Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real – Discussion

Anyone else catch this very cool “documentary” on Animal Planet last night? If you missed it, be sure to check it out when it reruns this Saturday. And if you don’t have Animal Planet, you can nab the DVD already.

9 replies on “Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real – Discussion”

  1. Forgot
    I forgot to set the old DVR up for it. I just set it up to record next Saturday (it is running twice again on Saturday and once on Sunday). A bit long to wait though, wonder if there is a torrent…:) Or maybe On Demand has it, will have to check that as well.

    • Re: Forgot
      I wish I forgot to set the DVR to get it. There is no way my imagination could’ve been worse than that show was.

  2. That was pretty bad
    Wow. That was. Pretty bad. And I didn’t even watch the whole thing… just couldn’t be bothered. The ‘storyline’, the presentation, even the CGI were all horrible. I was expecting a show with theories, ideas, maybe a lot of legend and lore connections, not a thing where they fake the whole thing and try and make it look… I don’t even know. I suppose any /real/ documentary would also be boring, but… meh.

    • Re: That was pretty bad

      Wow. That was. Pretty bad. And I didn’t even watch the whole thing… just couldn’t be bothered. The ‘storyline’, the presentation, even the CGI were all horrible. I was expecting a show with theories, ideas, maybe a lot of legend and lore connections, not a thing where they fake the whole thing and try and make it look… I don’t even know. I suppose any /real/ documentary would also be boring, but… meh.

      huh…
      I haven’t watched it yet…but I’m really disappointed to hear this.
      especially since neil gaiman did some of the writing. blah.

      • Re: That was pretty bad

        I haven’t watched it yet…but I’m really disappointed to hear this.
        especially since neil gaiman did some of the writing. blah.

        Well, that might be the problem. In a way. It wasn’t presented as a story. It was presented as a “What If” documentary that couldn’t decide if it /was/ a documentary, a fake-documentary, a story or what.

        I don’t think this is much of a spoiler, but some of the narration goes something like “Dragons exist within the myths and legends of many cultures. Were they real? If they were, and the remains of one were found, this is what might have happened…”

        Kinda reminded me of that Futurama episode where they watch a documentary about Bigfoot: “Bigfoot is a crucial part of the ecosystem if he exists. So lets all help keep Bigfoot possibly alive for future generations to enjoy unless he doesn’t exist.”

        • Re: That was pretty bad
          IIRC, it was presented as a fake documentary (at least that’s what I remember reading when I checked the info on it from the cable guide thing). Basically they “find” the dragon, and then all the pieces start coming together from myth.

          I thought they actually did a good job of making it seem real, going through all the evolutionary pieces and tying them to real animals. The solutions they gave for the various dragon abilities (flight, fire-breathing) seemed to make sense, at least to me…but I’m no biologist or anything :D

          • Re: That was pretty bad

            I thought they actually did a good job of making it seem real,

            Well, maybe, other than the “If this really happend, this is how it might’ve gone” parts…
            I dunno. I just thought it was boring. And a heck of a lot of assumptions were either not explained at all, or the same ones used in an animated movie that had John Ritter doing the voices…

            • Re: That was pretty bad

              I thought they actually did a good job of making it seem real,

              Well, maybe, other than the “If this really happend, this is how it might’ve gone” parts…
              I dunno. I just thought it was boring. And a heck of a lot of assumptions were either not explained at all, or the same ones used in an animated movie that had John Ritter doing the voices…

              I just watched it a night or two ago, and I have to say that they hit the mark they were aiming for quite well. It was very much the Dragon episode of Walking With Dinosaurs. If you’re not familiar with animal planet or with the Walking with Dinosaurs group of “speculative documentaries”, then it’s a little odd, and a little boring, but if you’re into that it’s FASCINATING. I loved it. It was exactly what it promised to be (again, to someone who’s seen those shows before). The Walking with Dinosaurs shows were all very similarly speculative – we don’t have any idea what color they were, VERY little idea what internal organs they might have had and where, very little concrete evidence of what their habits would have been. They have to make educated guesses. as far as the dragons go, they have about as much to go on – except instead of actual skeletons, they have descriptions of activities, descriptions of shapes and sizes – I was especially impressed with the water dragons. They did great.

              • dragons:a fantasy made real
                i cant beleave they found a real dragon and a dragon egg it was sooooooooooooo cooool!!!!!!!!!!!!man if there where dragons back then there might still be a few around man if they hade the equepment they could clone it and if ther all dead theyed be able to make them real again

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