paleo-media-blog

[paleo-media-blog]

The D Rex Is Just Another Problem With The Jurassic World Franchise

Jurassic World Rebirth appears to be continuing on the path of making the Jurassic World films diverge even further from the original aim for scientific accuracy, by putting the focus on hybrids again!!

So in the trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth it is revealed we are getting another flipping hybrid, which looks even less like a dinosaur. According to Gareth Edwards it's design is based on a Rancor and Xenomorph, while still technically a being a dinosaur. "'When you make a creature, you get a big, massive pot and you pour in your favorite monsters from other films and books,' he explained, sharing that Alien's Xenomorph, Return of the Jedi's Rancor, and the T-Rex from the original Jurassic Park movie were all influences. "Some Rancor went in there, some H.R. Giger went in there, a little T. rex went in there…," Source: CBR 'Some Rancor Went in There': Jurassic World Rebirth Director Reveals Monster Influences for New Mutant Dinosaur by Lee Freitag

It just seems like they wanted to make a movie monster film, rather than a film about dinosaurs with a strive for scientific accuracy like the original film. This is further backed up by the fact that they are still using the inaccurate raptor designs in this film that takes place 5 years after Jurassic World Dominion. They just don't care.

The D-Rex is also not that special, it just another hybrid in the ever growing list of hybrids. The Indominus Rex a terrible excuse of a hybrid dinosaur that has been cheapened by the continuous introduction of brand new monster of the week hybrid dinosaurs like the Indoraptor and now the D. Rex.

The only time this concept actually was done well in the world films was Camp Cretaceous with the Scorpius Rex, aka the only saving grace of the world series. Though it is also no longer as special as it could be, now that we are getting yet another hybrid. It would be like if the Pokemon games took away Mewtwo's novelty and specialness by having at least 4 other clones like them, all with the purpose of them being the strongest Pokemon. Or if there was 5 other ultimate lifeforms in the Sonic games.

[paleo-media-blog]

The Jurassic World Dominion Locust Problem

So while can't remember who exactly said it or wher eit was said source, it has been said that the locust were introduced in Jurassic World Dominion to remind the audience that there are other prehistoric animals than just dinosaurs. Yeah no, this is just an excuse.

First off there was no giant Grasshoppers not just in the Cretaceous period like the film said. But also in general as there wasn't any in the Carboniferous period or any other period. If they really wanted to put a focus on non-dinosaurs then they should have used an actual prehistoric animal, and not some made up locust that wouldn't be able to survive in our atmosphere. Also, because they never existed and the film treats them like real prehistoric grasshoppers, their inclusion verges on scientific misinformation.

An animal that could serve the same purpose of the locust could have been the Wooly Mammoth. The Mammoths could have shown up as representation while causing issues for the food supply. As they did eat several types of plants we now use for crops today. But they didn't need to do that because they already had animals that represented the non-dinosaurs of prehistory through the Lystrosaurus and Dimetrodons. Heck the Pterosaurs and the Mosasaurus also serve that purpose.

It seems they only wanted the locust for the plot alongside another thing. But the problem is other large herbivores could have served that role perfectly like the Triceratops. Heck, one could even play into carnivores also messing with the food supply by having them go after livestock. But that goes against the bizarre conservation of the invasive dinosaur species message that the movie has. Aka the theme that people need to coexist with the non-avian dinosaurs aka an invasive species. All while ignoring the ecological disaster that should be the case due to several invasive species being introduced.

Now the final problem goes into the issue of a lack of understanding for the original film's themes, alongside basically conspiracy by Biosyn. This part of the plot and themes actually plays into an irrational fear of GMOs alongside chemophobia and conspiracy theories people believe about GMOs.

[paleo-media-blog]

Breedism In Jurassic World

In Jurassic World there is a line by Dr. Henry Wu where he says "you cannot have an animal with exaggerated predator features without the corresponding behavioral traits." This is breedism or at least something very close, it's the closest world I could find to what I am trying to talk about. Basically a type of essentialism.

So there is this false belief that animals such as pitbulls are inherently bloodthirsty and violent because of their genetic makeup. As everyone should know this is false, and that a pitbull being aggressive is because of how they are treated and raised. This concept is called breedism and some nitwits try to play it not just to animals, but some more dangerous ideas.

So this line about the Indominus Rex is playing off of the idea that the I. Rex is somehow inherently bloodthirsty because it was given these traits, that somehow it is just evil because of behavior that is caused by genetics. The also seemed to further imply this just inherently aggressive and evil by saying the I. Rex ate it's sibling. While ignoring siblicide is not uncommon in the natural world, including among dinosaurs aka birds.

So while they were probably intending for this to be a message about playing God, it doesn't work because of this line. Basically impact vs. intent.

[paleo-media-blog]

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

In 1997 an in-universe website for The Lost World: Jurassic Park was made, with bit and pieces about the plot of The Lost World such as letters and a recording. Alongside info a official InGen website and emails. One Inside A Mind made a video on the topic in their video Jurassic Park Has A 20 Year Old Interactive Website - Inside A Mind.

