Line #18 WesternAnimation/SixtyFourMillionYearsAgo


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nfbdinosaursshort.jpg]]
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3	''64,000,000 Years Ago'' is a 1981 StopMotion animated short directed by Bill Maylone for the Creator/NationalFilmBoardOfCanada.
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5	The film revolves around the lives of North American dinosaurs in the late Cretaceous period, through the eyes of an early mammal trying to survive.
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7	The NFB has made the short available on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv3_TSbwx14 their official Youtube channel]].
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9	----
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11	!!The film provides examples of:
12	* AnachronismStew: If we're to take the short's title at face value, then it places the date of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event a full one to two million years ''after'' it occurred in RealLife. On the other hand, all species in the short are from Late Maastrichtian North America.
13	* AquaticHadrosaurs: The educational short film was made before the idea was discredited, and it depicts ''Edmontosaurus'' with webbed feet, paddle-like tails, duckbilled snouts, and fleeing from a ''Tyrannosaurus'' by diving into water (as though there were some unwritten law that ''Tyrannosaurus'' would sink like a rock).
14	* EndOfAnEra: As the dinosaurs die off, the mammal emerges to dominate the Earth.
15	* EverybodyDiesEnding: This being the end of the Cretaceous period, only the mammal is left standing by the end of the film.
16	* EvilEggEater: An ''Ornithomimus'' is caught eating eggs by a mother ''Triceratops'', who proceeds to violently impale it with her horn.
17	* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Despite being aimed at children, the short contains some surprisingly violent scenes.
18	** First, when the mother ''Triceratops'' catches the ''Ornithomimus'' eating her eggs, she impales it on her horn. The poor creature screams and writhes in agony as it dies, at which point the ''Triceratops'' scrapes the corpse off.
19	** Later, after failing to take down an ''Ankylosaurus'' and a mother ''Triceratops'', the ''Tyrannosaurus'' bites and suffocates an ''Edmontosaurus'', though the actual eating is cut away from.
20	* GoryDiscretionShot: While the actual killing is shown in all its glory, the scene fades to black before the ''Tyrannosaurus'' can actually start eating the ''Edmontosaurus''.
21	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: An ''Ornithomimus'' ends up being skewered on the horn of a ''Triceratops'' after she catches it raiding her nest.
22	* LastOfHisKind: At the very end, we see the death of the last ''Tyrannosaurus'' as the dinosaurs succumb to extinction.
23	* MamaBear:
24	** The mother ''Triceratops'' not only successfully fights of a ''Tyrannosaurus'' attack, but she also kills an ''Ornithomimus'' trying to eat her eggs (the mammal avoids the same fate by scurrying off before she can be spotted).
25	** The mammal has to survive not only for herself, but her offspring as well.
26	* MeekMesozoicMammal: The documentary short centres around a primitive mammal (possibly a ''Purgatorius'' or ''Mesodma'') surviving at the end of the Late Cretaceous. Even the smallest dinosaur shown, the ''Ornithomimus'' is a threat to it, and the narrator states how the dominance of the dinosaurs prevents mammals from growing larger or diversifying beyond tiny insect-eaters cowering in their shadows.
27	* RiddleForTheAges: The short doesn't show or explain why the dinosaurs became extinct, only that they did. This is because the idea that dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid strike had only just been proposed, and did not gain widespread acceptance until the 1990s.
28	* RoarBeforeBeating: The ''Tyrannosaurus'' does this repeatedly, giving its prey the chance to mount a defence or flee to safety (which is of course the reason real predators ''don't'' do that).
29	* TemperCeratops: The mother ''Triceratops'' kills the ''Ornithomimus'' for attacking her nest and battles the ''Tyrannosaurus''.
30	* TerrifyingTyrannosaur: Downplayed. While the herbivorous dinosaurs understandably treat the ''Tyrannosaurus'' with fear and hostility, it's not the unstoppable juggernaut of destruction it's usually portrayed as. It actually loses its fights against the ''Triceratops'' and ''Ankylosaurus'', and only succeeds in preying upon an ''Edmontosaurus'' through a combination of luck and good timing. This is arguably more realistic than many examples of this trope, since predators in RealLife often come out on the losing side when faced with particularly large or well-armed prey items, and even less dangerous prey will frequently escape if circumstances aren't on the predator's side.
31	* ToughArmoredDinosaur: The ''Ankylosaurus'' is shown being able to easily fend off the ''Tyrannosaurus'' with one well-aimed tail club to the face. The non-armoured ''Edmontosaurus'' does not fare quite as well.
32	* WhosLaughingNow: After spending the entire short fleeing or hiding from dinosaurs, at the end, all the dinosaurs have become extinct, but the little mammal has outlasted them all.

Context WesternAnimation / SixtyFourMillionYearsAgo