Series / Dinosaur Planet

Before it was our planet, it was theirs.

Dinosaur Planet is a dinosaur-themed Speculative Documentary Mini Series that aired on the Discovery Channel in 2003. It followed in the footsteps of the famous and highly successful Walking with Dinosaurs from BBC, and Discovery's own When Dinosaurs Roamed America (produced by much the same team).

Like the above shows, it used CGI to recreate long-extinct creatures, and placed them into real-life backgrounds. However, as opposed to its forerunners, all four of Dinosaur Planet's hour-long episodes took place in the Late Cretaceous, and each told the story of one or two main dinosaur characters:

• "White Tip's Journey": The tale of White Tip follows a female Velociraptor trying to survive in the Mongolian desert and find a new pack after having lost her old one.
• "Pod's Travels": A mega-tsunami results in Pod, a Pyroraptor losing his entire pack and finding himself stranded on “Hateg Island” a strange island full of Dwarf dinosaurs.
• "Alpha's Egg": We follow the life of Alpha, a young female Saltasaurus, and her carnivorous adversary, Dragonfly, a male Aucasaurus.
• "Little Das' Hunt": A young and eager Daspletosaurus tries to aid his family hunt a pair of young Maiasaura that became separated from their herd, but he constantly gets in the way, much to the annoyance of his sisters and mother. Has a soul-crushing Downer Ending.

As the above descriptions may tell, the stories seem much more fantasy-like, as opposed to being strictly scientific reenactments of prehistoric life on Earth. The "humanizing" of the dinosaurs doesn't stop at giving them names. The Narrator gives us an insight into their thoughts and feelings, and a large number of plot elements seem to have been lifted straight out of an adventure novel. Does this make the documentary more engaging or rather laughably implausible? That's for the viewer to decide.

Not to be confused with the very similarly titled Planet Dinosaur, which is a BBC production, or the cancelled Nintendo 64 game of the same name which later became Star Fox Adventures.

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The show contains examples of the following tropes:

• Advancing Wall of Doom: "Little Das' Hunt" ends with the volcano erupting, releasing a massive pyroclastic flow that smothers the entire region in a blanket of burning-hot ash so immense that its path of destruction can be seen clearly from space. We're shown several shots of dinosaurs futilely attempting to flee from the cloud of death, but since it moves faster than the speed of sound, there's no escape.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": A Daspletosaurus named "Little Das."
• The Aloner: Pod becomes this for a while after a mega-tsunami causes him to wash up on an island of dwarf dinosaurs, he does initially search for a pack of dwarf raptors that he encountered at the beach but after Pod runs into a single raptor he has yet to see them again (luckily he eventually does get accepted by a pack of dwarf Troodon and becomes the ruler of the island after he takes on the island's resident dwarf carnivores).
• Always a Bigger Fish:
  • Some Ichthyornis find the unconscious Pod on shore and are then chased away by dwarf dromaeosaurids. Then a few Allodaposuchus arrive and are about to take over the "carcass" when Pod wakes up and his intimidating size scares all the gathering predators away.
  • Dragonfly and his mate come across a Saltasaurus carcass and start to dig in. Their meal is almost immediately interrupted when a pair of carcharodontosaurs, which are three times bigger, chase them away and steal the carcass.
• Anachronism Stew: Many of the animals depicted didn't yet exist in the time in which their shorts are set.
  • In "White Tip's Journey", most of the animals are lived closer to 75 million instead of 80 million years ago, but are otherwise correctly contemporary, with the exception of Prenocephale, which is known only from the slightly later Nemegt Formation. The pachycephalosaur that did coexist with the other dinosaurs in the earlier Djadochta Formation is Goyocephale.
