SCIENCE MOMENT by Kelly Parks & E.C. McMullen Jr.
REIGN OF FIRE MOVIE REVIEW REIGN OF FIRE - 2004 !!!THE SCIENCE MOMENT!!!

- REIGN OF FIRE -
THE SCIENCE MOMENT

SCIENCE MOMENT BY KELLY PARKS

First, and foremost, there's just no way (unless you invoke magic, which the movie makers do not) that an animal bigger than an elephant can fly by flapping its wings1. I'll spare you the equations but trust me. The wings would have to be many times bigger than pictured in this movie, which makes the muscle and bone strength requirements quite impossible. Only magic dragons can fly.

Second, even though we see several scenes of the dragons eating unburned people, we are told that their normal diet consists of ash, which is why they burn everything.

No.

Ash is basically just carbon. Its biochemical energy content is essentially nil. You'd starve mighty quick on an ash diet.

Third, if the world had gone through cycles like this for millions of years (and clearly each cycle can't be more than a few thousand years long since the last one happened within recorded history), there would be tremendous archeological evidence (many, many layers of ash). There is not.

Fourth, even if they could fly and even if there were millions, we'd still win. Helicopter gun ships could easily out fly them and jets would be quite safe. Building fireproof bunkers would keep people and supplies perfectly safe. The list goes on. This would not cause the collapse of civilization.2

SCIENCE MOMENT BY E.C. MCMULLEN JR.

1Actually, the Quetzalcoatlus Northropi from the Late Cretaceous was larger than an elephant. First discovered in Texas, it was in fact, larger than a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and it flew^.

What's more, for a body built for flight, it had relatively short wings, not large ones.

There is no specific size for the Quetzalcoatlus, each one found is of a significantly different size though all are 17 feet and up. The largest we've found so far had a wingspan of 21 meters (68.9 feet) and a body length more than half that (about the height of a tall giraffe).

Compare that to the largest of elephants past or present: the Steppe mammoth, an animal about as long - stem to stern - as it was tall - feet to shoulder, 4 meters (13 feet - the largest known).
nps.gov/bibe/learn/nature/pterosaur.htm

Blog.ted.com/2013/05/30/10-fascinating-facts-about-woolly-mammoths/

Of course, an animal built for flight isn't proportioned like an elephant. The largest Quetzalcoatlus thus found weighed about 250 kilograms (550 pounds), compared to a Steppe mammoth, which weighed about 12 tonnes (13 tons).

Then again, the dragons in this movie aren't proportioned like elephants either. In fact, the dragons for this movie are designed with greater wing to body ratios than are seen in the Quetzalcoatlus or Azhdarchild.

Another flying animal of the Mega faunas is the magnificent Argentavis magnificens. With a wingspan about as long as a Harrier jump jet, it may have flown as fast as 150 freaking mph! Holy shit!
npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11710794

^There is some discourse on whether or not the Quetzalcoatlus could fly. Some Paleontologists argue that the Quetzalcoatlus could not fly because, well, it was just too big to fly is all!

This hypothesis doesn't stand up to the fact that, for the Quetzalcoatlus to have been a land animal, it would require a certain bone density in its forelimbs, as well as a foot pattern for weight distribution, that the beast just didn't possess. Also, it's hind limbs can't make up for the lack in it's forelimbs, as they are clearly clawed-for-gripping, feet.

2 That's not science. That's all faith-based assumption. Here's what we do know.

A helicopter can fly faster than any current winged animal, but it can't come anywhere close to maneuvering like one.

Helicopters are built to be flown by people and they have to take the stress limits of the people within, into consideration. There are plenty of various Fighter aircraft and none of them are helicopters.

Helicopters have poor maneuverability. Attack helicopters exist but all of them are for engaging with ground units. The dragons in REIGN OF FIRE are highly maneuverable and we see that. No chopper pilot could hope to withstand one.

Moments after the first dragon died bringing down a helicopter - because it hit the business end of the prop on top (also destroying the Helo), the rest would soon figure out what part of the chopper to avoid.

Fighter Jets, which fly much faster, have far less maneuverability at top speed, and we'd have to get them off the ground first. Fighter jets have greater manoeuvrability at slower speeds, of course, but nothing compared to a winged creature built for flight. The dragons in REIGN OF FIRE are supposed to be more or less equal to us in intelligence, so it wouldn't take them long to figure they should take out airports with jets on the ground.

A sudden attack of thousands and we'd lose all ability to drill for oil: No energy. No dams, no wind power and no solar farms. Ranches and plant farms and cities would be decimated - like we see in the movie.

How are we going to transport, feed, and house the tens of thousands of people and all of the machinery they'd need, as well as land surveys to find the optimum places to dig fireproof bunkers to accommodate even millions of people, let alone billions?

We wouldn't be able to do it for hundreds of thousands. There's no energy and stored food, whatever is left, is rapidly dwindling: No energy, water, food, or communication with other bunkers.

Perhaps a few thousand people around the earth could hide in bunkers, but in all reality we have currently no bunkers for so much as 0.001 of the world's population of people. Further, the massive undertaking of building such infrastructure takes decades. Finally, People hiding in bunkers don't contribute to society, they cower, waiting for society to wake and rise.

So yes, millions of dragons in the sky attacking all things human would effectively destroy civilization.

UPDATE: 2021 -
But you know what else? We believed that Quetzalcoatlus Northropi had to be the largest living creature that ever could be capable of flight. Quetzalcoatlus in weight and size was nearly physically impossible were it not for the fact that, well, we could prove they existed!

Yes, no animal capable of flight, let alone extended flight, could have ever existed.

That is, until we came across an ancient "graveyard" of petrified bones in Morroco.

So may I introduce another long-necked varmint from earth's past, the Azhdarchid pterosaur,
The biggest animal ever to fly was a reptile with a giraffe-like neck

This review copyright 2004 - 2021 by E.C.McMullen Jr.

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