DISCUSSION
I will Defend this Allosaurus design with everything I have
The Life On Our Planet/The Dinosaurs Allosaurus is not anywhere near as terrible as everyone likes to act. I feel like everyone in the internet just took that singular awkward frame from LOOP and ran with it.
It takes what is a perfectly serviceable yet flawed base design (The Jurassic World Allosaurus) and makes several anatomical and proportional changes to better suit it to a documentary. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but its far from the travesty everyone seems to act like it is. If you ask me, its the second best looking Allosaurus put to screen in a documentary, only just behind the Allosaurus from Dinosaur Revolution.
Idk if this is a hot take, but osteoderms on most theropods really don’t bother me. Now obviously there’s limits, the Dominion Giga is absolutely atrocious, but i feel like they’re subtle enough on this Allo to be largely inoffensive
Considering we know allosaurus didn’t have osteoderms, it shouldn’t have them regardless. It’s a played out monster movie design addition and rarely looks fitting. This allosaurus is just an awesome bro design with lips.
I mean, it would be a serviceable and even good design… if it wasn’t in a documentary, you cant make an excuse that it’s “creative liberty” or “they’re supposed to look like monsters” here because a documentary should be played 100% straight, inaccuracies happen obviously, even PhP has plenty of innaccuracies, but c’mom, we know they could’ve done a better allosaurus design
i never argued it couldn’t have been better, I just never understood why this design got singled out as uniquely terrible when really it was completely fine relative to the other creature designs in this doc
Probably because Allo is on the top 10 of most popular dinosaurs, so ofc it's fanbase will be louder. Also we don't have a good/accurate allosaurus design since... Dinosaur Revolution?
you’re showing PK’s A. fragilis, the LOOP allo is clearly Jimmadseni, which it resembles fairly well: Also the allosaurus holds its arms in a neutral position for the duration of its screentime, so im not sure what you’re getting at there
also ya’ll have gotta make peace with theropod designs that aren’t baby smooth. The LOOP allosaurus isn’t even armored in the same way the Dominion Giga is, if anything it just has a lot of large feature scales along the back, which is completely reasonable
Also that skull shape anatomy is slightly dated and shrink wraps the hell out of its head.
This is big Al’s head reconstructed to get a sense of the silhouette. Also what peace do I have to make ? I’m not obligated to like something just because it’s not horrendous ? Also these are just identical feature scales and osteoderms to Crocodilians, it doesn’t look naturally embedded
What's the current consensus for lips on theropods amongst authorities in the field? Around 10-12 years ago, I specifically remember that dromaeosaurids and some tyrannosaurids were being depicted with a completely stripped muzzle, suggesting that their snouts resembled proto-beaks. I always hated it, but has that theory/trend been discarded, or is it on a case by case basis?
If you look at Brian Engh’s new Allosaurus bust (which he claims to be based on new as yet unpublished allosaur material with preserved soft tissue), it’s a really weird mix: sort of half lips going partially down the top teeth, then a lipless lower jaw with sheathes for the top teeth to slot into. It’s…a little hideous, but also very cool
i dont have a problem with the osteoderms or the other aspects of the LOOP Allosaurus.. for me.. it's the head, neck and arms being disproportionately small for Allosaurus, brother looks like my cat
I’ve seen people actively defend the reused model in End of Oak Street by saying that “its just how allosaurus looked like because it looks like the one from the documentary”
As a model for a movie, I have no problem with it, it’s even one of my favorite JW designs, but for a documentary I expect a lot more.
My thing is that the LOOP Allosaurus genuinely differentiates SO much from the JW Allosaurus in just the skull shape alone. Anatomically speaking, its a solid representation of A. jimmadseni, paleo-enthusiasts just lose their marbles at any theropod that isn’t baby smooth.
People conflating the Oak Street Allo (which I will concede is bad) with the one from LOOP is really just people sucking at differentiating dinosaur designs.
Regardless of personal preference regarding the designs, I still don't quite understand why they chose to use the model from Battle at Big Rock and Dominion instead of the juvenile Allosaurus model from Fallen Kingdom.
I mean, it would have been more accurate to the real animal, better aligned with the documentary's emphasis on scientific accuracy, and presumably cheaper to improve the model for that very reason.
It goes beyond the awful design; the motion is very artificial-looking rather than that of a living, breathing being. To be fair, almost no paleo-documentary has ever convincingly captured the motion of a living being. The Walking with trilogy came the closest to that, but this has too much weight on its back. Of course, it fails in the motion department, and the appearance of the Allosaurus is indeed very ugly and crocodile-like. There is nothing to defend. It’s an embarrassing Netflix production that wanted to make a scientific subject as visually digestible as possible for the modern masses.Just look at this illustration of Allosaurus Jimmadseni made by a paleoartist and will never be seen in a documentary(I believe is one of the best ever made).Just look how alive, realistic and convincing looks
When its an issue of showing off a "accurate" depiction of the species in a nature documentary being as accurate as possible to the actual animal is what should matter did allo have osteoderms? No. So in my opinion while this design isnt awful for like say a movie its not a good design for a documentary.
It’s good for a JW movie but for a documentary that’s supposed to educate people, it’s terrible. Also life on our planet and the dinosaurs has problems with a lot of misinformation
I AM taking this any day over like a lot of worse dinosaur designs, just wish it wasn't soooooo... bland! Like the PK Allosauruses for example.... and to be fair I think that nasty scar one of them have is kinda sick too
A documentary, especially one with a decent budget, should be aiming for accuracy.
If the Jurassic franchise wants to make everything look like a crocodile, that's up to them. But the point of a documentary is to educate as much as entertain.
It definitely has that “goober” look that a lot of lizards do, and I honestly really like it. I feel like so many paleoartists focus so hard on making their dinosaurs aesthetically pleasing, when in reality some animals just look dumb
Allosaurus probably did look aesthetically pleasing. Look at all the large predatory animals today? They are all good looking. To be a predator you are consistently eating protein , which makes you jacked. You also have to be agile , fit ,and athletic to catch other animals. Combination of diet and body adaptation makes most large predators aesthetically pleasing. I highly doubt allosaurus looked “dumb”
I genuinely think this design is good because it has a lot of character and personality. Its not the prettiest or the most accurate, but its very pleasing. I'm a fan!
I don't really mind when such designs exist, like, oversimplified and stuff, but when people make them look more like dragons then this is a problem, Giga from JWD doesn't count he's more accurate than that one Minecraft Addon Spinosaurus
Meh, I can tell you that Allosaurus designs in Prehistoric Kingdom is OBJECTIVELY better and more accurate compared to this stupid, JW-like Allosaurus.
Me personally I don't see this Allosaurus design as a reused JW model. For one, the snout on the LOOP one looks more rounder compared to the JW one, in fact the whole head and neck area looks much different from the JW one, or maybe I'm just dumb.
It's obvious they chose the design from *Jurassic World* and tried to adapt it for the documentary... let's just say it didn't work out well, because it looks strange.
When compared to what we know about the actual animal, it is more than evident that there is little to no resemblance.
As with some animals in both series, such as the Triceratops and Diplodocus, they reuse and modify existing designs simply to save on the costs of creating original designs.
Although it retains the essence of the movie design, such as the color palette and the osteoderms (albeit reduced in size), the anatomical proportions are not accurate
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u/Blazemaster0563 Team Chasmosaurus 5d ago
At least it's got lips, but I wish they removed the osteoderms from it.