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A Blast From The Past
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in: Film, Animated film, 1940

The Rite of Spring

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The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestral concert made by Igor Stravinsky. It is also the fourth and longest segment in the Disney film Fantasia. It mainly focuses on the Big Bang and the mesozoic era.

Plot[]

Stegosaurus vs tyrannosaurus from Fantasia

The segment starts with the empty void of space for a few seconds during the bassoon solo, until the Milky Way fades out of the darkness. The scene zooms into the solar system in the very distant past as huge comets zoom through the sea of stars, until the scene zooms into Earth being born, overwhelmed by huge volcanic eruptions. A few comets whiz near the planet with two of them contacting the planet’s surface, with one being burnt into a crisp by the Earth’s atmosphere, with one evading it as it hurtles down towards the planet’s crust, as the next scene shows a cluster of active volcanoes, with the cluster exploding into one titanically massive volcano. That volcano’s magma trickled down with rocks and debris, nearing a large body of water, creating a storm when the lava contacted the sea, flooding the volcano and everything around, as the scene pans down into the volcano with a smaller cluster shooting a bare number of debris, everything goes silent.

The scene changes to the sea, revealing the microscopic life below. One of the microbes narrowly avoids another microbe that attempts to eat it, but it fails. One of the microbes kisses another one and the two move to the left offscreen, until the scene pans to microbes that split up into more microbes only to be engulfed by presumably one of the volcanoes spitting out a chunk of debris. Same goes with the scenes with a huge number of crinoids with simple lifeforms and the one resembling the Cambrian period, which end with the same way. The scene then fades to a simplified and very accelerated version of the evolution of vertebrates through the Paleozoic, focusing on a fish. It starts out as something similar to the extinct fish Haikouichthys swimming near jellyfish and other marine invertabrates, though one of them gets eaten by the jellyfish and the school of fish swim in a last resort, with the scene fading to a derived form like the fish family Polypteridae, narrowly escaping a hungry ammonite, until the fish ‘evolves’ into a sarcopterygian similar to Eusthenopteron, which also avoids being eaten by a Cladoselache, and then rests on a submerged trunk and prepares to explore the land for the first time.

The scene then goes to a more beach-like setting, with a Placochelys crawling onto the shoreline, a few Elasmosaurus in the foreground and a pack of Tylosaurus. Two Elasmosaurus crawl onto land near a colony of more of the said plesiosaur, and high above the colony is a tall canyon is a flock of Pteranodon, which is using the canyon to swoop down to pluck fish from the seas below. One of them snatches a belemnite from the sea but another Pteranodon snatches it away, along with the one who previously had the mollusk gliding after it. One of the Pteranodons pluck a Lunaspis, only for it to be eaten by one of the Tylosaurus, leaving the pterosaur to sink into the abyss below as its body is dragged down by the mosasaur.

The scene then cuts to a diverse forest-like ecosystem, until the scene goes to a pair of Dimetrodon, a few Nothosaurus and an Ankylosaurus in its slumber, A Triceratops stomping through the forest, with the scene panning to a Troodon attempting to ambush an Archeopteryx, but the bird flies off before the small theropod could eat it, flying over a herd of hungry Apatosaurus. The scene goes to a herd of Ornithomimus drinking from the river, a Stegosaurus aimlessly walking under a tree, disturbing a pack of Hallopus, two Parasaurolophus eating the pollen from a large flower, a herd of Triceratops, with their young being curious about the river near them, until they run back to their parents, a group of Edmontosaurus eating aquatic plants, a Kannemeyeria attempting to eat a bivalve from its burrow, though a group of Plateosaurus are already in the feast. The dicynodont tries to get into the burrow though one of the Plateosaurus pushes it away, causing the synapsid to go to a different burrow, and the Plateosaurus see something from the right, and the Kannemeyeria plucks another bivalve, and runs off. The scene then cuts to a Massospondylus, Lambeosaurus, and Corythosaurus eating aquatic plants with a neighboring Diplodocus with her young, panning to two Kritosaurus. As the rain began to fall, the dinosaurs look at something near them, from the Apatosaurus, Psittacosaurus, Dimetrodon, Triceratops, literally everything in the ecosystem started to look at the disturbance in the force. The culprit is revealed as the scene pans to the Tyrannosaurus, who on the search of prey causes panic in the ecosystem, until targeting the Stegosaurus.

The Stegosaurus had the bad luck that the Tyrannosaurus wanted to eat it and was running for its very life. By logic, with the thagomizer and the spines normally not a part of the animal's skeleton, it would be too sharp to bite on, yet the theropod directly bites it directly on the spines head-first without getting injured, with the animal targeting the stegosaurian's neck. Despite the thyreophoran desperately using its thagomizer to hit the T. rex, as an attempt to injure the beast, the tyrant lizard still manages to evade its defence. After the Tyrannosaurus bites the Stegosaurus' neck a few times, while the armored herbivore uses its thagomizer to keep the theropod at bay at each bite, the two titans begin to slowly sidestep each other. All the other creatures can do is watch in horror, waiting for the Stegosaurus's end or win, or the Tyrannosaurus to choose another form of prey. The dinosaur then kills the Stegosaurus by snapping its neck. Victorious, the theropod lets out a mighty roar, but instead of it simply attempting to eat the other herbivores in the area, it simply sits down and then begins to eat its fallen opponent whilst the other animals leave.

