#d war

Evolving eyes independently, evolving into a weasel independently, evolving into a croc independently, etc.

Some body plans or anatomical features are just really good at a certain role or job, so they become independently evolved multiple times. Convergent evolution baby!

If you’re a carnivorous therapsid then the wolf bodyplan offers a good mix of speed, strength, and rigidity as well as presumably less energy expenditure when chasing prey (that last one is an educated guess).

See, the indominus rex could have worked as a design if Universal bothered to update the depictions of all the real dinosaurs. It looks weak and sickly but unfortunately so does every other animal in the film. If you put an I. rex next to an actual T. rex then that would have made it obvious that. yea this thing doesn’t look right.

I’d have saved the “horrid genetic failure off its meds” look for the indoraptor since its design is especially scuffed. It doesn’t even have a braincase. They should have doubled down on a “this thing shouldn’t be alive” look for it.

Yeah. It’s a fun if somewhat run-of-the-mill Hollywood action movie, but the monsters have just enough unique features to slightly stand out from the rest of their generic movie monster brethren.

Despite the lack of Godzilla movies, this sure was a weird, experimental decade for the kaiju genre and I think it doesn’t get enough recognition. The movies I could count are:

Ultraman: The Next (2004) - A standalone new origin of the classic japanese hero.

Reigo: The Deep-Sea Monster vs. the Battleship Yamato (2005) - A Godzilla-esque aquatic reptile battles the famous japanese WW2 ship the night before its historic destruction.

Negadon: The Monster from Mars (2005) - A cgi-animated 25-minutes short homage movie where a giant robot fights a weird alien giant monster.

Chousei Kantai Sazer-X the Movie: Fight! Star Warriors (2005) - Based on the "Chouseishin” tokusatsu series by Toho, probably better know because the Gotengo is in it and for re-using the scarpped design of Heisei Mechanikong.

King Kong (2005) - Don’t know if it really counts but hey, it’s King Kong.

Gamera the Brave (2006) - Probably needs no introduction but still. A love letter to the Gamera movies of the 60s and 70s as well as a great coming of age story.

The Host (2006) - Not to be confused with the not-Twilight movie. An amazing south korean film about a family trying to rescue their daughter from a weird mutated fish monster that kidnapped her.

Ultraman Mebius & Ultraman Brothers (2006) - Ultraman’s 40th anniversary celebration movie.

Big Man Japan (2007) - A BIZARRE AF documentary-ish movie about a summo hero guy who can turn giant and that protects Japan from some of the weirdest kaiju ever.

D-War (2007) - From the director of the 1999 Yonggary remake (aka “Reptilian”), this movie about an evil giant serpent dragon and a whole army of monsters is insane, cheesy and never slows down. Supposedly it’s getting a sequel in 2020.

Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit (2008) - A parody/satire sequel to the 1967 movie Guilala. Strangely it uses stock-footage from the original.

Cloverfield (2008) - The movie that had a crazy ARG associated with it, that seeked out to create a real american equivalent of Godzilla, and that re-popularized found footage movies.

Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers (2008) - Notable for having the actors of the 4 original ultras (their human hosts/forms that is) reprising their roles.

Geharha: The Dark and Long Hair Monster (2009) - A short funny homage to kaiju movies in general. Instant classic.

Demeking, The Sea Monster (2009) - Haven’t seen it but the monster is a cool weird choral snail thing.

Deep-Sea Monster Raiga (2009) -A far more comedic sequel to Reigo (2005), this time with a bipedal, giant-clawed blue Godzilla-esque kaiju.

Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends (2009) - All the ultra heroes and all the ultra kaiju ever duke it out non-stop. Not only a sequel to all Ultraman series, but allso to the kaiju-centered spin-off Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle.

Death Kappa (2010) - A raunchy comedic movie starring the classic turtle/duck youkai who turns giant and fights another monster. The creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion plays the villain.

Monsters (2010) - The movie that put Gareth Edwards on the map before he directed Godzilla 2014. It shows a world dominated by giant octopus-like monsters that is very gloomy but doesn’t lack a sense of wonder at all.

Ultraman Zero: The Revenge of Belial (2010) - Sequel to MMBUGL that further establishes Belial as the evil Ultraman.

Ultraman Saga (2012) -Ultraman Dyna, Ultraman Zero from the previous two movies, and best boy Ultraman Cosmos join forces to fight baby Zetton.

Pacific Rim (2013) - Pacific Rim.

Special mention to the thai movie Garuda from 2004, the 2010 animated movie Firebreather, the Sharktopus movies produced by Roger Corman, the Mega Shark movies by The Assylum, and all 21 Super Sentai theatrical releases that came in this period but that I’m too much of a coward to look up if they qualify for this list.