The Scientific Accuracy of Walking With Dinosaurs - Episode 6: Death of a Dynasty

[@DanGamingFan2406]

This started as a celebration of 20 years, and it ends as a celebration of 25. I love it. Thank you so much for revisting this incredible series, and showing us how our understanding of the ancient world has evolved since, and still has a long way to go. I hope you cover the Walking With Beasts and Monsters series too.

[@osmosisjones4912]

Its finally completed: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnyQkpyOo9yGotk

[@Aaaaaaarrrpirate]

I thought you meant that then Ben g Thomas channel was 25 years old 😂 that made me feel very old

[@Jesterjacob-ws5ix]

Yes! Definitely walking with beasts

[@Boom12]

Wooo.... that just blows my mind right now

[@Sauropsid_Supremacy]

You're here too?!

[@diegodankquixote-wry3242]

I've always enjoyed this cursed version of Tyrannosaurus Rex. It's like a bad taxidermy cat, atleast they tried.

[@user-H_m]

You sure they tried? I would think that it would look better if they looked at a skull and musculature of Tyrannosaurus. I would agree that the model is really iconic though

[@the_roman_emperor_fisheater]

like the swedish lion

[@noahe.2590]

You should definitely do scientific accuracy reviews on Walking with Beasts, Walking with Cavemen, and Walking with Monsters, along with the Ballad of Big Al, Chased by Dinosaurs and Chased by Sea Monsters.

[@canonbehenna612]

Lastly the walking with dinosaurs movie and it better say lots of hurtful things about it

[@cumminglikeahorse]

Wasn't it just Sea Monsters?

[@KhanBalkan]

It's probably gonna take 10 years to cover all of that lmao

[@GalvyTheTom]

​@@canonbehenna612for what it's worth, the science in that one is pretty good. The bad stuff was basically thrown in during post-production

[@noahe.2590]

@@KhanBalkan We’ll see

[@bengreen171]

the 'Walking with Dinosaurs' T rex seems to have been based on a Komodo dragon for many of its features - especially the skin and snout.

[@diegodankquixote-wry3242]

Septic bite hypothesis moment.

[@chadgorosaurus4898]

Walking With Dinosaurs may have outdated designs and outdated information but it's always gonna be one of the best documentaries about prehistoric life. It's still very entertaining even after 25 years.

[@SawdEndymon]

When the Jurassic Park rex is more accurate, you know you have a problem.

[@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917]

I liked to imagine that Rexes in Prehistoric Park are basically Impossible Picture fixed their Rex (even it's reskins and based on Albertosaurus)

[@juanyusee8197]

@@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917 It was on the right track, though due to model economy with the youngsters getting the bulk of the screentime, they still looked a bit too gracile. Dinosaurs in the Wild is Impossible Picture's best attempt at T. rex to this date.

[@toondrake5964]

@@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917 Actually they reskinned the Albertosaurus with their Tyrannosaurus model

[@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917]

@@toondrake5964 since i heard that it's skull is based on Albertosaurus rather than T rex

[@toondrake5964]

⁠@@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917 Oh, I was mostly referring to how the T. rex models they had in the show were scaled down into the Albertosaurus, with a different color palette. Since the model appears to be more so based on Tyrannosaurus. As this happens a lot in the Walking With series to save budget. I’m also sure that Albertosaurus is supposed to have a more slender skull with pronounced brow ridges, which neither model has.

[@GTSE2005]

I love most of WWD's designs but I can't wrap my head around how they managed to mess up the T.rex so much

[@osmosisjones4912]

Its finally completed: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnyQkpyOo9yGotk

[@Boltscrap]

It must have been one of the first models they completed, at least I hope it was.

[@SleepySloth2705]

Even the story behind the result doesn't make much sense. The original model maker quit, and another finished the job, but that doesn't explain why they made it walk on their tippytoes or the weirdly shaped head

[@Aaaaaaarrrpirate]

@@osmosisjones4912just for everyone’s information, this channel uploads extremely low quality misogynist conspiracy content and around 40% of its comments are from its alt accounts.

[@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917]

@SmashBrosInitiative mine is like "Wait that's supposed to be T Rex?"

[@carterperezadamson2777]

This video series is a perfect companion to a Walking With Dinosaurs rewatch. It's like discovering these animals all over again. I would love to see this for Walking with Beasts!

[@speedracer2008]

43:05 I think you should also credit the episode with showing T. rex targeting a young Triceratops, as opposed to healthy adult, as many depictions tend to show. In reality, it probably would only target young, sick, injured or old Triceratops, like modern predators do with their prey. This adds to the realism of the depiction you mentioned earlier.

[@The_Story_Of_Us]

Man, it goes to show how nostalgic we are for Walking With Dinosaurs when we're like "I love this series so much. That being said, here are 1001 problems and inaccuracies with it...

[@windowsVD]

I mean, a lot of information either didn't exist or has been updated since 1998. It's not perfect in terms of accuracy, but it was pretty solid given the information that they had to work with at the time.

