Netflix review roundup (again)
65 - As a huge dino nerd of course I had to watch this movie. The first big surprise is (and they tell you this in the opening scenes so it’s hardly a spoiler) is that Adam Driver is not a human but actually from an alien race that travelled the stars 65 million years ago...just that everything about him looks completely human! Sort of a darker B-movie version of Jurassic Park featuring only two characters, and a recreation of the end of the Cretaceous era that is made up almost exclusively of predators. I enjoyed it.
Life on our planet - The history of life on Earth, as told with a mix of modern day nature footage and CGI recreations of prehistoric beasties. All very polished, but didn’t say anything that this prehistory enthusiast didn’t already know. It’s presented with an authoritative ‘this is just how it was exactly this many years ago’ without going into the background of just why it is that paleontologists guess that happened.
Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals will always be semi-fantasy creatures. Yes, the real ones definitely existed, and we know what their skeletons looked like, alongside some hints as to how they lived, but beyond that we have to fill in large gaps with guesswork. Each new documentary advertises itself as displaying dinosaurs in ‘the most scientifically accurate yet’ or ‘how we now know they were like’ and while we likely inch closer to a more accurate impression of what those times were like, our understanding will always be riddled with huge gaps, and almost certainly errors. The real prehistoric world was likely radically different to the one of our imaginations.
An example I often think of is the feathered T-Rex. For years Tyrannosaurs were depicted as scaly, like reptiles today, until the discovery of Yutyrannus, that fossils show was likely covered in some sort of proto-feather. Seeing as Yutyrannus is suspected of being on the same evolutionary tree as big Rexy, it soon became fashionable to portray Tyrannosaurus with a coat of feathers. You’re still drawing Rex with scaly skin? That was so last century. Get with the times you old fossil! And then a T-Rex was discovered, with the fossilized impressions of scaly skin from its face, neck, back and tail. The outdated version was correct after all!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t-rex-skin-was-not-covered-feathers-study-says-180963603/
What I’d really love to see is a series that delves into the fossil record, all the way from the very first life on Earth through to today, to outline why we think we know what we think we know today. Like 50% fossils and paleontologists and 50% ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ style reconstructions. Do I already know exactly what species and fossils I’d want covered in it? Yes I do!
Alien Worlds - Another mix of documentary/CGI speculation, this time mixing the scientists talking heads with fanciful recreations of life on other planets. Must have been on a budget, because they reused that CGI footage several times! But dreaming up alien ecosystems is something I love to do (and got half way through a novel on) so I’m here for it.
Cowboy Bebop - Space opera meets western meets crime noir, based on an anime. I loved it, so I was surprised that a lot of online reaction was more negative, with a lot of ‘it’s different from the anime’ critiques. But having never seen the anime I could safely enjoy the TV show for what it was, not what it wasn't.
One Piece - I’ve never seen the anime this is based on either, but I hear that it recreates the cartoon very faithfully. Colorful and bonkers, it certainly has a very cartoonish feel to it, so I can well believe that. My nephew loves it.
Cunk on Earth - This History mock documentary is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen and you should all watch it immediately!
Life on our planet - The history of life on Earth, as told with a mix of modern day nature footage and CGI recreations of prehistoric beasties. All very polished, but didn’t say anything that this prehistory enthusiast didn’t already know. It’s presented with an authoritative ‘this is just how it was exactly this many years ago’ without going into the background of just why it is that paleontologists guess that happened.
Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals will always be semi-fantasy creatures. Yes, the real ones definitely existed, and we know what their skeletons looked like, alongside some hints as to how they lived, but beyond that we have to fill in large gaps with guesswork. Each new documentary advertises itself as displaying dinosaurs in ‘the most scientifically accurate yet’ or ‘how we now know they were like’ and while we likely inch closer to a more accurate impression of what those times were like, our understanding will always be riddled with huge gaps, and almost certainly errors. The real prehistoric world was likely radically different to the one of our imaginations.
An example I often think of is the feathered T-Rex. For years Tyrannosaurs were depicted as scaly, like reptiles today, until the discovery of Yutyrannus, that fossils show was likely covered in some sort of proto-feather. Seeing as Yutyrannus is suspected of being on the same evolutionary tree as big Rexy, it soon became fashionable to portray Tyrannosaurus with a coat of feathers. You’re still drawing Rex with scaly skin? That was so last century. Get with the times you old fossil! And then a T-Rex was discovered, with the fossilized impressions of scaly skin from its face, neck, back and tail. The outdated version was correct after all!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t-rex-skin-was-not-covered-feathers-study-says-180963603/
What I’d really love to see is a series that delves into the fossil record, all the way from the very first life on Earth through to today, to outline why we think we know what we think we know today. Like 50% fossils and paleontologists and 50% ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ style reconstructions. Do I already know exactly what species and fossils I’d want covered in it? Yes I do!
Alien Worlds - Another mix of documentary/CGI speculation, this time mixing the scientists talking heads with fanciful recreations of life on other planets. Must have been on a budget, because they reused that CGI footage several times! But dreaming up alien ecosystems is something I love to do (and got half way through a novel on) so I’m here for it.
Cowboy Bebop - Space opera meets western meets crime noir, based on an anime. I loved it, so I was surprised that a lot of online reaction was more negative, with a lot of ‘it’s different from the anime’ critiques. But having never seen the anime I could safely enjoy the TV show for what it was, not what it wasn't.
One Piece - I’ve never seen the anime this is based on either, but I hear that it recreates the cartoon very faithfully. Colorful and bonkers, it certainly has a very cartoonish feel to it, so I can well believe that. My nephew loves it.
Cunk on Earth - This History mock documentary is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen and you should all watch it immediately!