Dinosaurs!

[Duskygrin]

Who's a fan? I'm currently watching the BBC's doc Walking with dinosaurs, I'm at the 2nd episode so far, & ain't I just loving it.

The music is over the top, it's outrageous the way they make those poor reptiles interact & roar & snort fume from their nostrils, the most egregious sin is the evident mass-production for the plebes... all of which combined is hooking me to my screen.

I've never been the dino-aficionado that much... I saw Jurassic Park & read Conan Doyle's The Lost World - the latter book enthralled me - but that's about it. Never done any research on them, for instance.

And I find myself in childlike wide-eyed wonder before that series. I think when I get to the twilight of the dynasty at the end of the cretaceous I'm gonna shed a tear.

So, should you ever wish to know the ABC about dinos, I suggest you use that BBC series as a refresher, it's mighty entertaining.

Oh, & don't forget to answer the poll (this isn't about bulbasaurs).

[Grabbal]

Thought we were having a thread about another show called "Dinosaurs".. You know, the one with humans in suits.. *Dissapointed*

[wheelchairman]

You're wrong. *everything* is about Bulbasaur.

I love dinosaurs. Have since I was six.

[Marco]

You should put an option between "yes.." and no.." that says: I don't particulary care but I they're nice creatures.:rolleyes:

[Duskygrin]

Grabbal: ah, no, sorry, I'm not acquainted with that show. Feel free to thread it, I don't fear competition.

Wheelchy: I've just learnt the English ratio PER (it's said otherwise in French) means Price-Earning Ratio. I immediately thought of you.

Marco: it's either you care for them or you don't, nevermind about the hyperbole, it was only done for a laugh.

[mrconeman]

Loved them since I was a little kid.
I always bought this magazine every month with my pocket money back in the day, it had loads of information on dinosaurs, and you collected little pieces at a time and built your dinosaur models, it was awesome core.

[Duskygrin]

You so sound like 1958. *cuddles* Back in the nostalgic 2007 days, they use pathetic-looking CD-roms & measly software.

Oh & mrconesaur, I'm on MSN, it's just I'm watching that series.

[Tijs]

I've heard about the show and I'm interested in watching it. Didn't they show this on Discovery Channel as well? At least something similar, which I enjoyed watching.

[Great Mike]

Dinos are rad :) .

[Duskygrin]

Great Mike: tienes buen gusto.

Tijs: I don't know. I preyed on Bearshare & caught this, it's called Walking with dinosaurs & is in 6 installments. It's not impossible that Discovery Channel may have the same - I know that it's on disco channel that I watched the series Most evil men/women in history.

[Tijs]

Found them & downloading.

What's it like? Is it a bit like March of the Penguins, or is it more general information instead of following a dinosaur's daily routine?

[Jakebert]

I used to love them when I was a kid, and I still think they're pretty neat. Jurassic Park is a good movie, too.

[Duskygrin]

What's it like? Is it a bit like March of the Penguins, or is it more general information instead of following a dinosaur's daily routine?

It begins with the rising of the sun in the triassic. New Blood, new predators, dinos are going to reign supreme till the cretaceous -that is, non-avian dinos, since birds are technically dinos' descendants, & they're still extant.

It's much less tragic than La marche de l'empereur which has even been politicized, but we do follow the dinos around, the mighty predators lurking in the forests or out in the open prairies, there's one episode entirely dedicated to the cruel jurassic sea & another focused on what's going on in the sky. The sceneries are great, there are fights, we follow the herds, learn about the denominations & taxonomy - so we do enlighten ourselves, but it's very generic & it's still pop entertainment, which makes it great material for unwinding of an evening.
Was I clear enough? Hope so.

Jakebert, great taste.


Oh & Tijs, I've a question. Where did you find them? Coz I only have bearshare as you know, & I'd like to know if there's a BBC site where you can dld for free historical, animal, & spatial docs.