[@The_Story_Of_Us]

@@windowsVD a lot of stuff was not excusable even at the time

[@windowsVD]

@@The_Story_Of_Us Such as? In terms of this episode, with the exception of T-rex’s design inaccuracies, a lot of the stuff they had to simply speculate because of limited information at the time. We know much more about these creatures today than we did in 1998.

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

​@@The_Story_Of_UsEspecially blatantly lying about the size of some animals.

[@The_Story_Of_Us]

@@windowsVD just please watch the video... In fact not just this one, all of the ones on this channel about WWD. They frequently get things wrong, very wrong in fact about stuff they could easily have gotten right at the time. The T-Rex design is literally one of them, like it's kind of silly of you to mention such an egregious failure of a design as if it were some minor thing, they got the most famous dinosaur of all time completely wrong! Quetzalcoatlus was embarrassing, no dinosaurs have any feathers.... That's not all from this episode and that's JUST THIS EPISODE. Tons of time travelling dinosaurs, tons of gross size inaccuracies, physiological inaccuracies... Like seriously, you can watch these videos and Ben will explicitly point out whether the inaccuracy was justified for the time or not. You'll find lots and lots of time when it is not justified.

[@fearlessjoebanzai]

Rumour has it that the original modeller for the T-Rex was poached to be the FX lead on the sequel to Tammy and the T-Rex - Tammy 2 Jurassic Day! Thankfully for the world, the project eventually fell through. Unfortunately for the world, he ended up working on the airplane dream sequence for JP3!

[@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917]

Alan..

[@SawdEndymon]

Source? Who was he?

[@fearlessjoebanzai]

@@SawdEndymon, Terry Buljoka

[@The_Story_Of_Us]

Man I hope to see this series extend to other Walking With shows and perhaps even Prehistoric Planet!

[@tec-jones5445]

A quarter of a century since this incredible series, and such a great send off for the youtube review! Keep up the amazing work!

[@Person-rv7dt]

1. You have got to make scientific accuracy of the rest of the walking with series 2. You have got to produce more of those t-shirts, merch? 3. Thank you for producing this amazing series!!

[@razorshells6392]

Words can’t express how much this one documentary shaped me growing up and I still find myself rewatching it to this day, it never ceases to entertain me. But more importantly where can I get that shirt though?

[@TheAnimalKingdom-tq3sz]

Seven days is a long strength, but alas, the final episode of Walking With Dinosaurs is here!

[@AtelierGod]

I'm already waiting on the Ballad of Big Al review as its the only episode I had never seen until I found a copy just before the end of 2023 and bought it, and I've watched it and enjoyed it.

[@SithLadyDarhVamp]

Everyone hating on the Rex, which is admittedly awful, but even as a kid I felt the Ankylosaurus looked so off it tipped into uncanny valley

[@Charlie-Charlot]

The ankylosaurus is by far one of the worst models. And I second your claim on belonging to the uncanny valley, I don’t know why but it always creeped me out when I was a kid

[@dinohall2595]

After the long wait we had for episode 5, I certainly didn't anticipate the finale to come so quick on its heels, and I don't think I've ever had such a pleasant surprise. Thank you for the work you've put into reviewing all six episodes, and I agree with the consensus that you should continue with the spin-offs if you feel so inclined.

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

About theropods having lips, they were actually depicted in media with lips from the very beginning. Original The Lost World from 1925 have theropods with lips, as many movies after, ...until ironically Jurassic Park, where they concluded that T. Rex looked better without lips... for some reasons, while raptors and dilophosaurus still have lips.

[@marinanguish9928]

1:35:20 Good ol' palaeontology papers coming out with opposite conclusions!

[@user-H_m]

always great right i love it when contradictory information amazing

[@Neuromorphic_Replicant]

I've loved this series. Sorry to see the final episode dropping. Please do walking with Monsters next.

[@user-H_m]

WWM next! I hope, I really like that series

[@dont-hurt-me2519]

Please consider creating more Scientific Accuracy Videos on the Walking With... Series; The Ballad of Big Al, Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, Walking with Cavemen, Chased by Dinosaurs, Sea Monsters, Walking with Monsters, Prehistoric Park & possibly Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet 3D?

[@oscarstainton]

"I've been looking forward to this."

[@ibs_haver]

These are genuinely some of my favorite videos on youtube, thank you for finishing this series even if it took a few years (I'm sure going through each episode and each animal, researching the creation process of the show, etc can be mentally exhausting, no fault to you). It's wonderful to see someone my age express their love and adoration for this series; some of my earliest memories too were watching the vhs recordings my mom had managed to make when the series aired on BBC. I'm sure most would agree with me; we would love to see Walking with Beasts and Monsters covered, or at least Big Al's special. Thank you again for your hard work on this series, it has kept my interest in paleontology alive these past four years :)

[@CrabDancer64]

I've seen B Rex! I live in Montana and shes at the Museum of the Rockies in their T-Rex section. She's so beautiful; I highly recommend visiting MotR if you can!!!

