Jurassic Fight Club Open Thread

I'd have to say not bad, I had some problems with it. The waddles and nose crests on the male bothered me. It's mostly an visual thing, but they just look 'silly' on a predator. The body seemed too compact and the legs were too long based on the current skeleton. Minor quibbles, it could have been a lot worse.

Spoilers ahead!

I liked the coloring and quite liked the male killing the young one, and the eating of the male while still alive was a great deal of fun! I would like to know if the neck bones were actually crushed. I would have liked more of the female and her young, but that's just me. Evolve eyes was pretty good too. Now hopefully Eureka will be good and I'll have had almost a perfect evening:)

Best,

Brett

Well, here's one question for you Brian (or any of the esteemed commentators). I missed the first 15 minutes or so of the show, but got the last little bit where they were discussing the teeth marks on the bones. Granted the fight scenes were cool, and the situation seemed plausible, but would there be any reason to rule out scavenging at the outset? Not being anything near a dino-expert (always loved them, but veered into something else to study), I admit complete ignorance as to any current knowledge about this particular species.

cheers,
Tim

I didn't care for the waddles and gobblers either. For people that have been slow to accept feathered dinosaurs or the concept of dinosaurs being birds, dressing a respectable predator up like a giant chicken isn't going to suade them in the right direction.

I know Mr. Switek in the past has been openly critical of CGI dino documentaries such as this, but I enjoy them - especially the part of me that just wants to see cool dinosaur art and reconstructions with still enough science peppered on to make it interesting.

I did think it dragged out a bit: I was always ahead of what was about to happen or be said, and it relied quite a bit on repeating information, clips and turntable shots. I think it could have easily been condensed into a 30 minute show (or done two or three different "fight matches" per episode).

I guess I prefer the narrative approach of "Walking With Dinosaurs" (or "Dinosaur Planet" or even "When Dinosaurs Roamed America," for that matter) over the concept of analyzing a single fight or encounter for the entire hour. But overall, it's a passable show with enough to keep the veteran dinosaur enthusiast viewing, and will offer even more to the less-informed or casual dinosaur fan for whom the information presented and dinosaurs shown might be new.

For those interested, the full Jurassic Fight Club series (twelve episodes, 9hrs24min) DVD is already available for preorder on the History Channel website for only $25.

I'm going to do something I like to call a "Compliment Sandwich", where I start with something good, talk about what needs improvement, and then end with something good.
Something good: I thought it was entertaining...
Something that needs improvement: I FOOLISHLY assumed that there was gonna be a little more critical thinking involved then just "They're lions..." (Dusts hands in triumph.) They just threw in completely irrelevant mammalian behavior and presented it as fact.
I mean obviously extinct dinosaurs had a breeding season, like extant dinosaurs (birds) do. There would be no point in a male killing an infant to mate with the mother during the breeding season because it would have ended months earlier. And besides when birds, like the Jacana, engage in infanticide, it involves the killing of eggs.
And if they're anything like ratites, except for the largest (ostriches) and the smallest (kiwis) where the childcare is done by both sexes, the young are raised exclusively by the male (the like is true of the Jacana by the way), and if they were anything like a cassowary or modern raptors the larger, adorned skeleton was probably the female.
And why would we assume that just because one dinosaur had eaten another dinosaur that that dinosaur engaged in battle with, was killed and eaten by the aforementioned dinosaur?
(flips notepad): Something good... something good... I only saw that same damn Vonage commercial three times...
Sorry it was a rather large, hideously anal retentive sandwich.

I only caught the last ten minutes or so, so I can't really give a fair review. But I was totally annoyed at the way everything was stated as fact, flat out. That and the language used was so hyped up, but I suppose on a show called Jurassic Fight Club, you aim for hype.

Any chance to see this someday soon here in Italy?

No idea on Italy, but we didn't get here in New Zealand either.

The only reason I saw it at the same time as everyone in North America is that I finally got the press kit they set me to review an HOUR before the show aired on the east coast... LOL

I liked it except for the stupid narration. So over the top in sensationalism. Okay and the lack of ANY other CG animals in Madagascar made it seem a really boring place, when it was far from it!

The palaeotologist interviews were awesome. The CG really good. I agree with JP that this could have used a more walking with dinosaur style narration, and it would have been a lot better.

I still like the BBC efforts more (even CG wise. Prehistoric Park is still top of the line in my book), but this is the best American effort in a longtime.

Okay, I'll be the one to say it. Why do they call it Jurassic Fight Club when the first two episodes take place in the Cretaceous? For that matter, the whole Fight Club thing is a little weird as well -- "You think that you're special, that you're going to be an apex predator. But you're not."

I really, really wish they'd been more clear on what is speculation and what is fact and how the speculations are supported by the facts.

Anyone notice how they kept talking about how slow Majungotholus was while the animation showed it going a million miles an hour? This is big animal. I suspect it would have been at least a little ponderous. There seemed to be a real disconnect between what was being said and what was being shown.

There were moments when the animation was jerky and there were moments when the 3-D models weren't successfully integrated into the background. On the other hand the violence was rather sweet and there were moments where the animals were startlingly convincing on a purely visual level.

At the end of the day? Tacky, trashy, with just enough information and eye-candy to get me past the lameness of the whole thing...

... which means I'll probably wind up buying it and watching it repeatedly. I am a sad person.

My review is here:

http://wannabepaleo.blogspot.com/2008/07/its-like-expelled-minus-nazis…

I agree with Sean, for some reason I want to keep watching it.

Isn't the word spelled "wattle". Just being nitpicky. I hope to catch the premiere on rerun.

I missed the episode (I was in Seward), but hopefully they will run it again, like every cable station does. From the comments, though, it's not sounding good!

Strider has it right. I've been avoiding mentioning this for fear of being recognized as a pedantic twerp.

Guess that blows my cover.