#lostbeasts

[lostbeasts]

It’s been a while!!  Here’s an Aurochs illustration I’ve nearly finished as part of a local project... this has taken a while too. I’ve been busy being a mum. 

[lostbeasts]

Ah, speculative palaeoart. I missed u.

[lostbeasts]

The Rodhocetus tag is basically empty for me, so I decided to speed ink one... I’m about 99% sure they weren’t this bendy but I saw this cool leopard seal photo and wanted to use it as a reference 

[lostbeasts]

From Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin of Birds, by John Long and Peter Schouten.

[lostbeasts]

Tyrannosaurus chick 🐥🦖

[lostbeasts]

big ole Dimetrodon

[bethanyvargeson]

Ambulocetus natans, 2015. Digital painting. Ambulocetus was a prehistoric whale from the Eocene epoch. Here I have reconstructed it with dense, sea lion-like fur, webbed feet and whiskers, and an otter-like physique.  This was part of a final year project on my university Illustration course.

[internalbouillon]

About Jurassic World

I was born in the 90′s and always grown with Jurassic Park as a wonderful thing which have been done before, like Star Wars or Mad Max : those movies that seems forever young but that belong to a time you weren’t there. I was too young to have known it on big screen, always on tv (I don’t talk about the 3rd Jurassic Park because, since I could have been to the movie-theater, I was still young and didn’t saw it before a long time).

When Jurassic World have been announced I turned crazy. I’m a big fan of Jurassic Park and, since I haven’t seen it in big, this new movie was like the messiah to me : it seemed like this big dinosaur movie, this dinosaur blockbuster, some real big entertainment with DINOSAURS was made for me. I mean, while dinosaurs are so awesome as everyone knows, there’s not so many movies about, not with this extent ; and especially not in my generation. So yes, I felt like it was made for me, for my dinosaur loving. I turned crazy about finally seeing dinosaurs with a screen at their scale.

Science bullshit do bother me, but I’m not going to talk about it here because, well, it’s entertainment, and you have to do with the ancient movies, and wellllll after alllll why not a big stupid chimera-thing. That’s not my point here. And, beside that, I found some scientific and scenaristic explanations kinda well done, that’s bad faith but... “yeah we know raptors have feathers, T-rex too, our gallimimi are so ugly, basically ALL our dinosaurs are like big pieces of shit, but hey we haven’t found a perfect genome in that damn amber, so we did play with other DNA to complete, so YEAH it isn’t perfect, our dinosaurs can’t be really realistic.” And that’s clever because it makes the link with the firsts movies, since we have discovered things from the time (I’m not talking about the silly stego), and we can not ignore it ; and it preserve the present movie from future discoveries. That’s well done. Even the whole training-raptor thing didn’t bothered me that much (I was expecting way worse scenaristically like “I train raptors like otarias performing shows in zoos and that’s funny they’re my friends”. It was not, I’m glad of that).

Then, I adore Chris Pratt but the fixing-my-moto scene was just awful, the sexism and stupid-hollywood-ressources are huge in this movie. But let’s leave that aside.

Here’s my major protest :

ALL the movie is based on “dinosaurs are not that cool you know, we need more attractivity, let’s do whatsoever to get public.”

I just HATE the idea that the most fantastic and big dinosaur universe on screen begins with “eerrh, no, dinosaurs are boring finally”. That’s not true, that’s stupid, that’s insulting for so many scientists, and, just for me, that’s painful.  How the fuck do you want to let us love dinosaurs if you start with “nah” ?!

Even if it’s “only” the point of view of some people in the park in the movie, in a story, it tells us a lot about director and producer’s mind. Like they think that we loved Jurassic Park and dinosaurs in general for their big spectacular effects, and not for the fact that they are actually real animals. I mean, a french comic artist talked about that and I’m totally following him on this : if I like so much dinosaurs it’s because they did existed back then. They seems like imaginary beasts in a fantasy book but THEY DID EXISTED ! And every time I realize that I’m overcome with a feeling of wonder and greatness. Not many things still amaze me the second, the third, the fourth, and all the next times I realize them.

So it’s painful, really, to see a dinosaur movie that presents just few beasts and in a despicable point of vew. The oldest brother is bored, like it could be ?! That’s just when he see a frigthning thing that he finally get interested. 

Maybe, the most awful thing in the movie was that moment when they arrive in the park and the camera is focused on children’s faces and this beautiful and magical music starts, there’s a movement of the camera and...... .... and you just see shops, restaurants, marchandizing.  NOT. A. SINGLE. DINOSAUR. ON JOHN WILLIAM’S MUSIC. This music means SO MUCH ! It means the moment when you discover dinosaur’s valley in the first movie, when you discover brachiosaurus and parasaurolophus (?) and it’s just beautiful, it’s large, it’s wild, there’s air and nature, Alan Grant is crying by seeing that. It’s an incredible moment.  At movie theater, while watching this, I was literally mashing my friend’s hand for all that I was expecting.  And you wasted it on merchandizing and stupid childrens that wants more teeth.

At no time you see such a great vew. There was ideas (the river, the hamster balls, why not ?) and nothing has been done, and everything has been fucked up.

Jurassic World, even omitting all the scientific inaccuracies and the poor scenario, was heartbreaking by its littleness. It was the opposite of wonder and dream. It was grey. Remains only the spectacular awesomeness, but dinosaurs would have gave it anyway.