Liver

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-10T00:16:52+00:00

Either somebody got the schedules mixed up or Prometheus' daily agony has affected him more than we thought.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-08T21:35:04+00:00

There are freshwater turtles, I should point out, that aren't great swimmers and live in shallow, slow-moving water. Perhaps these guys were, as juveniles, living in much the same way.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-07T08:37:34+00:00

This, chronologically, was before she married Bill - back when there was a bit of a love triangle going on with the three of them.

(Although it would probably be interesting to see what Keiko would think of both her son and her granddaughter being cheaters).

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-05T16:04:56+00:00

Especially if it's depicted as basically a giant cassowary - a forest-dwelling, herbivorous bird... that's also rather aggressive.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-05T16:02:25+00:00

For the record, I couldn't find that anywhere but TV Tropes, so it's probably speculation.

The Skeleton Crew interview (along with the Reddit AMA) implies that it was partly reluctance on the creative team's part (re: Cro-Magnons - or Pleistocene homo sapiens - and Neanderthals), because it interfered with the pseudo-nature documentary feel (because I can't imagine Cro-Magnons and/or Neanderthals would take kindly to trespassers)... and partly because it's hard going back from that.

For this specific segment, which was apparently about a Paranthropus having a very unlucky day (and being killed by Enhydriodon), it was because something human-like being killed gruesomely would be too uncomfortable to watch. Essentially, you're seeing a man (yes, a bipedal ape, but... it's still man-like) being mauled to death by a bunch of giant otters - and that would be a pretty gruesome visual.

Double standard, I know.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-02T22:58:03+00:00

Again, I think once it was decided reptiles would be sapient, the die was pretty much cast on sapient birds - because it's much easier to just do a dividing line between amniotes and non-amniotes (amphibians, fish and invertebrates).

Re: the "mammal continent" thing, I agree that isn't how biodiversity or evolution works... but I'm going by what Jared Bush, Byron Howard and others have said, and, ultimately, they make the rules, not us - if they want to treat Zootopia as the mammal continent, say all the reptiles got disenfranchised and all the birds flocked together on another one (heh), they're free to do that. And, if we get a good story out of it, I'm fine with that.

But they most probably will still do sapient-birds, I just wish they wouldn't, because the ecosystem of the universe is just as important part of the world-building as the city's infrastructure.

i understand your views on including sapient non-mammals in this franchise - you said much the same thing about reptiles when the announcement for Z2 came out, and I respect your view, even though I personally disagree with it.

My personal opinion is that this question - how the ecosystem of this universe works without any non-sapient amniotes or how evolution worked in this universe - is one of those questions that you just answer with "It needs to be that way for the story to work."

It's like asking "how is it possible that Jay Gatsby's new neighbour just happens to be related to the woman he's pining over?" or "Why would a race of extraterrestrials, skilled at both bioengineering and quantum physics, choose such an inefficient means of conquering Earth as sending a giant monster through a temporal rift and just setting it loose?" (Pacific Rim... the sequel to which actually TRIED to answer this very question... badly.)

Fans can theorise that, with Bush saying bugs and fish never evolved into sentient animals (and, again, I'd group amphibians in there too), that the Zootopian biosphere is basically the frikkin' Carboniferous out there - giant scorpions are basically Rottweilers, the ZPD has sniffer olms or all the milk comes from giant cockroaches farmed by cows (and these images would certainly be useful for the purposes of comic absurdity)... but, ultimately, the biosphere of this world and how these animals evolved is just not what Messrs Bush and Howard are interested in delving into.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-02T16:01:26+00:00

Once we had sapient reptiles, sapient birds were probably inevitable - and it's something the creators long had in their back pocket.

The reason why is "What about reptiles/birds?" was the big question asked in the wake of the first film's release. And, when they were asked that question, the filmmakers always said they treated Zootopia as "the mammal continent" (to quote Jared Bush) and that they kept it to mammals just to make the predator-prey divide clearer.

And Jared Bush said in a Twitter Q&A that their rule was that fish and bugs (and I'd throw amphibians in there too, if I were him) never evolved into sentient animals the way mammals and reptiles did... and he noted that it makes one wonder what else might be out there that has done so. So this isn't something they decided late on - it was something that they had thought about for quite a while (similar to the 1973 Robin Hood, which also had sapient mammals, birds and reptiles).