  • "Little Das' Hunt" depicts only dinosaurs from the Two Medicine Formation, but most of the animals actually lived around 77 million years ago rather than 75 million as depicted, while Einosaurus is known from slightly later; only Daspletosaurus is in the right time frame.^note Maiasasaura could be replaced with Prosaurolophus, Einosaurus with Stellasaurus (possibly its direct ancestor), and Troodon with Saurornitholestes if it was made to be more chronologically accurate. Quetzalcoatlus is also misplaced chronologically, as it's only known from the late Maastrichtian (so it should've been coexisting with Tyrannosaurus and Edmontosaurus in the epilogue, not the earlier fauna), but there is a large, currently unnamed azhdarchid known from the formation.
  • "Alpha's Egg" mixes a lot of species from slightly different epochs together. The episode is set 80 million years ago, but several animals are only known from formations slightly older (Notosuchus, Alvarezsaurus, and the carcharodontosaurs) or slightly later (Saltasaurus), making the Aucasaurus the only major species in the right time period (although the carcharodontosaurs were likely based on the coeval megaraptoran Aerosteon, which was originally announced as a carcharodontosaur before being described).^note If it had been only fauna from the Anacleto Formation, Saltasaurus could've been replaced with Neuquensaurus (once considered a Saltasaurus species), Notosuchus could've become Gasparinisuchus, and the carcharodontosaurs turned into megaraptorans.
  • "Pod's Travels" is probably the worst offender in this category. The episode is set 80 million years ago, but nearly all the animals depicted are only known from early Maastrichtian deposits, around ten million years later. The exceptions are the unidentified elasmosaur, unidentified ichthyornithean, Tarascosaurus, and the Allodaposuchus, the former two only by technicality of no strict identification.
• Animals Not to Scale:
  • Pyroraptor is stated to be just over eight feet long, but in reality the species is estimated to be only about four feet long. A far cry from potential apex predator material, even on an island of dwarfs.
  • Velociraptor is stated to weigh about a hundred pounds, which is about three times the estimated weight of the actual animal (Velociraptor was about two metres long at most, half of that tail, and its body was only about turkey-sized, so how that was supposed to correspond to a one-hundred pound animal is unclear).
• Anyone Can Die: The series doesn't shy away from the harsh and brutal reality of nature, frequently showing animals being killed by chance events, bad luck, the elements, or each other. "Little Das' Hunt" in particular ends with the entire cast being wiped out by a volcanic eruption, while "White Tip's Journey" ends with the entire pack, save White Tip and her young, being smothered by a collapsing sand dune, and "Alpha's Egg" concludes with the entire Saltasaurus egg colony drowned in a flood and Dragonfly accidentally getting crushed to death trying to kill Alpha.
• Apocalypse How: The volcanic eruption at the end of Little Das' Hunt earns itself a class 0.
• Apocalypse Wow: Said eruption at the end of Little Das' Hunt is pretty spectacular and horrifying.
• Art Evolution: The CGI is a considerable upgrade from When Dinosaurs Roamed America.
• Artistic License – Paleontology:
  • Pod's sister is eaten by a giant elasmosaur. Elasmosaurs are thought to be specialized fish and cephalopod eaters and would be totally unsuited to hunting large land animals. Never mind that it sticks its neck out of the water to do so, which is thought to be impossible for elasmosaurs. If they wanted to be more plausible, a polycotylid, mosasaur, or just a shark would've been better.
  • Allodaposuchus is depicted a wholesale Palette Swap of Notosuchus, but the two are not closely related. Allodaposuchus was much more closely related to modern crocodilians and fossils confirm it would have resembled something similar to an alligator rather than the long-legged, short-snouted creature depicted.
  • Velociraptor is depicted as being an obligate pack-hunter that struggles to survive outside a group. However, while there has been some debate about whether dromaeosaurs might have hunted socially, there was never any evidence for Velociraptor doing so, never mind being an obligate pack-hunter (which is probably unlikely in a resource-scarce desert environment). In fact, there's actually evidence of Velociraptor viciously killing each other.
  • The Quetzalcoatlus are depicted as scaly and with bony crests that the real pterosaur did not have.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Dragonfly as a baby and is constantly running off distracted.
  Dragonfly's attention span is pathetic
  • Little Das may also qualify.
