The twisted custody battle over a T. rex named Sue

[Stephan Bobb]

The twisted custody battle over a T. rex named Sue

The documentary 'Dinosaur 13' details the complicated legal challenges over a 42-foot Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil discovered in South Dakota in 1990.

By: Gerri Miller

Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 04:02 PM

The head of Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex that was involved in a lengthy legal battle and the subject of the film "Dinosaur 13." (Photo: Lionsgate)

In May 2000, the 42-foot skeleton of a well-preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex went on display at Chicago's Field Museum amid much fanfare. But few of the millions who've seen Sue (named for her discoverer, Sue Hendrickson) in the 14 years since are aware that this once-ferocious dinosaur was embroiled in fierce battle over the custody of its bones that dragged on for the better part of a decade. This fascinating story is the subject of the documentary "Dinosaur 13," directed and produced by Todd Douglas Miller and opening in theaters on Aug. 15.

 

Based on the book "Rex Appeal: The Amazing Story of Sue, The Dinosaur That Changed Science, The Law and My Life," by Peter Larson and Kristin Donnan, the film begins in the summer of 1990, when a team of paleontologists from the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota including Larson and Hendrickson, found the T. rex fossils and paid landowner Maurice Williams $5,000 for them. Unpredictably, that unleashed a complicated dispute over who owned the bones: the institute, Williams, the Sioux tribe to which Williams belonged, and the federal government, because the property was held in trust by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

 

The FBI and the National Guard seized Sue's remains in 1992, placing them in storage, and they remained there while a David-vs.-Goliath fight over their ownership played out in the courtroom until as settlement was reached five years later. The skeleton was auctioned off for a record $8.36 million in October 1997, and it took three years to prepare it for display. "Dinosaur 13," it turns out, also traveled a long and complicated road to the screen.

 

"We started with conducting intensive first-person narrative interviews with everyone involved. At first we decided to dramatize the film with re-enactments and make it more of a docudrama.  But then we were supplied with so much archival footage and press materials that we decided to utilize that instead," says Miler. "In all, there was around 300 hours of footage. Our approach was to go through every second of every frame, sometimes multiple times. We really wanted this to be the definitive story on Sue and her discoverers. So that meant years and years of research and talking with everyone involved in the story, some of whom are speaking for the first time in the film. Mostly everyone agreed to be in the film."

Read more: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/the-twisted-custo...