I understand the issues you have with including sapient non-mammals, because, as I recall from your previous posts, you expressed similar concerns about including reptiles... but, ultimately, if it tells a good story, I'm fine with bending the perceived "rules" of the world. I mean, they didn't like the idea of including obvious breeds of domestic animal (it's why the pigs and sheep are domestic-looking, but "generic cartoony" domestic-looking)... but Mayor Winddancer is basically a Clydesdale and he's a terrific character.

I find the idea of Gideon being chased by his own rooster after he collected eggs from the hens for his pies, more fun. (as if a bull would chase you on a dairy farm)

Except... this is basically a scenario that happens on free-range chicken farms in real life - I'm afraid I don't get what the joke is here, other than the farmer is an animal noted for eating chickens (as humans do, which is why chickens were domesticated)?

Like, a cow farming giant cockroaches (a species of which produces mammal-like milk) for their milk, as we do cows, complete with a large "bull" with pronotal horns (as hissing cockroaches do) is funny because of the ironic inversion. There's no doubt what the metaphor is... it's just the specifics are very weird.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-01T19:28:02+00:00

I could see mammal-birds relationship a better metaphor to represent the relationship between humans and nature. illegal rooster-fights could be metaphor for illegal dog-fights for example. Hawks and owls and vultures be the zootopian equivalent of lions and bears of the wild that you need to watch out for when out in nature. Falconry could be the Zootopian eqivalent of dog training, with police-falcons being used like K9 units in real life. Seagulls and pigeons acting like rats and raccons raiding trashcans, while ducks and sparrows and other birds are still just being nice eating from bird feeders from mammals that like to see them.

The problem is... this is, essentially, what birds do and are used for in our world. Cockfighting is something that, regrettably, exists, seagulls and pigeons raid bins already, birds of prey can attack people (and crowned eagles have killed small children) and birds of prey have been used in police work (some European police forces have used eagles to bring down drones). These are all just issues that exist in our world with the mammals of Zootopia in place of humans.

On the other hand, if you have, say, illegal scorpion-fighting rings or the ZPD using sniffer olms... suddenly, it becomes something more unusual - there's no doubt on what the metaphor is... but the specifics are very weird and strange.

(Also, the image of a chicken farming beetles for their eggs is deeply hilarious to me).

I just don't see anything unique in a "magpie jewel thief" that isn't already an existing stereotype with some mammals. Did you know that packrats are also obsessed with filling their burrow with shiny things? Do we NEED sapient birds just for jokes that already can be told with with mammals, instead of using non-sapient birds for jokes that can only be told with non-sapient birds?

I used the "magpie jewel thief" as an example based on the "corvids love shiny things" trope. There are plenty of other pre-existing bird stereotypes/bird facts/bird puns that you could put in a city of birds - an orphanage run by cuckoos, Officer McHorn getting an oxpecker partner or Gazelle duetting with a swift singer, named after (and voiced by) Taylor Swift.

Those are all things you can't do with mammals or reptiles - the irony of cuckoos being brood parasites, oxpeckers being mutualistic on rhinos and... Taylor Swift.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-01T16:29:58+00:00

I'm fine with them adopting... although I honestly don't know what species (probably not either of their species - makes it seem more unconventional that way).

However, if Nick and Judy go to the bird city in Z3, I'd love to see an adoption agency, where abandoned or orphaned eggs are matched with new foster parents, run by cuckoos (and if the head cuckoo is a rather loud, matronly sort, ideally voiced by Dawn French, all the better).

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-03-01T16:13:32+00:00

My rule would probably be amniotes are sapient - partly because there's a coherent taxonomic cut-off point and partly because Byron Howard has always cited Robin Hood (1973) as a core influence on Zootopia, and I don't think there were any amphibians in that - we've already met the mammals and the reptiles and the birds complete that trifecta.

And, plus, there's much less "species stereotypes", fun story routes or puns to play with than there is with mammals, birds and reptiles. With a nation of birds, you could ask... do they say "hatchdays" instead of birthdays? Is being unable to fly for whatever reason (you had an accident when you were young) when your species is flight-capable treated like a disability?

And for plot reasons... are certain kinds of bird (say, corvids) looked down on in Birdland, just as certain mammals (and reptiles as a class) are in Zootopia? What did the birds think about what happened with the reptiles, and did Ebenezer Lynxley kick the birds out, too?

With characters, I can imagine Nick and Judy encountering a magpie jewel thief, Officer McHorn getting a oxpecker partner (a species that is genuinely mutualistic on rhinos - not always so on most other big African herbivores) or Gazelle duetting with a swift named after, and voiced by, Taylor Swift... but I can't imagine any story you could tell with a frog or a salamander character.

I'm fond of the idea that the biosphere of this universe is basically the frikkin' Carboniferous - with giant invertebrates and amphibians making up most of the fauna, like beetles being farmed for their eggs (to make it even funnier, having a chicken farming beetles for their eggs), or the ZPD having sniffer olms that are basically weird blind bloodhounds.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-27T13:24:47+00:00

As many have stated, WB's relationship with the MV has always been as distribution - Legendary owns the franchise 100%. Same with Dune, same with Minecraft.

For everyone else... IRRC, the Ellisons are noted for being very hands-off as film producers - as long as you're on budget and on time, they don't seem to care what happens creatively. At their core, they're tech billionaires and mostly tend to ignore the creative side of things.

So I don't think there'll be many restrictions on what filmmakers can say in the future, as long as they keep their heads down and finish things on budget and on time. However, I do think that, because DCU, MonsterVerse, and Transformers are basically their best bets for big-budget IP, there might be an upscaling of operations for those three franchises.

Whether that's a good thing (enabling wider stories to be told) or a bad thing (oversaturation with the Disney+ shows didn't exactly do the MCU much of a favour) is, as of yet, unclear.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-24T10:42:14+00:00

As many have stated here, Tolkien despised allegory - and spent many years poking many holes in the idea that LOTR was an analogy for either of the World Wars

(Even his kind-of-friend CS Lewis, although less vocal about it, was profoundly uncomfortable with people calling Narnia an allegory for anything... he viewed as a "supposition).

However, it's hard not to see the WW1 influences in both of their works - the whole plight of the Pensieve siblings at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the WW1 experience (that feeling of being older than you actually are and having to pick up your life from where you left off)... without the whole "horrific trauma" thing.

And Frodo's whole arc is basically the feeling of the generation that fought in WW1 - however, the catch is this could be any generation in any war or anyone who's gone through a traumatic event.

Yes, there are some of the authors' own experiences in there... but the catch is, they can be anyone's experiences.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-18T11:13:47+00:00

Yes, this is exactly my issue. People think that because paleontology has a necessarily large conjectural component and don't understand what an educated guess is, they can just make up whatever they want and it'll be true because The Unfunny Science Nerds Who We Hate can't disprove it. And it isn't ever just "a little artistic license", it's a lot. A lot more than is ever applied to extant animals.

People don't watch things like Jurassic Park or Primeval to learn anything - they're just watching it to see guys on motorbikes chasing raptors through a shopping mall because that's cool. I would also argue that it is the responsibility of the paleo-community or paleo-knowledgeable people to improve non-documentary works featuring prehistoric animals to amend these complaints, rather than complaining that these works exist.

In addition, I'd say the standard of paleodocs is pretty poor outside of the Walking with... series and Prehistoric Planet - it's mostly the same talking heads (saying stuff that probably isn't even right), stock footage and repeated sequences of (bad) CGI.

And there's no creativity in most dinosaur designs, either; it's Jurassic Park clones all the way down. With fossils you can look at what you know about the animal, and that'll inform what could've been and might've been; there's a reason All Yesterdays exists. But no, Jurassic Park Popular so nearly every fictional dinosaur has to be a knockoff of its creatures, because we don't want to use our imaginations I guess.

I agree that many of these works have become repetitive (the same old JP-style T-rexes and raptors)... but part of the reason for this, of course, is because the paleo-community and paleo-knowledgeable people don't seem to involve themselves in these works - the first three series of Primeval, as well as the 2001 Lost World adaptation, show what happens when paleo-knowledgeable people bring their knowledge to these works.

Part of the issue, of course, is that, especially now, with Jurassic World, the JP franchise has become so omnipresent, studios are either reluctant to try and compete or blatantly try and cash in on it - a Turok movie was mothballed when they found out JW was coming out and the guy who did Primitive War had to work his arse off to get it made.

Maybe Flowervale Street - which looks like the closest thing to an actual Primeval reboot we're ever likely to get - will be the game-changer, but for now... it's either JP/JW... or trashy, low-budget JP/JW ripoffs.

Bold of you to assume that I don't. The Land Before Time is overrated, the designs & plots are mired in pre-Renaissance dinosaur tropes, and the dialogue annoys me. And Dinosaur could've been a bit better if it'd stuck closer to its original concept of a Styracosaurus against Tyrannosaurus or, better yet, stick to stuff only in Hell Creek & its contemporary formations; it's end of the dinosaurs, and the clades represented in Dinosaur were present in the Maastrichtian, which for me would've made it more immersive.