• Big Bad: Dragonfly of "Alpha's Egg", while also a Villain Protagonist, is more overly presented as antagonist to Alpha.
• Behind the Black: As Shuvuuia is chased by White Tip's pack, an Oviraptor bursts from the left side of the screen and kills it.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Almost every episode has one. White Tip ends up back where she started but with a group of youngsters that need to be taken care of, Alpha survives to adulthood and defeats Dragonfly but all her eggs drown in a flood, while Pod arguably has the happiest ending, he will live out his days ruling Hateg island as the apex predator and gets a new pack when he is accepted by a group of dwarf “Troodon”, but his former pack is still gone and he'll never see his old home again.
  • Despite it being the saddest one, the ending to Little Das' Hunt can be considered this to an extent. Though the Maiasaura and Daspletosaurus, including Buck, Blaze, and Little Das, all died in the volcanic eruption, their stories will live on in their descendants: Edmontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Than many previous dino-docs. The animators must have been really proud of their blood effects.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: During the Oviraptor mating dance, the narrator says this about the older male: "I gotta give him credit for trying."
• Bullet Time: In "Little Das' Hunt", the scene turns to slow-motion as the volcanic eruption obliterates Little Das and his family.
• Butt-Monkey: The Troodon in "Little Das' Hunt". They're basically used as casualties to show how the volcanic activity is getting worse. First, one is killed by a sudden geyser explosion, another is flattened by a falling lava bomb, and then one is incinerated by the pyroclastic flow.
• Cant Get Away With Nothing: The very minute White Tip steps away from her nest Broken Hand eats two of her eggs.
• Children Are Innocent: Little Das treats hunting more like a big game and has a hard time staying focused, which botches his family’s hunts twice in a row.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Prenocephale first show up when White Tip is trying to survive as a loner and fails to kill one. Later, Broken Hand is killed by some when he attacks them out of desperation after being evicted from the pack.
• Chekhov's Volcano:
  • "Little Das' Hunt" begins with an establishing shot of two volcanos which loom over the landscape in numerous shots. Later on, the larger volcano subsumes the geological activity of the smaller one, growing into a mammoth magmatic monster that, sure enough, violently erupts.
  • An erupting volcano also appears in "Pod's Travels", but since the setting is a heavily forested region, it only gets to loom menacingly for the short sequence where Pod and his sisters are on the beach. The volcano itself does not cause trouble, but it is a sign of the active geological activity of the region, such as the massive ocean quake that causes a tsunami that washes Pod out to sea and kicks off the plot.
• Creator Cameo: In the first paleontology segment during White Tip's Journey, producer John Copeland can be seen in the background on a computer.
• Death by Falling Over:
  • A Saltasaurus dies when it stumbles on a fallen log and trips, breaking its leg. The fall itself doesn't directly kill the animal, but it's impossible for such a heavy animal to get up again from an injury like that, and its cries of pain attract a pack of Aucasaurus that finish it off.
  • The male Tarascosaurus stumbles on a tree root because of an earthquake and permanently cripples himself. We never find out his ultimate fate, but the narrator muses that his mate might reconsider him as food.
• Death World: The Mongolian desert is full of angry predators as the narrator puts it, and Patagonia for the Saltasaurus.
• Death of a Child: This being a nature documentary that went for shock factor. Specifically: some Oviraptor chicks are killed by Velociraptor, some of White Tip's eggs are eaten by Broken Hand, Little Das and presumably Buck and Blaze are killed by a volcanic eruption, many baby Saltasaurus are killed by Notosuchus, Alvarezsaurus, and Aucasaurus, and Alpha's first clutch of eggs drowns.
• Distant Finale: "Little Das' Hunt" ends with an epilogue set seven million years later (so around sixty-eight million years ago), with the descendants of Maiasaura and Daspletosaurus, Edmontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, continuing the same predator-prey conflict.
• Desert Island: In "Pod's Travels", Pod is left stranded on the isolated Hațeg Island, cut off from the mainland by a vast stretch of sea and home to miniature dinosaurs.
