The Ballad of Big Al
| The Ballad of Big Al | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Created by | Tim Haines, Jasper James |
| Narrated by | Kenneth Branagh |
| Theme music composer | Ben Bartlett |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Tim Haines |
| Production company(s) |
BBC Natural History Unit Impossible Pictures |
| Distributor | BBC Worldwide |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC |
| Original release | 2001 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Other shows in the Walking with... series |
The Ballad of Big Al (distributed in the North American market as Allosaurus: a Walking with Dinosaurs Special) is a combination biography-sequel for Walking with Dinosaurs . It focuses on an Allosaurus (Allosaurus fragilis) named Big Al and his constant struggle to survive in a world filled with danger.
The special begins at the University of Wyoming, showing the bones of a sauropod followed by an Allosaurus named Big Al. After the ghost of Big Al wanders the museum passing by his own skeleton and a nest of fossilized eggs, the film then travels back in time to 145 Mya showing the same nest. Al and his siblings hatch and are helped out of the nest by their mother. She brings them to a river bank and the hatchlings start to hunt for insects. When the mother leaves the hatchlings temporarily, a year-old Allosaurus comes out of hiding and kills one of them (luckily, the victim was not Al).
Al is then shown at the age of two years. He tries to hunt a flock of Dryosaurus. He has not yet learned how to ambush so he fails to kill one of the swifter, smaller dinosaurs. Later, he snatches a lizard from a branch to keep him satisfied. Al comes across a dead Stegosaurus and an Allosaurus waiting for death in a pit of sticky mud. Meanwhile, a female Allosaurus, attracted to the Stegosaurus carcass, also gets stuck. She struggles to free herself, but fails. Al luckily avoids the same fate as he had learnt to avoid carrion and the large carnivores that it usually attracts. Unable to escape, the trapped Allosaurus pair die of exhaustion, their corpses left to Anurognathus .
Three years pass, and a herd of Diplodocus are migrating across the prehistoric salt lake. Al is joined by several other Allosaurus and they attempt to bring a weak member of the herd down. Once the herd leaves the sick Diplodocus, the Allosaurs gather. Al is struck down by the neck of the Diplodocus. The pack wait for a few hours until the Diplodocus is brought down by heat exhaustion and his illness. Though they feed, within the hour an adult female Allosaurus scavenges the kill. Al takes some remnants of the carcass for himself and leaves.
...
Wikipedia