Because the Posette and I have a kid, we don't get to the movies all that much. But we hired a sitter, carved out some free time in our schedules, and ventured to the Alamo Draft House to watch Jurassic World, a good month after apparently every other man, woman, and child in the developed world already had seen it.
It's a mediocre to bad movie, but who really cares? Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs make anything better. I mean just imagine how it might have saved Grown Ups 2, if a giant dinosaur showed up and ate the entire cast. Lines out the door, I'm telling you.
So when I took my one week off from the blog mine, I went to go visit the family back home in DC. Because I was travelling with a toddler, this meant one thing to her: dinosaurs. So we trekked our way to the Natural History Museum to look at dinosaur bones which, of course, were super awesome.
Anyway, like any reasonable human being, I believe that dinosaurs are the coolest, meaning we need the definitive ranking of the dinosaurs.
10 Archeopteryx
The unofficial hipster dinosaur. It's the first bird, and it was covered in feathers instead of scales, unlike its cousin the pterodactyl, which may or may not have existed. Yes, it's a more accurate depiction of what the dinosaurs actually looked like and shows how far research has come. What the archaeopteryx is not is cool. It's a goofy bird-like thing that barely qualifies as a dinosaur. Go suck on a latte.
9 Velociraptor
If you are of a certain age, you remember a time when no one had ever heard of velociraptors. Then Steven Spielberg makes a movie, an expansion team puts them on their jersey, and now they have rocketed up in the public imagination. Still, the average raptor was only 3-4 feet tall, meaning most readers of this site could take one out in single combat. That's a lame dinosaur.
8 Ankylosaurus
I like any dinosaur built like a tank. The thing looked like it could step on a land mine and maybe only lose a claw or something. We tend to think of dinosaurs as these super predators, and some of them were of course, but I have a special place in my heart for the impervious defensive design. This is the proverbial immovable object. Or at least inedible.
7 Iguanodon
One of the very first dinosaurs discovered, it has also gone through a series of interpretations as we learn more about the fossil record. It started as a giant quadruped, but has slowly transformed into an agile, partial-biped. Because it has been the default dinosaur since the Victorian Era, you can use it to trace dinosaurs in the popular imagination, which is actually kind of cool.
6 Brontosaurus
One of the classic dinosaurs. When you think of dinosaurs, the brontosaurus is one of the first images the pops into you mind, if you are of a certain age. Unfortunately, the brontosaurus does not exist. It seems that the fossils discovered actually belong to a different, albeit extremely similar dinosaur, called the apatosaurus. This is just your regular reminder that scientists hate your childhood memories, and will do anything to crush your joy. The Apatosaurus scientists probably get together with the people who demoted Pluto to get drunk and plot on other ways to murder our happiness.
5 Pteranodon
Another dinosaur that does not exist, the pterodactyl. This one doesn't bother me as much, as all that really changed was the name, and just slightly. Like it matters if it is a pterodactyl or a pteranodon. It's a giant flying lizard. Seriously, that is just nightmare fuel. OK, it's not technically a dinosaur, but again... giant flying lizard.*
*Yes, I know it's technically not a lizard either. Sheesh. The world is no fun. By the way, if he were a dinosaur, the LSU fan would rank right here.
4 Giganotosaurus
The whole point of dinosaurs is that they were giant lizards who once ruled the earth. It's not tough to see the appeal. Well, this bad boy was the biggest of them all. The giganotosaurus measured over 40 feet long. Its skull alone is measured at 5-6 feet long. Now, that is a dinosaur.
3 Stegosaurus
I'll admit it, the stegosaurus is my all-time favorite, but I can't give it a higher rank than #3. The spikes on the tail are super cool, as well as all the plates on the back, which apparently were for keeping it cool, not for defensive purposes. So it looks like a more bulked up ankylosaurus, but really, the good old stegosaurus was a little bit more maneuverable. At the end of the day, it's just a cool looking dinosaur, pretty much unlike anything we see today.
2 Triceratops
Certainly the best dinosaur to equip with a head-mounted laser cannon. Come on, Jurassic World producers. A total missed opportunity. The triceratops is a bit like the rhinoceros, a scary looking beast that just want to chill out and eat some plants. Also, it seems to be one of the few dinosaurs to figure out that one should put the spikes on your face, not on your tail. Never turn your back to the enemy. Haven't they watched an MMA fight?
1 Tyrannosaurus Rex
Even its name means "king". Look, I know all the dinosaur hipsters will come out of woodwork and argue for their personal fave, but the T-Rex is the ultimate dinosaur. He has such a large lead in the clubhouse, I don't even see how it is open for debate. When you imagine getting chased and eaten by a dinosaur, you're not thinking of an iguanodon. No, you are thinking about the bad ass king of the dinos himself, Mr. T-Rex.