You can never have too many dinosaurs

I’ve been pointed to Jan Zalasiewicz’s column in the Palaeontology Newsletter. The most recent entry is PalaeoBioSuperstar

All the world’s a stage, especially when gazed at widescreen. And the silver screen, complete with all-round surround sound and images that can scramble a passing retina at 500 paces, might just be the ideal medium to portray the drama of life’s longest tapestry, and carry it on wings of celluloid to the widest possible audience.

That thought struck me when, long after the hype had passed, I finally got to see the striking ecostratigraphic predictions of The Day after Tomorrow. Now, here’s where the long sweep of earth history collides with the short attention span of Hollywood, and most informed scientific input, one has been forewarned, has wound up on the cutting room floor…

…It’s a shame that, somehow, no narrative device could be found to engineer a dinosaur or two into The Day after Tomorrow. The saurians have always been great cinematic crowd-pleasers. As a child I was deeply impressed by the shamelessly eclectic One Million Years B.C. (to which I have already paid stumbling hommage) which didn’t quite manage to mix dinosaurs and mammoths, but, in throwing in Stone Age people, giant spiders and Raquel Welch, could fairly be said to have touched all bases. read it all

He also has other entries online including some fascinating discussions of Time and Geology. For other excellent columns visit the the Palaeontology Association and click on ‘correspondance’ on the left.