I really don’t like people hand waving away the significantly lower effort creature designs in twow as “convergent evolution”

I’m fully aware of the concept as I’m a huge speculative biology fan. But everything was very much on a lower bar than back in 2009. Yeah the hexapede was vaguely deer shaped,yes the Thanator was pantheresque and the titanothere elephantine,but don’t pretend for a second that the skimwing wouldn’t look out of place in the first movie. It is literally a gar with flying fish wings. There was clearly a shift in priorities. What made it so frustrating for me is the Akula. That absolutely proves they’re still capable of the truly standout alien designs while keeping the general earth body shape,but only chose to showcase it with this one individual creature. This whole “it’s so the audience can connect with the animals better” thing doesn’t sit well with me either. We’ll always have an innate tendency to feel for large aquatic animals. They could’ve done far more than just add a head crest to a blue whale. And that turtle creature? It has a platypus bill photoshopped straight on. There was another poster that discussed this before but ofc it’s archived. I can’t stand how people are pretending not to notice these things.