From the beginning of recorded history, seafaring cultures have been terrified of strange, gigantic creatures that live in the deep. Ancient Greek mariners feared Scylla, a vicious, six-headed sea snake that could send an entire fleet of soldiers to their watery graves. For similar reasons, the Vikings avoided the World Serpent, an invulnerable water dragon that guarded the farthest extremes of Midgard. In North America during the late Cretaceous period, Dolichorhynchops, a toothy, 10-foot-long meat eater, swam the shallow oceans that once covered the Great Plains. The difference between these beasties, of course, is that Dolichorhynchops — or Dolly, as the creature is affectionately known to paleontologists — was real. She’s also the star of National Geographic’s Sea Monsters, an epic animated adventure story about life in earth’s prehistoric oceans. It opens Saturday, June 28th, on the Pink Palace’s IMAX screen.
With its 3-D animation, Sea Monsters lets audiences get up close and personal with giant squids, huge flightless seabirds with teeth, and bigger flying reptiles with bigger, freakier teeth. And, of course, there’s Tylosaurus, a massive aquatic predator with dagger-like choppers designed for piercing, slashing, sawing, tearing, and consuming whatever unfortunate creatures cross its path.
If you miss Sea Monsters this weekend, don’t worry. These terrors from the ancient deep will be around to scare and mystify audiences through March 2009.
“Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric adventure” at the Pink Palace’s Imax Theater. Admission is $8 for adults, $7.25 for seniors, and $6.25 for children under 12. For information regarding show times, call 763-IMAX.