Later, the entire ecosystem was suddenly transformed into nothing but a lifeless desert. There were no food and water for the surviving pockets of life, nothing but dried up pools, branches, ruined trees, and tar or mud. The dinosaurs then went into an aimless march towards extinction, and some of the now-doomed herbivores, such as the Brontosaurus, Camarasaurus, Stegosaurus, and Diplodocus were stuck in what is either tar or mud, with a pack of desperately hungry Ceratosaurus nearing them. One of the dinos that were stuck looks up into the sky only to be engulfed by a sandstorm. along with the remaining dinosaurs marching to extinction, with the Tyrannosaurus collapsing from the heat. What was once a creature feared by all, now even it is rendered powerless by nature’s wrath and is forced to join the march towards extinction. The scene pans into the sun, until fading to dinosaur footprints, until the scene pans to a valley littered with dinosaur skeletons and ending with a focus on a Gorgosaurus’ skull. As the moon moves behind the sun, the silence is broken as an earthquake literally rips open the earth, along with huge rocks ripping out of the planet's surface, along with a huge rock crushing a Ornitholestes' skull, which would be later engulfed by the sea.

The sun then goes into a solar eclipse, until the Earth slowly moves onscreen as the sun and moon slowly drift behind it, marking the end of the segment, and the age of dinosaurs, or the dinosaur's only swampy habitat as a whole.

List of creatures shown in the segment[]

Shown animals[]

The list of animals that are shown in the final version of the segment.

Extra Creatures[]

These creatures only appear in concept arts, or the video game.

Innacuracies and Outdated Material[]

  • Most of the dinosaurs are seen dragging their tails on the ground like a kangaroo, though in reality all Dinosaurs had their tail in the air almost all the time. The only exceptions to this inaccuracy are the Tyrannosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and the Stegosaurus when it’s trying to defend itself from the T-rex.
  • The Tyrannosaurus itself. It has long arms, having a more vertical stance, and a square head. This was because Walt Disney himself wanted it to look scary.
  • Most of the dinosaurs are shown living in the same place and time. This was a product when humanity still thought dinosaurs were sluggish, cold-blooded reptiles, living in the same primordial swamp before every other animal in the Cenozoic. The exception to this inaccuracy is the beach-like part of the segment.
  • Pteranodon and Dimorphodon lack pycnofibers. Also, Pteranodon is shown to be hanging up-side down like a bat, and all pterosaurs were incapable of doing this. Pteranodon is also shown to be dip feeding, but just like this page said before, there's no evidence for pterosaurs to do such a thing. In reality, pterosaurs would dive into the sea to chase down schools of fish. Dimorphodon in this also lacks teeth and has a simple parrot-like beak, and it is shown flying off with ease. In reality, Dimorphodon wasn't a very good flier, and was more of a land-based carnivore though they will fly off as a last resort.
  • The Stegosaurus is way bulkier, shown to be sluggish, has its legs sprawled out, and has evenly placed upright plates. Stegosaurus in real life had its legs tucked underneath its body, its plates weren't placed evenly, tail held upright, and also, wasn't very sluggish.
  • Most of the creatures featured in the segment were portrayed as strict bipeds, such as Parasaurolophus, Edmontosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Hallopus, where instead they were quadrupedal or alternated in stance.
  • The Elasmosaurus is shown lazing on land. In life Elasmosaurus was incapable of doing this and was strictly aquatic.
  • The Ankylosaurus has spikes instead of osteoderms, making it resemble its Jurassic relative, Spicomellus more than the actual animal, though it's uncertain if this depiction has a tail club or not.
  • The Kannemeyeria is way too small as it shouldn't be.
  • The extinction is portrayed as a physically a lifeless desert with the surviving pockets of life marching to extinction, more like the Permian-Triassic boundary extinction. But unlike the P-T boundary, it shows all terrestrial life (presumably) going extinct or more plausibly, their ecosystem got annihilated by nature's wrath, rather than the surviving animals taking over. The segment was planned to be even longer, likely having the entire rest of the song animated.
  • The lava somehow creating a storm when it should be transforming into rock with smoke coming out instead.
  • The Tylosaurus has a crocodile-like tail fluke along with spines that goes down its body. Tylosaurus lacked these and had a more fish-like tail fluke.

Gallery[]

Concept Art[]

Animals[]

Script[]

Videos[]

The_Making_of_the_Rite_of_Spring A_World_Is_Born_(1955)

External links[]

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