Line #18 Series/LifeAfterDinosaurs


1	''Life After Dinosaurs'' is a TVDocumentary co-produced by Creator/{{NHK}} and the Creator/NationalGeographicChannel that aired in 2010. It focuses mostly on mammals, both during and after the age of Dinosaurs. It has rather mediocre CGI, and many, many clips [[StockFootage are shared with]] NHK's previous Dinosaur documentary, ''Series/MammalsVsDinos''. It even re-uses music and some creature models from that series.
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4	!!The work provides examples of:
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6	* AnachronismStew:
7	** T. rex shows up at the end of the Campanian alongside ''Kritosaurus'' and ''Deinosuchus'' (73 mya), when it's only known from the late Maastrichtian (68-66 mya). ''Daspletosaurus'', ''Teratophoneus'' or ''Bistahieversor'' would have made more sense.
8	** ''Smilodon'' is shown meeting ''Thylacosmilus'' 2.7 million years ago, about 200,000 years before the former even evolved and around a million years before it's known to have entered South America, meaning it and the pouched sabretooth didn't overlap.
9	** ''Doedicurus'' is shown living alongside ''Thylacosmilus'' 3 million years ago (the Pliocene). While the closely related ''Eleutherocercus'' did coexist with the pouched sabretooth during the Late Miocene-Pliocene, ''Doedicurus'' itself only showed up during the Early Pleistocene, after ''Thylacosmilus'' died out.
10	** A very minor one with ''Embolotherium'' and ''Paraceratherium'', as the latter vanished by the end of the Late Eocene (Priabonian) and the former showed up at the start of the Early Oligocene (Rupelian). The related ''Urtinotherium'' did coexist with ''Embolotherium''. ''Entelodon'' and ''Hyaenodon'', on the other hand, lasted throughout the Priabonian and Rupelian.
11	* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: While most of the other models are reasonably accurate, the ''Smilodon'' looks like it jumped out of a Saturday Morning cartoon, being built like a typical pantherine cat (when it should be much stockier) with a long tail (it had a short bobtail) and has its claws constantly extended (self-explanatory). The ''Hyaenodon'' is also designed with very short legs and tiny feet, akin to a rat, when it should have longer legs with large clawed paws (akin to a wolf).
12	* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The ''Tyrannosaurus'' and ''Kritosaurus'' should have been blown away by the megatsunami's pressure long before they got swept up by the tsunami.
13	%%* BigDamnHeroes: The ''Saltasaurus'' herd (which would work a lot better if there had actually been more story).
14	%%* CrapsackWorld: The K-T extinction produces one of these.
15	* EpicFail: The ''Carnotaurus'' attacks both the ''Edmontonia'' and ''Saltasaurus'' - and fails both times.
16	* {{Expy}}: A lot of animals seem to be ''taken'' from ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'', including ''Leptictidium'' (with a similar coloring, no less!), ''Propalaeotherium'', ''Embolotherium'', ''Indricotherium'', ''Hyaenodon'', and ''Gastornis'', while others seem to have been inspired by WWB creatures, like ''Europolemur'' and ''Promacrauchenia''
17	%% * FeatheredFiend: ''Diatryma'' (now called ''[[ScienceMarchesOn Gastornis]]'').
18	* InformedSpecies: ''Smilodon'' and ''Hyaenodon''. Aside from its trademark saber teeth, the former looks like a generic panther-like feline who sports nonretractable claws and a long, rat-like tail, while the latter resembles an overgrown corgi with a ''Hyaenodon'''s head mounted on it, when the real animal was built more like a stocky wolf.
19	* MisplacedWildlife: ''Edmontonia'', named after Edmonton, Canada, appears in Bolivia, in South America. This is actually based on footprints attributed to ankylosaurs from the [[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0895981120305356#sec4 Bolivian track site (Cal Orck'o) shown in the documentary]], but it's still baffling why they opted to specifically call the ankylosaur ''Edmontonia''. Using the name of the ichnogenus (''Ligabueichnium'') would have been iffy but better than just plucking a North American taxon and putting it in South America long before there was a landbridge connecting the two continents.
20	* NoEnding: The confrontation between the ''Smilodon'' and ''Thylacosmilus''. The two saber-toothed carnivores confront each other over a kill and the scene...just cuts off.
21	%%* NeverSmileAtACrocodile: ''Deinosuchus''
22	%% * RealIsBrown: One of the sequences with the dinosaurs can be summed up in one word: '''GREY'''.
23	%% * RidiculouslyCuteCritter: ''Adelobasileus'', ''Eomaia'', and other unidentified small mammals all qualify.
24	%%* RocksFallEveryoneDies: The K-T extinction.
25	* ShownTheirWork:
26	** ''Carnotaurus'' is accurately portrayed as a very lanky and long-legged theropod with tiny arms and a small, pug-like head, unlike some other portrayals that just show it as a generic predatory theropod with horns.
27	** We do have footprints attributed to ankylosaurs at the Cal Orck'o track site in Bolivia ('''Ligabueichnium''), though the documentary undermines that by deciding the call the track-maker ''Edmontonia'' (a North American ankylosaur).
28	** Unlike ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'', the Messel Pit primates are accurately shown as lemur-like instead of monkey-like. Here, they use ''Europolemur'' instead of ''Godinotia'' but the two are very close relatives (being caenopithecine adapid primates).
29	* StockFootage: As stated above, this documentary uses a lot of footage from ''Mammals vs. Dinos'' and it is quite jarring, considering that the quality of the CGI is noticeably different between the two.
30	* StockSoundEffect: Multiple sounds from NHK's previous Dino Doc, ''Mammals vs Dinos'', are used throughout. Also some animal roars are taken from ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts''

Context Series / LifeAfterDinosaurs