These three-story puppets’ bodies were so life-like one could actually see muscles flex and their legs strain from the heavy weight carried with each step. It seemed too real to be fake.

I’d like to pretend I wasn’t as wide-eyed as the mass of 5 to 8-year-olds watching “Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience” at the Bradley Center with me Wednesday, but I know I looked like an overgrown and hairier version of them to anyone watching.

I saw dinosaurs, as real as one of any age could imagine, walking around the Bradley Center, dwarfing the space inside of the large arena. It also helped that the Bradley Center had been transformed into an overwhelming prehistoric jungle, which sprang to life in an instant but also could disappear as fast as a wild fire could sweep across the seats.

The live show was just as educational as the BBC series “Walking with Dinosaurs,” but was as thrilling as a rollercoaster, and just as terrifying at the same time.

The live show features only a fraction of what people saw in the six-part miniseries, but was informative about new developments in paleontology. All the information seemed like almost too much when simultaneously taking in a nearly 50 foot high T. rex screaming at the crowd.

In the hour and a half long show, the audience was introduced to 10 different kinds of dinosaurs that ranged from the first dinosaurs of the Triassic period to the end of the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period.

Childhood favorites like the torosaurus (Triceratops) and stegosaurs were shown in new lights given recent discoveries. Attendees learned that torosaurus was the lion of the dinosaur age, not as king of beasts but in how their herds functioned. The stegosaurus’ plate-covered back was found less likely to be armor and more likely to be a prehistoric temperature control system for the beast.

The show culminated with a mother T. rex defending her young who had bitten off more than it could chew. During this climactic scene, the audience got a feeling about how devoted to their offspring dinosaurs were.

They aren’t the dinosaurs you see at the Milwaukee Public Museum – all robotic and fake-looking, endlessly biting into the same spot on a torosaur. The animatronic technology seemed years ahead of anything that’s come before.

This wasn’t a Disney ride or a bad puppet show. The performance seemed more like an educational ballet in which the performers wore gigantic costumes.

These three-story puppets’ bodies were so life-like one could actually see muscles flex and their legs strain from the heavy weight carried with each step. It seemed too real to be fake.

I’ve always doubted that dinosaurs could roar like a lion, but this show has changed my opinion. The sound of the dinosaur heard by the crowd could have easily shaken the Bradley Center to pieces.

The roars did come from ceiling-mounted speakers, but it was like surround sound for the mega movie geek. It was enough to scare half the crowd into covering their ears and looking away, but smartly, the show countered it with a baby T. rex mimicking its mother with a rather weak and pathetic roar in comparison.

If the performance had any down point, it was when the show turned towards the sky and showcased the large ornithocheirus and its 40-foot wingspan. This dinosaur had very little movement and the piece required a projection of a soaring landscape that gave less life to the segment and more of a nauseating effect.

Overall, I would encourage anyone to see this if they get the opportunity elsewhere, or if the show ever returns to Milwaukee. It’s one of those rare moments where everyone gets to feel like they are young again and be awestruck at the world that existed millennia ago.

> Comments