• Doomed Hurt Guy: Buck is badly bitten on his thigh by Little Das' mother early in the episode, and slowly succumbs to the injury as it becomes infected. Ultimately subverted in the end, because his death by pyroclastic flow has nothing to do with his injury.
• Downer Ending: The whole cast of Little Das' Hunt dies, no matter how young or cute they are.
• Dumb Muscle: Allodaposuchus is said to be this.
• Eats Babies: Velociraptor, Notosuchus, Alvarezsaurus, and Aucasaurus as all seen going after either baby dinosaurs or eggs. The Daspletosaurus try to do this to the young Buck and Blaze.
• Everybody Dies: "Little Das' Hunt" ends with every character being wiped out by a volcanic eruption.
• Expy: T. rex and Edmontosaurus to Daspletosaurus and Maiasaura respectively (as stated in the program), as well as animals that use the same animation models: Alvarezsaurus to Shuvuuia, Notosuchus to Allodaposuchus, Saltasaurus to Magyarosaurus, Aucasaurus to Tarascosaurus, and the island-dwelling dwarf dinosaurs to their mainland counterparts.
• Feathered Fiend:
  • Many dinosaurs, including Velociraptor, Oviraptor, Pyroraptor, Troodon, Ichthyornis, Alvarezsaurus and Elopteryx (called "Troodon" in the episode). The Velociraptor and Pyroraptor are portrayed as sympathetic characters, however, and the Elopteryx are also benevolent towards the main character in the episode they're shown in.
  • Averted by Shuvuuia, which only serves to get eaten by an Oviraptor.
• Giant Flyer: The Quetzalcoatlus in "Little Das' Hunt", which as in Real Life was the size of of a small plane.
• Giant Wall of Watery Doom: What kicks off the plot of "Pod's Travels" is when a massive tsunami caused by an earthquake washes Pod out to sea. He and one of his sisters barely survive by clinging to a piece of driftwood, and his surviving sister is later killed and eaten by a plesiosaur while adrift.
• Hope Spot: Searching for a new pack while marooned on a distant island, Pod calls out to try and find others of his kind. He hears a call back and thinks he's made contact, but the narrator points out he's just been tricked by his own echo. However, this encourages him to keep calling, and it does eventually attract a curious pack of troodonts who are willing to make a pack with him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Dragonfly accidentally causes his own demise when he bites on Alpha's injured leg. Alpha is felled by the attack and falls right on top of Dragonfly, crushing him to death.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: The Tarascosaurus stand no chance against a pissed-off Pod. Also an interesting case, since the Tarascosaurus in question are dwarf specimens, not the great mainland predators Pod once feared.
• Interspecies Friendship: "Pod's Travels" end with Pod being accepted into a pack of dwarf troodonts. The troodonts recognize that Pod's abnormal size makes him the top predator on the island, so they'll never need to worry about going hungry again, while Pod has his socialization needs fulfilled.
• Know When to Fold Them: The Daspletosaurus finally ends their grueling hunt of Buck at the end of their program... because they've finally regarded the volcanic apocalypse only miles away as a threat.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Doesn't Little Das seem like one in "Little Das' Hunt" with how he rushes in and attacks even when he shouldn't?
• Lemony Narrator: The narrator distinguishes itself a bit from the earlier When Dinosaurs Roamed America and the similar Walking with… by being a lot more informal, often calling out certain species of animal as stupid or their decisions as idiotic, sometimes Breaking the Fourth Wall, and using a lot more slang.
• Mama Bear: The father Aucasaurus has to flash his red throat to keep his mate from going Mama Bear on his tail.
• Mighty Roar: The Daspletosaurus and the carcharodontosaurs.
• Misplaced Vegetation: Grass is shown growing in Europe and South America. It's only known to have grown in India back in the Cretaceous.
• Misplaced Wildlife:
  • Several times throughout the series but most prevalent in "Pod's Travels", with Ichthyornis and Troodon in Europe. Both species were native to North America. Though Ichthyornis was a seabird, it could have flown anywhere it wanted. Ichthyornithes are also known from Europe, with fossils uncovered from Belgium (later named Janavis) and Russia, so their presence is plausible.
