Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real
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Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real is a mockumentary that first showed on Animal Planet, and narrated by Patrick Stewart.
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[edit] Plot
This movie documents what course of action would be taken if a dead dragon was discovered, as well as the possible lifestyles of dragonkind. It presents the story as historical, though at the end it is revealed that the scenario is a mock-up, a might-have-been.
The story begins at London Museum of Natural History and Science, London, England where a young palaeontologist discovers talon marks on a skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex and shares this discovery with other palaeontologists. Those were left by a creature unknown to science. However, it was not the talons that killed it; a blast of fire did, as evidenced by carbon marks discovered on the side of its skull. The programme then switches to 65 million years ago, when a Tyrannosaurus saw a figure of a creature in the distance. Something had been raiding his territory and the food had been scarce. He had not eaten in days. The figure is slowly revealed to be a young prehistoric dragon. The Tyrannosaurus went on the offensive while the young dragon attempted to defend itself by extending its wings to give illusion that it was much larger than it really was. Not deterred by the bluff, the Tyrannosaurus remained on the offensive. The young dragon's next attempt at defending itself was to produce a piercing scream that carried for miles. Even this incredibly painful screech did not get the Tyrannosaurus to back off, so the dinosaur began to attack, but the young dragon counterattacked with a headbutt on the Tyrannosaurus' chin. The mother of the juvenile dragon came to the rescue and scratched the forehead of the Tyrannosaurus with its talons, to which Tyrannosaurus responded with a headbutt in her chest. The mother dragon continued to scratch causing the Tyrannosaurus to bite her wing, tearing it apart. The dragon then breathed fire on the dinosaur, injuring it. The Tyrannosaurus did not last the night after being hit by the streaming blaze. The mother was also fatally injured. With the broken wing, she could not fly to feed herself or her offspring.
Back in the present, the palaeontologist is studying the photos of a new discovery at Romania. The story of this discovery began at the Carpathian Mountains when explorers stumbled upon something amazing and called the police. The police sent two detectives to investigate the mystery. The detectives moved into the cave and discovered human corpses. When they moved deeper into the cave, they saw what appeared to be a carcass of a dragon. The palaeontologist is sent to Romania to figure out the mystery of the carcass and its origin.
While trying to discover more about the dragon, the team of scientists have unearthed a whole dragon family tree consisting of the Prehistoric Dragon mentioned above, a different species of dragon called the Marine Dragon along with the descendants of the Marine Dragon, the Forest Dragon and Mountain Dragon.
Back in the past, several weeks after the battle with the Tyrannosaurus, the young dragon had a problem: his mother was dead thanks to the fatal wound on her wing. Without his mother to hunt for him he too would die.
A by-product of symbiotic bacteria in the intestines of dragons after feeding is hydrogen gas, which is 14 times less dense than air. It is then channeled into their flight bladders which reduces a dragon's overall density to the point which it can fly. However, the young dragon did not have enough hydrogen in its flight bladders, and thus could not fly or hunt. To make matters worse, the scent of his mother's carcass attracted scavengers, although by eating meat from it kept him alive for a few days. As the scavengers gathered, the young dragon realized he had to learn fast. Among the scavengers was the most dangerous creature on earth at that time, an alpha male dragon. The young dragon ran for his life while the alpha male pursued him. The young dragon's body was working overtime, causing hydrogen to collect at a phenomenal rate. As the young dragon continued to run, he emptied his stomach, thereby reducing his weight and spread his wings, taking off and thus escaping from the male dragon.
[edit] Featured Dragons
In this documentary, four dragons are explored. These are the Prehistoric Dragon, Marine Dragon, Forest Dragon, and Mountain Dragon. There was however a very brief reference to a Desert Dragon, but the documentary did not go into exploring that dragon.
