I love this show, though some of the stuff I really question the credibility of. My personal opinions of the fights:
SPOILERST-Rex HunterThe Fun Stuff:
This
was a fun one. The plot is that the parents of two baby Rexes go on a hunt and a Nanotyrannus attacks the juveniles in the hopes of killing off the competition. The mother returns to save her baby and, despite the odds being soooooo utterly against him, the Nano presses his attack and dies for his ignorance. Nano had it coming for being so stupid
. I love the design and colorations for the Nano and the show of parental instincts for the rexes. I'm far from being a fangirl of T-Rex (honestly, I think its overrated), but I was impressed with most of the fight's execution and I already knew how it would end.
The Nitpicks:
This is the only documentary I know that claims T-Rex had a komodo dragon bite :huh: . Sounds logical, I guess, but wouldn't that mean the other carnivores had the same ability since they had meat-catching serrations on their teeth too? I'll probably ask Pangaea about it later. Also, the young rexes looks exactly like the adults. It's known that they had similar design to Nano and that's why there's this whole "Was Nano its own species or just a baby T-Rex" thing. And really, what was the Nano thinking when he refused to retreat?
:
If he was as experienced as they keep saying he was, he would have the sense to run when Mama appeared. I think
any animal would have the sense to run........ And they need to stop drilling one piece of false information in kid's heads: T-Rex is
not the largest carnivorous dinosaur that ever lived. I'm pretty sure this was made when dinos like Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus was discovered. <_<
Cannibal DinosaurThe Fun Stuff:
The whole inbreeding-the-cause-of-these-mutations sounds very reasonable and that's one speculation in this show I can actually agree on
. The plot: A male Majungatholus is looking for a mate and finds one, only to find that she's not interested cuz she already has a kid. So he decides to fight the mother and kill the baby in the hopes of mating. That hope was shattered when he lost and was then eaten alive by the mother. The death of the baby Majungatholus was a surprise, but in a good kind of way. And I have no reason to doubt that carnivorous dinosaurs weren't cannibals to some extent! I like how the dinos didn't just start tearing into each other and instead tried to display and intimidate each other first. I think the execution was perfectly accurate with the male's desire to mate and his subsequent action to kill the baby and the female's maternal instincts driving her to protect the infant with her life. Then the plot-twist of her eating her baby after she learned it was dead was also fairly accurate.
The Nitpicks:
Firstly, the dinosaur's name. Majungatholus isn't the correct name for these animals. I believe the correct name is Majungasaurus. Also, the male looks like an oversize chicken! That's not really a good nitpick, but I just wanted to say that!
Hunter Becomes the HuntedThe Fun Stuff:
Firstly, it circles my two favorite 'characters' in this episode: Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus. Now, I love the whole 'rivalry' the show made between them. The fight itself, it was exciting enough to have me second-guessing. The whole plot is that food is getting scarce and a mated pair of Ceratosaurus intrudes on the territory of an Allosaurus. The Allosaurus killing the female was predictable, but the male Ceratosaurus vs the Allosaurus had me on my toes. I was certain from the start that Allosaurus would win. But when the Ceratosaurus leapt onto his side, I thought 'S***! My Allosaurus might not win after all!' But then he managed to throw the Ceratosaurus off and finish him. It was a very satisfying fight for me and this is my favorite episode of the whole series for that reason.
The Nitpicks:
They seem to be..... demeaning the Ceratosaurus. Yes, it's an earlier theropod than Allosaurus, but that doesn't neccesarily make it inferior to other dinosaurs or any less of an efficient carnivore. As my wise sister puts it: "Ceratosaurus is everyone's b**** in this show." I can't summarize it any better myself. And a minor inconsistancy problem I see is when they say that Ceratosaurus's claws weren't really used as weapons, then in the fight, we see Ceratosaurus slashing the Allosaurus' face to the point that it makes the whole fight personal and Allosaurus no longer wishes to drive his rival away, but to kill him. Also, the fossil evidence wasn't really evidence of the fight. It was a bunch of herbivore fossils that had tooth and claw marks in them, a single Ceratosaur skeleton, and the skeleton of Allosaurus. The fight had nothing to do with the many bodies of herbivores and the Allosaurus survived the fight to reclaim his territory. Seemed the fossil 'evidence' of the fight was more for the Bloodiest Battle episode. Speaking of which....