[@Ozraptor4]

52:51 another major inaccuracy worth mentioning is the nostrils of Ankylosaurus are supposed to be widely separated and positioned on the sides of the snout, not close together on the front of the snout as depicted here (again, making the WWD ankie more similar to Euoplocephalus).

[@pollypocketfan7837]

I would love to make a museum that has life size realistic dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals (like mammoths) models and also replicas of some extinct animals that humans caused the extinctions of like great auks and Tasmanian Tigers and I'd call it The Real Jurassic Park.

[@MFyamatomusic]

Crazy how in like 5 years it’s going to be the 30th anniversary! Love this show for me into paleontology, a career I’m chasing when I get older!

[@TobonstorJ]

Huge respect to you for this series! I have a signed box set from Nigel Marven and it’s a treasure of mine. Though I still have my original from when I was 5 years old I love the analysis you make through these and I’m so happy you continued it

[@TheGeneralGrievous19]

This was great. I cannot wait for the Ballad of the Big Al analysis as well as hopefully Walking with Beasts & with Monsters. 🙌

[@evaceratops]

i love walking with monsters, but man, an accuracy review would be BRUTAL. it’d be so fun to see you tear it apart!

[@andreagriffiths3512]

39:27 I’m absolutely positive that the Triceratops shown here is Horridus, displayed here in Melbourne, Vic, Aus. I love visiting Horridus whenever possible and usually it’s the only part of the museum I go to see. There’s something magical about sitting there, studying this magnificent specimen.

[@thebass1904]

NO FREAKING WAY! I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS FOR YEARS!

[@cappincurt6215]

To this day, the dash of speed the Tyrannosaur has through the dead trees and cuts off the smaller dinosaur is one of the coolest shots ever. It just feels so real. My child mind was blown, and my now adult mind is terrified of what this animal could’ve done in its heyday. Truly remarkable animals.

[@derskalde4973]

Yes, please, more of the "Walking with" series!

[@germanomagnone]

If I'm honest, seeing how "up to date" the scientific accuracy of the series is: Walking With Dinosaurs, gives me a mix of both positive and negative emotions. for example that Postosuchus was not quadrupedal or that the Ornithocheirus (would have been the Tropeognathus) and that the dromeosaurids = the "raptors" were not "Cretaceous wolves" as they are seen. but I know that in paleontology you don't have to "fossilize" yourself on the past, but I feel like the coelacanth or the horseshoe crab: "do the same things, so as not to become extinct". (although in these last 3 and a half years, I am quite out of phase) thinking about the roar of the T-Rex, as you say that seen it was closer to the crocodile and the birds it didn't roar but it "thundered", I personally think that the "voice" of the T-Rex was slightly similar to what is heard in some reconstructions modern (more or less certain).

[@NotesFromTheVoid]

"the most innaccurate thing is probably it's overall appearance* is such a funny dunk. Like "yeah it's all wrong lol". Do ballad of big al you know you want to.

[@Soulcalibar41]

The CGI was really impressive for a documentary made in 1999.

[@hikaru9624]

Oh yeah for sure!

[@72acemon4]

Yes, I would LOVE to see the rest of the "Walking With" series examined! I've seen every one of them, and I have nothing but fond memories of them all!

[@legoboy468]

It feels like yesterday that the first video came out. I can’t believe it’s been over 4 years since then. Another great video, I hope one day you do this with the other walking with episodes : )

[@dominiciancabatit6012]

For me, it was Discovery Channel's "Paleoworld" that really got me into paleontology. I loved Bob Bakker's fun demonstrations about his dinosaur theories. My favorite was how he explained why a cooked turkey is a dinosaur all while a family who was gonna eat it were present haha.

[@Sarcosuchas]

Walking with Dinosaurs was one of my childhood series as well. Between this and Jurassic Park, my fascination with dinosaurs was sparked at a very early age. Soon after, a lot of that passion got focused on crocodiles specifically, which is what I ended up dedicating my life to. So, much like yourself, this series holds a very special place in my heart and as such, I have enjoyed this series of videos and they are the main reason why I subscribed in the first place. I would most certainly love to see you cover the rest of the Walking With series.

[@ThePalaeontologist]

