Sep 28 2011
Quick List: Five Things Terra Nova Can Do to Lose Me in a Hurry
I liked Terra Nova, I really did, but the show is going to be balancing on a fine line between a cool, fun concept, and utter ridiculousness. I thought it struck a decent balance in the pilot, but that could change as time goes on. I thought that I would write this post as a cautionary tale to the show so they can see what it would take to lose me as an interested audience member.
1. Pretending Dinosaurs are Bulletproof - Look, I know that dinosaurs have tough hides and all that, but if they start pumping lead into anything but an Ankylosaurus, and have the bullets bounce off? I’m going to be pissed. Dinosaurs are not made of kevlar.
2. Stop Making Up Dinosaurs – They’re doing it already with those stupid “slasher” things from the first episode. There are plenty of scary dinos in existence already, no need to start inventing new ones. What’s next? A Hydrasaur that shoots spines out of its mouth?
3. No Aliens – This should go without saying, but aliens AND dinosaurs is too much ridiculousness for one sci-fi show. If it turns out the “time rift” really just took them to a different planet with a similar looking moon and sun, that’s going to be a problem.
4. No Lovable Neanderthals – I didn’t study enough biology to know if neanderthal humanoids existed 85 million years ago, but it would be rather stupid if they stumbled upon a past version of humanity and adopted them as pets or man-slaves or something. On second thought, that could be awesome. Depends on the make-up effects.
5. Time Travel Plot Holes – I was actually excited to hear them say they were on a different timeline than the reality they came from, because that sidesteps a bunch of potential time travel plot holes that plague EVERY show or movie that uses the device. But now with the line about “control the past, control the future,” I’m worried all that’s going out the window.
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What can I say? You said it.
I enjoyed the pilot. These are all valid points but it doesn’t look like it’s going to go too wild to me. It looks like it’ll mostly be based around the base, the battle with ‘the sixers’ and the boss man looking for his son.
Also you seriously don’t know if man was around EIGHTY FIVE MILLION YEARS AGO?
unless their talking about going the future of the new time line their currently in ? they have contradict themselves already what else may happen, on the other hand aliens would not be far fetched – Ancient Aliens theories ?
@Perry
Your last line was my thoughts exactly. I mean, there were basic mammals, but that’s it. Paul, did Sarah Palin sub for you today? OcO
It is a multi-verse/string theory of time travel.
By going back in time they created a new string and if they go back to the “future” they go back to the future created by the new string they created.
Returning to the specific string they left would be virtually impossible.
I agree with everything but #2. Really, we only know of a small fraction of the species of dinosaurs that existed. Especially if they limit the species to the time period they specified. Nearly everything they would come across would be undiscovered. I liked the Slashers, but not everything should be deadly like that. Most dinosaurs were small and would run from anything human sized.
@Perry
Not “man,” but like, monkey people slowly evolving into man. That didn’t start 85 million years ago?
pretty sure mammals didn’t take over till after the ice age that killed the dinos.
Nothing people like and dino’s ever walked the Earth together. There was certainly mammals around then but the “monkey man” sort of creature in the middle of our evolution was at best 30 million years ago depending on how close/far you want to push the man bit.
I know quite a few people who seem like they never really got past that stage though so evolution could be a fair bit off!
Yea, PerryDigital is pretty spot on. Even 30 million years ago is pushing it a lot though. The first even straight-up monkey/primate didn’t appear until about 50 million years ago, which was still pretty substantially after the dinosaurs. I don’t think there was any mammal even remotely bipedal when the dinosaurs existed.
There’s a lot of potential in this show.
1st off, for the humans to survive, they either:
a) exterminate all the dinosaurs (and wildlife, leading them back to whole “ravaging of the planet” that forced them to jump through time),
b) find a way to co-exist with dinosaurs,
c) or go the middle ground between the other 2 options and use them as vehicles/weaponry.
Then there’s the possibility of ice ages/supervolcanos/extermination events and how to attempt to get around those.
I wouldn’t worry about the “control the past/control the future” line (aka selling point). It’s not likely that any of these characters would live 85 million years, let alone a century or two.
I really enjoyed the show overall except for the “cutesy” factor. Now granted, to get familys to watch, they had to add that in and I understand but if I wanted to watch teenagers bitch and moan about their lives and their over-bearing parents teach them life lessons, I would watch the family channel. As long as they keep that to a minimum, and make sure they keep the dino’s to a realistic level, then it should be a pretty decent show. Even if they did add unseen aliens, I think it could still work, as long as they keep it as one of those unseen/unknown elements.
Regarding your 2nd point, the fact is, there’s a whole bunch of Dinosaurs and other creatures that we simply do not know about. Fossilisation is kind of a precise process, for the same reasons tat we haven’t found fossils of “the missing link” there’s likely to be thousands of species that were around then that we have no idea about because there are no fossils of them to indicate they existed. Frankly, I think this show could take free reign with the creatures (as long as they’re somewhat plausible obviously).
Intelligent Dinosaurs !
