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The Ballad of Big Al

113 statements
21 feature instances
6 referencing feature instances

The Ballad of Big Al	type	TVTItem
The Ballad of Big Al	label	The Ballad of Big Al
The Ballad of Big Al	page	TheBalladOfBigAl
The Ballad of Big Al	comment	The Ballad of Big Al (Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special in America) is a two-part special released in 2000, and a spinoff of the BBC documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs. Taking place in the Jurassic plains of Wyoming 145 million years ago, the special follows the life a young Allosaurus named "Big Al". Considered to be one of the most complete Allosaurus fossils, Al's bones reveal many aspects of his life and the challenges he faced as one of the apex predators of the Jurassic.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_15b2cab3	type	Tempting Fate
The Ballad of Big Al / int_15b2cab3	comment	Tempting Fate: Al's a horny teen, but the mature female he approaches is in a real bad mood, and he finds out quickly that female Allosaurus are more vicious than any other dino he'll ever come upon.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_1bdbbbae	type	The Klutz
The Ballad of Big Al / int_1bdbbbae	comment	The Klutz: In the Making Of... documentary, one of the paleontologists speculates Al may have been this, explaining over nineteen different bone injuries he suffered during his life.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_2557e3a9	type	Palette Swap
The Ballad of Big Al / int_2557e3a9	comment	Palette Swap: There are two "new" animals in the special, the Dryosaurus and the Apatosaurus. Both are clones of previously existing animals from "Time of Titans", the Othnielia and Diplodocus, respectively. The Dryosaurus is given a sandier colouration, while the Apatosaurus has a shorter neck, darker colouration, and no spines.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_269e82c1	type	Death of a Child
The Ballad of Big Al / int_269e82c1	comment	Death of a Child: One of Al's baby siblings is killed. Technically Al himself, who died as a maturing juvenile.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_272abb98	type	Shoot the Shaggy Dog
The Ballad of Big Al / int_272abb98	comment	Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Big Al struggles to survive the harsh Jurassic world, often failing more hunts than succeeding and barely escaping death that have claimed other Allosaurus. He manages to live long enough to reach sexual maturity, but his life is cut short when he suffers a fatal injury on his middle toe, preventing him from hunting during the worst part of the dry season. With no food or water to sustain himself, Big Al dies without reaching his full potential or passing on his genes to the next generation. The only bright spot in his brutal short life is that his skeleton will be well-preserved for paleontologists to get best idea of an Allosaurus's life, and becoming one of the most completed specimen on display.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_27b94f39	type	Serendipitous Survival
The Ballad of Big Al / int_27b94f39	comment	Serendipitous Survival: At one point, Al comes across a quicksand pit with the carcasses of dinosaurs that have become mired in it and died of exposure. Two Allosaurus attracted by the smell are caught in the muck and die, while Al only avoids the same fate because he's a juvenile and learned that the high likelihood of encountering larger predators exceeds the risk taken by scavenging.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_700e17ed	type	Special Effects Evolution
The Ballad of Big Al / int_700e17ed	comment	Special Effects Evolution: When compared to the original series, the dinosaur models are more detailed, the puppets are more convincing, and most notably the shots are far more dynamic with a lot of camera movement, something the original series was keen to avoid. There's also a lot less use of composited bushes and shrubs to hide foot contacts.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_70dc3a86	type	Had to Be Sharp
The Ballad of Big Al / int_70dc3a86	comment	Had to Be Sharp: Allosaurs lived in an extremely harsh world, and getting to adulthood was not an easy task — Al failed.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_71e8a5c5	type	Trauma Conga Line
The Ballad of Big Al / int_71e8a5c5	comment	Trauma Conga Line: Summarizes Big Al's later life. First, he winds up with broken ribs and a torn claw after an attempt to mate ended with the female violently rejecting him. Later, he breaks his right middle toe after a failed hunting attempt and it gets infected. Too weak to hunt, he slowly dies from starvation and dehydration.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_8a9eb844	type	Perspective Flip
The Ballad of Big Al / int_8a9eb844	comment	Perspective Flip: While "Time of Titans" had Diplodocus as the main character and Allosaurus as the main antagonist, the special flips it by having an Allosaurus as the protagonist, and Diplodocus as one of their prey.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_94f41e7d	type	Mucking in the Mud
The Ballad of Big Al / int_94f41e7d	comment	Mucking in the Mud: In one scene two Allosaurus are lured into a mud trap by a Stegosaurus carcass and by the end of the day, both of them are dead and being eaten by tiny pterosaurs. Al avoids the same fate because he learned to avoid carrion and the large carnivores it attracts.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_9c8701b5	type	A Day in the Limelight
The Ballad of Big Al / int_9c8701b5	comment	A Day in the Limelight: The Ballad of Big Al serves as this for Allosaurus, which originally only featured as an "antagonist" in "Time of the Titans".
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_a07afea2	type	Random Events Plot
The Ballad of Big Al / int_a07afea2	comment	Random Events Plot: Since this is just chronicling the life of a non-anthropomorphic animal, there's no actual plot, it's basically just a series of vignettes set over the course of Big Al's life with little connection between them outside of having the same main character.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_b8ba9b1f	type	Crossing the Desert
The Ballad of Big Al / int_b8ba9b1f	comment	Crossing the Desert: This trope is used for the Diplodocus attack, as well as towards the end near Al's death.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_c59bf35a	type	Ballad of X
The Ballad of Big Al / int_c59bf35a	comment	Ballad of X
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_d0c9634e	type	Animals Not to Scale
The Ballad of Big Al / int_d0c9634e	comment	Animals Not to Scale: The episode portrays Allosaurus as regularly reaching far larger sizes than what is known in real life (average size for adults is about eight metres, maxing out at just under ten metres). Big Al in particular is depicted as dying at ten metres in length, and is still not full-grown, but the real Big Al fossil is of an animal just over seven metres in length.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_d9eee868	type	Spin-Off
The Ballad of Big Al / int_d9eee868	comment	Spinoff: The Ballad of Big Al is a spinoff of Walking With Dinosaurs, and Big Al itself came with a Making Of... documentary that took a look at the basis of the show and the science behind it.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_dcd423d2	type	Affectionate Nickname
The Ballad of Big Al / int_dcd423d2	comment	Affectionate Nickname: "Big Al" was the name given to the complete allosaur skeleton that was found, partly because the paleontologists felt a little wistful Al lived fast and died young.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_e43c66bd	type	Art Evolution
The Ballad of Big Al / int_e43c66bd	comment	Art Evolution: Nearly every dinosaur's model and textures were given much more detail in the special, including Stegosaurus and Diplodocus. And of course the Allosaurus, being the stars of the show. Just compare the new Allosaurus model to the old one from Time of the Titans. In particular, they fixed the anatomical error of the crests above the eyes, correctly placing them in front this time.
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The Ballad of Big Al / int_ffad4e9f	type	Shown Their Work
The Ballad of Big Al / int_ffad4e9f	comment	Shown Their Work: The second part of the special, which deals with how we learned all this stuff about Al and Allosaurus in general.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Ballad of Big Al	hasFeature	Affectionate Nickname / int_257caf28
The Ballad of Big Al	hasFeature	Animals Not to Scale / int_257caf28
The Ballad of Big Al	hasFeature	Ballad of X / int_257caf28
The Ballad of Big Al	hasFeature	Mucking in the Mud / int_257caf28
The Ballad of Big Al	hasFeature	Special Effects Evolution / int_257caf28
The Ballad of Big Al	hasFeature	Speculative Documentary / int_257caf28

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