[T-6005]

I had a fucked up dream the other day, with velociraptors and a Tyrannosaurus. I was stuck in a bathroom with the velociraptors and got saved by a wizard who put them in a bag.

[Duskygrin]

You suck. Out of my thread. This instant.

[Jakebert]

Jakebert, great taste.

I just watched all 3 of the movies last weekend. I keep thinking about reviewing them in the movie thread, but forgetting. I should do that now before I forget again.

[T-6005]

Are you saying you wouldn't love to have that dream?

[Duskygrin]

Jakebert, erm, you do that.

Thib: I have better ones. Barely a couple days ago I had a harlequin dream. Terence Hill's twin brother -only 30 years younger - fell in love with me & cooked me chili con carne at a political gathering for Sarkozy. I shit you not. He (Terence's bro, not Sarko) even wore torn cowboy clothes of the same tinge as Terence's in the Trinity series (the sand-coloured ones, all dusty from the desert). I'm sorry, but I win.

[Tijs]

Found them on torrent sites. I'll see if I can find them someplace else though.

And your explanation was clear enough for me know you're excited about it. Also for me to imagine what it's like, which I like.

[Duskygrin]

The episodes' duration is 30' each. There are 6 of them. Here's the link (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/dinosaurs/chronology/index.shtml) to the description of the series, so you know what awaits you. I think you'll enjoy, it's highly engrossing.

Now your turn to find me the links to the actual BBC downloading of series. You or anyone else, for that matter... I tried finding out & failed, though. The BBC doesn't seem to like predatory types of ppl.

[killer_queen]

Used to be a real fan when I was a kiddo. Then I read B. B. Calhoun's books and wanted to be a...I don't know what you call the people who deal with fossils. And then I became a young girl and started to be interested in clothes and make-up and forgot all about them.
Now I have a three-year-old nephew who adores dinosaurs. We watch Walking with Dinosaurs (whish is awesome), Jurassic Park and that kind of things together, I teach him the names of the dinos. I think I would be a good paleonwhatever if I lived in America or India or some place where dinosaurs had lived.

By the way, when I first read The Lost World I thought it sucked. The second reading after a couple of years changed my mind, though.

[Tijs]

Paleonthologist! I wanted to be that too for quite a few years. I used to collect fossils. And at that age collecting meant having 2 or 3 items which had something to do with dinosaurs.

[Duskygrin]

Paleontology - no h. & it's always struck me as the most demanding job ever -payed peanuts for digging up small bones in sedimented dung.

[wheelchairman]

Yeah paleontology was also a passion of the young wheelchairman.

[F@ BANKZ]

paleontology never appealed to me, not quite sure why, it did for like evceryone else i knew for my first 3 years at school only then it was called Dinosaur-man.

Walking with dinosaurs, such memories. Does anyone remember that super, ultra-mega corny one where the guy goes back in time to make a doccumentry on dinosaurs then at the end goes "this is the most amazing moment of my life, i'm going to touch the dinosaur". That was dumb as a t-rex starting on a gigonotosaurus.

[Duskygrin]

Don't recall ever seeing that.

I think I'm in awe of the pterosaur. Hybrid betwixt a bat & a bird, with a long beak but skin-membranous wings. He looks a bit like a man when on hind legs. He's the King of the Sky, can fly over the Atlantic in a single journey. In the future he will surrender the skies to the birds, covered with more resistant feathers instead of skin.

But the Pterosaur definitely looks the epitome of the Lost World, with wings outstretched in the distant horizon.

[Tijs]

Don't tell the ending of everything, I still need to watch it :(

Oh and I couldn't find it for download on websites.

[Duskygrin]

Tant pis.

As for the Giant of the Skies... know that I cried at the end. That is all.

[Jakebert]

Yeah paleontology was also a passion of the young wheelchairman.

I think most young boys go through that phase growing up.

[Grabbal]

I went through that phase mostly cause of my uncle was one and I had plenty of dinosaur toys and stuff.. (I even have a video of all of them 10 year back)

[Duskygrin]

That's grand, you know.

