Boy, I really wish we had subtitles for this one, but I'm glad to get to watch it at all. Here is the rare 1990 Japanese documentary based upon After Man:
This wasn't too hard for me to follow even though I couldn't understand the narration. It mostly reiterates the big points in the book, like that no niche in nature stays empty for long and that the ancestors of the animals we know today would've looked very odd to us. We get to see a lot of Phil Tippet's animation from "Dinosaur!" Dougal Dixon gets to visit the real lands and animals that inspired his imagined ones, which are brought to life through some wonderfully Harryhausen-esque stop-motion animation. This is all delightful to watch but I really long for an English-language version, especially so I can better understand the sequence where we encounter our old friend the Dinosauroid as well as Dixon's... different... take on the concept.
Fortunately, we do have English subtitles for the "After Man" music video. This was part of a program of short educational music videos called "Minna no Uta", kind of the Japanese equivalent of "Schoolhouse Rock". Understanding the lyrics doesn't answer that many questions, but I really like the designs for the creatures here.
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Art of the Day!
JuneFae isn't over yet!
