I recently produced a story for my YouTube channel called “Ohiosaurus Rex.” This very short piece depicts a married couple’s encounter with a dinosaur during a drive through the Ohio countryside. I explain this unusual event with a time slip.
Then, lo and behold, I find that Warner Brothers Entertainment had a similar idea. A new movie called The End of Oak Street, starring Anne Hathaway, is about dinosaurs invading the suburbs.
No hard feelings. I didn’t plagiarize Warner Brothers and they didn’t plagiarize me. The idea of modern-day humans coming face-to-face with giant carnivorous reptiles has been a universal story concept since dinosaurs were first discovered more than one hundred years ago. This is the basis for the entire Jurassic Park franchise. But maybe Michael Crichton got the idea from Land of the Lost, a TV series I remember from my childhood.
No one owns the idea of “dinosaurs versus humans.” Every creator leaves their unique stamp on the idea. The End of Oak Street promises to be a very good movie, based on the online clip. And it will be a very different movie from any of the Jurassic Park films.
Why do dinosaurs fascinate and scare us so much? They tap into a primeval fear, that of being prey. Modern humans are at the top of the food chain. Yes, we may become prey in very specific and rare instances when we encounter polar bears, great white sharks, or Nile crocodiles. Those are predicaments that most of us can easily avoid.
But what about a giant reptile that crashes through a fence? There is nothing quite like that anywhere on Earth—nor has there been, since the dawn of humankind.
I’m looking forward to seeing The End of Oak Street. I would also speculate that I’ll be returning to dinosaur stories myself. There are just too many possibilities to pass up, where dinosaurs and humans are concerned.
-ET