Walking with Dinosaurs
- The death of the Giant Flyer Ornithocheirus in Giant of the Skies (pictured) on his way to the mating grounds. The episode ends with the male dying alone on a deserted beach over the course of several agonizing hours. Everything about the scene, from the music
to the sight of the creature trying desperately to rise one last time is just heartbreaking.- It takes something really powerful to make people cry over something that died millions of years before they were born. This is one of those things.
- The opening of the episode doesn't help; we get to see the Ornithocheirus, already dead, as the narrator tells us that we are about to see the story of his last flight.In life, he was the most magnificent beast ever to take to the wing. He ruled the skies supreme, soaring far and wide over the heads of the dinosaurs. This is the story of the last great flight this giant ever made.
(The title "Giant of the Skies" appears directly above the dead pterosaur) - And just before his death, we get a close-up on the old Ornithocheirus. With what appears to be tear-stains on his face, he looks like he's crying.
- The end of "Death of a Dynasty". The Tyrannosaurus rex mother became seriously crippled after trying to protect her offspring from an Ankylosaurus. We are then treated to a scene of the corpse of the mother T-rex and her two babies playing around it, unaware of their mother's death. And then the meteor strikes and everything goes to hell, as expected . Sure, the scene where the T-rex babies and their mother are sucked into the incoming wind can slightly go into Narm territory, but the scene is still remarkably heartbreaking.
- After she's fatally injured by the Ankylosaurus, the narration notes how the night sounds were joined by the noises of a dying giant and while we don't see her, we get to hear the mother Tyrannosaurus rex cries of pain in the background before we see her laying dead in the next morning.
- It gets worse; the narrator pretty much states that the babies were desperately trying to wake their mother while crowded around her. Ouch.
- In the novelization, it gets worse as the chicks are forced to eat their own mother's body as hunger starts to get the best of them.
- Earlier in the episode, there is a third baby T. rex who is constantly picked on by the other two. When there is no sign of it in later scenes, the narrator suggests it was eaten by its siblings.
- That whole episode (fittingly, detailing the extinction of the dinosaurs) has a feeling of hopelessness to it as it's obvious their world is dying around them even before the meteor hits. The female T. rex's sad wail at the start of the episode sets the tone perfectly. Later, there's this narration from the brief scene of the Quetzalcoatlus:Driven on to extinction, the skies now belong to the birds that already flourish around him.
- The baby Torosaurus corpse, seeing a baby dinosaur nearly reduced to bone other than its head, legs, and tail is disturbingly sad, made worse by the narrator saying very few were being born.
- The scene just before the meteorite hits: everything just seems to stop. The baby T. Rexes look out into the distance. The Anatotitan and Torosaurus herds look up at the sky. The Dromaeosaurus runs for cover. And then the shockwaves begin... which lift the T. rex corpse and flings it away. The babies might as well have been tissue paper with the speed they're whipped away to their deaths.
- The sequence is capped off with a rain of molten fire, the sad music from Giant of the Skies plays again, and then the narrator confirms — "This is the end of the age of the dinosaurs". The music has a dramatic boom, and as the scene begins to shift to the present day, it stays dramatic and painful as we the audience take in that the dinosaurs are gone for good.
- The Walking with Dinosaurs Special about Big Al : Many people felt sad when the titular Allosaurus dies still young from his injuries and starvation.
- The poor old Liopleurodon getting beached in Walking with Dinosaurs. This series is not kind to its older characters.
- The Liopleurodon's little pseudo-Slasher Smile actually fades as he's dying. The result makes it look as though he's in genuine agony as he dies slowly on the beach.
- Before that, we have a brief shot of a dead Rhamphorynchus. The narration indicates that a lot of the pterosaurs died because the enormous winds of the monsoon jostled them about and shattered their bones. Poor things. It doesn't help that they were so dang cute.
2013 movie
- The death of Bulldust in the 3D movie. One of the only scenes to be treated with any depth or gravitas.
- Furthermore, Patchi and Scowler’s mother and unnamed siblings . They’re separated from the former during the blaze, and in their attempts to find the herd, are cornered by a Gorgosaurus. Patchi’s mother at first shelters her hatchlings underneath her , but then a second one slinks out from the brush…none of them are seen again later .
- And immediately afterward, Patchi and Scowler nuzzling each other comfortingly (the closest thing two ceratopsians can get to hugging) while Alex narrates somberly.Alex: That day, noble blood was spilled as noble blood looked on.
- Doubles as Nightmare Fuel.
- What about what happens after Patchi loses in the duel against Scowler? Scowler has him pinned to the ground and under a tree and nastily tells him that he's no longer in the herd. When Juniper tries to help and asks why Scowler wasn't helping his brother, Scowler coldly insists "I haven't got a brother." This is enough to send Patchi into a Heroic BSoD, wanting to actually be eaten by the scavengers gathering around him.
- There's also the implication Scowler's feeling guilty about this during Gorgon's attack, by how he's insisting Patchi to get to safety. And if you notice all of the herd leave him alone as Gorgon is trying to kill him, basically leaving him to die just as he did the same with Patchi.
- A minor one, but there's a brief scene where the Azhdarchid pterosaurs are caught in a rain storm and looking very, very cold. One of them even tries to seek warmth from another...only to get pecked and screeched at.
