Line #72 Animation/SpecklesTheTarbosaurus


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7427cxmiobcmtmwxh73uwthy17r.jpg]]
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3	''Speckles: The Tarbosaurus'', also known as ''Tarbosaurus 3D'' or ''The Dino King'' in the US, is a computer-animated dinosaur film from South Korea.
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5	About 70 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled the Korean Peninsula the same way they ruled the rest of the Earth. At that time, the part of the land now known as Jeonnam Yeosu was the forest habitat of a powerful carnivorous dinosaur: ''Tarbosaurus''. The youngest of a family of ''Tarbosaurus'', Speckles is a curious and playful child. Along with his mother and siblings, he lives happily in the forest, waiting patiently to learn to hunt. When that day arrives, it marks the beginning of a long and painful journey into adulthood for Speckles.
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7	The cunning One-eye, an older ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' looking for a new home, attacks Speckles's herd one day and, smelling sure victory, viciously tears Speckles's family away from him. Now on his own, Speckles meets up with another lonely, lost ''Tarbosaurus''. Blue Eyes becomes his constant companion for two decades and the mother of his own children. But fate is fickle and Speckles's troubles with One-eye are not over. Revenge, death, fear, and sadness are all in Speckles's future - as are happiness and hope.
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9	A sequel, ''Animation/DinoKing3DJourneyToFireMountain'', was released in 2017.
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11	Compare ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}''.
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13	!The film includes the following tropes:
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15	* AlwaysABiggerFish: [[spoiler:One-Eye meets his end by getting eaten by a ''Tylosaurus'']].
16	* AnyoneCanDie: You have no idea. Background dinosaurs, antagonistic dinosaurs, and even baby dinosaurs are shown dying throughout the entire movie.
17	* ArtisticLicensePaleontology:
18	** ''Repenomamus'' is depicted as a little rodent-like mammal. In reality, it was one of the most badass Mesozoic mammals, being basically the Cretaceous equivalent of a honey badger, and is known to have eaten baby dinosaurs.
19	** MisplacedWildlife all around, with the North American ''Tyrannosaurus'',''Torosaurus'', ''Ankylosaurus'', and ''Pachycephalosaurus'' showing up in Asia for no discernible reason.
20	*** ''Ankylosaurus'' is particularly glaring, since countless other genera of club-tailed ankylosaurs (such as ''Tarchia'', ''Talarurus'', and ''Saichania'') have been documented from Asia long before this movie came out. And similarly, there is also ''Prenocephale'', one of the better-known pachycephalosaurs next to ''Pachycephalosaurus'' itself. Also, ''Sinoceratops'' was described 2 years before this movie aired, so they could have used it instead of ''Torosaurus''.
21	** The armored tyrannosaurids. While the exact covering of late Cretaceous tyrannosaurids is still debated, even the most scaly renditions don't allow for the crocodilian-like armored scutes the film's ''Tarbosaurus'' and ''Tyrannosaurus'' have.
22	** ''Haenamichnus'' and ''Nemicolopterus'' are both hairless. They also have rather leathery wings - pterosaurs had complex wing membranes -, pointy wingtips and most mistakes seen in 70's pterosaurs. To make matters worse, they're depicted as fish eaters, when in reality they were terrestrial predators not unlike secretary birds.
23	** Wrong theropod hand postures (although the tyrannosaurids tend to un-pronate their hands).
24	** [[RaptorAttack Sparsely-feathered raptors]] and scaly ''Therizinosaurus'', both of which would have likely been heavily feathered over all or most of their body.
25	** One-Eye terrorizes Speckles' life for twenty years. He's already an adult when Speckles is an infant. Tyrannosaurs reached full size at around twenty, and died at around thirty. So One-Eye is at least ten years too old at the end of the movie, and yet he's still in his physical prime.
26	** ''A 100-foot-long Tylosaurus''?!
27	** ''Haenamichnus'' is not an actual pterosaur genus - it's the fossilized track of ahzdarchid pterosaurs walking on all fours. A rather glaring example of CreatorProvincialism, since they could have easily used proper Asiatic azhdarchids like ''Azhdarcho'' or ''Zhejiangopterus''.
28	** ''Pukyongosaurus'', ''Hypsilophodon'', and ''Microraptor'' stem from the Early Cretaceous, and yet are shown here as contemporaries of ''Tarbosaurus'' and other [[AnachronismStew Late Cretaceous dinosaurs]].
