Domeheads from the first film Showcase - July 2020

[rhombus]

Now where can they be...



Ah, thanks for finding our guests, Cera! 


In this topic please feel free to discuss these antagonists as character,s to share your own creations (fanfics or fanart), or to mention some of your favorite fanworks of others involving them.  For a full set of rules please see the 2020 Monthly Character Showcase topic but keep in mind that this is meant to be fun as opposed to any sort of contest.

I will go ahead and get the discussion started with the following question:

What do you think motivated the antagonism of these domeheads against Cera in the first film?

[Sneak]

Oh, these guys.

Many years I thought they were sharpteeth and tried to eat Cera... Only other antagonistic sharpteeth in original movie besides main antagonist. I kinda liked their small appearance.

And after I found out they were not carnivores, I thought it was Cera's fault they acted like this. -_-
Did she tell something very mean to them? Very possibly.

[Goldenwind]

Maybe she declared that she better at ramming things than the domeheads and insulted them?  I think the answer to this might be in a deleted scene, probably the one with the oasis. If I remember correctly that scene was in a book adaption.

[Sneak]

Both illustrated book and script doesn't give a description why exactly and how Cera appeared in cave, surrounded by "lizard heads". Scene was started in the middle or from the beginning of the action, but no reasons were given, as I rememeber.

Edit: Wait, there were another book I didn't check...

Edit2: Nothing.

Edit3: Amazing new forum icons, as always! ^^

[LittleDas75]

I think they attacked Cera because she had entered their territory.

[Goldenwind]

@LittleDas75 That sounds like a highly possible explanation. I imagine herds being especially territorial with the lack and food and water surrounding the area.

[LittleDas75]

  Although probably not to this extent.

[ChocoDrake]

I am fond of these three because I had read a fanfic about them once. I cannot recall who wrote it but the fic was about these three framing Chomper for eating young ones. 

Sure they were the villains of the story and they were eating people, but I sort of feel bad for them at the end even if they deserved to get mobbed by the entire valley. I like the backstory the author made for them, with how food was scarce but they found an alternative...

Fanfiction aside I still think they were just hungry. If you were a hungry dino and a small helpless orange thing wandered in your territory would you say no to that? I don't think so.

[Nanotyrannus]

Interesting that these don't even appear for a minute and they still manage to stand as some of the franchise's more memorable antagonists...

Of all of the depictions of Pachycephalosaurus/crownheads going off of promotional materials and the script for the first movie/boneheads going off of the credits of the eleventh movie/domeheads if you want to use the term that was used for the non-Pachycephalosaurus pachycephalosaurs in the TV series that appear in the series, these stand out as my favorites; their designs, their sounds, their body language...

Parroting @ChocoDrake for a moment, I will concede that a lot of my love for these three derives from a fanfiction that I read a long time ago - in fact, the very same fanfiction mentioned above where they come to the Great Valley and frame Chomper for harming/eating other children (I believe it was called 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent', I'm confident that it was by FlipperBoidSkua) - the story was admittedly so influential that its portrayal of the three as evil, opportunistic carnivores bled into some of my non-TLBT-related dinosaur works that feature pachycephalosaurs.

As for what provoked them to go after Cera in the first place, I am of two minds:

• The former idea, and the one that I lean to more than the other, is that they are actively hunting Cera with the intent of eating her. Their body language is the biggest factor here, especially the faces they make before they get distracted by her friends (their behavior also strikes me as a bit raptor-esque; the fact that they have sickle claws on their feet in a handful of shots is suspect...).
• The latter idea is that Cera said something stupid to them that got them on her tail; maybe she called them "roundbrains" or something.

[RainbowFaceProtege]

What do you think motivated the antagonism of these domeheads against Cera in the first film?

Hunger.

If you look at the way they're opening their mouths right before the disguised Gang shows up, it's pretty clear they were about to eat her. Paleontological inaccuracy, anyone? The fact that this species growled instead of talking in both this appearance and their brief moment in IV further supports that Pachycephalosaurus got lumped with the sharpteeth for some random reason. I gotta say, of all the scientific blunders LBT ever made, this was one of the worst. I still have a hard time overlooking it to this day. Come on, any little kid who likes dinosaurs can tell you Pachycephalosaurus wasn't carnivorous.

Don't mind me, though. From the looks of it, these guys are sort of popular, so I guess I'm in the minority here. I'll just take my textbooks and go.

To end my rant on a different note, I recall the domeheads scaring me when I was little...even though I knew right from the start that they were inaccurate.

[Sneak]

yeah, I remember they had facial expressions and actions like they tried to eat her, even rewatched this moment recently. But with oasis scene when it was stated they are leafeaters, it kinda debunks theory about their carnivorous intentions.
Could they be omnivore enough to eat not eggs but grown children?.. I don't know
Also, it seems they actually have flat teeth in that scene.

[OwlsCantRead]

I know they are pachycephalosaurus and that the species are somewhat popular, but in hindsight I feel like they got the short end of the stick. Sharptooth steals the show and them being (understandably) scared off by a tar-covered gang kinda makes them not as memorable in comparison.

[jassy]

Honestly I’d kind of forgotten about  the domeheads until I rewatched the first movie in like 2011? The sharptooth was more memorable for me too. 

[LittleDas75]

In my opinion Sharptooth and the domeheads are equally memorable.

[StardustSoldier]

Time for me to again get caught up on the previous showcases I missed.


Despite the domeheads' brief but memorable role, I seldom think of these guys as villains, per say. Usually when I think of LBT villains, I think of the main villains per film (Ozzy & Strut in #2, Ichy & Dil in #4, the "Useless Sharptooth" in #6, etc.). And of course, the very first Sharptooth in the original film, who overshadows the domeheads to an extent. Still, I think this was a good idea for a character showcase. I was curious to see what others would have to say about them.

What do you think motivated the antagonism of these domeheads against Cera in the first film?

You know, that is a very interesting question, and one that I never thought all that much about before. In itself, I'm inclined to say that it was either just them being overly territorial, or else they were hungry predators looking for food, or perhaps both. Still, it is all the more interesting because I believe this is the only time we see their species as outright antagonistic. Unlike sharpteeth who went on to become the main villain species in the series.

Domeheads are a seldom-seen species in general, another interesting little tidbit. A pack of them runs by in the Land of Mists in the fourth movie, and I also recall seeing them in one of the TV episodes. But as far as I'm aware, the scene where they attack Cera is the only time we see them as dangerous. Even in the removed oasis scene from the first movie, there were some domeheads who were shown to be unpleasant, but not overtly hostile.

Speaking of which, if the oasis scene had been included in the film proper, it would've given the domeheads two different appearances in the movie. I kinda wish they'd included the oasis scene for that reason alone as it would've been neat to see more of them.