Change Your Image
sykenbod
Reviews
Monsters Resurrected (2009)
Entertaining, albeit very inaccurate.
The episodes are repetitive. They could've easily been condensed down to about a half hour each. Some of the 'expert opinions' are nothing more than an excitable guy using buzz words to describe how big or scary a dinosaur was, but nothing remotely necessary. His commentary is interspersed throughout each 45 minute episode, never offering anything you didn't already know.
The visuals are entertaining, but not very good by today's standards. And the more I watched, the more inaccurate they got. The computer graphics are for entertainment purposes only. In one episode, they focus on a sea creature called a Mosasaurus. In one depiction, they show it biting another sea creature's neck until it snaps clean off, which would NEVER HAPPEN. Teachers, this is not something you should fall back on when you don't have a lesson plan ready. Show the kids Jurassic Park instead.
One of the biggest faults I find with this show is the repeated acknowledgment of the T-Rex as this super-predator, by which they proceed to compare all of the other dinosaurs against. Practically every scientist in the world agrees that the T-Rex was primarily a scavenger, preferring to feed on carrion rather than hunting for itself. Yet in every episode that focuses on a land dinosaur, they show the T- Rex as a vicious predator in order to make the other dinosaur look even meaner when it kills the T-Rex.
I'm also a little disappointed that they never show the Spinosaurus in the water, where it undoubtedly hunted from. They even go as far as to show that it's hunting grounds were swampy parts of Africa. Yet they never show it in the water.
A lot of the scenarios seem inaccurate, too. According to them, the Spinosaurus just has an attitude. It fights very straight-forward and throws its weight around like it never occurred to it that it might get injured. And I'm no scientist, but the design of that creature, despite its size, screams "stealth." This thing laid low in the water, jumped out at it's prey like a crocodile, snatched up its food, and just like a crocodile, pulled it underwater and drowned it. It never occurs to them that a dinosaur with THAT MANY traits of a crocodile might instinctively hunt like one. The episodes are riddled with this kind of "missed logic." They say at one point that the fangs of the saber-toothed tiger were for "cutting." No, they were for clamping down on their prey's neck and not letting go, allowing them enough time for the prey to "bleed out." They didn't use their teeth for "cutting."
Did I mention that a handful of their consultants have such titles as "Kill Theorists" and "Chill Theorists??" I guess it's meant to make them sound 'official.' To me, it just sounds like a 40-year-old who lives in his mom's basement. And some of the ideas they entertain are so random... at one point they theorize that a prehistoric tiger "might have" fallen through a crack and starved to death. They do a whole computer graphics clip on this. Why?
So I recommend this video for anyone who wants to be made dumber by a bunch of sad theories and equally unimpressive videos. If you actually know a thing or two about dinosaurs, or possess the ability to think for yourself, at least you'll see through the BS. I was mildly entertained at first, but increasingly more annoyed the further I watched. I'm sad that this is being passed off as science. I would expect this from Michael Bay, but not from an 'educational' video.
Point Pleasant (2005)
Garbage.
This show was awful. I bought it on DVD a few years ago because I needed a Buffy fix and I knew one of the writers of that show had gone on to create Point Pleasant, though I wasn't sure which one. I soon found out that it was Marti Noxon's pet project - the woman who was solely responsible for the destruction of everything good about the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Aside from the role played by Grant Show, this show couldn't be any worse. It was boring and pointless. Characters were paper-thin in motive and personality. And I could care less which of them are dating, as it didn't matter. The characters' motives were stupid and didn't even feed in to the overall story; they were just for filler. This show wanted to be the OC with a witch. It shows.
"Haunted" recently released on DVD (starring Matthew Fox before he hit it big with LOST) and if you're looking for an average-yet-entertaining short-lived TV series that you might've missed between the cracks, I highly recommend that over this garbage. It also predates Supernatural, which I hear is phenomenal. If you're looking for something amazing, check out anything by Joss Whedon, namely Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and most recently, Dollhouse. I also recommend Dexter if you want something really gritty. Not into sci-fi as much? Check out Leverage, which is absolutely amazing. Californication isn't bad either.