Line #19 Headscratchers/Dinosaur


1	'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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3	* One can imagine that with a population of massive herbivores, lots of hatchlings being born, and no more predators to control their numbers, [[FridgeHorror things are going to get ''extremely'' ugly]] very soon for the surviving dinosaurs.
4	** [[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime They'll just go on a series of increasingly harebrained and annoying adventures if things get ugly.]]
5	** Yeah, I know. The entire ecosystem will be destroyed. The dinosaurs might even go extinct from all that. [[FridgeBrilliance Wait a second...]]
6	** As shown in the opening scene (probably in a different area, though), nesting areas are by no means carnivore-free; there are egg-stealing small predators like ''Oviraptor'' around, carnivorous ''Koolasuchus'' in the water, and ''giant freaking Carnotaurus'' hanging around just waiting to pick off weaker dinosaurs.
7	* Which is one of the reasons why a popular theory is that this movie effectively takes place ''[[JustBeforeTheEnd during]]'' [[AfterTheEnd the end]] (of the Jurassic Period, that is. The beginning of the Cretaceous probably wasn't any fun for anyone.)
8	** WordOfGod says it's Late Cretaceous. The ending is based on the theory that some dinosaur species managed to survive the huge die-off and into the Tertiary Age for a few 10,000 years.
9	** This would still mean they would die off eventually. Even worse for the species in the herd who clearly were the last of their kind...
10	*** "Eventually" will come sooner than they think, unless they found a way to force multiple, massive herbivores with LOTS of babies to preserve the food supply. Because they just made sure nature's way of keeping green, growing things around is ''gone''.
11	*** Why does everyone assume that these are the very last dinosaurs in the world? There may very well be many others in other parts of the world, away from the meteorite strike. We spend the whole movie following a specific group of dinosaurs, so how would we know they're the only ones?
12	*** The dinosaurs' extinction is a ForegoneConclusion anyway, though, since...well, you know. The point of the happy ending is that they didn't get brutally killed and eaten by the carnotaurs, not that they or their (distant) descendants won't ever go gently into the night and die out anyway, any more than the eventual death of any other character by old age negates the happy ending of their own story. Cinderella and Prince Charming ''will'' die someday, but that doesn't mean they didn't live happily ever after 'til the end of their days.
13	** From the dialogue between Kron and Bruton, we can tell that the herd makes the migration across the desert fairly regularly. Those two have done it dozens of times at least. Maybe they do it every year. So they migrate to the Nesting Grounds to lay and hatch their eggs in a well-protected valley, then they leave, traveling back across the desert to a place with enough food to sustain them until they are ready to breed again. Lots of modern-day animals do this.
14	* Why the hell did everyone forget the Pteranodon? I mean, it didn't speak and it was kind of brief its appearence, but still it was flying around in the most glorious moment of the movie. Plus without it the story would not have happened anyway.
15	** Possibly the most epic instance of a BigLippedAlligatorMoment that has ever occurred.
16	*** It doesn't seem an example of this... it seems more like an AppliedPhlebotinum (because it causes the beginning of the story)...
17	*** In the video game adaptations, the Pteranodon (named Flia) was not simply trying to take the egg back to her nest to feed to her chicks, she actually tried to hatch Aladar, and joined their quest to find the Nesting Grounds as one of the three playable characters (along with Aladar and Zini).
18	*** And for the record, she is '''awesome.'''
19	* How exactly did Bruton use the plant Plio gave him? Even if he was able to reach his wounds with those arms, he doesn't exactly have opposable thumbs...
20	** Iguanodon had an opposable pinky finger, weird by our standards yes...
21	*** Im thinking he didn´t reach his wounds with his hands; he probably chewed on the plant and licked his wounds.
22	*** The plant was evidently potent enough that even Plio’s tiny hand applying some pained him sharply. That said, Bruton probably didn’t apply any more to himself since he also lacks opposable thumbs. But he was touched by the gesture especially after he called Plio and her family parasites.
23	* Kron might be a {{Jerkass}} with shades of a BadBoss , but he suspected that there was water that had collected SOMEWHERE around the dried lakebed, although he didn't think it was beneath the herd's very feet. So why did it never occur to him to climb over the massive pile of rocks that was blocking the usual way into the Nesting Grounds himself to ensure that there was a safe way down before the entire herd tried to do it the very next day? Or, at the very least, send someone else to do it?
24	** It wasn't Kron who suspected the water collected somewhere else, it was his lieutenant Bruton who said so. Kron just responded to Bruton's idea by ordering him and a scout to check the perimeter. As to why he didn't scout the rock wall, he only seems to trust two people besides himself, Bruton and Neera. Bruton is missing (and, unbeknownst to Kron, dead) while he's implied to care for Neera and is unlikely to risk her safety. As to why he didn't go himself, maybe it never occurred to him.
25	* Does nobody else think it’s strange that Aladar calls his adoptive mother and grandfather by their actual names? Plus isn’t Zini also Yar’s son? If I remember correctly, there were also a couple of times that Zini called Yar by his name, which is even stranger since he is Yar’s biological son.
26	** Plenty of adoptive children call their adoptive family by their first name. It’s perfectly normal, even for those who have been raised by birth by someone who’s not their biological parent. Zini calling Yar by his name is just a convenience for the audience. Zini is an unusual case since for years I thought he was Plio’s son, but he’s apparently meant to be her brother. The characters are pretty minor and Zini never seems to regard Yar as his dad like how Suri regards Plio as her mom. Guess Yar had another son much later in life. He did put the prime in primate!
27	* I know since this is a movie it’s probably not meant to be taken seriously, but how do the dinosaurs know the scientific name of ''Carnotaurus''? Its name was given by humans many years later, yet the characters refer to them as “Carnotaurs”.

Context Headscratchers / Dinosaur