The Bloodiest BattleThe Fun Stuff:
More Allosaurus and a minor appearance of Ceratosaurus!! That automatically makes this a desired episode for me. The fight is long drawn-out and awesome. Tippy and his mom gets stuck in the mud (sorry for LBT reference, I won't do it again!) and the baby Stegosaurus is defenseless as a Ceratosaurus begins to eat it. A trio of Allosaurus arrive and kill the Ceratosaurus in less than a second (everyone's little scapegoat)....The mother Stego frees her tail and kills an Allosaurus. A bunch of longnecks (Heh, I lied
) arrive and their leader's stuck in the mud and the Allosaurus turns their attention to him as he's abandoned by his herd. All-in-all, it's an epic battle with blood everywhere. I was expecting the Allosaurus to succeed in killing the herd's leader, and was shocked that they were killed instead. Regardless of the killing of my favorite combatants, it was an great episode.
The Nitpicks:
Why does the Allosaurus always feels the need to kill everything in sight? They had food literally at their feet in the form of the baby stego (which was already dead and I doubt the mother's tail would be able to reach the predators as they fed), a trapped mother stego who had her tail free, but was completely immobilized so as not to be able to utilize it efficiently, and the dead body of the Ceratosaurus, which several clips showed an Allosaurus eating a Ceratosaurus, proved they weren't above eating another predator. With how intelligent the show likes to emphasize them being, I would think they would go for an easy and already dead food source rather than wasting precious energy to risk attacking a huge healthy bull dinosaur that still had the possibility of getting free of the mud at any moment. This was the cause of the Allosaurus' death.
Gang KillersThe Fun Stuff:
Based on one of my favorite fossil evidence involving a pack of Deinonychus and a Tenontosaurus (sp?). Basically, a hunt of predator and prey. A good fight with the prey, for once, not being some helpless creature. It also had the realistic sense of the raptors retreating when they lost too many pack members, only to try their luck once more when odds were in their favor. A good fight.
The Nitpick:
Not too much to nitpick, besides the basic, inaccurate design of the raptors. This seemed like a plausible fight, though I do wonder why they make the Tenontosaurus go into the forest, claiming he'll be safer there, then turn around and say that the forested environment was a big disadvantage to him? Contradictory, much?
Raptors Versus T-RexThe Fun Stuff:
Basically a bunch of Dromeosaurus attacking an Edmontosaurus. Pretty decent episode, though you Rex fans might be disappointed at how little they show of the T-rex. There's not much to say here as the whole fight's basically the same as that of Gang Killers with the added twist of a T-Rex showing up at the end and stealing their food.
The Nitpicks:
The title's misleading. There's no raptor/rex combat like in Jurassic Park. The raptors retreat when big Rexy appears, the show saying that they would never challenge the 'King'. Yet that didn't stop them before in making dinosaurs attack something they normally wouldn't... And again, stop glorifying T-Rex and making it seem like some invinsible creature that can't possibly ever be defeated in battle. He has just as much a chance of being killed as any other creature. And I can't emphasize it enough with this show, he's
not the largest carnie ever, so please get the facts straight. It's no better than giving a bad rap to an already-misunderstood creature.
Raptor's Last StandThe Funstuff:
Watching this reminded me of the book Raptor Red as it's basically a fight between a Utahraptor and a Gastonia. It was cool in that the raptor had a good reason to attack something so inedible: dought was driving it to make some dangerous decisions. This is fairly natural. The Gastonia wins, which is a no-brainer. At least they keep that accurate as well!!
The Nitpicks:
Raptors are known for being social pack creatures, but why is this one all alone? I guess the drought broke social bonds, like said in Raptor Red. And again, the raptor design is rather inaccurate. Plus, I do wonder how the raptor survived the fight with all its injuries and the lack of food and water to help with the healing process. And they say the Gastonia isn't smart enough to form strategy, but that's basically what it's doing when it's adapting to the raptor's new mode of attack and also planning ahead to disable the raptor's leg.
These are the fights I've actually watched. And again, despite the nitpicks I've managed to think up of, I do like this show.
Enough to buy the above episodes off of itunes.