[wheelchairman]

Actually I think it's largely due to us being part of the Jurassic Park generation.

[Tijs]

I used to wear my Jurassic Park sweater with pride when I was a 7 year old boy.

[Jakebert]

I just looked up the "Walking with the Dinosaurs" series on Wikipedia, and realized that I watched the whole thing about a month ago, and just forget what it was called.

Boring backstory aside, I really enjoyed it.

[Grabbal]

The only show about those real dinosaurs I've ever seen is "Prehistoric park" and that totally sucked (what you make it be) in my opinion.. But I'm downloading the six episodes now and hopefully when I wake up in the morning they'll be done and as good as they sound like..

[Duskygrin]

Jakebert, I'm glad you did. Barring some small frictions (such as, how exactly can those guys say that the non-hatched pups in the eggs respond with clicks to their mother dinos? How is it even possible to know that? Some details like that sound quasi fictitious... though perhaps they're real... at least it makes for a nice story) I think this series should make unanimity.

So when you see it, Tijs, don't forget to write up your impressions.

Grabbal, I love how you trust me on my words. You make me feel really comfortable.

[mrconeman]

Actually I think it's largely due to us being part of the Jurassic Park generation.

This. I recall watching that in the cinema when I was real young and being totally amazed.

[Jakebert]

Yeah, obviously a lot of it is based on speculation, but it's not speculation that's so far out there that it's like they were really going overboard with creative changes.

[Tijs]

So when you see it, Tijs, don't forget to write up your impressions.
I'll do that. Question though, I probably won't view them in order, since it looks like episode #2 will be finished downloading first. Is there some sort of a story told along all episodes?

And awesome something:
I followed a link in the title of the torrent, but I had to register to view the website. Curious as I am I did, and there's a world full of BBC documentaries and documentaries from other channels aswell!
www.mvgroup.org

[Duskygrin]

The awesome sth will be checked forthwith.

Yes, of course there's a link. *slaps his sinciput* It's in chronological order, imbecile. Begins with triassic & ends in cretaceous. Silly boy. You got to see New Blood first.

[wheelchairman]

Also you know what's awesome? That walking with Dinosaurs program, the American version has Avery Brooks as the narrator. That's real awesome.

[Tijs]

The awesome sth will be checked forthwith.

Yes, of course there's a link. *slaps his sinciput* It's in chronological order, imbecile. Begins with triassic & ends in cretaceous. Silly boy. You got to see New Blood first.

I had to look up 'sinciput'. But yeah, silly boy indeed.

I'm now downloading a few more documentaries:
Predators
Revealing Mars
Secrets of the Maya Underworld
Superhumans

[Duskygrin]

I'll never get torrent to work. My dld rate is 2 kb/sec, I can't even figure out what's wrong. This is too frustrating. Plus I'm chiefly interested in historical docs, I had found a history of britain (with Henry VIII, the war of the roses, etc) but I lost the url. I'm useless.

[Duskygrin]

That was dumb as a t-rex starting on a gigonotosaurus.

Is that so dumb, though? Apparently the T-rex appeared in the late cretaceous & was a 5-ton killing machine, a gigantic predator... I'm not sure the "gigonotosaurus" was still there at that time, I've never even heard the denomination before as a matter of fact, but I'll try look up its weight, size, & means of attack & pit it against the T-rex.

P.S.: didn't find the "giganosaur". I take it it's a joke.

[ZagmenO]

Dinosaurs RULE!!!!!!!

[Bazza]

This threads needs more dinosaurs!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/bazza1987/018-NaturalHistoryMuseum-.jpg

[mrconeman]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Stegosaurus_Struct.jpg
Stegosaurus ftw.

[Venom Symbiote]

The problem with Walking With Dinosaurs and all of the other documentaries is, their special effects are inevitably crap. I mean, it's always amazed me how middle-aged people watching this stuff are all "ZOMG, reeeaaal!", and yet think Jurassic Park looked fake.

