parktrotter

Again, the dinosaurs on the Disneyland Railroad come, ultimately, from the movie Fantasia, which was produced all the way back in 1940.  The scene recreates, among other things, the combat between the tyrannosaur and the stegosaur from that movie, and shows its age in an interesting way that I claim originality in having noticed: the tyrannosaur has its tail down toward the ground.  Compare the tyrannosaur in Jurassic Park in 1993, which keeps its tail up.

What is the difference here?  The imagined dinosaur from the 1990s is built for speed, while the one from the 1940s is built to lumber.  It reflects a revolution in paleontology.  We used to think that dinosaurs were big, slow-moving dimwits; look at a kid’s book from the 1950s and you’ll see what I mean (they always say that dinosaurs had a “brain the size of a pea,” for instance).  Now, we picture them as vigorous and intelligent.

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