User:NeilEvans/Dragon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Last Dragon Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real (U.S. title) |
|
|---|---|
 Title Screen |
|
| Genre | Fantasy / Docudrama / Mockumentary |
| Creator(s) | Charlie Foley |
| Developer(s) | Charlie Foley David McNab Justin Hardy Kevin Tao Mohs |
| Starring | Paul Hilton Katrine Bach Aiden Woodward |
| Narrated by | Ian Holm (English release) Patrick Stewart (U.S. release) |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Ceri Barnes |
| Executive producer(s) | John Smithson David McNab Alice Keens-Soper |
| Running time | 99 mins |
| Broadcast | |
| Links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Last Dragon is a docudrama made by Animal Planet that is described as the story of "the natural history of the most extraordinary creature that never existed". It posits the theoretical evolution of dragons from the Cretaceous period up to the 15th century, and theorises about what dragon life and behaviour might have been like if they had existed and evolved. It uses the premise that the ubiquity of dragons in world mythology suggests that dragons could have existed. They are a species that are scientifically feasible and could have evolved, although they did not.
The program switches between two stories. The first uses CGI to show the dragons in their natural habitat throughout history. The second shows the story of a modern day scientist at a museum, Dr. Tanner, who believes in dragons. When the frozen remains of an unknown creature are discovered in the mountains, Tanner, along with two collegues from the museum, undertake the task to examine the specimen in an attempt to save his reputation. Once there, they discover that the creature is a dragon. Tanner and his colleagues set about working out how it lived and died.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
This programme documents what course of action may be taken if a dead dragon was discovered, as well as theorising about the possible lifestyles of different drqagon species. It presents the story as though dragons actually existed and evolved from the time of the Dinosaurs, 65 millions years ago, right up to the 15th century. Although presented as an true natural history of the dragon, the programme serves as a "what might have been" if dragons had evolved.
The story begins 65 million years ago, sometime in the late Cretaceous period. Here we find a Tyrannosaurus rex, that has been stalking a creature that had raided the T. rex's territory an food source. The creature is revealed to be a juvenile prehistoric dragon. The T. rex had not eaten for days and prepares to attack the young dragon. In an attempt to defend itself the dragon extends its wings to give illusion that it is much larger than it really is. The T. rex is not convinced and continues to advance. The young dragon then produces a piercing scream that carries for miles. Although the screech hurts the T. rex's sensitive ears it remains ready to attack. Shortly, the dragon's mother swoops down from the sky and attacks the T. rex with its talons. During the fight between the two, the dragon mother's wing is injured, and the T. rex suffered burns down both sides of its head after the dragon had breathed fire after being injured. Both animals were fatally wounded in the battle.
Jump ahead 65 million years to the London Museum of Natural History and Science, England. Here we are introduced to Dr. Tanner, a young palaeontologist, who has been fascinated with dragons since childhood. Upon discovering talon marks on a skull of a T. rex, Dr. Tanner shares his theory about the creature that caused the damage to the skull with other palaeontologists. He tells them that the damage was caused by a creature unknown to science. However, he says that it was not the talons that killed it; a blast of fire, precisely aimed at the head was the cause of death, as evidenced by carbon deposits discovered down both sides of the skull.
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] Dragon Species
In the programme, four dragon species are explored in detail. These are the Prehistoric Dragon, Marine Dragon, Forest Dragon, and Mountain Dragon. On the evolutionary tree shown during the programme, a fifth species, the Desert Dragon is identified by name only, and the programme does not theorise about its possible evolutionary path.
[edit] Prehistoric Dragon
As mentioned above, the Prehistoric Dragon existed about the same time as the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex. These Cretaceous dragons were the largest flying animals ever to have lived, with estimated wingspans of about 35 feet wide and weighed about a ton. The prehistoric dragon descended from a group of aquatic or semiaquatic dragons that occupied coastal swamps approximately 200 million years ago in the late Triassic, which gave rise to both marine and terrestrial species. Initially, the terrestrial dragons were quadrupedal, running on all fours and unable either to fly or to breathe fire. One species evolved the ability to run bipedally, on its hind legs. This enabled further evolution of the forelegs, which were no longer used for standing or running. These limbs eventually evolved into wings, making flight possible. This parallels almost exactly the evolution of birds with flight ability from small, bipedal dinosaurs.
