Suppressed by T. rexes and fighting sauropods: dinosaurs on the "prehistoric planet" will surprise you

Read Time:4 Minute, 18 Second

What if you put Sir David Attenborough and a dedicated team of wildlife directors in a time machine and set the dial 66 million years ago – until the end of the Cretaceous and the last days of the dinosaurs? The upcoming documentary series aims to provide visually stunning answers to this interesting question.

“Prehistoric Planet” will debut on Apple TV + on May 23, launching a five-star extravaganza of dinosaurs. There is no time machine, but the series is doing its best by bringing together the natural history department of BBC Studios – a team that makes documentaries about nature, such as “Planet Earth” (BBC, 2006) – with the visual effects group Moving Picture Company, which worked on Hollywood movies. as “The Lion King” (Walt Disney Pictures, 2019).

The result of this partnership is impressive: scientifically accurate dinosaurs animated by computer imaging (CGI) and shown to behave like never before in movies or on television.

“These aren’t monsters,” executive producer Mike Ganton said during a behind-the-scenes press tour. “These are unusual animals with challenging behavior, challenging lives, and our goal was to show you the unexpected.”

Each of the five episodes of “Prehistoric Planet” will explore a variety of habitats, including coasts, deserts, freshwater lakes and rivers, icy landscapes and large forests. In an episode about creatures living in and around freshwater, you’ll see a stern look Tyrannosaurus Rex gently hug a potential partner at the time of courtship.

The scene “seems to embody the series as a whole for me because it shows an acquaintance – a dinosaur that everyone knows – but portrayed a little differently than what we used to see in T. rex“And the second part of why he embodies the series is that he is deeply rooted in science.”

The 2017 study is published in the journal Scientific reports found evidence that tyrannosaurs had sensitive muzzles that would help them perform gentle behaviors, such as gently lifting eggs or potentially clinging to the faces of other tyrannosaurs before mating.

However, if you hope to see teeth and claws, you will not be disappointed, because in the series there are many dinosaurs that behave like powerful predators. One of the episodes shows the chase between a small flock of tyrannosaurs and a herd Pachyrinosaurus – relatives of triceratops. But even in this hunting scene there are details that may surprise even the most die-hard dinosaur fan. For example, tyrannosaurs of the genus Nanucasauruswhat does “polar bear lizard, ”and the hunt takes place during a snowstorm.

“We know that these dinosaurs in the Poles, oddly enough, lived in cold snowy conditions [that were] most of the year is dark, “said paleontologist and chief scientific adviser Darren Nash at the press event.

An Edmontosaurus and a minor in the episode “Ice Worlds” of “Prehistoric Planet”. (Image of authorship: Apple TV +)

The Prehistoric Planet draws on information from a variety of scientific disciplines, including climate modeling, paleontology, and modern biology. “We’re like Sherlock Holmes collecting evidence of a forensic incident,” Gantan said. “And when you pull these threads together, you start weaving them together, and a picture begins to emerge.”

As in a modern nature documentary, creatures are presented as individual characters, and the filmmakers give you reason to care for them. In the desert episode you will see two men, longer sauropods in the genus Dreadnoughts fighting for the possibility of mating with females. The experienced champion is challenged by a younger enemy, and the herbivores face, like angry titans, in a dusty arena.

The action on the screen is accompanied by the original score of Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, whose iconic music can be heard in films such as Gladiator (Universal Pictures, 2000).

The shooting took place in real places, as if the extinct animals were really there to make the scenes more real. This determination of the filmmakers to make the show real is also reflected in the way the animals were “filmed”. This meant the lack of camera angles through the legs, which could have appeared in animated films, but could not be shot in vivo. with live wild animals.

“Prehistoric Planet” is a global picture of life at the end of the Cretaceous period (about 145 million to 66 million years ago), which shows not only dinosaurs but also birds, reptiles, amphibians and even mammals. A total of 95 different CGI animals are recreated in the show. Some species have familiar names but unfamiliar appearances that reflect a better understanding by scientists of the fossil record, e.g. Velociraptar covered with feathers.

There are also many animals that viewers are likely to see for the first time, including a long-nosed striped predator called Tianzhou Zoodiscovered in 2014, chasing a blue cassowary Corythoraptorsdiscovered in 2017.

“In fact, there’s a pretty good list of brand new animals that have never been shown on screen before,” Nash said.

“Prehistoric Planet” debuts Apple TV + from 23 to 27 May. Apple TV + is available on a variety of devices using the Apple TV app.

Originally published on Live Science.

Source by [author_name]