DVD cover
Beast Legends was a 2010 canadian documentary miniseries airing on both The History Channel and Syfy. It follows a team of both scientists and artists as they travel the world and study creatures of myth to recreate them for short films at the end of each episode, looking at real animals to help with it.
The cast itself consists of
- Veteriarian and TV show host Steve Leonard.
- Comic book artist Francis Manapul.
- Anthropologist Kathryn Denning.
- Evolutionary biologist Scott V. Edwards.
- Computer Animator Mike Paixao, who helps animate the monster models.
Beast Legends provides examples of:
- Always a Bigger Fish:
- The Kraken's short film sees a sperm whale chase a normal squid, only for the Kraken to ambush it.
- Dakuwaqa's short also sees a shark approach a diver, only for Dakuwaqa, to emerge and eat the shark.
- Artistic License – Ornithology: The Monster Bird episode depicts the giant bird Tse’nahale
as one that launches quadrupedally like a pterosaur. Aside from the fact that it has too many fingers (4 instead of 3), no real bird has a hand remotely appropriate for such a launch. Although it's technically not a real bird, that is no excuse. - Bait-and-Switch: The introductory griffin animation has a shot of marching horsemen we assume are regular people, but then we see that them only having one eye isn't stylization or the angle, there Classical Cyclops, the Arimaspians.
- Bait the Dog: The Vietnamese Wildman, after frightening the poacher away, takes a gibbon caught in a trap, with a sorrowful look on its face... and then eats it alive.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: In the same ballpark as them is the Vietmanese Wildman (also known as the Nguoi Rung) as an episode subject recostructed with orangutan features. The short film sequence see it ward off a poacher... then eat the gibbon he trapped.
- Brutal Bird of Prey: Tse’nahale from Navajo Mythology is the subject of the episode "Bird Monster", which is depicted as a giant condor with a serrated beak and owl's talons. The segment itself depicts it hunting a biker and throwing it to its chicks.
- Cool Versus Awesome: The "Megajaws" sequence features the titular giant shark god Dakuwaqa against a US Navy Submarine.
- Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: This is the series' premise, reconstructing unknown animals for short films-
- Our Dragons Are Different: The dragon they make (based off the Polish myth of the Wawel Dragon) has skin membranes a la a flying squirrel (or the minor Godzilla kaiju Varan) and glides since wings would make it too big for the forest where it lives, and uses bio-electric sparks to produce bursts of flame.
- Our Gryphons Are Different: Its the subject of one episode, not too different from most depictions. The film sequence depicts it traveling to Ulaanbaatar to get food for its soon to hatch eggs and some other stuff, eating a person and taking a motorcycle.
- Kraken and Leviathan: The episode on the Kraken features it incorporating the nastiest features of the Giant Octopus, Giant Squid, and Colossal Squid, scaled up to 200ft long from the tip of its head to outstretch tentacles, which take up half the body length themselves.
- Non-Malicious Monster: None of the monsters can be called evil even as they kill people; they're just hungry for a meal or territorial.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The monsters appear before their segments in the real world to the hosts' obliviousness.
- Shark Fin of Doom: Dakuwaqa appears in the real life segments with his fin sticking out of the water before diving beneath the surface.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The Vietnamese Wildman scares away a poacher that had trapped a gibbon and gently picks the smaller ape up... before messily biting its face off and eating it alive.
- Threatening Shark: The Fijian shark god Dakuwaqa is the subject of the third episode "Megajaws". Downplayed, as it's noted to be benevolent and a guardian of the innocent, but very dangerous to those who partake in evil deeds. In its animated segment, it only eats a regular shark (who actually would have lived up to this trope were it not the smaller fish) and not the diver it was going after, saving the latter from the former, then only actively starts attacking a US Navy submarine after they've fired multiple torpedoes at it, also having the justification of sonar being physically harmful to sharks. Even then, it doesn't finish the job, the last we see being the submarine and its crew sinking but otherwise still being intact while the emergency transponder is sent out.