At some stage — and there is no fossil evidence on this point to date — dragons harnessed active gut bacteria to produce hydrogen. This made it possible for dragons to escape the size restrictions of bird and bat flight, and to evolve into the largest flying animals ever to exist, challenging one of the largest known carnivore on land at the time, the Tyrannosaurus rex. Subsequently, dragons ingested inorganic minerals, such as platinum, sparking the catalytic ignition of its gut-produced hydrogen. The potent weapon of fire-breathing was added to the dragon's armory: the prehistoric dragon had arrived.
[edit] Marine Dragon
Before prehistoric dragons, some of the early dragon species were aquatic or semiaquatic, foraging in coastal swamps and the shallow sea, living, in fact, rather like modern crocodiles. When a cataclysmic mass extinction (the KT extinction) occurred about 65 million years ago, eliminating dinosaurs and terrestrial prehistoric dragons, these aquatic dragons survived. A fortuitous mutation gave these dragons a third pair of limbs, supplementing the previous two and making them a new unique kind of vertebrate, i.e., a six-limbed animal.
Some of these new dragons recolonized the land, occupying a world vacated by dinosaurs and earlier dragons. In these terrestrial dragons, the supplementary limbs evolved into the fully functional wings of flying dragons. Other dragons stayed aquatic, specializing more and more in marine food resources — crustaceans, fish, turtles — caught in shallow coastal waters. As time passed, they adapted to a fully aquatic life, the rudimentary wings becoming fins.
The clawed limbs of terrestrial dragons were of little use in catching fish, so these evolved into flippers, like those of modern turtles. Fish were trapped in the dragon's jaws, which became larger and longer over the course of generations, and their jaws were armed with large numbers of spike-like teeth for holding their slippery prey. Wings, of course, were useless impediments in the water, and eventually dwindled and disappeared. The most celebrated example of the sea dragon may be the Loch Ness Monster.
[edit] Forest Dragon
Forest dragons lived in thick woods and bamboo thickets. They retained the long, sinuous body form of their aquatic ancestors, a useful adaptation to moving rapidly through almost impenetrable jungle vegetation. They retained the ability to swim, and in hot weather, or to escape such dangers as forest fires, could still return to rivers.
These forest-living dragons had short wings, and were incapable of true flight. They were, however, capable of prodigious leaps: by curling their body in a plane to make a near-aerofoil shape (like some present-day "flying snakes"), producing extra lift from their small wings, and reducing their weight with hydrogen-filled flight bladders like those of the prehistoric dragon, these creatures were able to cover significant aerial distances.
Some descendants of these forest dragons expanded beyond the thicket to forage in open country, evolving into the magnificent Chinese dragon, D. sinensis, and a subpopulation of D. sinensis, isolated in the Japanese archipelago, the Japanese dragon, D. japonicus.
[edit] Mountain Dragon
The mountain dragon is so called because in medieval times, it was restricted largely to mountains and other remote habitats. The name is, however, slightly inappropriate since the species was much more widespread in lowland forests and was not restricted to mountains before the pressures of agriculture and a burgeoning human population restricted its habitat.
Like all post-Cretaceous dragons, mountain dragons had six limbs: a pair of wings in addition to two pairs of legs, the result of an advantageous developmental mutation that occurred after the extinction of the two-legged, two-winged prehistoric dragon.
The mountain dragon's body was relatively short compared with that of the marine dragon; however, a shorter body is essential for flight, where a long flexible vertebral column is a disadvantage. The tail was approximately as long as the body, with a razor-sharp arrowhead-shaped structure that could be used as a defensive weapon. A sideswipe from a dragon's tail could sever a man's arm.
[edit] Dragon Biology
[edit] Flight
Dragons' huge size would make it impossible for them to fly were it not for two large internal bladders. These have a combined volume of thirty cubic feet. The bladders fill with hydrogen, which is much lighter than air, to provide buoyancy.
[edit] Fire Breathing
The hydrogen in the bladders doubles as fuel for the fire that dragons are famous for breathing. The hydrogen combines with methane and platinum, as a catalyst, to produce flames. The inside of its mouth appears to be armour-plated and it has a false palate in its throat, similar to a crocodile, to stop backdraft.
Because of the double duty of the flight bladders, the more fire the dragon breathes the shorter the distance it can fly.
