Curiosity Stream's "Ancient Earth: The Mystery of the Feathered Dragons"

[ITdactyl]

Warning: Image Heavy Post

Produced by Saint Thomas Productions and Arte France, this is part 2 of a multi part series available through Curiosity Stream.  This episode tackles the evolution of birds and to some extent, feathers.

The Good:
- Great cinematography
- Clear Narration
- Great feature and exposure for the pertinent fossils and involved Paleontologists
- Nice highlight for some relatively new information (example: the feather trousers of Archaeopteryx)

The Bad:
- Inconsistent animation quality, some (pterosaur flight cycle, large theropod walk cycle, creature breathing) were good, the others (bird flight and glide animation) were awful
- All dinosaurs featured (except Caudipteryx) had pronated hands
- All winged dinosaurs featured had unfeathered grasping hands (even Confuciusornis) and either no primaries, or the primary flight feathers attached to the wrist.

The Ugly:
- 'Squealing pig' sound effect used for Microraptor
- Confuciusornis - looking like a flying plucked chicken with a mating animation that'll remind you of rabbits
- episode ended with Kulindadromeus drowning in volcanic mud
- Darwinopterus

Screen Caps:

Anchiornis:



Darwinopterus:



Archaeopteryx:




Germanodactylus (no quad launch yet, I still have to sun myself and jump from a height to get airborne):



Sinosauropteryx:




Guanlong:



Caudipteryx:




Microraptor:



Yutyrannus:




Confuciusornis:



Kulindadromeus:



Sinraptor:

[Loon]

Isnt this that service where youve gotta pay 40 to watch Discovery channel shows?

[ITdactyl]

Ouch. $40?  'Guess I should've researched more about it. 

Anyway, 'just wanted to show the dinosaur CG to members with no access.  We usually (also) don't get shows like these aired in my region, so I'm just taking advantage of a company sponsored account.

[Loon]

Ouch. $40?  'Guess I should've researched more about it. 

Anyway, 'just wanted to show the dinosaur CG to members with no access.  We usually (also) don't get shows like these aired in my region, so I'm just taking advantage of a company sponsored account.

I mean I'm not 100% about the price, I just remember when I wanted to sign up a few years back, it did not seem worth it. But, it's good you get it free.

[Faelrin]

Honestly there's no excuse for having Microraptor and Anchiornis with improperly done wings and hands (or digits), or any of the others with wings that we have fossils of (with the feathers preserved, etc) for that matter. Or some of the others from the looks of it. Sad to see pronated hands here too. Is it really that hard for the people making these shows to do the full extant of research? Or even just animate things properly? I mean if the team behind Saurian can do it for their game, it can't be that hard for those doing it for these documentaries either. I feel like the one that came closest to getting it right was Dinosaur Revolution with their raptors, since at least they had the primary feathers that were attached to the second digit, and their wrists were not pronated. Might be some others out there too that I have not seen.

[ITdactyl]

@Faelrin , this seems to be one of those shows where paleontologists were consulted and were part of the show, but were not actually involved in the production.

Funny enough there were several scenes where the CG animal was superimposed over the actual fossil, in a sort of rising from the dead bit.  Unfortunately you can clearly see that the primaries of the cg animal are shorter than those on the actual fossil.

The "birds" only pronate their wrists upon landing.  They have the correct hand position during flight.  The female caudipteryx and her chicks kept their hands in the correct position, but you will see the male caudipteryx pronate their hands only when attacking each other (the animation is more like fighting mammals - think cats, dogs, horses, instead of looking like 2 birds trying to hit each other with wings).  This tells me it was a conscious decision by the production team.

As a whole, I think the show did a good job introducing feather development in dinosaurs, at least to casual viewers.  Enthusiasts who are up to date with the latest dinosaur news will find a lot to complain about, particularly with the depiction of dinosaur behavior.

[stargatedalek]

Programs like this are why people hate feathered dinosaurs.

[ITdactyl]

Programs like this are why people hate feathered dinosaurs.

I agree.  But we need more programs with the same premise to make feathers the norm - otherwise it will always be seen as something ruining someone's childhood.