Like, digital effects would be cheaper now than in '93, right? Obviously they don't have the same budget as a freakin' Spielberg blockbuster, but you'd think they could make them look a little better than a TV commercial quality.

Jurassic Park was inaccurate as fuck (Dilophosaur, pssh...not to mention most of the dinosaurs weren't even "Jurassic" - fuck, amazing what useless shit you'll remember from reading as a kid), but a damn amazing movie. I mean, than animatronic T-Rex is still pretty-much the best movie effect to this day. Even the CG part towards the end looked good.

[wheelchairman]

I was wondering when we'd get one of your stupid, pointless opinions again. :)

[Change the world]

Dinosaurs Own the Humans of Today.

Dino Pride!

[Venom Symbiote]

I was wondering when we'd get one of your stupid, pointless opinions again. :)

Ok...

Open-minded, yay!

There's nothing wrong with what I'm saying. TV-quality CG dinosaurs look crap. Why not just either make it animated or use animatronics? They always look better. If they want CG, get a budget. So it doesn't look ridiculous.

[Duskygrin]

You're so argumentative, child, you remind me of the flowers that Alice visits in Through the looking-glass.

"If only her petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right."
...
"If only they used animatronics a little more, it'd be all right."

One advice: leave it BE. Walking with dinos is a great doc, Jurassic Park is a great movie, full stop. The target audience is not necessarily the same, the budget is necessarily different but the 1999 doc took 2 years to make, I'll have you know.

Bazosaur, you rule.
Mrconesaur, you rule.

[Jakebert]

The problem with Walking With Dinosaurs and all of the other documentaries is, their special effects are inevitably crap. I mean, it's always amazed me how middle-aged people watching this stuff are all "ZOMG, reeeaaal!", and yet think Jurassic Park looked fake.

Like, digital effects would be cheaper now than in '93, right? Obviously they don't have the same budget as a freakin' Spielberg blockbuster, but you'd think they could make them look a little better than a TV commercial quality.


The CGI on those specials is the highest quality you're going to get for a TV documentary. That's the point, genius. It's TV. Not a movie.

[Grabbal]

So far I've downloaded the 2 out of 6 parts of the walking with dinosaurs documentary and after seeing the first part I am truly facinated!!

I was worried that the storyteller would be a boring man with an annoying voice, but thankfully it was the complete opposite in my opinion. Seeing that the file was in HD also didn't hurt cause it made all the great areas and animation look even better. I swear that sometimes I even thought it was the real deal. Crazy! It also was never boring and I didn't even pause it once which to tell the truth is very rare for me when I watch TV shows, movies or whatever it is..

In other words I wanna thank you Duskygrin for making this wonderful thread which made me watch this truly amazing show!!

Kudos to you..

[Duskygrin]

Erm you're welcome? The name is Maria btw. & yeah I also was under a spell when I watched the whole series. Unfortunately I watched the 6 episodes yesterday - I'm such a greedy bitch :( - I should have saved some for today. Tant pis. The only setback is that they didn't actually make more of them.

After that, the same team that directed Walking with dinos made Walking with beasts. I'm trying to dload them on bearshare, but I ain't done yet! It's about mammoths, sabre tooths/teeth, all the beasts that appeared after the dinos' extinction in 65M BC. Right up to the Ice Age! & how they fed on our ancestors & everything. Magnificent. I can't wait.

[Jakebert]

I saw bits and pieces of that one before, and I didn't think it was as good. The setting and atmosphere is done really well, but it gets slightly boring in places.

[Duskygrin]

Ah well. I'm hoping it dlds well & then I'll give a gander at the sabre tooth episode.

I guess nothing beats the dinos.

[Grabbal]

Maria

I highly recommend torrent downloaders like bitlord (http://www.bitlord.com/) and sites like Torrentspy (http://torrentspy.com/search?query=walking+with+beasts&submit.x=0&submit.y=0) if you want really fast downloads.. I'm not really familiar with how bearshare is now, but back when I use to have it it could take days or more. Currently one part of the documentary (350 MB) takes about two hours or so depending on your internet connection..