[paleo-media-blog]

Jurassic Park And Frog DNA

There are some people who try to defend scientifically in accurate dinosaurs in the Jurassic World series by quoting Dr. Henry Wu from the Jurassic World, to say that's why the dinosaurs looked the way they do. To say that's why the Jurassic World dinosaurs look like scaly inaccurate dinosaurs from the Dinosaur Renaissance era. But this doesn't work.

So while not perfect at accuracy the Jurassic Park films prided themselves on being the most accurate they could be at the time. With some suspension of disbelief in the usage of frog dna(for plot reasons) instead of bird or reptile dna, alongside the ability to even clone dinosaurs. On top of that, the quote from Jurassic World goes against what Hammond said in the first film.

So with that knowledge if the Jurassic World films really wanted play off of the dinosaurs look the way they do because of frog DNA then they shouldn't look the way they do in the films either.

As one Trey The Explainer put in their own video, the DNA Buffer Method would mean patches of frog skin alongside other traits should be present on the dinosaurs. So if we were to remove that suspension of belief, then the dinosaurs should be more frog-like.

An interesting fact is the at one point in development it was considered to make the dinosaurs more frog-like to play off the frog bit. But what was ultimately decided was to lean all in on accuracy and let the frog thing be a suspension of disbelief. "'At this early stage, Steven had some ideas. Since (in the story) the dinosaur genome was completed with elements from frog DNA he wondered if the dinosaurs should have some frog features such as facial ridging like you see in frog faces. At this first meeting, I roughed in 2 busts that exchanged hands between Steven and I for about an hour. […] Mark Hallett had some neck wrinkle input and Rick Carter was focused on the eyes. Kathleen Kennedy also interested in the eyes. So this was the first day and a lot of ideas in one place. That’s how most visual development starts before directions emerge. Next day, Steven was done with the frog idea and I put these pieces on a shelf and started the next model.'" Some "sculptures by Tim Lawrence designed during a period in which the dinosaurs were to have frog-like features" were even made. Source: The Design Process of Jurassic Park’s T. rex by dinosaursscifi

So yeah the frog DNA thing is not an excuse. What should have really been done is they should have redesigned the dinosaurs to be more accurate continuing on what the first film setup, and retcon the original designs. To make it where they dinosaurs have always looked this why, the raptors were always feathered. That is what a retcon is intended to do, to fix a continuity error.

[paleo-media-blog]

Prehistoric Emergence Is Bad Part 2

Part 1 Later they add in Wooly Mammoths with no explanation on how large herd mammals that once migrated across an entire continent have survived underground this entire time.

They also introduce Livyatan and treat it like some kind of 1v1 versus match between it and Megalodon which you see from slop channels. All while treating the Livyatan's emergence as a good thing to help humans defeat Megalodon, even though Livyatans were known to eat large marine animals such as whales as well.

Quetzalcoatlus at least has it's pycnofibers in some of the images and videos, it still has inaccuracies like it's wings not being rounded. They also treat them like they would actually hunt humans, when just taking into account what other people have discussed about if pterosaurs would hunt or eat humans it is unlikely. They could have opted for one that could have like Cryodrakon, but how well known is that name as opposed to the one that showed up in Jurassic World.

Of course not beating the popular creatures claim Tyrannosaurus Rexs were introduced and ate several humans. Even though T-Rex probably would not have hunted let alone eaten humans, wasting energy to hunt them. But rather they would probably have gone after large game and farm animals given they did hunt Edmontosaurus Annectens. Speaking of which why weren't they introduced? As one of their main food sources shouldn't Edmontosaurus also be showing up? Especially since T-Rex has been underground for millions of years according to this series, so what did they eat? Again not even the bare minimum. Also, if they wanted a dinosaur to hunt humans why not any of the abelisaurs like Carnotaurus? Or even Deinonychus, you know theropods that would have made sense to have tried to hunt humans. Lemme guess name recognition for the most popular dinosaur???

The T-rexs that are used in said video are of either images from online that are inaccurate, or mostly accurate in videos because the footage was taken from Prehistoric Planet. Also, these creatures would have been evolving underground for millions of years, so should they look very different from their ancestors? Of course something that they didn't think of not implement.

The whole time they just keep using videos and images other people made in their video, instead of making it themself. Even using pictures of either Komodo Dragons or some random Monitor Lizard for Megalania showing the lack of effort.

All that being said the script reads like they didn't even try to do the bare minimum to create Prehistoric Emergence and just used the popular prehistoric animals with all the inaccuracies. Or who knows maybe they got an "ai" to right the script which would explain the laziness. On top of basic analog horror tropes of a news broadcast, glitches, static, audio cutting out over something spooky, and spooky silhouette images doing spooky things instead of original footage.

