Prehistoric Monster: Difference between revisions

[[File:allosaurusmalo_9248allosaurusmalo 9248.jpg|frame|Would Allosaurus have any hope to become [[Sarcasm Mode|the new WWF icon?]]]]

{{quote|''This series tells the extraordinary story of life before the dinosaurs, a time when strange and savage creatures forth a ruthless battle to rule the Earth. [...] This is Life's forgotten story, an epic war for our world. A war between MONSTERS.''|Extracted from [[Walking Withwith Dinosaurs|Walking With Monsters]] trailer}}

A subtrope of [[What Measure Is a Non -Cute?]].

Basically, if you are an extinct animal you'll be automatically qualified as a [['''Prehistoric Monster]]'''. Even though you're small and would appear cute and harmless to modern humans. Even though you are closely related to modern animals that are commonly regarded as beautiful and majestic. Even though all extinct species ''were'' well adapted to their environment in the period they were around, otherwise they would have never appeared in our planet. Even though the only real difference between prehistoric and modern animals is that the former didn't have the fortune (or misfortune) to know [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|modern humans]], and if they were still alive today they will probably be considered "charismatic megafauna" and hailed by conservationists as modern animals are.

Even popular-science works such as documentaries or non-narrative books often do play straight this trope, probably for sensationalistic purpose. Many modern paleo-artists tend to do this in a subtle way, depicting their dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mammals, fish, invertebrates and whatnot as nasty as allowed by scientific accuracy: the fact that the skin texture/color and, above all, the [[Eyes Never Lie|appearance of the eyes]] are almost always unknown, all this allows imagination to travel freely, of course. Just for example, compare [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:File:Compsognathus_BWCompsognathus BW.jpg |this Compsognathus]] with [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:File:Compsognathus_longipes_headCompsognathus longipes head.jpg |this one]], and guess which plays it straight and which averts it. When a watcher see such depictions, he usually has nothing to say against the [[Darker and Edgier]] varieties since they still remain ''anatomically accurate'' (useless to say that [[Rule of Cool]] plays a strong role in this psychological mechanism).

Some people might see this trope a bit more justified than [[What Measure Is a Non -Cute?]] however. This because modern animals are often [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|persecuted by humans]] in [[Real Life]], and their portrayal in fiction may affect negatively their public image and thus all the efforts to protect them; while extinct animals may get considered expendable by writers since they don't live alongside us in our modern world, so the same aforementioned moral issues cannot be applied to them.

Of course there are also popular works which tend to avert this trope, especially in the last decades, in part thanks to the influence from popular documentaries like Walking With: no doubt however the traditional "prehistoric = monstrous" thing is all but a [[Dead Horse Trope]] even today (think about the recent ''Primeval''). It's worth noting at this point that [['''Prehistoric Monster]]''' may be considered a subtrope of [[Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying]] only when anatomical inaccuracies are present as well. If extinct critters are portrayed in an unpleasant but still scientifically acceptable way ([[Science Marches On|at least in respect to the knowledge of the time the work was created]]), it may be qualified more as a subtrope of [[Rule of Cool]].

See also [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons]], [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]], [[Everything Is Trying to Kill You]] and [[Our Monsters Are Different]]. If you want to see some [[Real Life]] infos about extinct critters, [[Useful Notes/Dinosaurs (useful notes)|see]] [[Useful Notes/Prehistoric Life|here]].

{{examples|Examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* The first enemies of [[Getter Robo]] are [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Cyborg Dinosaurs From the center of the Earth]] as its [[Robeast|robeastsrobeast]]s.

* Set in a vague [[One Million BC|prehistoric setting]] the ''[[Wild Rock (Manga)|Wild Rock]]'' world is full of them.

* The comic series ''The War that Time Forgot'' featured prehistoric monsters capable of battling humans with World War II level armaments -- andarmaments—and WINNING.

* The documentary series ''[[Walking Withwith Dinosaurs|Walking With...]]''' played straight the trope in two cases (''Walking With [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Monsters]]'' and ''Sea [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Monsters]]''), but averted it in most part of the series: the original ''Walking With Dinosaurs'', ''Walking With Beasts'', ''Ballad of Big Al'', but above all ''Prehistoric Park''. In this spinoff prehistoric animals are described as "something which is missing in our world, amazing animals that time has left behind" and worth to be brought to life; moreover, they show up later in the park ''alongside their living relatives'' (Martha the mammoth with african elephants, dinosaurs with birds and crocodiles, sabre-toothed cat with cheetahs and so on). Here the discrimination between extinct and non-extinct animal is totally absent (a ''very'' rare example in media). The trope is even ''inverted'' in one case: keeper Bob being affectionate with the giant millipede relative ''Arthropleura'' and saying "this is not like spiders and other small modern creepy-crawlies, this is a proper animal".