    • The European Troodon is actually Elopteryx, they just called it Troodon.
  • In an interesting case, there's absolutely no sight or mention of Gorgosaurus in the Daspletosaurus episode, even though the two genera lived in the same area and time and Gorgosaurus was quite common.
  • The Prenocephale are depicted inhabiting the arid desert dunes, but their fossils are only known from the (chronologically later) Nemegt Formation, which represents heavily forested habitats that likely experienced yearly flooding.
  • This is probably mostly due to budget limitations, but the epilogue of "Little Das' Hunt" shows Tyrannosaurus and Edmontosaurus inhabiting the same semi-arid prairies as the earlier Two Medicine Formation, when they should be inhabiting the much wetter swamp-like environment of the Hell Creek Formation.
• Monster Munch: The screen-time of Shuvuuia consists entirely of it being chased by Velociraptor and subsequently eaten by Oviraptor.
• Mood Whiplash: Is Little Das' Hunt supposed to be funny or tragic? We are constantly treated to Little Das' adorable, childish antics, and then... he dies, along with the rest of the cast.
• Narrative-Driven Nature Documentary: Very similar to the Walking with… series, each episode focuses on one or two prehistoric animals as main characters trying to survive in their environment. However, this series goes the extra mile by even giving them names, personalities, and describing their thoughts.
• Narrator: The series is narrated by Christian Slater.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Allodaposuchus in "Pod's Travels" and Notosuchus in "Alpha's Egg" both play negative roles as hunters of the cute little dinosaurs we follow.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Little Das ends up chasing the Einiosaurus and Maiasaura herds far out of the lowlands basically for fun. The herds end up combining into one larger herd, which ends up making it even more difficult to get to Buck later on. His mother is not pleased.
• No Flow in CGI: Rather noticeably in "Pod's Travels", Pod and his sister are soaked by the sea, but only the shots with the puppet shows noticeable wetness. Probably because it's rather tough to simulate realistic-looking wet, matted CG feathers.
• Noisy Nature: There are scenes of dinosaurs roaring at each other that just won't end.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Pod is normally an ordinary raptor, but he gets washed up on a smaller island, where he becomes the top predator...well, until the giant pterosaurs find him, at least.
• Oh, Crap!: Buck and Blaze when Little Das' mother shows up for the first time. Especially Blaze.
• Once per Episode: Rather similarly to the Walking with… series, every episode features some sort of uncommon environmental catastrophe that ends up causing disaster for the dinosaur characters. A collapsing sand dune in "White Tip's Journey", a tsunami in "Pod's Travels", a once-in-a-century flood in "Alpha's Egg", and a volcanic eruption in "Little Das' Hunt".
• One-Hit Kill: Pod uses his sickle-claw effectively against a dwarf Tarascosaurus. Alpha, on the other hand, utilizes an involuntary final blow.
• Palette Swap: Rather frequently used, such as the alvarezsaurs, sauropods, crocodilians, and troodontids.
• Predators Are Mean: Zigzagged. Many main characters are carnivores themselves. Larger predators still often play antagonistic roles however.
• Raptor Attack: Due to Science Marches On. In particular, they don't have full wings and simplistic downy feathers rather than the complex ones birds have. They're also depicted as strict pack hunters that struggle to survive outside a group, but most current research suggests pack-hunting was opportunistic at best. Pyroraptor in particular is depicted as a wholesale Jurassic Park raptor with red or greenish fuzz pasted over it (mostly because the species is known only from fragmentary remains, so its appearance is speculative).
• Replacement Goldfish: Pod's pack is wiped up by a tsunami (or at least, one is, the other is eaten by an elasmosaur while drifting out at sea), and after washing up on a remote island, he tries to establish a new pack. Unfortunately, the native pygmy raptors only see him as a threat, but the more intelligent troodonts recognize that associating with Pod would be beneficial as he is effectively the new apex predator thanks to his larger size.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: CGI dinosaurs occasionally interact with the talking head, Scott Sampson.