If I were to give any advice to the creator it would to drop the "ai" nonsense, stop using the work of other people, and make your own models or practical effects to create footage and images. Drop the basic analog horror tropes that people are tired of seeing and use what works. Not what seems scary. Do the bare minimum of research when creating not just the prehistoric animal designs, but actually research how they would act and what they ate. While taking into account how they would have lasted this long and how they would look. While not a perfect book, take a look at If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today. Said books has moments where Baroynx is eating fish like Grizzlies do, Tyrannosaurus hunting herd animals, and Mosasaurus getting caught in a fishing net as it was hunting Ammonites. Stuff they would make sense. If not that, take a page out of Weird Birds' as does this concept well and even has it where the reason the animals look like their ancient counterparts is because of time travel. Let alone the fact they put in the effort to make accurate feathered dinosaurs. Heck with all that maybe even try to redo the series, update it to be better.

[paleo-media-blog]

Prehistoric Emergence Is Bad Part 1

So I have came across a few people promoting a analog horror series called Prehistoric Emergence as a good piece of analog horror or dinosaur horror, without putting any actual criticisms in and ignoring glaring issues. So I decided to do it myself. Keep in mind the information in this post should be used to harass the creator of said series.

So first off the most major problem with this series is it uses "ai." When watching the videos it clearly use images that can be found on the web. Said images are moving a bit but not really and have a certain uncanniness to them. This is because the images were placed into one of those "ai" programs that turns a image into a "animation." While of course not letting it last long enough to hallucinate. The voice over might be "ai" but I can't tell all the way.

That being said aside from being lazy for just using "ai," it is lazy in another way. It doesn't go through any effort to create any original images, art, or models of these creatures. Instead opting to just use other people's hard work and basic Jurassic Park renders. And since it is not actually animating anything and just using images, it is on the lower end of analog horror with the lowest level of effort. In comparison you have The Invasion of Godzilla by Jacob Animations which actually goes through the effort of hand drawing and at least animating the kaiju. Or Godzilla Found Footage by Lost Utopia Films which to my knowledge is using their own animated models. Or even Weird Birds by Archesuchus which is done in the style of a unfiction blog making updates and photos of dinosaur done using practical effects.

Some while there is some video footage, it is all taken from other people's video such as Sea Monsters Dangerous Dives.

Now for the main part, scientific inaccuracies and bad world building. So while the concept is interesting and plays off of the idea seen in Journey to the Center of the Earth, but it executes it poorly.

For starters, you have several different animals coming out of the same location, each of which not only come from different periods but different eras. For example, Mosasaurus from the Mesozoic Era, Dunkleosteus from the Paleozoic Era, and Megalodon from the Cenozoic Era all coming out of the same hole. How did all the creatures all end up in the exact same location.

On top of that how did they survive all this time? what were they eating? Because there is no mention of things like sharks, ammonites, and whales also coming of the Blue Hole? So what have they been eating this whole time?

It also seems like these 3 were only chosen because they are popular and well known, as opposed to what would make logical sense. For example, Megalodon would not make sense as a threat to humans to the point where we would have to avoid the waters. Sharks already don't attack(shark accidents don't count) let alone eat humans in the current day. So why would a shark that primarily fed on large marine life such as whales have any interest in eating a human. On top of that most animals don't really try to eat humans let alone would waste the energy to try to if they very large. So why is Mosasaurus a problem? The only one I could see possibly trying to eat humans is Dunkleosteus. That being said why not opt for a smaller species of Mosasauridae or other prehistoric marine creatures? The answer is obvious and that is because the other species aren't as well know so they opted for the more popular one rather than what would make sense.

Speaking of Mosasaurus Hoffmannii, due to them just using random images they have several conflicting depictions of Mosasaurus either like their tail fluke, counter shading, chunky body, or smooth scaly skin. I also recall Dunkleosteus has been found to have skin over it's teeth which makes sense. Note, I am not going to go over every single inaccuracy.

Part 2

[paleo-media-blog]

On Scientifically Accurate Dinosaurs In Media

So here is how I see it, it aren't a fan of dinosaurs is you don't like scientifically accurate dinosaurs

Saying you are fan of dinosaurs while but hating accurate designs does not make you a dinosaur fan, it makes you a fan of a movie monster. It's like claiming you are fan of elephants while hating any depictions of them with big floppy ears, body fat, and a trunk. Instead preferring the inaccurate depiction without a trunk, body fat, and big floppy ears.

Now it's not a problem to look back and like the old outdated designs in comparison to why we know now. As well as respect how much effort was put into to make them as accurate as they could be. But to get mad what we know they looked like now while clinging to the to these outdated depictions, while continuing to use said depictions in media is not. All it is unscientific depictions harming the public's perception of dinosaurs, and just straight up lazy.

Tyrannosaurus Rex Reconstruction with coloring was made by Sarah Davis. Skin Wrapped Reconstruction was made by C. M. Kosemen Elephant image source Pixabay from Pexels. Btw keep in mind you can still admire and respect the designs based on the years of scientific work that came before. To see how far we've come. Let alone the art in general with the nostalgia that comes with it. There is a time and context for these designs, and even some of them in their day broke the mold. But this does not mean we should continue to live in the past.