Re: The Lost Dinosaurs Of Egypt (just seen it).

[Luis Rey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>]

Josh Smith wrote:

> Quoting Luis Rey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>:
>
> OK.  Here we go.   I guess no one had anything better to do last
> night....

Well, frankly it was much, much better and entertaining than any Jubilee
broadcast.

>
> >
> > It was entertaining to say the least and some of the animations
> > were decent (a bit on the cardboard side sometimes) and well located
> > in mangrel environments.
>
> I didn't think the animations were that good myself.  However, before
> everyone on the DML spends a week and a half whining about the CG and
> comparing it to Walking with Dinosaurs, could we all perhaps remember
> that we had about 10% of their budget and half the time to do it all?

That was pretty much understood. That is why I just say 'decent', not
outstanding.

>
>
> I am not sure what a mangrel environment is.

Sorry, should say Mangrove... late night writing and you get all this sort
of strange mispellings in your head.

>
>
> > I still wonder why they keep making dinosaurs with
> > boxed heads...
>
> I am not sure what you mean by this.  The _Paralititan_ and
> _Aegyptosaurus_ reconstructions were based on the most current data we
> had, including a good bit of forthcoming information.

Yes, but when they get animated, there's this sharp tendency to widen the
heads of dinosaurs and in frontal view they are always too box-like. The
original Carcharodontosaurus head (for example) has this  dramatic slender
front view when compared with the side view.  All theropods have it.
Same problem with the narrowness of the pelvis: All theropods have very
slender hips and the rib cage should hide most of it (and the thighs) in
frontal view. Every mounted dinosaur skeleton shows this.  Instead, in
almost all animations you have this enormous hips that protude to the
sides well beyond the ribcage.  I think it must be a 'mammalian vice'.

>
>
> > and seeing a frontal attack from Spinosaurus to a wounded sauropod
> > and the slender head of the predator struggle with the enormously
> > thick neck of the Paralititan was something that I would never
> > describe as 'believable'. If it wasn't believable in Jurassic Park it
> > wasn't going to be here. Carcharodontosaurus (also featured) would
> > have been a better candidate for a sauropod attack (but it was kept
> > waiting in the wings).
>
> Welcome to Battle #367 that Josh lost with the film company.  My
> position (indeed that of most of the team) was basically that
> _Carcharodontosaurus_ would have been better here.  However, since we
> initially went to Egypt looking for _Spinosaurus_ and it was the
> keynote taxon of Stromer's expeditions, they wanted to make it the
> central figure in the documentary.

It might also been the influence of Jurassic Park since Spinosaurus is
fashionable these days?

>
>
> > On the other hand, the treatment of the expedition as an
> > extension of Stromer's work was nicely done and there were some very
> > dramatic moments. There's a true sense of history throughout all the
> > program. Good also to see paleontologists losing their temper in
> > their field desperation.
>
> In truth, we tried to get all of the arguments edited out, but failed.
> We thought it took away from the film.  I am somewhat surprised you
> liked that aspect of it.
>

I thought it was good to show the human aspect of the search and the
extremely hard work... what's wrong with that?  Neither of you were
presented as superhumans or Indiana Joneses... in these days that's a true
advantage. In that sense this documentary was a bit more realistic than
some others, and even if there was this 'schizoid'  feeling of jumping
from field quest to Germany, the labs and Stromer's history, I though that
the story's was fluent  and credible enough.
I suppose you can take as a  very much deserved tribute to Stromer's
efforts, and yours of course.

Luis Rey

Visit my website on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey