The heirs of the dinosaurs
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The heirs of the dinosaurs - In the realm of primeval times |
| Original title | Walking with Beasts |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2001 |
| length | 6 × 30 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Tim Haines , Jasper James |
| script |
Kate Bartlett , Jasper James, Michael Olmert , Nigel Paterson |
| production | Nigel Paterson |
| music | Ben Bartlett |
| cut | Greg Smith, Andrew Wilks |
The heirs of the dinosaurs (original title: Walking with Beasts ) is a documentary of the English broadcaster BBC from 2001 . It is the second part of a trilogy that also includes Dinosaurs - In the Realm of Giants and The Ancestors of the Saurians . These are cartoons in which computer-animated elements have been integrated into real landscape shots.
On the move in prehistoric times: the heirs of the dinosaurs
Under the title On the way in primeval times: The heirs of the dinosaurs , the ZDF published the documentation again with a revised synchronization. The documentation is divided into three episodes. Hunters and Hunted shows the beginnings of the rule of mammals and contains the consequences A New Era and Killer Whales . The second episode, Land of Giants , consists of the episodes In Land of Giants and The Victims Strike Back . The final episode, Of Mammoths and Men, consists of the episodes Clash of the Saber Teeth and A Mammoth Company .
action
The heirs of the dinosaurs describes on the basis of scientific research the dominance of mammals that emerged in the tertiary and their evolution up to early humans and other species. In six episodes of 30 minutes each, in which the production is similar to its predecessor Dinosaurier - In the Empire of the Giants , the story of the beginnings as mouse-sized insectivores to mammoths and Homo sapiens is told. The film highlights individual species as examples and shows behavior patterns that are assumed to be typical. The focus of the plot is the portrayal of violence in the form of hunter-prey relationships, rival or comment fights as well as rank and feed disputes . A speaker in the background explains the scenes shown. In the German-language original edition, Otto Clemens acts as the speaker.
A new time
The first episode of the six-part set takes place in the early Eocene 16 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct . The scene of the action is today's Central Europe, namely the Messel area in Germany . Birds, including the 1.80 m tall Gastornis , shown here as a dangerous predator , rule the world, the mammals, on the other hand, are still rather small. At the center of the plot is a family of Leptictida looking for food. While they are tracking down forage, a female Gastornis successfully hunts a Propalaeotherium , an early relative of the horses, and successfully defends her own territory against an invading conspecific. While the female is on the hunt, giant ants of the genus Formicium eat its only hatchling chick . As night falls, a group of lemur-like Godinotia are engaged in social activities. The episode also features the Ambulocetus , the progenitor of all whales. The walking whale , the translation of the Latin name, is looking for prey near its lake, for example it attacks the already mentioned Leptictidium and a Propalaeotherium , but misses both. Ultimately, he manages to catch a small carnivore in the dark. The episode ends with an explosion of subterranean gas under the lake that almost wipes out the surrounding life. Only the Leptictidium family got lucky.
Killer whales
The second episode is settled in the later Eocene, when polar ice caps form and the climate is significantly changed as a result. The main character in this case is a female Basilosaurus , despite the misleading name, an early whale and not a dinosaur. After depicting the mating of the basilosaurs, the story turns to rural life, where Andrewsarchus , the largest land-dwelling predatory mammal of all time and also an ungulate , referred to by the narrator as a sheep in wolf's clothing, hunts turtles on the beach. Meanwhile, the pregnant, starving basilosaur has swam into a mangrove swamp, and after the unsuccessful hunt for some early Apidium monkeys , it attacks a drinking Moeritherium , an elephant ancestor who , according to the narrator, looks more like a hippo . This also escapes, and the mother-to-be returns to the high seas. Back on land, one sees a herd of Embolotherium Brontotheria, rhinoceros-like unpaired ungulates, struggling for survival: One of the cows had a birth, but the calf was born dead and now the mother is holding two of the aforementioned Andrewsarchus from the corpse, due to a very strong maternal bond with the offspring, it is explained. The Basilosaurus cow is now successful at sea, killing several calves of a relative, a whale of the genus Dorudon . The last camera shot shows her swimming with the newborn.
