YMMV / Dinosaur Planet

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: It's been claimed that the dwarf dromaeosaurs and abelisaurs of Hateg Island were completely made up. In reality, they were based on then-recently described theropod material from Hateg, the raptors being based on isolated teeth and cranial fragments, and the abelisaurs on a distal femur, though the latter was reinterpreted as the distal metatarsal of a hadrosaur only two years after the show aired.
• Awesome Music: The OST of Dinosaur Planet consists of the incredible music of Dean Grinsfelder. Just listen and think of 80 million years ago...
  • The score for "Little Das' Hunt" stands out for as the action-paced and intense of it, especially "Buck and Blaze" which could easily work in a Western film, which is fitting considering the episode takes place in Montana.
• Common Knowledge: It’s occasionally claimed that the dwarf dromaeosaurs in “Pod’s Travels” were based on Balaur bondoc. Except they weren't. Firstly, Balaur was only known from its arms back in 2003 and was considered to be an oviraptorosaur of some kind. It wasn’t until 2009 that a more complete skeleton was found (though still lacking a skull) and it was named and described as a stocky, double-clawed raptor the following year ^note  it has since been reclassified as a flightless and likely herbivorous basal bird . Secondly, at around 2 meters in length, Balaur would have been a pretty standard-sized dromaeosaur and about the same size as Pyroraptor (and certainly heavier), not a cat-sized dwarf. The mini-raptors were actually based on previously found and very fragmentary remains (mainly just isolated teeth and cranial fragments) attributed to diminutive Hateg dromaeosaurs.
• Good Bad Translation: Some dubs, like the Hungarian, got many animal names wrong. Most embarrassingly, the narrator pronounced Magyarosaurus (the word "magyar" being Hungarian for, well, Hungarian) as "Magiasaurus". Moreover, he constantly called the Aucasaurus "Arcosaurus" (which, ironically, would sort of become the name of another genus of abelisaur; Arcovenator), Prenocephale "Prenocephalus" and "Prenocephal", Maiasaura "Mayasaurus", and in one instance referred to White Tip as "White Nose" (the official title of the episode also calls her by this erroneous name).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: As it turns out, this wouldn't be the last paleo-doc to both use a "Planet" suffix and focus exclusively on life in the Late Cretaceous.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The roar used for the big theropods is considered to be this by some. They took an elephant's trumpet and a lion's roar and played them together to get a powerful bellow. A slightly tweaked version of it is also used for the smaller abelisaurs and sounds arguably even better.
  • There's also the cry of the Oviraptor, which only adds to its ominous presence. It's actually slowed-down goose honks combined with walrus bellows and horse screams.
  • Then there's the scream used for Velociraptor and Pyroraptor, which is actually a slowed-down spider monkey screech (the same one used for the raptors in When Dinosaurs Roamed America).
• Narm:
  • The Bullet Time shot in Little Das' Hunt, especially when his siblings are flipped into the air.
  • Alpha's main debilitating injury is this when you realize it's basically a stubbed toe.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • All the Gorn and scary-looking dinosaurs, particularly for younger viewers.
  • The fate of the Tarascosaurus in the first act of Pod's Travels — left crippled by an injury that bends its foot at a nasty angle, leaving it to struggle hopelessly before a giant tsunami sweeps it away.
  • The Oviraptors. Forget the cowardly egg thieves you may know them as, these guys with their silvery grey/red colours and cacophonic goose and walrus sounds are every bit as active, aggressive hunters as Velociraptor, with one's Jump Scare of it ambushing a Shuuvia from offscreen being a highlight.
  • The plesiosaur that ate Pod's sister. Scientifically accurate or not, that was freakin' scary.
  • The whole freaking volcanic eruption sequence at the ending of Little Das' Hunt for some. Especially the part on the highlands where Troodon get struck by globs of lava.
  • The baby Saltasaurus' running the gauntlet of Alvarezsaurus and Notosuchus, not helped by the dark nighttime and the cacophony of babies' cries.
• Shipping: In a rare instance of a documentary being subjected to this, there are fans who ship Pod and White Tip, on account of both of them being raptors who are Iron Woobies.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • You can see pieces of excess rubber around the Pod puppet's eye.
  • The puppet's teeth also look fake.
  • Or how the Saltasaurus egg the Notosuchus picks up actually goes halfway into its face.
  • There are a few clipping and composition errors in the first two episodes, and some are more noticeable than others
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Deltatheridium in “White Tip’s Journey”. Deltatheridiids were predators and Deltatheridium might have attacked small dinosaurs, as workers found its toothmarks on the jaw bones of a small troodontid called Archaeornithoides, which was still larger than the mammal◊, suggesting Deltatheridium might have been a Pint-Sized Powerhouse akin to extant mustelids. With White Tip being a mother, it could have been an antagonist trying to eat her young, but instead, it’s relegated to a generic Cretaceous mammal who is only there to briefly distract White Tip while Broken Arm attacks her brood.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Many characters, like the young Alpha and Dragonfly, or the raptors and troodontids.
  • The alvarezsaurs deserve special note, as does Little Das.

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