It's almost 100 degrees out! It's so hot, why don't we take a journey to the desert!
Okay, this one's a real oddity. I only learned about "The Great Dinosaur Hunt" (a 1993 Goodtimes home video release, not to be confused with the identically titled "Infinite Voyage" and, er, "Postman Pat" episodes) recently on Twitter and since it was a dinosaur documentary I somehow never saw, I needed to watch it. Three nights later (!) I'm here to tell the tale.
"The Great Dinosaur Hunt" covers the China-Canada Dinosaur Project, an expedition that started in 1986 and carried into 1991. And it is a fantastic example of what I can only accurately describe as a pre-"Jurassic Park" dinosaur documentary. First off, it really did take me a while to get through. For a 90 minute film, this is s-l-o-w. The focus is on paleontology itself and the truth of the matter is, paleontology is an awful lot of wandering through the desert hoping to find something, anything. And boy did I feel that vicariously.
Another interesting thing about this documentary is there's almost no animation. There are a few animated sequences showing living dinosaurs in action, all traditional and by the fine National Film Board crew. The scene showing the world through a young Troodon's eyes is particularly lovely and I long for a whole short like this.
Of course as soon as they mentioned Troodon, and because Dale Russel is one of the paleontologists involved, I knew our old friend the Dinosauroid would make an appearance. I'm honestly starting to wonder if they were required to mention this thing in every dinosaur documentary from this time. Think of how weird that is; like if every marine biology documentary spent a few minutes on Initial Bipedalism (link goes to an old TetZoo article where sadly the illustrations are gone, but brace yourself for a wild ride anyway.)
And because this mostly takes place in China, the very droning narrator
really loves droning on and on about dragons and how the dinosaur scientists are Unearthing the Mysterious Dragon
and did you know that the ancient Chinese found dinosaur fossils and
thought they were from dragons? And that in Asia they use the same word for
"dinosaur" and "dragon"? And and and...? (Turns out this is all, to put it succinctly, Kinda Racist Nonsense TM. I f-in' knew it. 😒)
Other than that, this is a pretty nifty look at a legendary expedition. I'm glad to have had my attention brought to it. Now I need to jump in the lake.
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Art of the Day
So. I knew about the “We’re not sure how Azhdarchids moved on the ground, did they walk on two legs?” theory but I
A. did not know there was a sculpture depicting this or that
B. it looks... Like This.
Anyway, this was all I could see. A vision that haunted me all that night, so I had to draw and share.