I became a palaeontologist, in large part, thanks to Walking With Dinosaurs (1999), and it will always be close to my heart, declining accuracy be damned. It is evidently a pillar of palaeomedia and palaeoart history. I have long been trying to write it's spiritual successor (though yes, many would say Prehistoric Planet became that recently) It is obviously challenging in anything palaeomedia, to mitigate for shifting sands so to speak; the changing nature of the subject, and the specific perspectives on this or that detail being disproven or altered immensely. For every creator there are a million and one critics and wannabe critics. And sadly, the nuance that things are allowed to get outdated, even as they are being made, is often lost. It is for the same reason I would not revel in the inaccuracy of things like the Crystal Palace Park Dinosaurs, that I do not get too bothered about the inaccuracies in a sincere effort from something much newer. Yes, WWD had it's many, many problems - including some which were self-inflicted or really ought to have been mitigated at the time. But life is life. We're always expected to be completely perfect as and when possible, and pedantic griping is often the bane of any palaeontologist. There will always be inaccuracies. It just requires some maturity to distinguish complete rubbish from honest mistakes. For a quarter of a century now, I've loved Walking With Dinosaurs and it's affiliated media. It means a lot to me; the good, the bad, the inspired and the ugly all at once. The truth is, the overt sensationalism and exuberance that went hand-in-hand with the series back in the day, was at the end of the 1990's Dinomania Wave, and recapturing the 'spirit of 1993' in that it was inspired directly by Jurassic Park (or, Tim Haines was) Anyway, the entire production had to be angled to the general public more than the scientific world, in spite of the fact it sincerely did involve hundreds of palaeontologists in an advisory capacity and a main group of dozens of high profile palaeontologists regularly working with the TV crew. In the companion book for the series, the main Hadrosaur is Edmontosaurus. There is a massive herd which is hit hard by heavy volcanic activity in the vicinity of the young Rocky Mountains range. There juveniles are choked by ashfalls and a vast proportion of their ever diminishing herd of adult and subadult Edmontosaurus, are wiped out by the natural disaster (>90% of the herd roughly) The matter of Edmontosaurus being the actual Hadrosaur in the episode, and not 'Anatotitan', was ironically more ambiguous in the book. There are lots of quirks like this in the lore of Walking With Dinosaurs. It reflects the much more transitory nature of late 1990's palaeontology in general. Hindsight allows people to act variably smug about certain things we think we know _now_ but in the production of WWD between 1996-1998 (with some bits going on into 1999 in the post-production etc) though if a lot of critics were put on the spot to make anything remotely as good, they'd be flapping in the wind. At the end of the day, Walking With Dinosaurs served it's purposes. To some, it was just sensationalist and fanciful. To others, it was life-changing. It's not that there were no other palaeomedia inspirations for me, in the 1990's (anything but; I was hopping mad for Dinosaurs, like many others) Though the special thing about WWD was that it was like a scientifically backed focusing lens for my passion for palaeontology, and it as always been greatly loved in that regard, ever since. I could wax lyrical about just how much it means to me and how much of my life revolved around it at length, though suffice it to say, I am not exaggerating when I said I was life-changing. I had _always_ loved prehistory. I loved DK Dinosaur books and interactive games before WWD was even proposed. I loved 1988's The Land Before Time and dozens of now obscure Discovery Dinosaur documentaries (etc) And of course, at the time, in 1999, the by then two released Jurassic Park films (JP '93 and TLW:JP '97) were absolute staples of the Dinosaur enthusiast audience. However, WWD was this sledgehammer and step change in how seriously I would have taken things, and it's sincere and fascinating openness in showing it's scientific reasoning and evidence, made me more serious about what being a palaeontologist meant and that I wanted to become one. I already did want to become one, but that set it in the rock matrix so to speak. There is too much to say about how timeless Walking With Dinosaurs has been and always will be for me. It is not just a timeless classic for me, or life-changing, it was the most meaningful and how to put this...'augmenting' experience in my life. Think of it like a magnet drawing the iron-filings to point in the magnetic direction. It was, indeed, like a focusing lens, setting things out lucidly to me. I had dozens of Dinosaur books and toys etc even before WWD aired, though WWD changed everything. I have very specific memories about things related to Walking With Dinosaurs. P.S. - The remodelling and repurposes of things across Walking With Dinosaurs, are down to three main reasons: 1 - Saving money on a comparatively shoestring production. Although the series often is lauded for it's relatively great expense for a documentary type series, it was still 1,200 animation shots over 3 hours done for a tiny fraction of what Jurassic Park had been made for (with it's 9 or so minutes of Dinosaurs in the original film) ILM was asking $10,000 _per second_ of animation back in 1996 so Tim Haines returned to England empty handed knowing the BBC Natural History unit would never be able to afford that on silver-screen budgets (mind you, the BBC makes billions of pounds and although most of that has to get funnelled into mundane things and a plethora of mainline, individually cheap shows, it always crossed my mind about the fanciful idea of the BBC just allowing a blockbuster level of funding and marketing to go into one production and go all out, rather than do things on the cheap) Part of the charm of Walking With Dinosaurs, was how cheap and cheerful some of it was, but the praise around it often mentions how expensive it was. It was expensive, for what it was, but it was still done on next to nothing in the grand scheme of TV and Film. 2 - The imaging and animation software they were using, would often begin with the animators making tetrapodal bauplans they could reuse over and over again for different models to tweak them, to save time. This is explained in greater detail in now 23-24 year old written, specialist interviews with some of those whom had worked on the series. It saved time and money, at a time when every single moving polygon had to be moved, painstakingly, by hand, in the Creative Image 3D software. They were bogged down trying to animate for 1,200 shots with animation involved, and they had a limited amount of time to do this. It made sense to tweak tetrapodal templates over and over again. Indeed, this might have gone so far, that technically, _everything_ with four legs we see might just be altered variations of what had been the same base model (or perhaps a few base models) The total number of species expanded greatly from the originally planned - more than twice as many as originally envisaged. Corner-cutting was almost inevitable. It's suboptimal to say the least to have to do that, but it might explain why there are some models which somewhat echo each other (even ones that aren't obviously just copied, like Utahraptor being reused and recoloured for Dromaeosaurus) The effectiveness of this was likely in saving tens of thousands of pounds during production. 3 - As explained, the number of species shown in the series increased, but only a smaller number of them had specific models and close-up props built for them. Some Dinosaurs were entirely rendered in CGI and never got physical props from Crawley Creatures (or at least, props which were used in close-up shots) The sculptors had done their work earlier on so if anything was to be added _after a certain point_ it all had to be done in the computer, and as they had also done most of the filming in 1998, on the live-background locations, they were limited in what exactly they could add, and when. They had to use the footage they had with the time they had to film it, and only some species had physical props (a lot of the species at least had sculptures, though there were some obviously just recoloured or altered e.g. Diplodocus was changed and reskinned to have Apatosaurus in The Ballad Of Big Al, 2000) This was even more 'efficient' in that special, because they literally just reused and maybe slightly brushed up a few of the models e.g. Stegosaurus and Dryosaurus. However, they had to _extensively_ remodel the Allosaurus model, for that. [part 1 of 2; continued in a reply to myself directly below, in part 2]

