Ceratopsia triumphant! The international trailer for Walking with Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie is here, giving us our first good look of what to expect. Pachyrhinosaurus takes center stage here, and among the supporting cast are mighty Edmontosaurs, feathered Troodons, and a few big nasty theropods. No Wittonesque shaggy coats or bristly bits on the Pachyrhinosaurs, but it's going to look mighty pretty. Guess I'll have to get over my aversion to 3D.
I'm feeling pretty stoked. This is exactly the kind of dinosaur story I want to see on the big screen. More to come, I'm sure.
It's very pretty looking, although I'm not that fond of the dinosaur designs. Do you think there's going to be a narrator?
ReplyDeleteAlso, feathered raptors in a big screen wide release. Thank god.
I'm impressed so far. This must be the trailer i09 told us to expect a little while ago. It seems they were right about it being a visual treat.
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ReplyDeleteKrentz was a consultant on this one. Agreed on the animation v. Dinotasia for sure.
DeleteI'll take lightly anthropomorphized dinosaurs in a story like this. A dinosaur Milo and Otis, if you will. In all, considering the crap that's been on the WWD website lately (unrelated to this movie), it's a relief to see the animals done this well.
Know that I've rewatched it, I do see the Krentz presence here. And I think it looks good, just not as "gritty" perhaps as the Dinotasia designs. Maybe I can convince my wife to see it with me (not likely.)
DeleteYou should have seen the series Dinosaur Revolution. That is where the footage for Dinotasia came from.
Delete"A dinosaur Milo and Otis, if you will."
DeleteI was thinking more like what Disney's Dinosaur was originally gonna be b-4 being Disneyfied.
"In all, considering the crap that's been on the WWD website lately (unrelated to this movie),"
Out of curiosity, do you mean the site as a whole or just the paleoart?
My goal in invoking Milo & Otis is that we seem to easily accept anthropomorphic storytelling devices in extant critters, but it bugs a lot of people with dinos. Perhaps part of it is that we have no "pure," honest-to-gosh measuring stick for Mesozoic dinos. A movie about dinosaurs has to contend with people's predispositions of what the animals should look like and how they should behave. A movie about a dog and a cat is just a movie about a dog and a cat: familiar enough that their simple presence on the screen is not loaded with controversy.
DeleteMaybe not the strong Krentzian animal designs of Dino Rev/Dinotasia, but superior animation. The frustrating thing about Dinotasia was how poorly some of the sequences were composited and the clunky mechanics in a lot of the movement, considering how brilliant the dinos looked. I think Krentz had said there were different animating teams and some were stronger than others. Here, the dinos look a bit cartoonish, but the the movement and compositing is very strong.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was very excited for Dinosaur Revolution. But upon watching Dinotasia, the animation did not hold up at all, and was honestly a bit embarrassing at some points. A lot of really lovely design work seems to have been wasted on that project.
Delete"Here, the dinos look a bit cartoonish,"
DeleteHow so? Is it the brightly-colored Gorgosaurs or something else?
It indeed looks gorgeous but I can't stop thinking to myself it's just a higher budget version of 2011 tv show 'March of the Dinosaurs'.
ReplyDeleteBut with a much larger audience.
Delete& much better science (E.g. The Troodon actually LOOKS like a Troodon & NOT a JP raptor w/feathers).
DeleteStill I was expecting something more along the lines of the Walking with... series and less what it seems to be.
DeleteI'm in. 3D and all.
ReplyDelete"I'm feeling pretty stoked."
ReplyDeleteI concur. The 2nd 1/2 of the trailer was especially epic; I liked how it started out all cute/cuddly & then gradually became darker/more violent). More importantly, though, the animation has FAR exceeded my expectations. As others have pointed out, the dinos move smoothly/realistically; I especially liked how the flesh rippled when the Pachyrhinosaurs knocked heads. The narration sucked, but that's to be expected for a trailer. I'm hoping for either 1) no narration, or 2) narration by Kenneth Branagh or Morgan Freeman.
BTW, was there more than 1 kind of tyrannosaur in the trailer? I ask b/c I thought I saw Daspletosaurus during the forest fire scene.
To be honest, I don't like it at all. Should the pterosaurs flap their wings that much and that often? Why are there holes in the frills of the adult male Pachyrrhinosaurus? Why don't the tyrannosaurs have feathers?
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, I seriously dislike the implications of some of what we've seen here. The storyline reminded me far too much of 'Bambi' meets 'The Land Before Time' and not at all of the wildlife documentary-style of 'Walking With Dinosaurs'. Also, they seem to be going for the troodont as a toned down version of the 'funny' sidekick to the main character. All in all, it seems to be your typical coming of age story for a misunderstood (functional) orphan/foster child/etc....just with dinosaurs. I'm afraid many of you are going to be disappointed.
I'm happy with that kind of story. As for inevitable disappointment... paleontology-inspired media is a virtual disappointment factory. Bring it on.
Delete"Should the pterosaurs flap their wings that much and that often? Why are there holes in the frills of the adult male Pachyrrhinosaurus? Why don't the tyrannosaurs have feathers?"
DeleteTo be fair, the pterosaurs only seemed to flap a lot when taking off (at the beginning) or escaping something in a hurry (the forest fire & the Gorgosaur at the trailer's end). AFAICT, there's only 1 adult male Pachyrhinosaurus (the movie's protagonist) w/a hole in its frill (based on the trailer, an injury from its youth that never healed properly). & while I would've liked more heavily-feathered arctic tyrannosaurs, I understand that they probably started making the movie b-4 the Yutyrannus announcement.
Where you got Bambi from IDK. I also don't know where you got the Troodon being the "funny" sidekick, given that it was only shown for a few seconds, during which time it was obviously trying to kill a young dino (probably the protagonist, hence the frill hole) & avoid being killed by the adult dinos.
I got the Bambi thing from him apparently losing his parent(s), then showing up as an adult who's going to beat some male conspecific and win his female love interest. While I can't that's entirely the same, I was immediately reminded of Bambi when I saw that happening. Perhaps they're going to put a more wildlife documentary-like spin on the whole thing, but that's what I saw and was reminded of.
DeleteThe moment where Troodon (or at least, a feathered maniraptoran I assume to be the Troodon, perhaps incorrectly)lets out this 'funny' noise after one of the Pachyrrhinosaurus gets stomped by the other, made me think they were going for the amusing reactions of characters to the pain felt by others. I'm fine with that in general, but not in a dinosaur documentary. Perhaps I looked over the real Troodon, but the objection I had remains the same: This probably shouldn't be that lighthearted, at least not for paleo-interested people. What's more, they seem to be going for a storyline that's been told a million times and is thus entirely predictable from the first minute to the last.
The actual comic relief will be Alexornis (the enantiornithine), not Troodon (or so I've been told).
DeleteI am stoked to finally get a wide screen walking with dinosaurs, but i can already feel my nerd rage bubbling up. Am I the only one who gets annoyed whenever there is grass in the Mesozoic in dinosaur shows?
ReplyDeleteHopefully there will be the option to see it in theaters in 2D. I loathe 3D and after the Hobbit I vow never to pay to see another 3D movie again.
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