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A secret posted on fandomsecrets, as well as ed's own recent nostalgia kick with Bruce Coville, made me think of a book from my childhood that I loved-- love --very much:
James Gurney's Dinotopia.
I'd been into dinosaurs since I could walk. One of my mom's favorite "stupid kid tricks" when I had just learned to move on my own was sitting me in front of a mess of toy dinosaurs and having me name each one. And not just triceratops and T-rex -- I had brachiosaurus and anklyosaurus and pleisiosaur down. One of my favorite toys was a black-and-purple plastic triceratops. My mom scribbled my name on the bottom so I could take it to preschool with me, supposedly without fear of another kid nicking it. They did, anyway, but at least I had a good comeback to, "Is your name on it?"
Anyway, some time after the first Dinotopia book came out, the whole "feathered dinosaurs" thing came into vogue, mostly driven, at that point, by Archeopteryx (even though that particular critter is now considered a proto-bird, not a dinosaur). Dinotopia kept with the accepted-- and, in my opinion, more visually-appealing --version of non-feathered dinos. Really, most people still draw dinosaurs as giant lizards. After all, T-rex is hardly scary when you imagine a great big chicken. Lizards, though? Lizards are scary. They're pretty much the exact opposite of us warm, fuzzy mammals. And what makes for a better monster?
But then I got to thinking.
If, in a few million years' time, someone found a chicken skeleton, would they imagine this or this? Why did we end up with the latter, when iguanadon and megalosaurus (semi- and fully bipedal, respectively) were the first skeletons on display?
Science is very strange.
From a design standpoint, I love the smooth and slick raptors, the clunky armored tank anklyosaurs, and the graceful gnarled tree trunk sauropods. They hit all of the right notes for a great creature. But the scientist in me looks back at those books-- and man, I love those books! --and screams "WRONG WRONG WRONG!"
...
I should be doing homework.
James Gurney's Dinotopia.
I'd been into dinosaurs since I could walk. One of my mom's favorite "stupid kid tricks" when I had just learned to move on my own was sitting me in front of a mess of toy dinosaurs and having me name each one. And not just triceratops and T-rex -- I had brachiosaurus and anklyosaurus and pleisiosaur down. One of my favorite toys was a black-and-purple plastic triceratops. My mom scribbled my name on the bottom so I could take it to preschool with me, supposedly without fear of another kid nicking it. They did, anyway, but at least I had a good comeback to, "Is your name on it?"
Anyway, some time after the first Dinotopia book came out, the whole "feathered dinosaurs" thing came into vogue, mostly driven, at that point, by Archeopteryx (even though that particular critter is now considered a proto-bird, not a dinosaur). Dinotopia kept with the accepted-- and, in my opinion, more visually-appealing --version of non-feathered dinos. Really, most people still draw dinosaurs as giant lizards. After all, T-rex is hardly scary when you imagine a great big chicken. Lizards, though? Lizards are scary. They're pretty much the exact opposite of us warm, fuzzy mammals. And what makes for a better monster?
But then I got to thinking.
If, in a few million years' time, someone found a chicken skeleton, would they imagine this or this? Why did we end up with the latter, when iguanadon and megalosaurus (semi- and fully bipedal, respectively) were the first skeletons on display?
Science is very strange.
From a design standpoint, I love the smooth and slick raptors, the clunky armored tank anklyosaurs, and the graceful gnarled tree trunk sauropods. They hit all of the right notes for a great creature. But the scientist in me looks back at those books-- and man, I love those books! --and screams "WRONG WRONG WRONG!"
...
I should be doing homework.
