Follow TV Tropes

Following

WMG / Dinosaurs

Go To

Fran was telling Lies to Children about what "smoo" means

Going by how much Earl and Charlene were snickering and how awkwardly Fran was talking, it's possible she was just giving a child-safe false explanation to put Baby off asking further.

Baby suffers from a form of Congenital Insensitivity to Pain

He doesn't care about being thrown across the room or set on fire; he has expressed pain when teething or when he bit and stabbed his own tail, but it's possible to have a reduced rather than absent pain sense. The condition is thought to be caused by an excess of endorphins, which might also explain his perpetual cheeriness, though that could also be down to just being a baby. Not feeling much pain might also play into why he hits and bites everyone. Most kids that young do so because they don't have empathy, but he seems pretty well-developed mentally in most other aspects, so a lack of experience with such things causing pain might be an issue.

The Poupons are dinosaurs and survived the extinction

A case of Science Marches On, as the show was cancelled before all the discoveries of feathered dinosaur fossils completely redefined theories of dinosaur-to-bird evolution. Prehistoric birds like the Poupons evolved from dinosaurs like they did in real life, and like in real life, they survived the extinction event that killed the non-avian dinosaurs.

  • This is complicated somewhat by the fact that the Poupons are most likely enantiornithines, a group of birds which did perish in the K-Pg extinction.

On the off chance a revival happens...

Given the show's Grand Finale, among other factors, it's highly unlikely the show will come back in any form, other than a complete reboot. But, at least according to this article, the producers have been in talks for a possible return. Despite airing about 30 years ago, much of its subject remains just as relevant today, if not more so. If indeed the Sinclairs and other dinosaurs once again roam, there will be certain changes that parallel current issues.

  • Taking place after "Changing Nature", the dinosaurs are forced to adapt to the colder climate. Referencing the COVID-19 Pandemic, many dinosaurs start catching colds and other illnesses and must commit to protective measures in public, with some arrogantly protesting against it.
  • To the dismay of the Sinclairs, B.P. Richfield becomes Pangea's new Chief Eldernote , with disastrous consequences that lead to Pangea splitting into separate continents.
  • Mammals rise up, particularly cave people, who become more intelligent and revolutionize fire. Robbie and Charlene believe they can learn from the humans in order to survive the ice age, plus forming equality between humans and dinosaurs. Unfortunately, WESAYSO decides to spew racial propaganda against them while profiting from their adaptations, eventually creating wildfires from their abuse of it.

Cons:That said, there are a couple of questions in mind. One would be whether the puppetry and animatronics that were a key factor to the magic of the series could be recreated, or if it will jump to CGI or even 2D animation for a simpler, less expensive method. Also one must wonder if this would just pad out the inevitable Foregone Conclusion of the dinosaurs' extinction and essentially add an extra layer to the already heartbreaking finale. Perhaps it's for the best that some things are left in the past.

There's also the fact that the "current issues" suggested for plots won't be so current anymore by the time the revival is ready to air, especially if they want to recreate the puppet/animatronic aesthetic of the original which alone would be a time-consuming and laborious process.

Pros:There was a movie planned during the show's heyday, which was ultimately scrapped due to declining ratings and the sheer expensiveness of production. However, the expenses back then seem somewhat standard for today. All that work of recreating the puppets may be too much for a full-on reboot, but who knows? Maybe one television movie might still be possible, especially in the age of many older properties being brought back in some form.

And how to work around that set-in-stone finale? The characters could be resurrected via cloning Jurassic Park style and try to adapt to the changing technology and discover new conspiracies - like the fact that the evolved humans modelled their society after the dinosaurs while depicting them as mere savage beasts - which all culminates into a Leaning on the Fourth Wall story about the consequences of meddling with history and things from the past.

The reason for the Sinclair's Random Species Offspring is because...

Fran's had several affairs with dinosaurs pertaining to other species. Earl's just not bright enough to pick up on the evidence.

