The Big Picture: Dinosaur Exodus

[Generic_Dave]

Looking at the trailer, the "hybrid dino" still in its enclosure after the marks have been left by its assumed escape and the cuttlefish camo DNA rumours, I would assume the main reason that the dinos don't have feathers is because then it couldn't go all chameleon and I'm betting that is a big part of the plot.

Also, on the Raptor/Chris Pratt thing, I've heard alot about "training", "dna manipulation" or even Dian Fossey-style acclimatisation but given that dinosaurs are ascendant from birds, I think the most sensible conclusion is that, like many birds, some dinosaurs will imprint on the first person they encounter (Hammond mentions this in the first movie, and we never see him interact with a grown dinosaur). Many species of geese and duck will treat the first animal they see as their mother, so perhaps Pratt is the mother-raptor here? I think it is a more sensible inclusion, than the other theories.

 

[walsfeo]

Just because you haven't seen a feathered dino that you find awesome doesn't mean one couldn't be created. On the other hand, the Jurassic Park folks used lizard or amphibian DNA as the base to fill in the gaps, right? So perhaps their "not entirely pure" dinos don't need feathers. Still, a T-Rex with lion like coloring, or Velociraptors with irregularly colored plumage might work instead of having all of them look like my niece took the brightest crayons she could find to color in a dinosaur coloring book.

It'd have the potential to be very interesting for a film to have some of each. Maybe a rival company went the bird route instead of the lizard route.

 

[Syntax Man]

Whitewashing history

"history"

That is all

 

[Scorpid]

Can't say I agree with you Bob, I think feather dinosaurs look badass.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeah. Ostriches and Emu's would have a toe or two to pick with Bob about the subject. ONE KICK and bob goes to the hospital or to the morgue. BUT I also don't think Jurrasic Park necessarily needs to reflect the most accurate dinosaurs to do justice to paleontology either.

OT: I think bob is being a bit of speciest by stereotyping the Avian side of the animal kingdom as servile parrots that should spend their time mimicing bobs voice for his petty amusement. For shame bob, that sort of prejudice should of gone out with your grandparents .

 

[themilo504]

To be honest I find your views on science rather pathetic, no we don?t have jetpacks or colonies on mars and we can?t transplant our bodies into robots, but we do have laptops tablets video games and the internet, we live in a world of the future just not the one you wanted.

 

[KilloZapit]

To me it's kind of a moot point if dinosaurs are feathered or not in popular media, because as far as I am concerned, the popular image of dinosaurs is not real and never really was.

I heard once that Cyclops were actually thought up based on elephant skulls. People never saw and elephant before and assumed the hole in the skull for the trunk was a big eye socket. Then they started telling stories about Cyclops. By the time people figured out what they really were, the idea of Cyclops was intrenched in people's stories and culture. Now we have had the same thing happen with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs just became another mythical image in our culture far removed from the long dead creatures that inspired them.

Some artist drew them up based on the ideas science had at the time about what they might have looked like, and people decided to use these depictions as a misguided way to try and get people interested in science. But people being people (and marketing people being marketing people), the image and idea of dinosaurs became much more popular (and profitable) then the facts or the science. We told stories and made movies and all sorts of stuff. Science continued to debate and refine it's ideas, while the myth grew beyond them.

So what, you want to suddenly say "No no, they weren't like that... we think we have feathers now"? At best that will do is create another popular image people will take up and turn into a myth before the scientists inevitably change their mind again, and at worst people will just refuse to believe it and stick to their own views. I think instead, it's just time to acknowledge the truth. That "dinosaurs" were always inventions of artists, and that that is fine. That, while trying to be realistic is good if that is what you are shooting for, movies and other media shouldn't really expect to have it. It's fiction, another world that may have different rules, and it's more concerned with playing with images from fiction then from reality.

Now I suppose the same thing could be said about Exodus and old biblical epics, or indeed any work set in a stylized depiction of another time and place. But I think the issues with whitewashing really is more about minorities not getting fair representation then anything else. And that's a fair issue to bring up, but it isn't exactly the same thing.

 

[lufresh]

Hi Bob and Bob-community.
Long time listener, first time caller.
I always enjoy your videos. I just feel like one very important thing got glossed over regarding Exodus.
Yeah sure the casting of CB as Moses is very historically inaccurate. However I believe the problem is that Hollywood/RScott/Whoever has made sure that the good guy is white and the Bad guys are all... anything else. That is where this problem lies.
Thanks for this one and keep posting awesomeness!

 

[Brockyman]

Dinosaur Exodus

Real dinosaurs aren't exactly like the kind we see in Jurassic Park, and that's kind of a bummer.

Watch Video

I think part of the problem is that there is no set fact in exactly how anything looked or acted in the millions of years before we were able to observe the planet. It's all conjecture, with all kinds of evidence from many sources. I read a few articles about "feathered" dinosaurs and while they state it in the headlines, much of the language contained "if, could, seems like" ect.

My point is that there are 2 schools of thought, and none can be actually proven without some kind of time machine, so let's just enjoy some raptor on mutant action

 

[MrJoyless]

Wait...did he just take a shot at Neil Degrasse Tyson?? How dare you sir!