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28

Picking Apart “Origins: Battle for the Planet” (Part IV)

Filed Under Cambrian Period, Wacky Science, YouTube

Fear the CG Nautiloid!

Above: Fear the poorly animated Nautiloid. Seriously. It's the first
"weapon of mass destruction," whatever that's supposed to mean.


If you haven’t already, don’t forget to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3!

In Part 4, we are moving beyond my area of expertise, which centers around the Burgess Shale, and entering the dominion of the “super-snails.”  This means that I might miss some errors that I would have caught had we been talking about Burgess creatures.  I’m not at all sure that they didn’t completely bungle the section explaining conodonts, but I don’t really have the knowledge to pick it apart in detail.

However, even with my more limited knowledge, there is still plenty wrong with this section:

“There was a new alien presence in the seas.  The evidence came in the form of these strange conical shells.  3 times bigger than a conodont, they are the remains of an animal called a nautiloid…” (1:42)
Words are really very tricky things.  For instance, if I were to call an animal an “alien” it would suggest something not-of-this-world, or at very least extra-evolutionary.  Just because you want to highlight the oddness of a creature, doesn’t mean you can pretend it is an “alien.”

“This is a modern squid, highly intelligent and ruthless…”(2:11)
Look closely at the video of the squid attacking at this point, and you’ll notice that they play the same clip twice.  The second time they flip the video horizontally to make it look different. Nice.

“In the conflict between the Nautiloids and the Conodonts it was no contest. Victory went to the new stealth weapon – the jet-powered torpedo of the deep” (2:43)
Words can’t describe how stupid this statement is. “Stealth weapon?” “Torpedo of the deep?” Jeez.

“440 million years ago, suddenly and quite literally out of the blue, we got lucky…”(3:44)
They’re talking about an ice age here. Well, they actually refer to it as a “mega-ice age” in keeping with their nomenclature system. An ice age doesn’t just happen at random. There is climate science at play there. They certainly don’t happen “literally out of the blue.”

That’s it for this time!  Here is the video, in all its glory:


Don’t forget to comment! Also, check back tomorrow for Part 5!

Comments

3 Responses to “Picking Apart “Origins: Battle for the Planet” (Part IV)”

  1. gagay on January 29th, 2009 4:02 am

    thanks for the infos!great one you have here!

    gagay

  2. embyrr922 on January 31st, 2009 8:47 pm

    There’s also the fact that orthocone – which is to say straight-shelled rather than curled-shelled – nautiloids most likely floated vertically rather than horizontally, as the chambers in their shells were most likely filled with gas. (I spent part of a summer working with a professor who has done research in that area.)

  3. admin on February 1st, 2009 10:57 am

    Thanks for the comment. As I mentioned, the “super-squid” are not my primary area of interest. Thanks for expanding my critique with your knowledge!

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