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Follow-up: the truth about killer dinosaurs

I'm afraid things got a little out of hand... but yes the animation was (thankfully NOT from WWD).
Although I enjoyed the show for what was worth I was talking today with John Hutchinson (one of the main protagonists) and we found out some inconsistencies that were really unfortunate.
First of all the stride of T. rex was enormously long despite John being an adviser concerning T. rex locomotion (the animation followed his research rather very little) . The thighs rotation implied that the femur's range of oscillation was excessive ( if we consider the muscular attachments).

Second (and most serious of all)... why was the mechanical reconstruction of the T. rex skull done in steel while the same of Triceratops was resin?
The T. rex skull "demonstration" was breaking and munching a dripping- blood bone and a pig carcass (and on top of everything, munching a car! Done without a problem by the steel frame...) while the Triceratops demo was a 15 mile per hour full charge on a tough- hide, artificial T. rex belly.
The supraorbital horns were covered in a hard material (that sharpened them and added resistance) while the nose horn was blunt and left as the rest of the resin skull (that is without covering). Needless to say the frontal horns perforated the "belly" without problem but the snout couldn't withstand the impact and broke off in spectacular fashion... thus "proving" that Triceratops couldn't charge at full speed!
Not only the full speed charge of the dummy ignored the flexibility of the muscles and articulation of a real animal, it was unfairly unbalanced too!

It seems that those experiments were pretended more like a gimmick without participation of any scientist... so that may have been the reason (or shall I say the "non reason").

In any case, there were some, well done real dramatic moments like the the goring of T. rex by Triceratops (really hurt!) and the fight of the animals looked realistic too, using the latest evidence. The steel T. rex bites of the pig carcass were definitively shocking!

Flawed fun, but fun nevertheless. Much better than many other shows I have seen. Looking forward to see next week's Velociraptor chapter,


On 29 Aug 2005, at 13:44, Mike Taylor wrote:

Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2005 08:56:14 +0100
From: John Hunt <john.bass@ntlworld.com>

The BBC's latest reuse of Walking With Dinosaurs footage airs
tonight at 20.30 on BBC1 for those on the right side of the pond.


For what it's worth (I watched the first few minutes to check the
video was getting the right thing, and will watch it all with the boys
this evening) the CGI footage is not from _WWD_.

Although it will look strangely familiar to lovers of _When Dinosaurs
Roamed America_ ...

Still, who cares?  They -- finally -- have a _T. rex_ fighting a
_Triceratops_.  Which is what it's all about, right?

And in other news --


Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 23:51:12 +0100 (BST)
From: Aidan Karley <aidan_karley@yahoo.co.uk>

    What's really puzzling me now (consequent on one of those
horrible "spend more to save on postage" deals), is how on earth a
search from books by `Kenneth Carpenter` returned
"6.     The Official "Godzilla" Compendium: A 40 Year Retrospective
~J. D. Lees, et al
Random House USA Inc"


That would be because of --

    Carpenter, K.  1998.  A dinosaur paleontologist's view of
    Godzilla.  In Lees, J. D. & Cerasini, M. (eds) The Official
    Godzilla Compendium. Random House (New York),
    pp. 102-106. [T4]

And then there is also --

    Christiansen, Per (2000): Godzilla from a zoological
    perspective.  Mathematical Geology 32 (2): 231-245.

_/|_ ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/ Mike Taylor <mike@miketaylor.org.uk> http:// www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\ "And what if none of their souls were saved? They went to
their maker impeccably shaved" -- Steven Sondheim, "The Ballad
of Sweeney Todd"



Luis Rey

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