FAQ

While the movie is a part of the Walking with... brand, beyond its title and the fact that it focuses on animals from the dinosaur age, it's an entirely different kind of production than the original shows. Whereas the TV series was presented as a serious-toned documentary on extinct wildlife, the Walking with Dinosaurs movie is a family action-adventure film with many comedic moments and anthropomorphism (talking animal characters).

The dinosaurs and pterosaurs appearing in the film are some of the most accurate and up-to-date reconstructions in modern media. They have been meticulously crafted to visually portray these creatures as accurately as possible -- disregarding of course their mammalian eyes and expressive facial features, which are examples of justified artistic license, since the characters needed to look recognizable as individuals and convincingly convey human emotions. However, as the movie had been in development for years, some of its animal depictions have become inaccurate due to radical scientific advancements.

* The perhaps most notable detail is the lack of feathers on Gorgosaurus. Tyrannosaurs were long believed to have been scaly like modern non-bird reptiles, but the discovery of several feathered tyrannosauroid genera (Dilong and the giant Yutyrannus) seems to be overturning this idea. So far, feather-like structures, proto-feathers, have only been identified on the more primitive members of this group, and the more "advanced" forms of the clade Tyrannosauridea (which is where Gorgosaurus belongs) have yet to yield any solid evidence for feathers. However, feathers and fuzz have been found in every coelurosaurian dinosaur lineage, and so it would logically follow that tyrannosaurids had them as well. Scale-impressions are known from such animals, but the phylogenic evidence for feathers makes most scientist believe that they were at best only partially scaly. Further, as Gorgosaurus is depicted living near cold-climate regions in the movie, it should probably have at least a partial feathery coat.

* Other coelurosaurians, like Troodon, Alexornis, Hesperonychus and Chirostenotes are correctly given feathers in the movie, although some argue that their shagginess is unrealistic and that they should be lying more flush on their body. Also, deinonychosaurs like Troodon and Hesperonychus are known to have had large, pennaceous feathers even on their legs. These are not as apparent on the movie designs. The lizard-like, scaly faces on some of these animals is another design detail that's most likely incorrect, since only the snouts of raptors were scaly, not their entire face.

* Edmontosaurus is now know to have had a crest on its head made out of soft tissue, like a rooster's wattle or comb. This is such a recent finding that the movie had no way of implementing it into its designs.

* The head of Quetzalcoatlus is too small. In real life, their head was even larger than in the film, much longer than even their torso. Presumably, they have been changed for fear of looking ridiculous to uninformed moviegoers.