29	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Considering what he does to Speckles throughout the entire film, it's immensely satisfying to see One-Eye get caught by a pair of tylosaurs to be a snack.]]
30	* AttemptedRape: One-Eye tries to do this on Blue Eyes in one scene as Speckles stated that he was "looking for a mate." The fact that she's an entirely separate species of tyrannosaurid is apparently irrelevant.
31	* AweInspiringDinosaurShot: After an introduction to Speckles's birth, the film properly begins with a tracking shot of an ''Haenamichnus'' as it soars over a herd of ''Charonosaurus'' and ''Pukyongosaurus''. An orchestral theme is built up throughout the scene, eventually booming once a dinosaur herd shows up. It plays out similarly to its spiritual predecessor, ''Koreanosaurus'', except with dinosaurs actually being visible in the tracking shot.
32	* AxCrazy: One-Eye acts this way when engaged in fights with carnivores he sees as a threat, killing them for the heck of it.
33	* BehemothBattle: Speckles, as an adult, engages in this with One-Eye more than once.
34	* BigBad: One-Eye.
35	* BittersweetEnding: Speckles finally defeats One-Eye. [[spoiler: Though only one of his hatchlings survived and Blue Eyes is gone.]]
36	* CaptainErsatz: One-eye's face design strongly resembles that of the ''Vastatosaurus rex'' from ''Film/KingKong2005''.
37	* CarnivoreConfusion: Averted. Speckles is a carnivore and proud of it. Unlike [[WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King\|1994}} Simba]] and [[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime Chomper]], he neither befriends creatures who would be on his menu, nor does he resort to eating bugs to curb his carnivorism. And he has no second thoughts about eating a pterodactyl's eggs or to have a bite or two of that delicious meat from the dinosaur killed by the Big Bad responsible for the deaths of his own family if it means taming his hunger.
38	* CombatPragmatist: One-Eye is shown to be highly capable of using his surroundings to his advantage when facing off against his prey, or his rivals.
39	* CreatorProvincialism:
40	** Glaringly obvious with the inclusion of ''Pukyongosaurus'' and ''Haenamichnus'', both of which come from South Korea, but the former lived some 40-50 million years before ''Tarbosaurus'', while the latter isn’t a proper taxon but the name of a pterosaur trace fossil, and there was no shortage of Late Cretaceous Asiatic sauropods and proper Asiatic pterosaurs to chose from.
41	** Probably the reason the Asian ''Tarbosaurus'' was picked as the protagonist. ''Tarbosaurus'' itself is not known from South Korea, but it was the only large tyrannosaur that lived anywhere nearby.
42	* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to similar animated dinosaur films.
43	* DeathOfAChild: Several very young dinosaurs die over the course of the film.
44	* DelinquentHair: Amusingly, the ''Velociraptors'' have feathered crests on their heads resembling mohawks. Speckles even calls them "outlaws traveling in packs", even though technically speaking [[OrphanedEtymology dinosaurs literally live in a lawless world]].
45	* DisneyVillainDeath:
46	** Inverted, in that several protagonistic dinosaurs die in this way.
47	** [[spoiler:Subverted with One-eye. While the fall doesn't do him in, it's the giant mosasaurs that do.]]
48	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The main villain causing a herd of clueless animals to run for their lives thus leading to the death of the protagonist's family? [[WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King\|1994}} Never saw that before]].
49	* EvilOldFolks: One-Eye was already a full grown heavily scarred adult when Speckles was a kid, and survives long enough to continue hunting and fighting adult Speckles.
50	* EyeScream: The film seems very fond of showing the audience One-eye's empty eye socket.
51	* ExitPursuedByABear: [[spoiler: One-Eye]] meets his demise this way.
52	* FluffyTheTerrible: Speckles, who grows into an enormous Tarbosaurus.
53	* GiantFlyer: The ''Haenamichnus''are pterosaurs with 30-foot long wingspans.
54	* HeadButtingPachy: Ironically shown with a bit of TruthInTelevision as in a headbutting match, the losing ''Pachycephalosaurus'' ending up [[TapOnTheHead knocked out]], which as stated above in the description could easily end up being a death sentence for a animal.