[@ThePalaeontologist]

[part 2/2] Pragmatic reasons always played into their make and mend approach to things, and I like it, albeit acknowledging the fact it would be better if they happened to have twice or thrice the funding to really _really_ go for it. During the production of WWD, an animation team from The Secret Lab (a short-lived 3D animation house made and ruined by Disney) whom were at the time, working on the notoriously expensive at the time to produce, Disney DINOSAUR (released in 2000; undercut by WWD in the UK which released in 1999, and undercut by even the United States release of WWD in 2000, just a month prior to the theatre release of Disney DINOSAUR; which didn't help their cause) Disney DINOSAUR was made for a vastly greater sum and it's textures and models were arguably more convincing (you know, minus the anthropomorphised facial features and some of them, you know, talking like people) But still. The animators working for Disney/The Secret Lab were in awe of what that small and relatively unknown British animation house (Framestore CFC) had managed to do with a few dudes. It was absolutely astonishing to them. Yes, it was a bit cheap and cheerful but damn did it make sense for the budget they were working on and yes it achieved a great deal with relatively little. Imagine WWD on the kind of money Disney DINOSAUR was made for! (literally dozens of times more money than Haines had to play with) I'm writing my own version of a WWD II and basically, I have been for years at this point. Fact-checking stuff and writing stories which make sense episode to episode, is a laborious and hugely challenging process (even in spite of me being a trained palaeontologist) but it is still rewarding when you feel you've completed a chapter and written something based in science and the evidence. It's a special feeling. One day, I hope to be able to release my ideas in some form or other. It's still a massive work in progress. The tragic end of the Maastrichtian Age, in such dreadful horror and carnage, should be considered the 'worst day life on Earth ever witnessed'. And yes, I'm well-aware that _overall_ the end-Permian 'Great Dying' was technically the _worst_ Mass Extinction in the last Billion years, over 251.902 Ma, however, the sheer ultra-violence and terror of the events of the Day 1 of the K-Pg Mass Extinction, would beggar belief and break sentient minds. They suffered so very much and died in droves beyond all reckoning. Countless quadrillions of living organisms obliterated (Dinosaur numbers would have been in the millions worldwide of course, though they weren't the only ones dying that day; so much of basically everything was) Although about 1/4 of animal families survived, this belies just how bad things would have really been. Most species, even those that made it through into the Palaeocene, would have been ravaged to a point of near-extinction. The sheer scale of the slaughter would have been utterly devastating for social and emotive animals. A big part of what is often forgotten, about the aftermath, is how those animals that survived, were in many ways, the _unlucky ones_ in that on a behavioural, interspecific and cerebral level, those individual animals would have been a little worse than slightly messed up, to put it mildly. I have zero doubt that, especially as the Sun was blocked out, and confusion and disorientation was universal, the normal behavioural and migratory patterns would have been ruined and like almost anything trapped in the dark and starving for too long, they'd start to become very atypical to how they should be. Mating pairs probably killed each other. There'd be all kinds of stresses on normal patterns of behaviour, extending to cannibalism and exacerbated intraspecific fighting. Opportunism, as starvation worsened, becoming rife. The few plants able to endure in-tact, being insufficient to sustain large herds. At first, in the relative short term, the predators that followed them would get by, picking off the old and weak, or the dead and dying more often. But after a point, that dubious windfall would literally and figuratively rot away, and then things would start to get really bad. What humans would consider psychological trauma would probably be widespread amongst various animals (not to sapient sentient levels of intelligence and comprehension, no, though animals still have feelings in my view and they would certainly be troubled on some levels) There'd be mournful, baleful and harrowing calls echoing down ash choked valleys and through blasted and burnt forests. There'd be whimpering animals mortally wounded, crying in agony. There'd be confused herd members bellowing or chirping for their herd mates, only to find corpses, or nothing. Millions of young Dinosaurs would have been orphaned in a sense, and millions would have starved to death or in the case of some of the carnivores, even cannibalised each other. It would have been a waking nightmare under the debris clouds in the upper atmosphere, even before the molten and indeed, acid rain began to fall. The sheer scale of the suffering would have been beyond all comprehension. It is genuinely the most heartbreaking thing in all of palaeontology for me, and it has a _lot_ of competition in that regard across geological and evolutionary history all told. It was not just one day, either, being a nightmare that lasted thousands of years in truth. But that first day? That would have been a nightmare most Dinosaurs would never wake up from. Most of the Dinosaurs did likely die that day, or at least, that week. Especially in North America and South America (Mesoamerica was purged of Dinosaur life in the first few moments, no doubt; an entire palaeoecosystem near Chicxulub _would_ have existed with Dinosaurs - not just migrating Alamosaurus or things like it - but they were basically 'bullet-punched' out of all existence. It'd probably be more likely to find shredded fragments of whichever Dinosaurs lived there, thousands of miles away (and I'm not joking) But that is another way of saying, it's staggeringly unlikely (probably hundreds of millions to one odds of ever being found) Most would have just been vaporised/atomised there and then. Truly terrifying. The Dinosaurs and all life suffered badly that day. WWD did have a go at showing the drama of that moment, but they were nowhere close to the horror. Nevertheless, I'll always love Walking With Dinosaurs. It captured the spirit of palaeontological reconstruction and reviving lost worlds. We may never truly see it's like again. It was special for many reasons but I truly believe that those whom love it like I do, can recapture the spirit and energy of that production (only, with more accurate depictions) If I won the lottery, I'd straight up just start making my own version (even if I had to rename it for legal reasons) and just hammer out those stories I'm writing. I just need a production team, a few million quid and a group of animators and palaeontologists who get my vision and there you go lol we can all dream. My vision for a new era Walking With Dinosaurs, goes far beyond anything else I’ve seen.