In the land of the giants
The late Oligocene , in Mongolia . A period of drought has begun. Part 3 tells the story of a Paraceratherium mother (referred to here as Indricotherium ). Paraceratherium is the largest land mammal of all time. It is closely related to the rhinoceros of our day, but has no horn. During their confinement, the mother has to defend herself and her young against a pack of hyaenodons , hunters from the order of the Creodonts , which in role and appearance resemble today's wolves or hyenas, although their size is closer to a rhino. In addition, an older calf of the female, which was chased away after three years of maternal care, which is natural for Paraceratheria, tries to return to it, but is chased away again and again. The episode then tells the story of the young Paraceratherium , which, in addition to Cynodictis , the bear dog, also encounters the Entelodon , a huge, omnivorous relative of today's pigs, who is also relatively similar to them.
The victims strike back
Here, in the Pliocene, Australopithecines , early relatives of humans , appear for the first time . They have learned to walk upright in the grass steppes that are now replacing the forests of earlier ages. This part focuses on the social connections within the group of early humans, their communication and their disputes with another group. It is also shown how the australopithecines defend themselves against aggressive primal proboscis such as Deinotherium or large big cats such as the Dinofelis . The main character of the story is the young Australopithecus "Blue", who is orphaned and is now trying to be accepted into the tribe.
Battle of the Saber Teeth
South America's fauna of the Pleistocene is treated separately - in addition to the giant armadillo Doedicurus , which with the spiky club at the end of its massive tail resembles the extinct Ankylosaurus and also fills the same ecological niche and the Macrauchenia , a kind of primeval camel, which has a short trunk instead of a hump , especially large predators: With the 2.40 m tall Phorusrhacos , the horror birds previously represented by Gastornis are back, but the end of the food chain is formed by the smilodon , saber-toothed cats, which are very similar in social life, outward appearance and anatomy to lions , which are generally also called Saber-toothed tiger. One of the last-named animals, a pack leader named Half-Tooth, the main character of this episode, rivals two allied males, brothers, who are competing with Half-Tooth for his leadership position. The two manage to chase half-tooth away, whereupon they kill his young and take over the pack. It also shows how the female Smilodon hunt. A megatherium , a giant sloth, tries to secure some of the prey, killing one of the dominant males in the process, giving Half-Tooth the opportunity to return, severely wounding and driving off the remaining brother, and dominating the smilodon pack to usurp back and produce new offspring.
A mammoth company
This part, which takes place in Europe in the later Pleistocene, shows people from the Ice Age hunting. Where the North Sea is today, wide fields of grass relax, herds of mammoths , bison and antelopes roam on them, and a clan of the Cro-Magnon people spend the summer there. This time, the focus of the action is on the mammoths, whose herd marches 700 kilometers to the Alps, only to move north again in late spring. Two animals separated from the herd escape chasing cave lions in order to return to the herd, while a group of Neanderthals , people of robust construction who are adapted to the cold, strive to survive. One of them is hunted by a woolly rhinoceros , but survives due to its stamina and resilience. The threads of the plot are linked when the Neanderthals attack the mammoths, which are again moving northwards, and some of them fall from a cliff using fire and weapons. The episode ends with a live shot in a museum in what is now the Holocene , where some people look at skeletons of the animals depicted in the film.
Awards
- Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (One Hour or More) 2002
literature
- Tim Haines : The heirs of the dinosaurs. In the realm of primeval times. From the English by Thomas Hag. vgs, Cologne 2002, ISBN 9783802514616 .
Web links
- Walking with Beasts in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ ZDFinfo : On the way in primeval times: The heirs of the dinosaurs ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 5, 2015.
