Recommended TV, Film etc.

Looks great. Unfortunately my internet is being a bugger right now so I'll have to watch it later.

Found the website:
http://animal.discovery.com/tv/animal-armageddon/creatures/

Also the wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Armageddon

There will be 8 episodes (two about the dinosaur extinction) in all and a whole host of cool creatures.

Here's their Dromaeosaurus. Aint he cute?

http://animal.discovery.com/prehistoric/dromaeosaurus/index.html

Went to see this yesterday. Fun little movie. Pretty much what you'd expect from a movie for kids; some mild peril, some abstract cuteness and lots of jokes (some good, some bad, some 'influenced' by other films - example the musk ox "I taught you were female!" gag was basically ripped straight out of Kingpin, albeit less filthy) as a motley crew of prehistoric beasts travel to a 'lost world' full of dinosaurs to save their friend Sid the sloth.

The voice acting is solid. Denis Leary (Diego the Saber tooth cat) and Queen Latifa (female mammoth) do a good job on basic scripting. Ray Romano (male mammoth) is... well Ray Romano. He's not bad by any means, but he doesn't exactly challenge himself either. Now that I think about it, I'm amazed Frank Welker wasn't involved in some capacity.

The highlight is probably Simon Pegg's character (a crazy one-eyed weasel). You can tell he probably wrote/improved most of the lines himself.

Three months ago I woke up married to a pineapple... an ugly pinapple! ....but did love her. *swoons*

All delivered in his genuine mad-kap style of course.

As a palaeontology buff I was happy at the variety of creatures they included, from terror Diatryma to Moeritherium to Macrauchenia. Then when they arrive in the 'lost world' of dinosaurs there are all sorts; brachiosaurs, stegosaurs, Ornitholestes to name but a few.

Fans favourite Scratch (the buck toothed squirrel thing) is back, of course, but joined by a rival/love interest (the originally named) Scratchette. They have a few scenes which are not linked to the main plot in any real way, but provide excellent silent cartoon era style humour. A bizarre love triangle developed between Scratch, Scratchette and a nut, which must be seen to be believed, that eventually climaxes in a truly oddball montage.

The 3D segments were a bit of a let down, with only a few genuine "Wow" moments. There was a lot of forced 3D perspective, but not nearly enough stuff flying out of the screen. A missed opportunity. I fear 3D cinema may be little more than a gimmick at this point. If you have the choice you may want to save the extra €2 and see the 2D version instead.

The CGI is very nice, particularly the fur on the mammoths which moves realisticly in the breeze. Although there were scenes where the mammoths didn't leave tracks in the which (shouldn't bother peple TBH) distracted me.

There was one particular moment towards the end that had me overly giddy in my seat. Unfortunately it's a massive spoiler. let's just say a very old vendetta is settled... .

Overall, I found it an entertaining romp. A perfect afternoon's distraction for the kids that wont drive adults to distraction.

Discovery Science are showing secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy at 2 o' clock today.

People keep asking me how the T.rex gets into the building at the end of JP1. Hopefully this will make them stop.

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

???

It walked in through the big opening at the back.

You can now pick up the full series of Dinosaur Planet on DVD in Tower Records (O' Connell St, above Eason) for €12

Also on Nat Geo Wild yesterday there was a programme called Weirdest Dinosaurs. Very good once off hour long doc about a variety of weird and wonderful dinos (including fairly new ones such as Gigantoraptor and raptorex) with some nice CGI and lots of palaeontologists arguig about what various dinosaur bits n' bobs were for.
My only gripe was the lack of Therizinosaurus, probably the weirdest dinosaur of them all.

Finding Ardi will be shown on the Discovery Channel on Sunday at 9pm

Want to know more about Ardipithecus now? Click http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055699077

Harry Knowels of Aint It Cool News had an interview with Joe Johnston (diector of Jurassic Park ///). They mostly discussed the upcoming Wolfman film. However hints were dropped about a new Jurassic Park film. So, here is the Jurassic park related stuff:

Harry: With JURASSIC PARK, the reason that the first one still holds up so well is because of the exact right mixture of the physical as well as the digital and there are some times when the audience isn’t quite sure when they are looking at a Stan [Winston] thing and when they are looking at a Dennis [Muren] thing, which is fun.

Joe Johnston: It is and that happened right at that horizon. I’m sure you know, Phil Tippet was preparing all of the puppets to the…

Harry: Yeah, the go-motion stuff.

Joe Johnston: I’m sure that would have been amazing in itself.

Harry: It would have been the last great stop motion/live action film. Instead, we had the first great CG Live Action film.

Joe Johnston: That’s very true.

Harry: Speaking of JURASSIC PARK, are you thinking of heading into that fourth one after this?

Joe Johnston: Well, there is a great story for the fourth one that I would be interested in getting involved with and it’s nothing like the first three. It sort of takes the franchise off in a completely different direction, which is the only way I would want to get involved.

Harry: Another movie about a group of people struggling to survive a dinosaur attack is…

Joe Johnston: We’ve done that and it’s been done three times and I figure it’s…

Harry: Stay away from that island. Don’t go there!

Joe Johnston: Why would anybody go back to that island? It was hard enough to figure out the second and third reason for them to go, but it would take it off in a whole other trilogy basically, but when it gets to that level it’s sort of about studios and Steven’s thing and who knows. I think we are at that point where we are due for another one if we are going to do it. They had what four years between them? 1992… 1996 or 1997, and then 2001, so we are past due. I don’t know, but we will see.

Full interview here:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42999


Please note, poster is fan made
(will probably merge with film/Tv thread at a later date )

While I do think there is potential for a film about David Boreanaz leading a crack team of genetially modified super-intelligent Deinonychus, I think it's perhaps a bit too far removed from the essence of Jurassic Park to belong in the franchise.

Dinocroc, a creature so terrifying it can roar under water!

I just heard that Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs has been shortlisted for the best animated feature award at the Academy Awards (Oscars).

For the day that's in it...