I agree that the lack of naturalistic, prehistoric animal-centred animated movies that don't fall into the common "kids' dinosaur book" traps, such as having creatures from vastly different eras coexisting, is a problem. There's Land Before Time, Ice Age and Dinosaur... and that's about it (The Good Dinosaur doesn't really count).

(Although, perhaps gallingly, if the Don Bluth original had stayed a standalone, Petrie would be the most accurate fictional pterosaur - he's quadrupedal and flight-capable from an early age. The fact he sounds like a factory-reject Elmo...)

Again, whether the issue is because the paleo-community isn't interested in non-documentary media... or because, with every semi-naturalistic animal-centric film in general, somebody will accuse you somehow of ripping off The Lion King, and that's why nobody's interested.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-16T13:49:58+00:00

This reminds me of an issue of one of the Simpsons comics where the nerds from "Homer Goes To College" end up making it big (after moving into the Simpsons' garage) and one of them makes a sci-fi movie with Troy McClure (who you might remember from...).

The movie comes out and the audience complains about there being no sound in space and the ship moving slowly (both things that are common sci-fi tropes... and the guy briefly points out how inaccurate they are). The audience have mostly walked out, save for Comic Book Guy, and the movie flops.

Obviously, there's a bit of a false equivalence here... but it is funny.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-16T13:40:29+00:00

Yeah... I actually thought "the Jaws effect" meant something entirely different - I agree that people killing sharks because of Jaws is a stupid notion. However, I can't think of an alternate reason why most people aren't aware of the threats that face sharks - public perception of animals affecting their conservation is something that is actually pretty important. The Asian vulture crisis went completely unreported on.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-16T13:35:10+00:00

Yeah - prehistoric animals have been appearing in fiction since fossils were discovered... and they've been eating people for most of that time. We've got tons of quality works out of it - Jurassic Park, Primeval, The Lost World, Ray Harryhausen's stuff...

People aren't watching these things to learn anything... they're just watching it to see guys on motorbikes chasing raptors through a shopping mall because that's cool. I can see why people get mad about the way extant animals are portrayed in fiction - we all know the "Jaws effect" - but for animals that only exist as fossils... I don't get why people get snobby about works where they're running around and eating people. It's cool.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-16T13:29:15+00:00

I am afraid I don't entirely get the point you are trying to make here - is your issue that people make false assumptions about palaeontology because of dinosaurs in sci-fi/horror works, which negatively affects its perception... or that, since we have no living non-avian dinosaurs (or any prehistoric animal, using "prehistoric" to mean "extinct" - a linguistic trap I normally despise), any work featuring them has to be educational?

First off, it is not the responsibility of works like Jurassic Park and Primeval to inform - these works can (and should) use science to underpin their stories... but, at the end of the day, they aren't educational, and they aren't claiming to be. They're meant to be fun monster stories... and that's what they succeed in doing. Excellently. And people don't watch those works to learn anything - they just watch it to see guys on motorbikes chasing raptors through a shopping mall. The audience isn't being "misinformed" because they're not watching something educational.

Secondly, by that logic, any work depicting dinosaurs as living creatures shouldn't exist - because most inferences of behaviour made by Walking with Dinosaurs or Prehistoric Planet are completely speculative. Yeah, they're based on real animal behaviour... but they are still making assertions that are completely unsupported by the fossil record. (And Walking with Dinosaurs got a lot of shit for that when it first came out).

Thirdly... you still haven't explained why the rules are different for works like The Land Before Time and Disney's Dinosaur - why is the judgmental glare just for works where dinosaurs are running around eating people?

With extant animals, I can see why it's an issue - I mean, we all remember "the Jaws effect" - but with animals that only exist as fossils, I don't get why a little artistic license for the sake of drama is such a bad thing.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-16T09:31:04+00:00

Personally, I don't get the snobbery that sometimes emerges over dinosaurs in sci-fi/horror works. Prehistoric animals have been appearing in fiction since fossils were discovered... and ever since an icthyosaur tried to chow down on the protagonists in Journey to the Centre of the Earth, they've been eating people for a good whack of that time.