B.P. Richfield is a Triceratops-Styracosaurus hybrid
He has the three facial horns of the former and the spiked frill of the latter. It's also possible he inherited the combined size and temperament of both species.

He may have been abused by his boss similarly to how he treats Earl and his other employees. Though I've come up with a theory that goes a bit deeper. As seen in I Never Ate For My Father, being carnivorous is the norm in dinosaur society while herbivores are frowned upon. And according to Earl in Employee of the Month, Richfield earned his power by eating his boss. Putting two and two together, it's possible that Richfield as an herbivorous dinosaur was downtrodden by the carnivores until he finally snapped and ditched his old ways to become the most bloodthirsty predator (literally and figuratively) of them all. He also enjoys abusing Earl because he as a megalosaurus happens to be a carnivore as well.

The asteroid that Earl diverted as Captain Impressive was the one that would've killed the dinosaurs in our own timeline
Of course, this apparent act of heroism on Earl's part is precisely what allowed the dinosaurs to bring an even worse extinction event down upon themselves.

The Sinclairs and other Dinosaurs were rescued by The Silurians.

Some Silurians were able to build a spaceship and saved a bunch of dinosaurs, the Sinclairs included, after the self-inflicted Ice Age. The Sinclairs settled in just fine on their spaceships and their descendants prospered...Until some salvagers killed all the Silurians. Fortunately, The Doctor was able to save the day there.

Human Civilization is a copy of Dinosaur civilization

First of all, the show actually happens within the past million years or so, and not 60 million years ago. The dinosaurs in the show are descendants from the wild ones, and have evolved into being able to create a civilization. They also lost size, which is why they were able to survive after the meteorite.

All right, so, humans. We see there are homo sapiens coexisting with the dinosaurs and sometimes even becoming pets. This early humans became exposed to dinosaur civilization and it stayed in their genetic memory. So hundreds of thousands of years later, humans recreated the type of civilization which made such an impact on them.

The dinosaurs in the show will go extinct during a glaciation, which is the same one that coincided with early humanity.

But what about the countdown in their calendar? Simple, it's actually counting down to some event which is still around 60 million years in our future.

The show is a minor case of Alternate-History Dinosaur Survival
At first, the show seems like a case of Hollywood Prehistory with dinosaurs living alongside cavepeople, but recall that it's set during 60 million years ago, which would already be the Cenozoic Era (specifically the Paleocene). Not to mention the dinosaurs in the show were descendants of wild ones whose remains were shown during the clip shows. In this timeline, the K-Pg Extinction Event never occurred, so the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and other Mesozoic animals continued to thrive over the last 6 million years, with the dinosaurs evolving into sapience while several of the early mammals evolve into humans and other Cenozoic-type mammals seen in the show.

But sadly, the dinosaurs' survival didn't last come "Changing Nature" when Earl and Richfield end up bringing in the Ice Age that would doom their people.

If the show does end up getting a reboot...
  • There will be dinosaur versions of the Internet, smartphones, and social media, since it only makes sense.
    • The dinosaur version of Tumblr will be called Rumblr.
  • There will be some sort of social media/tech mogul (a la Mark Beaks) who will serve as something of a rival to Mr. Richfield, or perhaps be related to him in some way.
  • Charlene will become a total social media addict, and probably make a lot of posts on the dinosaur equivalents of Instagram or Tiktok.
  • The LGBT community will become more explicit, since attitudes have changed.
  • There might, of course, be references to transgender issues as well.
  • The dinosaurs will be more based on modern views, like having feathers.
  • The cavepeople will be Adapted Out, since early humans living with non-avian dinosaurs is now a Dead Horse Trope, and the mammals will make jokes that they will rule in the dinosaurs' place someday.
  • If it's CGI or 2d animated, it'll have a larger variety of character models and more obscure dinosaur species.
The ending of the show was just another one of Earl's apocalyptic nightmares.
Let's face it. The show could literally pick up where it ended at any time, and handwave "Changing Nature" as yet another of Earl's apocalyptic nightmares he had all throughout the series.

Top