Sea Monsters A Prehistoric Adventure

Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure is a 2007 IMAX 3D documentary film by National Geographic, about prehistoric marine reptiles. It alternates modern-day sequences about the work of scientists studying the animals with computer-animated scenes depicting the prehistoric past.

Plot[]

Brings to life some of the most bizarre, ferocious and fascinating creatures to ever inhabit the ocean. Combines animation with recreations in a prehistoric adventure. A journey to the bottom of the ancient oceans dramatizes awe-inspiring creatures.

Prehistory segments[]

The protagonist of the story is Dolly, a female Dolichorhynchops who travels the Kansas Inland Sea with her family, 80 million years ago during the late Cretaceous period.

They encounter various creatures, including, Tylosaurus, Xiphactinus, Cretoxyrhina, and Ammonites.

Dolly gets attacked by a shark (Squalicorax) after her mother was killed by another shark (Cretoxyrhina). Dolly survives due to a passing Tylosaurus killing the shark, albeit with a tooth embedded in her flipper. Later, Dolly's brother is swallowed whole by a young Tylosaurus, who in turn is killed by a larger member of its kind, leaving Dolly alone. Then she becomes a mother and has three young of her very own. After seasons of traveling around the Inland sea, Dolly finally dies peacefully of old age.

Live-action segments[]

South Australia, 2002: Two paleontologists in the Australian Outback discovered Dolichorhynchops, 95% of them juveniles.

Central Texas, 1980: A road crew near Austin, Texas, discover ammonite fossils in a quarry. During the Cretaceous, Texas was underwater and the quarry was part of the Permian Basin.

Western Kansas, 1918: Charles Sternberg and his sons Levi and George discover a 29-foot-long Tylosaurus that had a Dolichorhynchops in it.

Phosphate Mine, Negev Desert, Israel, 1998: A quarry in Europe reveals a mosasaur skull.

Western Kansas, 1952: George Sternberg, Charles's older son, makes a discovery in Gove County, Kansas. A 13-foot-long Xiphactinus containing, below the ribs, a 6-foot-long fish, a Gillicus, which took up about half of the length of the Xiphactinus, killing it instantly.

North Dakota, 1995: Two amateur collectors go into a cave in North Dakota, and find a wealth of teeth from sharks, specifically Cretoxyrhina and Squalicorax.

The Netherlands, 1998: A Dutch quarry reveals a mosasaur skeleton with bite marks from sharks.

South Dakota, 1978: The Badlands National Park, in Rapid City, South Dakota, reveals a Tylosaurus skeleton that had eaten multiple creatures in one meal.

Creatures featured[]

Ammonite
Baculites (identified as "straight-shelled ammonites")
Bananogmius, an extinct genus of bony fish
Caproberyx, an extinct genus of bony fish
Cretoxyrhina, a large shark
Dolichorynchops (often shortened to "dollies" in the story), a genus of plesiosaur and the main animal in the film.
Enchodus, an extinct genus of bony fish
Gillicus, a relatively small, 2-meter long ichthyodectid fish
Gorgosaurus, a genus of tyrannosaurid theropod dinosaur
Henodus (cameo), a placodont with an elaborate shell of the Late Triassic period
Hesperornis, an extinct genus of flightless aquatic birds
Inoceramus, an extinct genus of giant clam
Jellyfish (live-acted)
Kronosaurus (cameo), an extinct genus of short-necked pliosaur
Leptecodon, a genus of prehistoric fish
Nothosaurus (cameo), an extinct genus of sauropterygian reptile
Platecarpus, an extinct genus of aquatic lizard belonging to the mosasaur family
Protosphyraena, a fossil genus of swordfish-like marine fish
Protostega, an extinct species of marine turtle
Pteranodon, one of the largest pterosaur genera
Squalicorax, a genus of extinct lamniform shark
Styxosaurus, a genus of plesiosaur of the family Elasmosauridae “Thalassomedon in the video game version.”
Temnodontosaurus (cameo), a big ichthyosaur
Tusoteuthis, a genus of Cretaceous cephalopod molluscs
Tylosaurus, a sub-species of Mosasaur
Uintacrinus (identified as "crinoid"), a floating colonial crinoid
Xiphactinus, a 4.5 to 5 m (15 to 16 ft) long predatory bony fish

Video game[]

Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure was made into a game by DSI Games and published by Zoo Digital Publishing. It was released on the Wii, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo DS on October 25, 2007. Players can control Thalassomedon, Henodus, Temnodontosaurus, Tylosaurus, Dolichorhynchops and Nothosaurus in an open-world setting, with no fixed goal besides collecting all the hidden fossils.

The game received poor reviews across all platforms. Cheat Code Central's Amanda L. Kondolojy found the Wii version of the game conceptually interesting, but marred by poor execution, especially in terms of controls.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

This National Geographic Documentary Film was Narrated by Liev Schreiber. The academy winning Narrator of the 2001 6 Part PBS Nature Program “Triumph of Life”.