Ribcage Ridge: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:HugeSkeletonOnDantooine.jpg|link=Star Wars: The Clone Wars|frame|The Force was weak with that one.]]

 

Like [[Alien Sky|an oddly-colored sky with multiple suns or moons]], this is one of those surefire ways of letting the audience know that the story has taken them to a world vastly different from our own. Just stick a ginormous monster skeleton somewhere in the scenery, and presto, instant [[Alternate Universe|otherworld]]! Interestingly, the heroes almost never encounter a ''living'' monster of that type, or one [[Squick|in an earlier state of decay]]. Sometimes, [[Everything's Better with Dinosaurs|dinosaur bones]] may be substituted to indicate another time period instead of another world entirely.

 

See also [[Saharan Shipwreck]], [[Desert Skull]], and [[Ribcage Stomach]].

{{examples}}

* There are a few Demon God corpses, overgrown with greenery, in the opening landscape of ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]''.

* In the ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' movie, the cave by the sea contains, sticking out of the wall, an enormous, intact seismosaurus skeleton. {{spoiler|In the finale, they climb it to grab one of Gulliver's gears.}}

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', one arc features an island with two giant skeletons on it. Although at first they appear to be just scenery, they turn out to be important plot points. In addition, gigantic monsters are quite common in the series.

 

* [[Moebius]] had quite a few decorating the landscape of Arzarch.

 

== Films -- Animation ==

* In ''[[Quest for Camelot]]'', one of the first things greeting the Kayley and Garret in "Dragon Country" is a giant skeleton that they climb over without realizing what it is. Much later, they have a giant dragon skeleton ''dropped'' on them.

* Near the end of the "Rite of Spring" section of ''[[Fantasia]]'' there is a desert littered with dinosaur bones.

 

== Films -- Live Action ==

* One is present in ''[[Hunter Prey]]''.

* Huge sauropod ribcages and bones are encountered by the heroes of ''[[Jurassic Park|The Lost World: Jurassic Park]]'' near the ruins of the facilities of Site B.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Some made-for-TV movie with Jack and the Beanstalk as the back-story had a shot of a dragon on a hill in the Giant's realm in the flashback, and the same shot of its skeleton when said realm is revisited in the present.

* The desert surrounding Rak Cthol in ''[[The Belgariad]]'' was once a shallow sea. When it was drained, the enormous serpents that called it home were left behind and died, leaving skeletons in the black sand.

 

== Literature ==

* The city of New Crobuzon in ''[[Perdido Street Station]]'' contains a neighborhood (Bonetown) ''entirely'' inside the skeleton of some monstrous beast.

* A large Dinosaur skeleton is seen in the Desert in one of the later ''[[Dinotopia]]'' books.

 

== Mythology ==

* Many creation myths describe gods creating the world itself from the remains of colossal monsters killed in battle at the beginning of time. In [[Norse Mythology]], for instance, mountains were formed from the bones of Ymir, the first and biggest of the [[Our Giants Are Bigger|frost giant]], and his skull became the sky itself.

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* A memorable adventure from ''Dungeon Adventures'' took place in a tunnel-complex that was dug out in and around a gigantic, buried dragon skeleton. Its cranial cavity and ribcage were two of the rooms in the place.

 

* Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at [[Disney Theme Parks|Disneyland]] has dinosaur bones.

* So does one of the play-areas at Islands of Adventure.

* At the American Museum of Natural History, one of the dioramas is of a whale skeleton on the ocean floor, covered in sea snow.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo Tooie]]'' features a stage based ([[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|very loosely]]) on the mesozoic era and features many different fossils embedded on the ground and walls. Why there'd be fossilized bones during the period when these creatures were actually alive is left to the player's imagination.

** If you follow your mainstream science, and god knows I don't, some dinosaurs were dead as long, to others, as they have been dead, to us.

** It appears to be [[Everything's Worse with Bears|a colossal bear.]]

* One of the things that defined the various ''[[Myst]]'' ages.

*** [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|No word on the petunias, though.]]

* There's a dinosaur skeleton in the desert of ''[[My Sims]]''. Though possibly all it indicates is the sort of stuff you can get digging around there.

** A giant dinosaur skeleton is on the Uncharted Isle from [[My Sims]] Kingdom.

* Platformer ''[[Vexx]]'' has one in its second level, Dragonreach. The level is so-called because the giant skeleton is from a dragon, and it looks like it's reaching for the sky. Naturally, you get to clamber around its back and inside its skull.

* In ''[[Dreamfall]]'', the rebel camp is situated partly on a colossal skeleton floating the swamp.

** Furthermore, in Dondongo's Cavern that entire room where the skull is located is inside a massive ribcage. Oddly, this means the ginormous skull is facing the wrong way...

*** [[Wild Mass Guessing|Maybe, one huge dodongo choked to death while trying to swallow another giant dodongo whole, and then they both fossilized and were slowly covered up by the mountain!]]

* The entrance to the Bone Dungeon in ''[[Final Fantasy Mystic Quest]]'' is marked by a giant dinosaur skeleton. You also fight (a smaller) one inside for the big boss battle.

* ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox 64]]'' features a number of these in Titania Arid Desert, foreshadowing the skeletal [[Boss Fight]] with Goras at the end of the level.

** In the VGA remake, it resembles a Krayt Dragon skeleton from the ''[[Star Wars]]'' verse.

* Skull Man's stage in ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]] 4''.

* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'': Misty Island.

* ''[[Serious Sam]]'' 2 has them, mostly in planet Kleer. Most of them are found in the aptly named Boneyard level.

* The first world in ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'', a prehistoric-styled jungle, contains a "Mammoth Graveyard" that serves as a battle arena. Sticking out of the unpleasant muck are the remains of woolly mammoths; giant tusks frame the path to the next area.

* Present in ''[[Donkey Kong Country Returns]]''.

* In ''[[Castlevania: Lords of Shadow]]'', in the Necromancer Abyss, at several points you encounter rock formations that look suspiciously like bones, and then one cave which is clearly a ribcage. Of course {{spoiler|those happen to be the fossilized remains of a dragon, which are then reanimated by the Necromancer to serve as the stage's boss: The Dracolich Titan.}}

* The final [[Boss Rush]] of ''[[Primal Rage]]'' take place in a tar field littered with dinosaur bones.

* Fossil Valley in ''[[Chrono Cross]]'', one of the earliest places the player visits, has a gigantic dragon skeleton as part of the background. No live ones are ever encountered because the specific species of dragon is long extinct. {{spoiler|(bar one egg that the player can hatch)}}

* A variant in ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]'' - Returning to the site of a colossus battle shows the corpse of said colossus becoming a part of the environment. The imagery falls more into this trope with larger colossi like [[Turtle Power|Basaran]] and [[Giant Flyer|Phalanx.]]

* Stage 4 in the NES port of ''[[Gradius|Life Force]]'' has a giant ribcage with a gauntlet of lasers near the end, and a giant skull as the boss.

* In ''[[Spore]]'', these abound in the Creature Stage. In fact, you're encouraged to dig them up, in order to acquire new parts you can use to "evolve" your creature later. Too many of them in one place is often a tip-off that [[Oh Crap|an Epic creature is in the vicinity]].

 

== Western Animation ==

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Ribcage Ridge]]