My thoughts on _When Dinosaurs Roamed America_

[NJPharris@aol.com]

I had a few thoughts to share on _When Dinosaurs Roamed America_.

Things I liked:

The _Tyrannosaurus_ were way better-looking than in WWD.
I enjoyed seeing the quadrupedal "Anatatotitan" and thought they were done
well.
The dryosaurs scratching and rubbing their faces were nice touches.
I really liked the bold (but believable) head pattern on "Fred" the basal
coelurosaur.
Seeing _Zuniceratops_ and _Nothronychus_ (indeed, any therizinosaur!) was way
    cool.
Seeing _?Syntarsus kayentakatae_ was refreshing after all the _Coelophysis_
one usually gets in segments on early theropods.
Good to see _Anchisaurus_ get some air time.
Liked the feathered ornithimimid.  Wish we could have gotten a closer look.

Now for the things I didn't like so much:

First off, the title.  Silly and faintly jingoistic.

I felt, as did some others, that the animation was a bit below WWD in
quality.  There were quite a few instances where it looked kind of unfinished
(like the _Rutiodon_ in water) or cartoonish, and times where the picture
quality and light pattern just didn't match between the animals and the
backgrounds.  Also, and I realize this is *extremely* difficult to do, the
forces acting on the running dinos just didn't seem to work the way they
ought to.

This is probably a consequence of the way they were animated, but the legs of
the quadrupeds, in particular, didn't seem to move right.  For instance, when
the thigh would swing forward, a circular area around the hip joint would
rotate along with it; wouldn't that be impossible because of the thigh
muscles stretching across the ilium?  I probably didn't explain that very
well...

The bug-eyed, hyperthyroid _Coelophysis_ and Zuni dromaeosaurs.  They
reminded me of the aliens from _Mars Attacks!_.  Bird and croc eyes don't
look like that.

I felt the bare snouts coupled with the "manes" on the Zuni dromaeosaurs made
them look graceless and comical, but that's just an aesthetic issue.

"Demastosuchus"'s squeals were just a little too piggish for my personal
taste.  Did they monkey with its snout, or did it really look that much like
a wild boar's?

A few too many broadleaf trees for the Triassic, and not enough tree ferns.

Did you all catch the cheesy reverse-animation of the _Dilophosaurus_ when it
started to feed on the _Anchisaurus_?

Finally, I have yet to see a rendition of theropod wrists that was both
believable (often they just don't fold or even droop their wrists at all,
resulting in an improbable stiff-wristed look) and anatomically possible.

And a few questions:

Is there actual dromaeosaur material known from the Zuni site?  Wolfe and
Kirkland indicated that they originally thought "Fred" was a dromie.

Could hadrosaurids really rotate their jaws side-to-side like cattle?  I
thought they were pleurokinetic, like _Iguanodon_.

Isn't _Purgatorius_ a plesiadapiform?  I thought these were closer to flying
lemurs than to primates.

Anyhow, it might not have been perfect (what is?), but WDRA was certainly
worth watching.  Congrats to all on the list who were involved.

--Nick P.