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Why are there no good dinosaur films?

briannazigler.substack.com

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Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#11

Post by zdragnar »

dylan604 wrote: post #5
jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #3

> As Brusatte notes, a lot of what we now know about dinosaurs has been naturally accumulative knowledge spanning decades of ongoing research. Yeah I've felt this. I'm old enough (41) that some of the things that I was taught as a child are no longer beloved to be true. Not sure if I should feel sad that it's happening so slowly, or happy that's happening at all. Or concerned that we have no first principles way of e…

Which is interesting in how I grew up "knowing" the asteroid/meteor killed the dinosaurs, but TFA suggests it was just a theory at the time of my learning. Or how I grew up with images of the planets, not knowing that they were only taken when I was a small kid. It is just a weird thing to think about how some knowledge we accept as known might not have been known by our grandparents or even our parents. It just seem…

The pictures of the planets bit makes sense, as even with a telescope (through which we've seen the plants for a very long time) there's not really enough light for early film techniques to capture well.

I do identify a bit with the dinosaur example, and to use another: plate tectonics wasn't a formalized and accepted theory until late in the 1960's. It spread to schools quickly, but by that point my parents had already graduated, and it was new for my parents when my older brother went to school.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#13

Post by croes »

throaway5454 wrote: post #9
jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #3

> As Brusatte notes, a lot of what we now know about dinosaurs has been naturally accumulative knowledge spanning decades of ongoing research. Yeah I've felt this. I'm old enough (41) that some of the things that I was taught as a child are no longer beloved to be true. Not sure if I should feel sad that it's happening so slowly, or happy that's happening at all. Or concerned that we have no first principles way of e…

The wierd things the latest JP movies still have the Dino's as being featherless

It’s lore

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#14

Post by masfuerte »

throaway5454 wrote: post #8
nullhole wrote: post #7

A lot of strong opinions in the article, but Ebert wasn't stupid and wrong. He said - correctly, I think - that there was a sense of awe and wonder at the first dino scene, with the Brontosauruses : "But consider what could have been. There is a scene very early in the film where Neill and Dern, who have studied dinosaurs all of their lives, see living ones for the first time. The creatures they see are tall, majesti…

Brachiosaurus I think. Brontosaurus was originally thought to be a separate species from Apatosaurus but later revealed to be the same.

Weirdly this is about the fifth time I've read this in the last couple of months and it's out-of-date. Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus are divorced and living as separate species again.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#15

Post by Butthead69 »

throaway5454 wrote: post #9
jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #3

> As Brusatte notes, a lot of what we now know about dinosaurs has been naturally accumulative knowledge spanning decades of ongoing research. Yeah I've felt this. I'm old enough (41) that some of the things that I was taught as a child are no longer beloved to be true. Not sure if I should feel sad that it's happening so slowly, or happy that's happening at all. Or concerned that we have no first principles way of e…

The wierd things the latest JP movies still have the Dino's as being featherless

Dominion had a feathered Pyroraptor

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#17

Post by sdsd »

I actually really enjoy dinosaur movies when I watch them with my toddler. To him, big dinos chasing people is pretty much peak cinema. Watching it with him is so much more entertaining than doing it alone, and tbh, the last thing I want to see is artslop where dinosaurs are a metaphor for the director's divorce or insecure aging professionals trying to feel better about their midlife crisis or whatever.

Dinosaur movies are really good at doing what they're supposed to do, lest we end up with one more genre sucked into the black hole of prestige entertainment.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#18

Post by WorldMaker »

croes wrote: post #13
throaway5454 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wierd things the latest JP movies still have the Dino's as being featherless

It’s lore

Yup, the lore blames the frog/amphibian DNA and Doctor Wu's interference (military application side projects).

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#19

Post by dylan604 »

zdragnar wrote: post #11
dylan604 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is interesting in how I grew up "knowing" the asteroid/meteor killed the dinosaurs, but TFA suggests it was just a theory at the time of my learning. Or how I grew up with images of the planets, not knowing that they were only taken when I was a small kid. It is just a weird thing to think about how some knowledge we accept as known might not have been known by our grandparents or even our parents. It just seem…

The pictures of the planets bit makes sense, as even with a telescope (through which we've seen the plants for a very long time) there's not really enough light for early film techniques to capture well. I do identify a bit with the dinosaur example, and to use another: plate tectonics wasn't a formalized and accepted theory until late in the 1960's. It spread to schools quickly, but by that point my parents had alre…

plate tectonics is a good one. I definitely remember my mom telling me as a kid how South America and Africa look like they fit together, and my dad talking about Pangea being the name when the pieces were fit together. it wasn't until much later that I realized that my parents were not taught this in school, but my dad just kept up with current events much more. It is weird to think that something is so new that even your parents were not taught it.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#20

Post by WorldMaker »

zdragnar wrote: post #11
dylan604 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is interesting in how I grew up "knowing" the asteroid/meteor killed the dinosaurs, but TFA suggests it was just a theory at the time of my learning. Or how I grew up with images of the planets, not knowing that they were only taken when I was a small kid. It is just a weird thing to think about how some knowledge we accept as known might not have been known by our grandparents or even our parents. It just seem…

The pictures of the planets bit makes sense, as even with a telescope (through which we've seen the plants for a very long time) there's not really enough light for early film techniques to capture well. I do identify a bit with the dinosaur example, and to use another: plate tectonics wasn't a formalized and accepted theory until late in the 1960's. It spread to schools quickly, but by that point my parents had alre…

I had a teacher get in trouble for discussing plate tectonics in the 1990s, in a public school. Turns out it still upsets a lot of religious groups and also was tied to some peculiar schools of climate change denialists in the 90s. I still don't entirely know how denying plate tectonics was useful for climate change denial that decade, I just remember how weird it was for the teacher to suggest to forget a whole science lecture because people didn't want us to know it. Come to think of it, that probably also was around the time we watched Jurassic Park in class.
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