Lionsgate has released the first Dinosaur 13 trailer for director Todd Douglas Miller’s upcoming documentary.  The film chronicles the discovery and ensuing legal battles over the ownership of “Sue”, the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever found.  After a small group of paleontologists found and recovered the specimen in 1990, the U.S. government descended upon them under questionable grounds and seized all of their research.  I caught the documentary at Sundance and while the story itself is a compelling tale of passion and overreach, encapsulating our species’ penchant for pettiness and hubris, the film itself is kind of a drag.  The doc gets bogged down in superfluous details and goes off on tangents that have little to do with the matter at hand, but in the end there’s a truly fascinating story at the center.

Hit the jump to watch the Dinosaur 13 trailer, and click here to read my full review.  The film will be released VOD and in select theaters on August 15th.

Watch the trailer below via Lionsgate.

Here’s the official synopsis for Dinosaur 13:

When Paleontologist Peter Larson and his team from the Black Hills Institute made the world's greatest dinosaur discovery in 1990, they knew it was the find of a lifetime: the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. But during a ten-year battle with the U.S. government, powerful museums, Native American tribes and competing paleontologists, they found themselves not only fighting to keep their dinosaur but fighting for their freedom as well.