Well then…
The Slashertails are actually quite reminiscent of the Albertasaurus, right down to the size and basic shape. But isn’t the name Slasher much more terrifying than Albertasaurus? I’m not saying they are the same, but they are quite distinct. Why not name these dinosaurs in such a manner that people will actually be able to figure out what they are without actually seeing them.
Dinosaurs themselves do have incredibly thick scale hides, or so it is theorized; and we all know that scales are the most resistant to piercing weaponry. They say to aim at the bellies, which is their softest spot, and that makes complete sense to me. Go watch Jurassic Park, its the same thing.
I highly doubt there will be aliens, early hominids did not exist back then, and I think what they meant by “control the past control the future” is that if you can lay down the basic framework for a society that wont lead to its own collapse, then you’re doing a hell of a lot better than that dystopian future you just left.
All these are minor compared to the cheesy family crap.
I wish this was on cable.
(1) Someone asked if Leader Guy had “told Hope Station” or whatever, so they have a means of communicating back through the rift even though the trip is “one way” according to the powers that be.
(2) We know that the Leader Guy’s son is the one writing on the rocks. I would like to know what he’s doing it with.
(3) The Ancient Aliens are really the time travelers is where I would have gone. The secret mandate for Terra Nova should be to “get to space” as soon as possible.
(4) The “we couldn’t find the probe so this is a different time line” thing was lame, as that little thing could have come to many ends in 85 million years, it couldn’t have even been powered that long unless the future people had solved the energy crisis, at which point the dystopia thing is kinda solvable.
(5) Julian May, in “The Many Colored Land” et al solved the time paradox back-to-the-dynos thing better. “people have been finding evidence of time travel all along. but each time someone found a Brazilian Sloop in the middle of their fossil bed they covered it up because they thought it would make them look crazy or incompetent.” But she had “aliens are already in the past and are responsible for the creatures of legend”. (good read BTW).
So I’d say: it’s really the same timeline. They have a way to send messages back. The son is working on a way to open the portal the other way. The real plan is (or should be) to get to space using the “fresh” resources so that their decedents can swoop in and rescue earth. The mandate includes a “not before date X” to preserve The Current Powers That Be™. The Sixers are a dissenting faction that wants to be interventionist to prevent the collapse thus undermining the Current Powers That Be™ in Terra Contemporary with a Idealist Utopian Regime™. The missing son is Dworkin/The Mad Arab/Merlin/etc being both genius and crazy. Terra Contemporary already has effective immortality but it is for the very few given all the existing problems.
Even if they stick to the (very weak) known other time line thing, if the bridge can be reversed then Terra Contemporary can be “resupplied” by Terra Nova. Particularly, pumping the CO2 back to the past and replacing it with good air would allow Terra Nova to become a huge air cleaner etc. There is also farm land. “Fresh” resources. A second chance at getting off earth (since Terra Contemporary has probably exhausted their resources) etc.
I thought it would have been much cooler without the other time line thing. A bunch of the questions and problems have simple answers:
“Why weren’t the remains of Terra Nova discovered in the future?”
Because they’ve gone back so far in time, it’s not unreasonable to think that everything they created would leave behind no evidence after millions of years of erosion and land shifts.
“Wouldn’t they be in danger of changing the future by stepping on a bug or something?”
No. You cannot change the future, that is the nature of time. What ever they do has already happened. It’s part of the timeline.
The coolest aspect of being in the same timeline are the possible outcomes:
1) Terra Nova is doomed to fail and man becomes extinct in the past.
2) Terra Nova thrives after many years humans travel into space to find a new home, maybe returning to help build the pyramids, Nazca lines, etc… Happily ever after.
3) Terra Nova thrives and humanity is restored to it’s dominant place on Earth, until they either a) repeat their mistakes and destroy the world or b) mass extinction event.
When you consider that man has gone from small tribes living in huts and caves to space travel in about 7000 years and there is still 20 million years to go in Terra Nova before the mass extinction event, there is no reason to make this a separate timeline from our own. Terra Nova could thrive for 100 times longer than our own civilization has and yet still disappear 10s of millions of years before human civilization, leaving no trace of its existence.
Oh, and the #1 thing that could turn me off of this show: the cheesy family conflict. My wife mostly hates any sci-fi shows and the only negative comment I heard from her was they were trying to make it like a soap opera for no reason.
I can think of a much easier way to ruin the show that doesn’t involve time travel paradoxes or ill-informed paleontology…
All they have to do is keep the rebel-without-a-clue teenage angst subplot of the son going. There’s not enough dino-awesomeness in this or any other timeline to make up for that.
Atleast the slashers had believable anatomy etc.. some of their actions were questionable but all they did was add teeth, spines and other weapons to an Oviraptor.. there are an estimated 1300+ undiscovered dinosaurs..
And of course I am worried that they will develop some kind of dumb dinosaur but they seem to be doing a solid job..
There is so much that can go wrong with this show but also so much that can go right..
Well…and so it goes…. six episodes into this series, I turned it off halfway through. That bad…
It seriously sucketh…
That is all.
Skeet