Yeah, a lot of the depictions look pretty harmless. An actual velociraptor (not the mislabeled Jurassic Park version) probably would come off as a very fast, slightly aggressive rooster. Although it still had the trademark hooked claw of all the Dromaesaurids.Elheru Aran wrote:And the posture of many of these dinosaurs makes them look like chickens or turkeys with long tails, so they look slightly silly.
Regardless, a predatory bird can be pretty fucking awesome:
So I see no reason why a modern audience would necessarily dismiss feathered dinosaurs as silly, especially children who haven't grown up with the idea of dinosaur=lizard/godzilla.
Yeah, that's understandable. I think I hold Jurassic Park to a slightly higher standard only because the first movie at least tried to portray dinosaurs realistically. Yeah, they definitely took some liberties, e.g. a venom spewing Dilophosaurus/confusing velociraptor with deinonychus, etc., - but do you remember how dinosaurs were portrayed in movies before Jurassic park? It wasn't just the lack of good CG, they were always portrayed as these lumbering slow beasts that dragged their tails:I'm quite aware the movies aren't hard science and I don't look for an accurate depiction there.
Jurassic Park basically incorporated all the advances in paleontology, and introduced modern audiences to the warm-blooded, fast moving dinosaurs that held their tails above the ground for balance, and also popularized the (then somewhat less well known) idea about the evolutionary pathway from birds to dinosaurs. But then after the first movie, they sort of stopped keeping up with paleontology for the most part.
Although, I remember this cool documentary from the 80s that actually had a pretty good stop-motion depiction of a pack of deinonychus hunting another dinosaur. (Also, it was hosted by Christopher Reeve.)