[@brycevo]

This episode was so amazing. It was one of the best. I'm glad to see this 20th anniversary end at the 25th. Thank you

[@theredknight9314]

Walking with dinosaurs, beasts and monsters was EPIC and my CHILDHOOD

[@GeteMachine]

16:33 The feeding technique of T. rex was one detail I knew about that kind of sucked for Prehistoric Planet to have ignored when it shown its T. rex feeding on Triceratops. It actually is pretty interesting to know, showing that T. rex were capable of problem solving for itself. Understanding of cause and effect regarding it getting something specifically from eating or to help itself eat at something better.

[@Bagelgeuse]

I'm guessing the reason it wasn't included is because it would've been a bit too graphic for PHP's tame amount of blood. Apparently the whole show was supposed to be more brutal according to RickRaptor105's "interview" with Darren Naish. With that said, I remember a bunch of BBC dinosaur videos on KZbin that showcased it, albeit with bloodless drawings rather than CGI.

[@juanyusee8197]

@@Bagelgeuse Mark Witton confirmed that on Twitter, saying: "We did discuss this as something to go into the dead Triceratops sequence but it wasn't seriously considered given the family-orientated nature of the programme." Personally I thought the scenes where the father Rex fed on the Archelon and another one feeding on Alamosaurus in S2 handled it a lot better.

[@juanyusee8197]

Yeah the issue is what Mark Witton confirmed on Twitter, saying: "We did discuss this as something to go into the dead Triceratops sequence but it wasn't seriously considered given the family-orientated nature of the programme." Personally I thought the scenes where the father Rex fed on the Archelon and another one feeding on Alamosaurus in S2 balanced the Rex feeding and keeping the family-oriented nature of the show a lot better.

[@stevedacey3587]

One of your best productions, lots of fossils and insights I was unaware of. Great work!

[@haydencrawford8552]

Could you do walking with beasts or monsters? I was lucky enough to grow up with all of those. And even the companion book "The complete guide to Prehistoric life"

[@benjaminpuricelli6310]

The edit at 1:05:12 made me burst out laughing. A fantastic end to a fantastic series! Roll on Balland of Big Al and Waling with Beasts! :)

[@patreekotime4578]

Considering that Trex is one of the best known dinos ever, and also considering how good the Jurassic Park reconstructions were.... this model is pretty baffling. It looks like they were referencing 1960s Allosaurus heads!

[@danieljob3184]

I remember watching this series too - on a cathode ray tube television - with my dual DVD copy of Jurassic Park & The Lost World sitting on the shelf... You're a fricking embryo, Ben! Thanks for making me feel old! 👴

[@starscream548]

Thank you so much for the series of yours, I will never forget how excited I was when you started this and I’m so glad you finished it. 💜

[@tamagothchic]

I'm actually glad they really messed up t rex as opposed to a more obscure dinosaur, since for a lot of us, it encouraged us to recognize that documentaries can be incorrect or outdated and to pursue further information/research on the matter. It was certainly one of the earliest examples I encountered of that situation as a kid, and while I wasn't reading hardcore scientific studies, channels like this are amazing for making large amounts of history and research digestable and understandable for a layman. Amazing work!