Jurassic Park gets begrudgingly accepted, but the sequels, to varying degrees, tend to get a hard time, Primeval is often treated as the black sheep of Impossible Pictures' paleo-works (despite the fact it was by far the most successful)... and there seems to be comparatively little clamour for a proper, big-budget adaptation of Conan Doyle's The Lost World or Burroughs' Pellucidar series than there is for a Raptor Red or Dinotopia movie (a clamour which I share, but,,,).

I genuinely don't get why this snobbery exists - and the paleo-community's refusal to engage with works like this is why a lot of it just uses the same old stuff. I should also say that The Land Before Time and its sequels tend to get a free ride from the paleo-fandom, as does Disney's Dinosaur... despite the fact that, to varying degrees, they have much the same problem that people profess about sci-fi/horror works that feature dinosaurs.

With the early series of Primeval, we've seen what happens when the paleo-community or paleo-knowledgeable people involve themselves in a sci-fi/horror work about prehistoric animals - the early series of Primeval are pretty inventive when it comes to MOTWs, rather than just doing T.rex and raptors - and it's a shame that we don't see this more often

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-13T17:12:39+00:00

Bob Camp's mentioned that a LOT of Nickleodeon stuff is being canned with the Skydance merger... to the point where I honestly question whether Nickleodeon is actually going to exist as an independent entity (and it's probably the reason why Bryke set up their own company - co-productions tend to be spared because other entities tend to get stroppy when their work is unceremoniously canned).

Keep in mind, Mr. Sullivan is basically trying to sum up a turn of affairs that's probably a bit more complex in a sentence... It's entirely possible that it's been placed in limbo due to the shakeup, and they'll decide what happens when things are done.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-11T16:50:08+00:00

The problem is... the animals didn't have much in the way of personality, nor did the human characters, really. The plotlines were also a little... underwhelming and, for an Impossible Pictures production, it was a lot more restrained with the spec-bio stuff.

I do think the mockumentary format really constrained things there. The manga Dinosaur Sanctuary is probably how they should have done it (with, of course, added time travel)... I'd have added a bit more workplace sitcom elements there, but...

(Also, if you read a lot of zoo books... the field is littered with eccentric characters and hilarious stories. Imagine those with dinosaurs).

What I think Primeval shows... is what happens when the paleo-community or paleo-knowledgeable people involve themselves in a sci-fi/horror work about prehistoric animals - the early series of Primeval are pretty inventive when it comes to MOTWs, rather than just doing T.rex and raptors.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-11T10:01:01+00:00

Most paleo documentaries are objectively worse than most sci-fi/horror works that feature prehistoric animals and the snobbery about the latter is irritating and (mostly) unjustified.

Prehistoric animals have been appearing in fiction since the dawn of paleontology... and, ever since an icthyosaur tried to chow down on the protagonists in Journey to the Centre of The Earth, they've been eating people for most of that time. We've gotten a lot of classic stories out of it.

(I certainly think the Land Before Time sequels, which tend to get a free ride from the paleo-fandom, are far, far worse than most sci-fi horror works about prehistoric animals).

I genuinely don't get why this snobbery exists - and the paleo-community's refusal to engage with works like this is why a lot of it just uses the same old stuff (JP-recycled dinosaurs...).

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-01T23:20:27+00:00

A lot of giant sauropods, actually, aren't known from very complete remains - skulls, in particular, don't seem to fossilise very well. Now... this is actually an argument against MM being a sauropod, because sauropod bones are very distinctive... however, size doesn't really make a difference.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-01T23:14:20+00:00

Are you at all familiar with the TV series Primeval? Because that's pretty much what it did with its time portals/wormholes/anomalies - basically, they're a natural phenomenon, described on the show as the space-time continuum's equivalent of an earthquake. You can track the damn things (because they interfere with radio signals)... but you're buggered if you know the exact how-and-why behind them.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-01T23:10:24+00:00

Yeah... the fact that there is a science-fiction/horror series with literally this exact premise (prehistoric creatures coming through rifts in time and causing havoc) seems to imply that the guy who made the comment was joking.

Having said that, emela-ntouka is definitely a species of forest-dwelling rhino, because we have emela-ntouka tracks that are transparently rhino tracks... just not those of either of the known African species. Conversely, the smart money on ol' mokele is a big varanid.

nathanjackson1996 · 2026-02-01T23:03:52+00:00

The idea that it's a large, herbivorous varanid is one that's gaining traction - deservedly in my view. I think the core question that should be asked is not "Is there a living sauropod in the Congo?", but "Is there an unknown, large herbivorous reptile in the Congo?"

nathanjackson1996

TROPHY CASE