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Aug 22, 2014 By Zach Hollwedel Web Exclusive

Who does a scientific discovery belong to: the scientists who found it, the general populace, or the government? This is the central question filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller explores in his engaging and beautifully shot new documentary, Dinosaur 13. The film chronicles the 1990 discovery of Sue, a fossilized tyrannosaurus rex that—at 80% complete—is the greatest and most well-preserved T. rex discovered to date. Found by and named after Susan Hendrickson, a South Dakota based paleontologist, Sue was lovingly and laboriously removed from a cliff face by Hendrickson’s colleague Peter Larson and the rest of their team from the Black Hills Institute. The Institute purchased Sue from landowner Maurice Williams and brought her back to their lab with the hopes of cleaning and reassembling her, and then proudly displaying the skeleton in their South Dakota museum. Never could they have expected the FBI to contest the purchase, seize the fossil, and bring criminal charges against the institute and its individual employees.

Dinosaur 13 is a David and Goliath tale of a small group of scientists thrust into the center of a national debate over proprietorship, as well as right versus wrong. Miller’s film very clearly takes the side of the Institute and, most specifically, Peter Larson, who bore the brunt of the government’s anger. Given the filmmaker’s bias, one can’t help but wonder at the opposing parties’ points of view. Was Maurice Williams as duplicitous and conniving as the film and the Black Hills Institute make him out to be? What was the federal government’s justification for employing such a massive force (over 30 agents) in raiding the Institute? With the exception of one interview subject speaking on behalf of the IRS, there’s little perspective other than the Black Hills Institute’s, even while hints at inappropriate or illegal activity on their part make it hard to fully side with them.

Despite an obviously objective point of view, Dinosaur 13 is a compelling, curious, and thought-provoking documentary. It’s hard not to feel for Larson, whose love for his team’s discovery raises eyebrows, and for the Institute’s South Dakota home town, which felt like it lost the dinosaur that was going to bring in tourism and put it on the map.

www.dinosaur13movie.com

Author rating: 7/10