatures? When they duke it out! They can be violent, they can be bloody, but they’re always exciting.  The very first would be the Ghost of Slumber mountain, where two Triceratops duel and one of them is then killed by a Tyrannosaurus in a fight. The last would be the Pachyrhinosaurus-Gorgosaurus brawl at the climax of Walking With Dinosaurs.  Hopefully this year’s Jurassic World will have the decency of giving us one.  Most of these fights are wildly anachronistic between supersized versions, and some of them involve animals that are not dinosaurs or even real animals, but it gives that element of fantasy that dinosaurs invoke by their very prescence. This list is entirely subjective, so I’ll leave a long list of runners up first-

Prehistoric Warfare Episode 3: Allosaurus vs Stegosaurus

Now for something different. In 2004, Animal Planet showed as new series called Animal Face Off, a series reconstructing conflicts between coexisting animals. While the execution was clumsy and lacking, the concept is strong and I think easily applied to prehistoric fauna.  Ideally, there would be professionals discussing the situations, but unfortunately, you have only me. First I will compare the animals, and then depict their behavior, before concluding with the final battle.  The outcome will be my personal opinion; and there would be many times when the outcome would be decidedly different. This is not a scientific consensus, but one researcher’s opinion.

We all love dinosaur battles. They’re always a high point in a film. It’s childish, but it’s just plain fun. So, I’m hoping to use this opportunity to use this almost-universal appeal to get people thinking and talking about ecology, biomechanics, and behavior. Only one or two of these stories will be based on actual fossils-the rest are likely possibilities that must have happened sometime or another. In real life, animals usually don’t fight on even terms, but it does happen. Sometimes prey turn the tables, sometimes predators quarrel between themselves, but it can happen. I hope you enjoy this. Again, first I will have two scenes, one for each animal showing them in their habitat and showcasing their particular skills, then finally concluding with a battle between the two.


I MUST WARN THAT  THIS WILL BE VIOLENT. IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULARLY VIVID IMAGINATION, OR HAVE AN AVERSION TO GRAPHIC NATURALISTIC VIOLENCE, I STRONGLY SUGGEST NOT CLICKING ON THE CUT

Editorial: Godzilla and the dinosaurs of Toho

Today we’re not going to do a movie review, but we are going to look at a popular movie figure that has represented dinosaurs in his own way for decades. Yes, Godzilla. I’m a big fan of the Godzilla series-yes, only the first and maybe Godzilla vs Destoroyah can be taken with an iota of seriousness, but they’re entertaining sci-fi/fantasy movies that I enjoy watching. I’m an attendee at the largest Godzilla convention, G-Fest in Rosemont, Illinois, and I always have fun going.

The question always comes up; is Godzilla a dinosaur? Well, sort of. You see, the Godzilla script from Tomoyuki Tanaka’s first story outline to Ishiro Honda’s shooting screenplay never clearly defined Godzilla as a dinosaur. The name Gojira comes from the idea of the monster being a sort of gorilla-shaped whale. Godzilla, was in fact, very much inspired by King Kong as a monster itself. Tanaka, Honda, and special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya all were huge King Kong fans, and simply made Kong bigger and a metaphor for horror of war and the devastation of nuclear weapons. So ultimately Godzilla has more to do with his gorilla archnemesis (at least in 1962) than with the dinosaurs Kong fought.

Documentary review: Jurassic Fight Club

I have a special connection to this week’s documentary being reviewed. When it first came out in 2008, I was eagerly anticipating it. You see, it reminded me of a series I was really interested in as a teenager. It was on Discovery, a show called Animal Face-Off, which discussed possible battles between coexisting species such as lion vs tiger, elephant vs rhinoceros, bear vs alligator, etc.  While the execution was terribly done, I liked the premise. When I heard what sounded like a dinosaur version of the show was coming to TV, I couldn’t wait.  

This is Jurassic Fight Club. When I did watch it, it wasn’t as good as I hoped, but still a very enjoyable show.  The premise is extrapolating from fossils about prehistoric conflicts. The discovery is first shown, then the species involved, the environment, and then a comparison and finally an action sequence showing the conflict. The host is George Blasing, a paleontology expert and teacher who has a roadshow in Texas, educating at schools on fossils and prehistoric animals. George is a great personality, dynamic and funny on the show, and with a vivid imagination he describes, blow by blow, the incidents implied by the fossil finds.  When my birthday came this past week, I immediately bought myself the DVD set for this review.  

Old vs New: Dinosaur vs Walking With Dinosaurs

A long time ago, artists, paleontologists, and filmmakers came up with a visionary idea: a movie based entirely on dinosaurs. Other movies have had dinosaurs in them, but were centered on humans and their interactions with the dinosaurs.  This project, as proposed, would be a natural drama, similar to wildlife projects like the Bear where the animal did not speak but would nonetheless have their story told. Set in the end of the age of Dinosaurs, they would focus a great clash between the protagonist and his theropod archenemy.  Alas, things went sour. Executives meddled. The project is delayed and sunk in development. The original team is told that it’s all over. Then, years later,  a trailer will capture the imagination of the audience. In lush, state of the art effects, it looks like the original epic will finally arise from development hell into its glory. And then a second trailer comes out, this one with conversations and sending hopes spiraling down. Then the final product is released to mixed reviews at best, a box office failure and a very bad product.

This happened twice in my lifetime.