** Moreover, many WWD [[Follow the Leader|imitations]] portray prehistoric critters (not only dinosaurs) as nothing but ever-fighting brutes often with altered look to make them scarier: ''[[Jurassic Fight Club (TV)|Jurassic Fight Club]]'' and ''[[Animal Armageddon (TV)|Animal Armageddon]]'' are two main examples.

* The Italian documentary ''Planet of Dinosaurs'' (1993) averts this trope completely: dinosaurs here are ''never'' called monsters, and are portrayed like modern mammals and birds are, with social attitudes and colorful design (anticipating ''[[Walking Withwith Dinosaurs]]'' six years before). At the end of the last episode (which tells about their extinction), they are described as "extraordinary animals that deserve to be remembered in their best moments, [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|when filled the Earth with their strength and their vitality]]".

* ''[[Monsters Resurrected (TV)|Monsters Resurrected]]'' plays this painfully straight -- itstraight—it's even in the title! The most notorious example may be the ''Spinosaurus'', compared to which even ''[[Jurassic Park]]'''s depiction of the animal could be considered realistic.

* ''[[Dinosaur Revolution (TV)|Dinosaur Revolution]]'' subverts this trope: The animals act more like cartoon chracters rather than savage monsters and [[Noisy Nature]] is averted. That said, this trope is played straight with the ''Saurosuchus'' and ''Torvosaurus.''

* 1925's ''The Lost World'' features the earliest Kaiju attack -- aattack—a Brontosaurus that goes on the rampage in downtown London with little provocation. At least it doesn't try to eat anyone.

* 1948's [[Special Effects Failure]] laden ''[[Unknown Island (Film)|Unknown Island]]'' sports a '''Flesh-Eating Giant Ground Sloth''' and its Ceratosaurs are relentless predators.

* [[Godzilla]] and many other [[Kaiju]] are real or fictional Dinosaurs--andDinosaurs—and not all of them are mutated by radiation to be 150+ft long.

* [[Super Mario Bros. (Filmfilm)|Super Mario Bros. The Movie]] portrays the population of humanoid-evolved dinosaurs in the parallel world as rough, dumb, murderous and just plain rude. This may be true only for the carnivores, while the herbivorous dino-humans are more usually naive and absent-minded. However, production designer David Snyder and others on the production noted that they weren't meant to be "mean-spirited." They just liked living that way.

* [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s "Pellucidar" series similarly depicted most prehistoric animals as dangerous monsters. On David Innes's advent to the eponymous world ''At the Earth's [[Science Marches On|Core]]'', he is attacked -- byattacked—by a ''giant sloth''.

** In his Land that Time Forgot series, Burroughs does the same thing -- histhing—his Tyrannosaurus is an armor-plated dragon which sometimes runs on four legs, [[Science Marches On|with three-fingered hands]].

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s "Shadows In Iron", [[Conan the Barbarian]] identifies the hide of a golden leopard and an enormous snake -- bothsnake—both of which had been extinct for years in his time -- astime—as ways to deduce that something is very, very, very wrong.

* [[Raptor Red]] averts it completely. Not surprisingly, since it was written by a paleontologist. And not an ordinary one: the guy who started the "[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance:Dinosaur renaissance|Dinosaur Renaissance]]".

* Averted by the ''[[Dinotopia]]'' series, in which all the dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures are [[Intellectual Animal|Intellectual Animals]]s that for the most part exist peacefully alongside humans. The exceptions are the large uncivilized theropods of the Rainy Basin and even they get portrayed as [[Noble Savage|Noble Savages]]s that can be bargained with. Contrast the [[Discontinuity|miniseries]].

* Zig-zagged in ''[[Primeval]]''. Every extinct animal has some dangerous aspect to it -- evenit—even ''dodo birds'' house deadly parasites. However, while plenty of the creatures are portrayed as terrifying predators (the [[The Swarm|anurognathid swarm]], ''Deinonychus'', [[Stock Ness Monster|mosasaur]] and [[Feathered Fiend|phorusrhacids]], for instance), others are only dangerous because they're large/powerful and panicked (the ''Embolotherium'' herd, ''Dracorex'' and Columbian Mammoth), still others are outright harmless (''Scutosaurus'') and some are ''so'' harmless they're adopted as [[Team Pet|Team Pets]]s (Rex the ''Coelurosauravus'', as well as the ''Diictodon''s, which are even mentioned in-series as [[Ugly Cute]]). Heck, even the ''Spinosaurus'', in spite of being a huge predator, doesn't seem to be trying to eat anyone; it's just dangerous because it's a large, panicked animal in a populated area.

* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Deinosuchus |Deinosuchus]]: [[Never Smile At a Crocodile|"terrible crocodile"]]

* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Deinocheirus |Deinocheirus]]: "terrible hand"

* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Deinotherium |Deinotherium]]: "terrible beast"

* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Dinofelis |Dinofelis]]: [[Cats Are Mean|"terrible cat"]]