Episode One-Derland: Extreme Dinosaurs

Plot: An interdimensional criminal named Argor Zardok has traveled back to prehistoric times and captured four dinosaurs; a tyrannosaurus rex, a stegosaurus, a pteranodon and a triceratops. Imbuing them with a wealth of knowledge, newly designed bodies and powerful weapons, Argor intended on using them as weapons against the Quadrainians, but found that their wealth of knowledge and power was no good when coupled with so much free thinking. He scrapped them and acquired three raptors with which he performed the same procedure just with less free will.

With his new raptor soldiers at his side, Argor attempted to fight off the Quadrainian officials who were on his tail, but one of the weapons that he equipped his raptor soldier with ended up causing the K-T event, forcing Argor to ditch his raptors and flee in interdimensional travel while a Quadrainian official named Chedra saved the four original dinosaur specimens, herself and inadvertently saved the raptors as well by freezing them all.

Awoken 65 million years in the future by archeologists, the dinosaurs have to take down the group of raptors as they try to destroy the world once more.

Breakdown: At face value, hot damn this is a prime example of X-TREEM 90’s cheese. Just read that plot. Just take a minute and soak that in. Anthropomorphic dinosaurs who have been given immense knowledge and weapons (as well as souped up flying vehicles later in the episode) team up with interdimensional beings to fight anthropomorphic raptors who also have weapons.

Who could honestly screw up a premise that seems that awesome?

Well, they kinda did.

I don’t know if I just can’t access my inner 90s cheese lover right now, but this show just didn’t really click with me. Like I said, I love the premise, but it seems like it’s trying a bit too hard to be X-TREEM and rushes with a lot of stuff.

Then I thought too much about the premise. Why oh why would you decide to take dinosaurs, make soldiers out of them….only to make them about the size of humans? I mean, they still have plenty of strength, but they have a T-rex on their team and he’s just slightly taller than the average person. Why would you take something that huge, that intimidating, that awesome and make him 6’5?

Then I read that some people feel this is a ripoff of TMNT which I only slightly see in the fact that they’re anthropomorphic animals who join up to fight evil forces.

I mean, if you look too much into it, the main cast might be counterparts for the turtles.

T-bone, the T-rex, and yes that’s his actual name, is very easily a counterpart for Raphael. He has the biggest temper and urge to fight.

Bullseye, the pteranodon, might be a counterpart for Mikey because he seems to be the most laid back and jokey one.

Stegz, the stegosaurus, would be a counterpart for Donatello because he’s the tech guy and seemingly the smartest of the group.

Finally, Spike the triceratops would be Leonardo because he’s the one that’s left. T-bone’s the leader so he kinda took that away from him.

Really, I even tried to purposely think of this as a TMNT ripoff and it just doesn’t really work to me.

They also don’t know any martial arts and just basically use blunt street fighting along with their individual powers. T-bone gets a Saurian Stomp ability which basically causes a fissure-like effect, though I fail to see how this is such a custom move for him since all of the Extreme Dinosaurs can do it. Stegz can wrap himself up like Sonic and turn into a giant saw blade. Bullseye has supersonic abilities. And finally Spike can….uhhh…he has a gun thing on his wrist….and his Wiki says he’s a—whoops, martial arts expert….*cough*

This show is actually a spinoff of a show called Street Sharks, which definitely sounds more like a TMNT ripoff than this show does, and that show as well as this one are based on a toy line because of course they are.

But all that aside, I guess this show works perfectly fine as a first episode, but it really does feel rushed. I mean, Argor arrives in the Mesozoic and is just like ‘Dinosaurs!? Let me kidnap some and instantly give them insane amounts of intelligence, change their bodies to work more like humans, slap some weapons on them, give them a special ability or two and, boom, instant soldiers before my Pop-Tarts even come up.’ Then, after making these soldiers, he literally dumps them off at the slightest hint of insubordination and makes new ones out of raptors who are trying to eat his ship.

A really quick battle ensues between Argor and the Quadrainian officers who are pursuing him as well as the dinosaurs and the raptors. Argor stupidly gave the main raptor, Bad Rap, and yes, again, that is his actual name, a gun that, when the beam struck the earth’s surface, like I said in the plot synopsis, started the K-T event…ya know, the event that caused the extinction of dinosaurs.

Chedra, someone I’ll talk about later, stays to save the ‘civilians’ of the dinosaurs while her crew flees to pursue Argor, who is leaving his new raptor soldiers behind for really no reason, and leave the dimension before everything goes to crap. 65 million years later, they’re discovered by the world’s dumbest archeologist. He sees a gigantic functional ship in a mountainside with dinosaur beings in glass tubes and thinks it’s all a big joke by his colleagues. Yes, because I’m so sure they’d spend that amount of time and money just to trick you…

The dinosaurs as well as Chedra and the raptors are awakened, and the raptors soon go off to find their brethren in order to…do bad…things of…badness. The Wiki says their main goal is the further global warming so that they, as reptiles, can live more comfortably…..which….is…so….dumb.

The main dino-crew, however, are kidnapped by government officials in Roswell, because of course, and are relentlessly pursued by the government while they try to capture the raptors. Along the way, they meet some old guy who runs a dinosaur museum who is not in the least bit surprised at seeing a bunch of anthropomorphic dinosaurs and a blue pointy eared woman on his property. He states he’s used to such things as he lives near Roswell, and the local TV station has even been taken over by the raptors who are trying to recruit other dinosaurs and for some reason raise money.

In the time frame of, I guess, less than an hour, the dinosaurs soup up a bunch of old junky cars into flying vehicles, which they look absolutely ridiculous driving because they look way too small, and for some reason they put handlebars on an old car.

They fly to the TV station, even though they definitely could’ve walked there in the time it must’ve taken to build those vehicles, take out the raptors, but are forced to leave Bad Rap due to their pursuit by the government. They stick the other raptors in the snowy mountains and fly off into the sunset as they lament on the fact that their kind has been wiped out and they don’t belong there anymore. But after about ten seconds of somber reflection, Bullseye gives them the name of the Extreme Dinosaurs and T-bone adopts it instantly as they prepare to hunt down Bad Rap.

As a first episode, the story is rushed but it also explains most of what we need to know. I would’ve liked more time to spend on the group’s personalities or even the personalities of the enemies outside of ‘they’re evil.’ T-bone and maybe Stegz are really the only two who got personalities somewhat solidified here…..Oh yeah….so did she.

Chedra is the reason that, spoilers, I’m dropping this series. Why? Her one and only character trait is to provide us with a NON-STOP NEVERENDING OHMYGODSHUTUP supply of parroted codes and laws from the Quadrainian code book. I mean it, nearly every goddamn line is another law or code that she religiously upholds. Her life is that code book. I wouldn’t be surprised if she makes sweet love to it every night. She never shuts up about it. Never. It was wearing down my last nerve listening to her talk and seeing as how she’s, I suppose, our April O’neal, so she’ll be a mainstay, I can only imagine how much inane code book bullshit she’ll keep spouting out.

The art is….ew. Most of it is passable, but the dinosaurs look like crap and dear god T-bone’s design is just horrid. The animation is equally bad.

The music is fine for the most part. The OP is trying, but the lyrics are awkward and I can’t catch the beat. And I hate to bring up TMNT again, but if they can make the lyrics of ‘teenage mutant ninja turtles’ insanely catchy then you really have no excuse to not make something good out of ‘extreme dinosaurs.’

Verdict:

This probably would’ve been a continue or at least an undecided purely to have some stupid dinosaur fun every now and then, but I cannot and will not put up with Chedra and her ungodly annoying code book anymore.

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