Catharsis Factor: Anytime OneEye is defeated, it's always a moment of triumph for the audience just as much as it is for Speckles.
His first defeat is pretty satisfying as Speckles finally manages to overcome his fear over the one that killed his family and manages to drive him away for daring to hurt Blue Eyes and the overall battle plays a role in Speckles's Character Development.
His second defeat ends with his death, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer dinosaur. We've seen One Eye terrorize Speckles constantly after murdering his family and not only does he kill others for fun, but he also lures them into a helpless situation before killing them. Ultimately, karma catches up to One Eye when, making one more attempt to kill Speckles's son, he's suddenly caught by a Tylosaurus and One Eye is dragged underwater to be devoured, all whilst he tries desperately in vain to free himself.
Complete Monster: One-Eye is a Serial Killer and engine of hate and rage in a Tyrannosaurus rex's skin. One-Eye demonstrates he's a calculating, rational monster by initiating a disaster to kill the young Speckles's family and murders his siblings for fun rather than for food. He proceeds to haunt Speckles throughout his entire life, trying to kill him or those the Tarbosaurus cares for. At the film's end, One-Eye even murders one of Speckles's children and tries to murder the other by hurling the hatchling into the ocean.
Fridge Brilliance: This film revolves around the genus Tarbosaurus and is overall depicted in a noble light. The species name for it is bataar, and what does that mean in Mongolian? Hero.
Harsher in Hindsight: During an encounter with One Eye, Blue Eyes injures her left leg, but she heals from it. Later, however, she reinjures the same leg when saving her’s and Speckles’ surviving children. Unfortunately, this time, her injured leg never heals, and Blue Eyes eventually dies from her injury.
One Eye's scarred face makes him look similar to the design of Butch, the Tyrannosaurus cowboy from The Good Dinosaur.
At the end of the movie, a villainous carnivorous dinosaur, who kills for the sheer hell of it and is implied to be just a murderous sociopath in dinosaur form, is dragged off into the water by a large species of Mosasaur at just the right time to save the heroes. Sound familiar?
Memetic Badass: One Eye became one thanks to a review of the movie done by youtuber RickRaptor105 where he pointed out the ridiculous feats he pulls through the film (such as appear suddenly in places far away from his position in an instant or emerge from quicksand without problems despite being a giant theropod) while replacing One Eye’s leitmotif with songs from edgy groups of the 2000s such as Linkin Park. As such, its usual for those who watched the movie and the review to know One Eye as the edgy T. rex who can teleport anywhere he desires with loud, gritty music playing anywhere he goes.
The narration in the English version that's sprinkled throughout the film tends to undermine the events taking place onscreen and often makes scenes that are serious and unintentionally funny. Most of their reactions result in Dull Surprise.
Many kids’ movies have a token traumatic scene where the protagonist loses a loved one. Young Speckles, however, sees his two sisters, his brother, and his mother all getting thrown off a cliff! Overkill much? But then he hooks up with Blue Eyes and they have three children…only so two of them and Blue Eyes herself can get brutally killed as well, with only Speckles and Junior barely making it by the skin of their teeth. Overall, it comes across less like Earn Your Happy Ending and more like Speckles being a Cosmic Plaything who goes through a Trauma Conga Line.
The noises that baby Tarbosauruses make sound kind of ridiculous.
When Speckles defeats One Eye for the first time after he tried to rape Blue Eyes, he proudly shouts "I am Speckles!" This does not sound as badass as the movie wants it to feel simply because "Speckles" isn’t a very intimidating name for a Tarbosaurus.
The Velociraptor don’t fare much better, as they are presented as ravenous Fearless Fools who just live to kill everything in sight. When Blue Eyes and a giant sauropod die right next to each other, hundreds of raptors gather but instead of going for the two giant corpses ripe for the taking, they try to kill Speckles' children and repeatedly attack the adult Tarbosaurus and refuse to withdraw even after he kills dozens of them, with some even running straight into his mouth.
Their designs don’t help matters, being mostly scaly but having a mane of feathers that looks an awful lot like Anime Hair.
Tylosaurus being treated by Speckles as "monsters"? Understandable, given how they are more than capable of killing any land animal they come across if they're on water. Tylosaurus being 100 feet long? A bit too much of a stretch to believe.
Special Effect Failure: The film is pretty good-looking for a Korean animated feature. That said, there are some animation errors that occur at times.
There are moments of shoddy textures, poor compositing, and clipping issues that show up, and they do become more noticeable with repeated viewings.
Before the final battle with One Eye a Tsintaosaurus phases through a boulder.
Corners were heavily cut with the sound design of the film as well. The sound effects used throughout the film are often times unfitting for the intended animal and poorly edited. For instance, the sound effects used for the swimming dinosaurs in the ocean makes the ocean and the dinosaurs feel too light, almost as if the movie recorded water splashing from a bathtub.
The death of Speckles's family due to One Eye's ploy. Speckles's brother Quicks dies saving him from being trampled in a stampede, said stampede causes his twin sisters to fall of a cliffside to their deaths and his mother, despite putting up a fight against One Eye, loses with the latter pushing her off the cliff.
Speckles trying to hunt food on his own. Sometime after the death of his family, he is starving and is struggling to hunt without any aid. He tries to scavenge in two different occasions and almost gets himself killed. Its a sad display of just how desperate and vulnerable an orphan could be in a wild, predator or not.
The Woobie: Speckles. Arguably one of the biggest dinosaur woobies in any media format. His family is killed by One-Eye, forcing him to survive on his own at a very young age, he meets Blue Eyes and grows up with her, Blue Eyes is attacked by One-Eye, but Speckles helps her heal. But after they start a family, all but one of their kids is killed, (one is crushed to death and another is killed by One-Eye) and Blue Eyes is reinjured, but this time, she never heals and dies from her infected leg injury. By the end, only one member of Speckles’ entire family, his son Speckles Junior, is still alive.
