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Dinosaurs Alive!
Showing through September 9, 2008Dinosaurs Alive Radio Commercial Michael Douglas Narrates a Real-Life Scientific Adventure Featuring the World’s Top Dinosaur HuntersDinosaurs Alive is a captivating adventure of science and discovery that will enthrall you with its unique look at the entire age of dinosaurs. Premiering on Tuesday, December 4, the new large-format film, narrated by Michael Douglas, features spectacular animation and a live-action story that joins renowned paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History and their graduate students in the field as they uncover new fossils—including the remarkable discovery of what may be the oldest dinosaur ever found in North America. The film, sponsored by Dex Media and KHAS-TV, will open on Wednesday, December 5 and will run through Monday, September 8 at the Lied Super Screen Theatre. During the premiere, sponsored by Quality Hotel & Convention Center, Dr. David Loope, a science advisor for the film and a geology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will share his experience of working in the Gobi Desert and all over the world searching for dinosaur fossils. Dr. Loope has been studying the geological environment of the Gobi Desert, advancing a popular new theory that the dinosaurs were so well preserved there, not because of sandstorms, but by being quickly buried in mudslides created by infrequent but fierce rainstorms. According to Dr. Loope, scientists believe that millions of years ago the Gobi Desert looked very much how the Nebraska Sandhills do today, rolling sand dunes cover with grasses. A couple of the animated dinosaur scenes in the film were actually shot in the Nebraska Sandhills. The filmmakers shot landscape scenes and then added in the dinosaurs later back at the studio. If you look very closely you may recognize the Nebraska Sandhills during the opening scene with the fighting dinosaurs and also the scene with the nesting dinosaurs. Dinosaurs Alive brings dinosaurs, their behaviors and their ancient environments to life on screen as never before seen—juxtaposing stunningly realistic and scientifically accurate computer generated imagery (CGI) with intriguing 1920s documentary footage, dramatic new scenes of real fossils and current dinosaur hunting expeditions. Using state-of-the-art techniques, the filmmakers have created an array of amazingly life-like creatures based on the latest fossil evidence so that audiences can experience these creatures on the giant screen. Interwoven throughout the film’s storyline is a real-life scientific adventure that looks at the field of paleontology and the crucial finds made over the years that have revolutionized our understanding of the mysterious creatures that dominated the earth for 150 million years. The film reveals how paleontologists search for, discover, and study fossils to determine different dinosaur species—how big they grew, how fast they moved, how they were related to other species, how they interacted with others, what they may have eaten, how they may have raised their young, what their surroundings looked like, and how they may have died. Meet and learn about Tarbosaurus (a close relative to T.Rex), Velociraptors, Protoceratops, Seismosaurus, and more. Witness dinosaurs locked in mortal combat, nesting in colonies, protecting their young, and facing catastrophic forces of nature. Learn which ones traveled in herds, which made nests, which were the predators and which were the hunted, and other surprising behaviors.
More fossils than ever are being found today. While there have been great discoveries over the last century, and we know much more about these amazing creatures than ever before, the scientific quest to find and understand dinosaurs and the world they inhabited is ongoing. Dinosaurs Alive! estimates that we’ve discovered less than two percent of all the dinosaur species that once lived. For young paleontologists, the adventure is just beginning, and this spellbinding new film is sure to spark imaginings of what mysteries still lie buried beneath our feet. Dinosaurs Alive can be seen several times daily at the Lied Super Screen Theatre from December 5 - September 8, 2008. Premiere members should make reservations as soon as possible for the premiere on Tuesday, December 4. Please call Visitor Services at 402-461-4629 or 1-800-508-4629 for showtimes or to purchase tickets. To learn more about the film, visit http://www.dinosalive.com Click here for showtimes
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Go to Mongolia with mesmerizing 1920s archival footage of paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews—a larger-than-life adventurer believed to be the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character. Andrews led five American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) expeditions to the Gobi Desert and discovered there one of the greatest repositories of dinosaur remains ever found. The film then returns to that same site today with leading AMNH paleontologists Mike Novacek and Mark Norell, who have been making annual expeditions to the desert every summer since 1990. Cameras follow Mike and Mark and an inspiring team of dedicated young graduate students eager to hone their dinosaur hunting skills in the field, as they set out on a hot and dusty Mad Max-like journey across the Gobi’s stark desert terrain.
Dinosaurs Alive then heads to New Mexico, one of the few places in the world where rock layers preserve the whole age of dinosaurs—from the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic Periods—and where breakthrough discoveries continue to be made in the high desert badlands. The film shows the rich history of life stretching back 220 million years and brings you to the fabled Ghost Ranch, where the number of fossils uncovered during the dig is staggering—revealing layers of dinosaurs and reptiles in concentrated deposits in a mass burial site. Here, the dinosaur hunters make a compelling find.