All about dinosaurs, fossils and prehistoric animals by Everything Dinosaur team members.

Reviews, comments and feedback on television programmes featuring themes of interest to dinosaur fans and fossil collectors by Everything Dinosaur team members.

13 01, 2008

Review of First Episode of Primeval (Series Two)

By |2023-02-14T21:37:20+00:00January 13th, 2008|Categories: Main Page, TV Reviews|0 Comments

Review of the Start of Primeval Series Two

When Primeval first aired on UK television back in February 2007, it was billed as the independent networks attempt to lure away part of the Doctor Who audience and help ITV win back the key demographic of Saturday night family TV viewing.

Primeval Reviewed

Yesterday saw the first episode of series two, with ITV once again hoping that this programme would help attract something like the 7 million viewers each episode achieved during the first series.

The storyline although a little contrived, allows the CGI experts plenty of scope.  Unexplained phenomena are ripping holes in space and time permitting prehistoric creatures from the past and the Earth’s future to roam the UK.  A team of misfits (but very good looking misfits nonetheless), struggle to deal with these monsters before they are unleashed onto an unsuspecting public.

Headed by the intriguingly entitled evolutionary zoologist Professor Nick Cutter, the first episode in series two (one of seven programmes due to be shown on Saturday nights on ITV1),  kicks off with an encounter with some dinosaurs.

The first series had been criticised in some quarters because there were few dinosaurs shown.  There were pterosaurs, mammal-like reptiles, mosasaurs and even giant arthropods but the dinosaurs were relatively scarce.  This is a little surprising as one of the collaborators on the series – Impossible Pictures; were responsible for the special effects in programmes like Prehistoric Park and Walking with Dinosaurs and one of the pretences for Primeval seems to be to use up the stock footage of prehistoric animals from these earlier programmes.  Dinosaur models may also have been used in some of the close up shots.  Not sure if ITV had a stock of Deinonychus dinosaur models available, but the “raptors” in this programme did seem to be roughly the size of Deinonychus.

Lots of Dinosaurs

Dinosaur fans did not have to wait long for their favourite monsters to show up in series two.  The opening episode is set in a shopping mall, one that is visited by a family of dromaeosaurs unwittingly transported there by an anomaly presumably from the middle of the Cretaceous.  On first observing these carnivorous dinosaurs, Connor Temple (played by Andrew Lee Potts), calls them “raptors” a fairly generalised term popularised by the Jurassic Park films with the depiction of over-sized Velociraptors.  The CGI models are well created, nice to see the proto-feathers and modified scales on backs of these animals, although how quickly dromaeosaurs could make progress on the shiny, slippery floors of a shopping mall is open to question.  Professor Cutter and his team have to be congratulated for making up the correct dose of anaesthetic to dart these creatures without any knowledge of dinosaur metabolism, perhaps they have been studying dinosaur models and they do well to stand their ground against a decidedly angry parent, hell-bent on trying to tear them to pieces.  They tend to fair better than the hapless security guards who quickly end up as dinosaur fodder.

“Raptors” on the Prowl

It is not made clear what type of dinosaur the “raptors” actually represent, although reference to the makers notes on episode one indicate that these dinosaurs were based on Deinonychus (the name means terrible claw).  This dinosaur was named and described by the American scientist John Ostrom in 1969, although the fossils of this dinosaur had been known for the best part of forty years.  Ostrom caused controversy when he used Deinonychus as the basis for a theory that dinosaurs were much more bird-like and active.  At the time, the common held view was that these animals were cold-blooded and sluggish.  About a dozen specimens of Deinonychus are known, all of which come from the Western USA and date from approximately 100 million years ago.

A Model of Deinonychus

Ostrom inspired Deinonychus replica.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture above shows a 1:30 scale model of Deinonychus in a typically active pose.  The model is made by Bullyland of Germany and is one of their museum line of hand-painted prehistoric animals.

To view dinosaur models: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.

Expect more monsters to make an impression over the next few weeks including giant worms (episode two) and a Sabre-toothed cat which will be seen roaming around the English countryside the week following.  Perhaps this could be the “Beast of Bodmin Moor”?

9 10, 2007

Amazing National Geographic 3-D Feature “Sea Monsters” Premiers in USA

By |2024-04-01T10:11:48+01:00October 9th, 2007|Categories: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page, TV Reviews|0 Comments

Cretaceous Sea Monsters Captured on Film!

National Geographic in association with Kansas University aided and abetted by a number of US palaeontological institutions have premiered – “Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure”.

The film shot using a mixture of footage of digs and computer generated imagery, has been designed for screening at IMAX theatres and shows life in the sea at the end of the Cretaceous in glorious 3-D.

The action is set approximately 82 million years ago (Campanian stage), in the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow sea that covered much of what was to become North America, specifically the locations are in Kansas.  This is due to the rich marine fossil record of this state, coupled with the fact that as modern Kansas is a flat and dry landscape the shots of a prehistoric sea contrast nicely.

The film centres around a school of Dolichorhynchops or “Dollies” as palaeontologists have affectionately named them.  These were polycotylid plesiosaurs, spending their time feeding on fish, molluscs and squid.  Reaching lengths of approximately 4 metres they would have been dwarfed by their mosasaur contemporaries, many of whom were the dominant predators in these waters.  Indeed, the school encounters a Tylosaurus an 8-10 metres long relative of snakes who if it caught one would make short work of a Dolichorhynchops.

Sea Monsters

This informative documentary style film features a wide range of Cretaceous inhabitants including Hesperornis (a 2-metre long flightless bird) and the fearsome Xiphactinus a 6-metre-long, predatory fish that makes piranhas look like wimps.

A Replica of the Prehistoric Fish Xiphactinus

CollectA Deluxe Xiphactinus model.

The CollectA Deluxe 1:40 scale Xiphactinus prehistoric fish model.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a range of marine reptiles and othe sea monsters: CollectA Deluxe Prehistoric Life Models.

The film makers consulted a number of palaeontologists to help make the scenes and the animals as realistic as possible, turning to Industrial Light and Magic (the company behind the special effects in the Star Wars movies), to bring these amazing creatures to life.

“Sea Monsters” unites parts of the story with real palaeontology, for example, in the movie’s narrative if a Xiphactinus eats a Dolichorynchops, it cuts to a palaeontologist examining bones and fossils showing evidence of just such an encounter.  This is a really good way to get science over without people realising it.  However, the film crew do resort to exploiting the 3-D effects to give a few more thrills and spills.

I bet you will jump back from the screen when you see a 20 foot killer fish charging straight for you!

Sadly, there are no ichthyosaurs, these wonderful animals were well on the way to becoming extinct by the Campanian.  No one knows for sure why they died out, perhaps they were not able to compete with the long necked plesiosaurs such as Styxosaurus, which also features in the film.  You are treated to a shot of one of these magnificent long-necked fish hunters swimming gracefully overhead.

Tyrannosaurus rex does have a cameo appearance, I suppose the Director – Sean MacLeod Phillips felt compelled to put him in, although technically this feature is set too early for a T. rex, but that does not detract much from this 40 minute spectacle.

Good to see the marine reptiles, getting their share of the limelight, after all, much of the land that we now know as the familiar modern landscape spent the Cretaceous as seas and oceans, the home of some pretty amazing animals.

There are a few marine animals available as models, although, sadly many have been withdrawn and are out of production.

To find books and other sea monster items: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

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