Like George Lucas, he assembled wildly popular works out of wildly disparate elements, and like Lucas, I never expected an original idea. (Let us let 'The Monster Men' to stand as the holotype for my complaints, shall we?)
But while listlessly paging through 'Tarzan at the Earth's Core', I ran into a scene which I nominate for the best idea ERB ever had:
!~Gliding Stegasauri~!
I wish to god blogger had manicule symbols for this one. I suppose it makes as much sence as any other idea vis-a-vis stegasaurus spine plates, really.
"AS Jason Gridley leaped down the canyon side
toward the lone warrior who stood facing the attack of the
tremendous reptile gliding swiftly through the air from the top of
the opposite cliff side, there flashed upon the screen of his
recollection the picture of a restoration of a similar extinct
reptile and he recognized the creature as a stegosaurus of the
Jurassic, but how inadequately had the picture that he had seen
carried to his mind the colossal proportions of the creature, or
but remotely suggested its terrifying aspect."
"... the reptile, using its tail
as a rudder and tilting its spine plates up on one side, veered in
the direction of the American..."
"... From the instant that the stegosaurus had leaped from the summit
of the cliff, it had hurtled through the air with a speed which
seemed entirely out of proportion to its tremendous bulk, so that
all that had transpired in the meantime had occupied but a few
moments of time, and Jason Gridley found himself facing this
onrushing death almost before he had had time to speculate upon the
possible results of his venturesome interference.
With wide distended jaws and uttering piercing shrieks, the
terrifying creature shot toward him..."
" Still shrieking with rage and pain it glided to the ground
beyond him.
Almost immediately it turned to renew the attack. This time it
came upon its four feet, and Jason saw that it was likely to prove
fully as formidable upon the ground as it had been in the air, for
considering its tremendous bulk it moved with great agility and
speed..."
This calls for a dramatic reconstruction! As a exercise for the reader, I leave the calculations of how light a stegasaurus would have to be in order to be able to glide upon its plates...
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