55	* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Subverted with the ''Therizinosaurus''. When Speckles first sees it, the creature is minding its own business browsing on plants. Once it sees Speckles though, it immediately acts aggressive towards him and would have slashed the young dinosaur with its claws if it weren’t for [[BigDamnHeroes Quicks and his sisters showing up.]]
56	* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
57	** The ''Velociraptors'' manage to corner a herbivore in quicksand but this being quicksand they are quite unable to reach it without drowning themselves. The leader learns this the hard way.
58	** The ''Therizinosaurus'' gets his claws stuck in a tree after he misses a swipe at One-eye, who dodged the attack right in time.
59	* MamaBear: The ''Haenamichnus'' mother who chases down and nearly kills Speckles after he eats one of her eggs.
60	** When Speckles mates with Blue Eyes, she naturally becomes one to their hatchlings.
61	** Speckles’ own mother fought against One-Eye to save her son, [[HeroicSacrifice at the cost of her life]].
62	* MisplacedWildlife: What is a ''Tyrannosaurus'' doing in prehistoric Korea? And for that matter, what are ''Torosaurus'', ''Ankylosaurus'', and ''Pachycephalosaurus'' doing in Korea as well? The ''Velociraptor'' (native to Mongolia) actually aren't ''too'' out of place, but their portrayal has [[RaptorAttack other problems]].
63	* NonMaliciousMonster:
64	** Played straight with Speckles and his family.
65	** Definitely averted with [[BigBad One-Eye]]. He holds a murderous hatred of theropods he sees as a threat to his supremacy in territory.
66	* PapaWolf: Speckles becomes a protective father.
67	* PredationIsNatural: Speckles and his family are carnivores, and hunting is presented as something they regularly do to survive. One-Eye is not evil because he's a carnivore, but because he's a cunning, calculating sadist who wants to destroy his fellow predators.
68	* RaptorAttack: While ''Microraptor'' is decently portrayed, ''Velociraptor'' is sparsely feathered. However, the concept art shows ''Velociraptor'' (mostly) covered in feathers so it may have been due to ExecutiveMeddling. Interestingly, the movie averts the part of the trope where the raptors are portrayed as scarily intelligent. Here, they have an almost suicidal disregard for their own safety. For instance, attacking something in quicksand, ignoring a huge sauropod carcass (as well as a dying female ''Tarbosaurus'') and attacking a still healthy (and much, much larger) ''Tarbosaurus''. This last time is especially stupid, as they die by the dozens, and still keep rushing in.
69	* SeaMonster: ''Tylosaurus''. They are long aquatic reptiles who hunt in the depths of the ocean. [[spoiler: Not even One Eye can take them on.]]
70	* SuperPersistentPredator: One-Eye, in a overblown case in which he terrorizes Speckles' life for over '''TWENTY''' years.
71	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: In the cave collapse scene, Blue Eyes’ left leg is crushed by a falling rock. She survived an earlier injury to the same leg, so surely it would be healed again, right? [[spoiler: Nope! Her injured leg never healed, it got infected, and Blue Eyes died in agony two weeks later.]]
72	* StockDinosaurArchetypes: Most predators are not malicious, only hunting to survive. The titular ''Tarbosaurus'' is no exception; he kills animals as he needs something to eat, but he's also a devoted mate to Blue Eyes, loves his family, and would defend his children. The herbivores are usually sociable and live in groups and herds, but the bigger ones like ''Torosaurus'' and ''Ankylosaurus'' will fight if provoked, and ''Pukyongosaurus'' is shown as a majestic sauropod that means no harm. The only exception is the ''Tyrannosaurus'', One Eye, who is shown as a psychopath in dinosaur form.
73	* TemperCeratops: Speckles mentions how the ''Torosaurus'' was the only dinosaur his family mostly avoided when hunting.
74	* TerrifyingTyrannosaur: One-Eye is a ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' and, fitting to his name, a tyrannical usurper to the majestic king of his close relative, Speckles the ''Tarbosaurus''.
75	* TooDumbToLive: Upon catching up to their victim slowly descending into the quicksand it had gotten itself into moments earlier, the leader of the velociraptor pack promptly jumps onto its back to finish the job... only to get stuck himself. The other raptors hesitate for barely five seconds before taking off as we cut to the leader drowning in the swamp.
76	* WolverineClaws: ''Therizinosaurus'' has long sharp claws that it uses for defense.

Context Animation / SpecklesTheTarbosaurus