Overview
Watch the following clip – which shows brief scenes from a variety of dinosaur films over the past century. What are common elements that you observe in these films? Have these tropes changed over time? Based on what you have learned in this class, how accurate are dinosaurs portrayed over time? For full credit, the essay needs to address the following:
The environments that the dinosaurs are portrayed as living in.
The interactions between different dinosaurs (and other prehistoric animals)
- The interactions between dinosaurs and people – are these realistic?
- The reconstructions of the dinosaurs – look at the posture, skin, shape and size of the animals
- Note that the films range from the 1920's to the present. There were a wide variety of technologies used to make the films from Claymation and puppets to modern computer-aided graphics. Please do not judge the films in terms of the quality of the production – almost all of these films were pushing the boundaries of what was technologically possible when they were filmed.