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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?

#481

Post by acquiesce »

542354234235 wrote: post #295
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…

See, I think he is wrong about the rest of the movie. First, that scene is incredibly done. We have been talking about dinosaurs, explaining what how the park works, how he made them, etc. but we haven’t seen anything yet. Then we stop the Jeeps, but we don’t show the dinos yet. What we show is Neill and Dern’s faces. We see how absolutely awestruck they are and only then, once we have been primed to understand how t…

What he is (was) talking about and what you are talking about are two different things. He saw that opening scene as an introduction of a Fantastical movie. One that would continuously pit the small and insignificant man against a noble but ultimately indifferent nature that far dwarfs anything in size. It’s the kind of stuff that you get concept artists to drool over. Imagine the kind of scenes you could have with that.

The rest of the movie compared to that expectation is a creature feature with standard elements. The one you refer to is simple foreshadowing. It’s not a cause for master class labeling. The staff that made all those dinosaurs deserves that credit, as they pulled off something very brilliant.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#482

Post by adastra22 »

quickthrowman wrote: post #456
adastra22 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It remains to be seen. To this day there still isn't any conclusive further evidence beyond "there was an impact event that closely coincides with the dinosaur extinction." Which is, don't get me wrong, very strong evidence. But the Deccan Traps are also just as much a smoking gun, which is why I proclaimed above that the one-two punch theory is the most reasonable. They both contributed to one of Earth life's most e…

Interesting, thank you for the nuanced perspective. How does the K-T event match up with the P-T event caused by the Siberian Traps?

I should qualify by stating that I'm only slightly above amateur status here. I've had a life-long interest in study of the ancient Earth, and spent my early career supporting the closely related field of astrobiology (which studies evolution of life and mass extinctions to draw inferences about possible life elsewhere). But I am not a paleontologist myself.

To your question, my understanding is that if you ignore the K-T asteroid impact and look at the fossil record up to but not including the iridium layer, it looks very similar to the P-T die off. Same early indicators, same die-off patterns (e.g. starting with single celled marine organisms, changeup of specialized niche species, acidification, ecosystem collapse, more fungi etc.) Then of course the impact happened and reshaped everything. BUT, the argument goes, the impact had such drastic effects on Earth life because basically all the existing ecosystem slack had been taken up by the downstream effects of the Deccan Trap eruptions.

IMHO the researchers like Gerta Keller who push the Deccan Trap only theory are mainly butthurt about Alvarez. But if I were to steelman their position, it is that a P-T like extinction event was already clearly underway, and if the asteroid impact hadn't happened we would have seen basically the same die off over a slightly longer period (or if the impact had happened without the Deccan Trap eruptions, there'd have been enough resilience that maybe the impact wouldn't have caused extinctions?), and so we should assign causality to the volcanos. Hard to prove a hypothetical though, which is why I think the one-two punch explanation is better science.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#484

Post by adastra22 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #306
adastra22 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be settled when the generation of researchers who fought over it retire/die off. The short TL;DR is that the guy who came up with the asteroid theory knew basically nothing about paleontology and paleoclimate, was way outside of his depth (he was a physicist that worked on the Manhattan project). He then made some pretty wild claims given the evidence that was available. When criticized by people who actually k…

The Alvarez hypothesis is notable not just because of its power in explaining the Cretaceous mass extinction, but because of its Copernican-like effect on paleontology. Up to that point, it was a matter of belief among paleos that bolides were not a significant factor in the history of life. Essentially, that the Earth did not experience frequent or significant impacts after the initial formation of the solar system.…

You do know that there was an already well studied global mass extinction, the P-T crisis, which is very well studied and clearly the result of volcanism?

I think you are exhibiting exactly the problem with the Alvarez hypothesis that makes people have such a gut reaction to it. It is a Deus Ex Machina that can be invoked at any time to explain a die off even in the face of conclusive evidence to the contrary.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#485

Post by snowwrestler »

adastra22 wrote: post #484
snowwrestler wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Alvarez hypothesis is notable not just because of its power in explaining the Cretaceous mass extinction, but because of its Copernican-like effect on paleontology. Up to that point, it was a matter of belief among paleos that bolides were not a significant factor in the history of life. Essentially, that the Earth did not experience frequent or significant impacts after the initial formation of the solar system.…

You do know that there was an already well studied global mass extinction, the P-T crisis, which is very well studied and clearly the result of volcanism? I think you are exhibiting exactly the problem with the Alvarez hypothesis that makes people have such a gut reaction to it. It is a Deus Ex Machina that can be invoked at any time to explain a die off even in the face of conclusive evidence to the contrary.

If you haven’t read Extinction by Raup, I would encourage you to do so with an open mind.

Calling something that actually happened a “Deus Ex Machina” seems like a hint that you might not be coming to this conversation with the most objective mindset.

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