Beast Legends was a 2010 canadian documentary miniseries airing on both The History Channel and Syfy. It follows a team of both scientists and artists as they travel the world and study creatures of myth to recreate them for short films at the end of each episode, looking at real animals to help with it.
The cast itself consists of
- Veteriarian and TV show host Steve Leonard
- Comic book artist Francis Manapul
- Anthropologist Kathryn Denning
- Evolutionary biologist Scott V. Edwards
- Computer Animator Mike Paixao, who helps animate the monster models.
Beast Legends provides examples of:
- Artistic License – Ornithology: The Monster Bird episode depicts the giant bird Tse’nahale
as one that launches quadrupedally like a pterosaur. Aside from the fact that it has too many fingers (4 instead of 3), no real bird has a hand remotely appropriate for such a launch. Although it's technically not a real bird, that is no excuse. - Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: In the same ballpark as them is the Vietmanese Wildman as an episode subject.
- Brutal Bird of Prey: Tse’nahale from Navajo Mythology is the subject of the episode "Bird Monster", which is depicted as a giant codor with a serrated beak and owl's talons. The segment itself depicts it hunting a biker and throwing it its chicks.
- Cool Versus Awesome: The "Megajaws" sequence features the titular giant shark god Dakuwaqa against a US Navy Submarine.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The dragon they make (based off the polish myth of the Wawel Dragon) has skin membranes a la a flying squirrel (or the minor Godzilla kaiju Varan) and glides since wings would make it too big for the forest where it lives, and uses bio-electric sparks to produce bursts of flame.
- Our Gryphons Are Different: Its the subject of one episode, not too different from most depictions. The film sequence depicts it travelling to Ulaanbaatar to get food for its soon to hatch eggs and some other stuff, eating a person and taking a motorcycle.
- Kraken and Leviathan: The episode on the Kraken features it incorporating the nastiest features of the Giant Octopus, Giant Squid and Colossal Squid, scaled up to 200ft long from the tip of its head to outstretch tentacles, which take up half the body length them selves.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The monsters appear before their segments in the real world to the hosts' obliviousness.
- Shark Fin of Doom: Dakuwaqa appears in the real life segments with his fin sticking out of the water before diving beneath the surface.
- Threatening Shark: The Fijian god Dakuwaqa is the subject of the third episode "Megajaws".