• Scared of What's Behind You: When Pod washes ashore on Hațeg Island, it's not long before various beachcombing scavengers try and feed on his unconscious body, thinking he's dead. A flock of Ichthyornis is scared off by a pack of pygmy dromaeosaurs, but then they're confronted by a group of Allodaposuchus, which are not so easily warded away. The commotion finally awakens Pod, and that sends the crocodilians fleeing, but it takes a few more moments before the mini raptors realize it wasn't them that scared the Allodaposuchus away.
• Scavengers Are Scum: The Icthyornis in "Pod's Travels" try to take a nibble from the dying dinosaur on a number of occasions. A rare case where it's played realistically, as the behavior it's shown engaging in isn't unheard of in modern seabirds.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: The Maiasaura herd and the Daspletosaurus pack haul ass once they see the pyroclastic flow heading right for them.
• Sea Monster: The plesiosaur from Pod's Travels, which devours Pod's sister alive.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Little Das' Hunt story ends with the little tyrannosaur not only failing to secure a hunt, but with the entire region getting wiped out by a massive volcanic eruption, killing off the entire cast.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The episodes will occasionally cut away to a talking head that will explain some of the physical evidence used to depict the animals and/or environment as they're portrayed in the show.
  • The large theropods, like the carcharodontosaurs and the adult Daspletosaurus, are only shown with a maximum speed of a brisk amble, even when fleeing for their lives from a volcanic eruption. This was debated at the time, but it's generally agreed now multi-ton theropods would not have been able to run. Even more impressively, the adolescent Daspletosaurus are shown being able to run, unlike the adults.
  • The almost ridiculous width of the titanosaurs is well-researched, as they were very bulky and barrel-shaped sauropods, something not often depicted. They're also accurately depicted with nostrils at the end of their snout, which was newly theorized at the time.
  • It's mentioned that Pod instincts are familiar with terrestrial crocodilians, which probably references the fact Allodaposuchus is known from throughout Europe (in fact, the same species, Allodaposuchus precedens), rather than just limited to Hațeg Island like the other species.
• Social Ornithopod: The secondary plot of Little Das's Hunt is about a pair of Maiasaura siblings, Buck and Blaze, who stick together for safety and support, especially considering the former's leg injury caused by a Daspletosaurus pack and seeking to find their herd. Earlier on, there is also a flock of Orodromeous where one of them is separated by a Troodon pack to make the hunt easier... and still failed at it.
• Stock Footage: Footage from When Dinosaurs Roamed America and Valley of the T-Rex is used during some of the paleontology segments, and clips of modern day volcanic eruptions are used in "Little Das' Hunt".
• Tail Slap: Alpha does this in her final battle with the Aucasaurus pair.
• Truth in Television:
  • The scene in White Tip's Journey where a dueling Protoceratops and Velociraptor get crushed under an avalanche of sand has been based on the fossil of the actual event.
  • The volcanic eruption in Little Das' Hunt was based on the discovery of a petrified forest in the Two Medicine Formation that was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow.
  • The flood at the end of Alpha's Egg was based on the fact that saltasaur nests with unhatched eggs were discovered buried under mud and silt which could have only been deposited by a flood.
  • A possibly unintentional example, unmentioned in the show: Dragonfly the Aucasaurus dies by having his skull crushed by Alpha. Fast-forward 80 million years, and the first discovered specimen of Aucasaurus has a crushed skull.
• Use Your Head: Prenocephale does this, being a Headbutting Pachy.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "Pod's Travels" is a wholesale reference to the first part of Gulliver's Travels, even in the title!
• Zerg Rush: This is shown to be how sauropod eggs and hatchlings survive. The babies are basically walking hamburgers because they have no real defences and the adults spare only the bare minimum amount of care towards them, but there are thousands upon thousands of them hatching and dispersing at the same same, ensuring a few will survive simply because they are so numerous that every predator in the region could stuff themselves with baby sauropods and there would still be some left over.

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