[@tomsherburne3880]

37:54 Excited to see my old familiar Torosaurus from the Milwaukee Public Museum!

[@yugataseishin3076]

Thank you so much for this series, I've really enjoyed it! It's amazing how in depth you go and I love it. Would definitely want to see you do more Walking With entries. Keep up the great work!

[@bluedragon219123]

I was wondering why there seemed to be an increase, or even a start, of Paleoart of T-Rex decapitating Triceratops. Now I know that there's a scientific reason behind it! Great Job on that and the video as a whole! :)

[@landenriley8442]

65 are waiting for 66 million years

[@andreagriffiths3512]

I am so excited - we’re getting Victoria, the T-Rex, and I’m seeing her in early July. It’s going to be amazing! I love seeing Horridus (very nearly complete Triceratops). Melbourne is truly embracing dinosaurs!

[@south_eagle1403]

I would love to see a review of Walking with Beasts. Thank you Ben for covering Walking with Dinosaurs. It was such a massive part of my childhood and my love for animals started with documentaries like this one.

[@bdawgiscool_1511]

And now we’re getting a Walking with Dinosaurs reboot, W

[@zachfett5919]

New merch design??? 👀 Lol. Pretty sure I’ve been watching you all 4 years. Glad to see you get through it, love all of the work that you and the team do. And it’s so wonderful to see you guys grow in your knowledge and experiences. I’d be happy to see you review any show that strikes your fancy. Keep up the amazing work sir!!!

[@M-elephant7777]

I think the series came away from this review with its reputation intact, not diminished, bravo! I love this series. Looking forward to the interview and the next series reviews!

[@MidnightDarkness666]

If you think about it, in a weird way Walking With becoming outdated as more evidence has come to light is strangely honoring it's legacy. The reason being is that so many people became palentologists because of the series.

[@gavinsiville9969]

I think they made the T. rex design different and ugly for two reasons 1: The theme of the episode is very murky and grim about the extinction of the dinosaurs, so maybe the T. rex is supposed to be malnourished and very deformed. 2: Considering this documentary was made in the 90s, they probably wanted to make their T. Rex different from the iconic Jurassic Park one

[@AgsmaJustAgsma]

1:40:32 The fact that this adds some validity to the flat Earth meme where dinosaurs were catapulted by the asteroid has me in stitches.

[@demonprinceofkhorne]

Definitely keen to see Big Al get covered. I love the rest of the Walking With but Big Al is the one I'm particularly keen for you to cover!

[@palaiologos4441]

The WWD T. Rex's head looks like a mix of a cubed watermelon and post-boxing Mickey Rourke

[@ryanartward]

I remember watching this for the first time. I was maybe 10 years old, and my family and I just left a museum and bought this from the gift shop. We binged the whole thing on the car ride home, back when cars had little tvs in them.

[@AnActualDimetrodon]

I was caught off guard at the length of this episode, but then I remembered "Oh yeah, the really weird T. Rex. Makes sense."

[@rileyernst9086]

The way I see it, the Deccan traps would have sucked if you were a dinosaur in India at the time, but globally the increase in greenhouse gasses would have only been a good thing for dinosaurs and other reptiles. (I mean, just look at how big birds and reptiles did in the paleocene/eocene) secondly, the meteorite hitting those gypsum and sulphite deposits were a bad thing for everyone, everywhere.

[@XanBcoo]

18:16 OK, this is my new favorite paleo art. It's so funny "Well, this is embarrassing. I can't seem to get up..."

[@nono9543]

Good to see you finish this off.

[@ek9509]

42:03: I’ve seen KZbin clips of that moment, and they show the full corpse. So, you could either pixelate it, or just go for it.

[@thebushna]

I would absolutely adore a continuation of this series to cover the other Walking with... shows like Beasts & Monsters. These series were so influential on me as a child as well & being the only person interested in Paleontology in my life, these videos really bring me back & validate my interest in prehistory.

[@FranKoPepez]

Knowing where this documentary was filmed and looking at the tyranosaur hunting down a hadrosaur scene, I think that location looks familiar to me. I think it is Laguna Arcoiris in Conguillio National Park, but I have never seen that place that much dry that the sunken tree trunks can be seen without water covering them! That year must have been specially dry or something. This brought memories of when I first went to that National Park when I was a child and I was eager to see the footprints of the T. rex feet models they used for the documentary. Of course I didn't see anything.