Warning: May rape internet though!

[Duskygrin]

Pff I tried everything it's no use; I'm shitty at everything remotely techy. I know bearshare is pretty slow but that's not the speed that is troubling me so far, it's the fact that some stuff simply needs more sources & I might not be able to get them at all.

I tried all the torrent sites (well, utorrent, bittorrent) but apparently sth's wrong, I have no dld speed at all. Either it's my router or my firewall, but I'm so untechy I'm unable to pinpoint the origin of the trouble. Supposing it was my firewall, I made an exception for the program & the ports. No use. I've not done anything for the router, I don't even know where to look to fix it.

So I'm stuck with bearshare atm (I tried limewire, it didn't work either). If it doesn't dld, then I'll ask a kind soul to upload the files for me on rapidshare or some other file service. I've already asked Tijs to do that for A History of Britain & if Walking with beasts is also unavailable I'll ask sb else if it's too much trouble for him.

Voilà my pathetic story. I'm pretty bitter bec I don't even know where to look to find my IP, router manual, etc. I'm using wifi & a laptop btw.

[Tijs]

I'll send it together with the other documentary to you when they're finished downloading.

[Duskygrin]

Wowsaur! Tell me where you want me to kiss you & where I sign the contract!

Only kidding. Thanks a l-o-t.

[Tijs]

Only kidding.Are you sure? In July I'll be in Lyon.

[Duskygrin]

I'd give you my number if you wanted to meet up. I'll be at my parents', seeing friends & working IF I've found an internship... so I wouldn't have any problem meeting & thanking you in person. I'm not an "internet leech", sucking up the internet bandwidth of innocent users...

[Tijs]

Actually I'm only driving through trying to get the hell out of that traffic.

[Duskygrin]

Drive carefully, dear. & be polite when talking about MY traffic in MY country. Only we Frenchies are allowed to get loud about it. Hmph. & it's mostly due to tourists like you anyway.

[Duskygrin]

*public crier*

Latest news! Latest news!

CLEVELAND - A new dinosaur species was a plant-eater with yard-long horns over its eyebrows, suggesting an evolutionary middle step between older dinosaurs with even larger horns and the small-horned creatures that followed, experts said.

Full article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070304/ap_on_sc/new_dinosaur)

Grandiose!

[Tijs]

I've watched the first 4 episodes now and I must say I haven't learned anything new. All the given information was very easy to fill in for yourself since it's so similar with today's animals. I hoped for more depth and focus of a few single animals.
The only thing they made me (more) aware of was how different the landmasses were back then. And I never thought of the fact that dinosaurs lived for hundreds of millions years, thus there being many different species over time.
The first episode was the most interesting episode since that's the period I hardly know a thing about, but in my opinion they should've went even further back in time. Now all the animals are presented as if they just suddenly appeared. I wanted to know from which animals they evolved and how. That goes for all episodes I've seen so far.
Following the evolutions of the plants is more interesting than the dinosaurs, to me. I've just seen the 'first' flowers, but they too were suddenly there. What about all the steps in between them?
What made it more interesting to see was the presence of species which are still among us today; sharks, turtles, dung beetles, bees, etc. I knew they existed back then but it's interesting to see how they haven't changed at all over hundreds of millions years.

My rating: 6.5.
Informative if you don't know anything about dinosaurs, story telling is easy to follow. 3D animation are great. Lack of depth and focus.

I'll try to watch episode 5 and 6 today too.

[Duskygrin]

Good grief, & I thought I was a fastidious viewer. When I really was a baby.

I got intrigued by the geological states & went wiki it afterwards. To learn more about Pangaea, the evolution of the fauna & flora, etc.

edit/PS.: got my pm? your box was full & I resent it after you had emptied it I think.

[bouncingcoles]

dinosaurs are fucking amazing! its incredible to think those beasts lived on our planet millions of years ago!