[@xintract]

this has been such a wonderful journey of a series. walking with beasts would be amazing next as well! a lot of stuff in that show hasnt really been depicted elsewhere in the way dinosaurs have in say prehistoric planet

[@ToaOfFusion]

Thank you for unintentionally getting me to look into the Beasts of the Mesozoic line of dinosaur figures. They have Torosaurus and Dromeosaurus figures with their Walking with Dinosaurs palettes but are depicted as accurately as possible, based on the current science available during development.

[@Maqya]

I've loved this series a lot, and I'd be super excited if you did another series review like this for walking with beasts and monsters!

[@Fede_99]

It has been an honor to follow this series of videos from start to finish in these years. And you ask if we want to see it for the others BBC products too? Hell yeah of course, even if it will take years just like WWD it doesn't matter, I'll be glad to watch them all.

[@PaleoEdits]

Thank you so much for reviewing this classic in such ridiculous detail and dedication! 🦕

[@mattywixon9214]

Phenomenal video mate. It's clear that a lot of work and research went into this. Keep up the amazing work!

[@DevinQuigleyArt]

Glad to see this retrospective come to fruition! Though I’m sure you guys aren’t in any rush to do Walking With Beasts any time soon.😅

[@omgmo1962]

There's a Curiosity Stream series about Arctic dinosaurs (I think that's the main premise) that I think did a nice job of following individuals/families in a compelling way. I can't remember what it's called but I think it might have been in a history the earth series or something? I no longer have that service to check. But it is in their dinosaur collection. I believe Ben has mentioned it in previous CS ads before

[@canonbehenna612]

The original did arctic dinosaurs while the movie made look disgraceful

[@veggieboyultimate]

Do you think you can do the big al special too?

[@violinmerchant]

I haven't even watched this series in over a decade and I'm still tearing up thinking about the two t-rex juveniles waiting for their mother to wake up, only to have this solemn personal moment scattered away on the winds of a random, uncaring cataclysm of cosmic scale. In the end their size meant nothing. I know this is about accuracy, I just felt the need to reiterate what an incredible story Walking With Dinosaurs managed to convey.

[@25439]

I loved the WWD and WWM as a kid, I still love them now

[@jakobmorris7609]

Oh I can't wait! Hoping to see Walking With Monsters afterwards:)

[@pedrogabrielduarte4544]

But he needs to make walking with Beasts First

[@azureryuga3931]

Honestly, I'm really curious how he'd do the Sea Monsters special since the segments aren't as long as a WWD episode and they often cliffhanger between episodes for dramatic effect.

[@CollaateraL]

Omg Iv been waiting for this episode! Thank you so much dude

[@TheGeneralGrievous19]

​Thank You for the episode and the whole series! ♥ I love Walking with Dinosaurs! 🦖🦕♥

[@johnnanny4872]

You are actually right,, about the T-Rax. In this particular vjdo.😂

[@renDerde]

Thank you for these wise words.

[@GabyCarrionArtiste]

Thanks for that amazing video! This might be a stretch, but these representations of Torosaurus kind of look like they were based on the Placerias models from the first episode (similar skull and overall body shape) that the creators reused, adding a few modifications and of course the bone crest.

[@CosyMatt]

I bet the cameraman accidentally recorded an Allosaurus and when he came back through time with the footage was so embarrassed he filmed the wrong Dino he just gaslight everyone and said “no yeah that’s a Trex guys.”

[@TorvusVae]

Please do walking with prehistoric beasts next!

[@thedoctordallin]

You did an excellent job with this series, and I would love to see a scientific accuracy analysis of the Prehistoric Park series

[@garchompy_1561]

imma throw something out there about the t.rex that I like to think about regarding walking with dinosaurs. in the episode in which it is present, the landscape is hellish, with toxic fumes everywhere, and indeed in a specific scene they stop a t.rex from scavenging another animal. the fact it was trying to scavage in the first place suggests it could have been desperate for food. with these to things in mind, it could make sense that the ecosystem there was rough, and the animals there could have been starving and sickly, meaning yea they couldve been pretty underweight while making sense. probably not shrinkwrapped to the extent seen in the model, but anorexic to a degree actually possible? maybe.

[@Raptorworld22]

Now all that's left is to do the specials with Nigel Marven, like all the inaccuracies in "The Giant Claw"

[@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917]

There's also Land of Giants (the Argentinosaurus one)

[@Raptorworld22]

@@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917 I know, I was just pointing out Giant Claw in general because, I mean, you have to have seen their Theri

[@toyohimeyeswatatsuki6917]

@@Raptorworld22 oh yeah, no feathers and also hand position

[@AntoniusTyas]

When you start comparing Prehistoric Planet's _Tyrannosaurus_ model with WWD ones, it does show how bad WWD _Tyrannosaurus_ was. That hasn't stopped me from rewatching Walking With Dinosaurs as well as Prehistoric Planet. Also, I cannot wait for the scientific accuracy analysis of Walking With Dinosaur Specials and Sea Monsters Trilogy...

[@gordon1891]

This was brilliant thank you for making these videos. I still watch my dvd Boxset of Walking with Dinosaurs. & The Nigel Marvin specials & the Sea Monsters special mini series is a particular favourite of mine.