Fun Fact: This movie has actually given me more nightmares than any other film. The aspect of the people stranded on a planet with no hope of encountering anyone beyond wild animals resonated hard with me with the wild soundtrack and the long sequences of travelling. It also helps that, technically, the dinosaurs act like animals. The dinosaurs mostly mind their own business until the people bumble upon them; The stegosaur doesn't get mad until her scanner device makes a noise that pisses it off, and when the Rex first shows up, it just kinda roars at them and gives a halfhearted snap before focusing on the stegosaur. Hell the allosaur corners one of the crew but it doesn't even know what to do with them since it's never seen anything like them and after hurting it, it runs off. We don't even need to get into how Harvey dug up the nest and then made a ton of noise. The rex only becomes a mainstay issue when the crew find out they built their home in it's territory and they don't leave said territory. Again, not a masterpiece, but a massive guilty pleasure film of mine.
This movie gave me nightmares as a five year old because of the giant spider scene. The trauma inflicted by it gave me a lifelong discomfort with those eight legged bastards. Not a phobia, but a pronounced ick.
"We intended our Rhedosaurus as a tribute to Ray though it had to be smaller than the one in THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS if we wanted our T-Rex to eat it. Ray visited our studio while we were working and he seemed fine with the idea of his creature making a cameo appearance in our little film." ~ Jim Aupperle
The burial scene - I've seen that in other movies and I never thought that they just covered the body with rocks. I always assumed that they buried it, then piled the rocks on top of the grave to stop animals from digging up the body.
Wouldn't that make the body less secure? Seems like there'd be a more direct digging path to the corpse, ie. from the side of the rocks and down on an angle. With just rocks, any direct path is blocked by stone, so unless the animal is smart enough to conceptualize digging under and then up, you'd be okay. Even that could be prevented by putting rocks under the body, as well. The only point in burying the body is to do so deep enough that animals can't detect any trace of it, and therefore don't dig at all. It doesn't offer any anti-mining security. That's my understanding, anyway; not an expert.
You know, from a paleontological perspective the rhedosaur is actually pretty plausible. I mean in every appearance of it it’s been different sizes as an adult, and a lot of predatory dinosaurs had many subspecies allosaurus as an example. And if it could run fast enough like a monitor it would be a pretty effective predator
This is the kind of Saturday morning creature double feature I loved as a kid. Always had my dinosaur and Godzilla toys close by to get through the boring scenes.
How do you "ferment" berry juice over the course of an afternoon? These guys can barely tie two sticks together at this point and yet one of them has apparently built a still.
it's actually pretty simple to make alcohol. All you really need is sugar, water, yeast and time. Ancient alcohols, such as mead, would have just used ambient yeast in the atmosphere or on plants. So theoretically it's not much of a stretch for them to have started to make alcohol. Now within an afternoon of course, it takes about two months for mead. But its certainly possible for them to have started. :)
Just saw the trailer for 65 with Adam Driver and had to rewatch this. I’ve always thought this film was the perfect high concept idea for a reboot with a modern budget. I guess I was right. Someone finally decided to reboot it in a way. Looking forward to watching this film and 65 for comparisons now. What’s the over/under on Adam Driver having his shirt off for most of the movie? Lol
In fact, Harryhausen actually visited the set during the movie’s production, where he gave his full consent for the crew to use the Rhedosaurus-like creature’s design for the movie. Cool, huh? 😎
I remember seeing this once as a kid - the dinos made it memorable. Stop-motion animation rocks! Sad to see the Beast From 20,000 Fathoms bite it a second time, though...
Jim Aupperle worked on this film. He said they called it Planet of Dinosaurs instead of Planet of the Dinosaurs so people wouldn't think they were ripping off Planet of the Apes. Also bear in mind this was a amateur film.
Derna Wylde drove my young heart insane. Even now as a full grown man, I can see why I was so enthralled by her. I wore the VHS if this out so much that one day it just crumpled and got tangled inside the VCR. I wasn’t able to salvage it and had to get rid of it. Finally got a DVD copy of it and have kept it since. One of my all time favorite B movies,
I've always liked this movie. The Dino scenes are excellent had it on DVD for about 15 years still watch it once in a blue moon along with Gwangi and One Million Years BC . The Rhedosaurus creature is based on the Archosauriforms like Tsylmosuchus, Vjushkovia and Mandasuchus... It Should have had more screen time and got a bite in on that bluddy Tyrannosaurus. I got a model of that particular Rhedosaur.
Not sure why this randomly cropped up in my feed but its nice to know this movie actually did exist and isn't just a fever dream from my days as a four year old :D
I'm so glad I stumbled upon your channel. I love this movie. I first saw it when i was a kid and it scared the crap out of me...especially when the poor stego died.
This movie was one of many dinosaur-related movies I had growing up that added to my love of them. And I still have my VHS copy to this very day-and it still works!
The song when they are walking at 8:38 sounds like a slowed down version of the song from The Star Wars Holiday Special when the little hologram gymnast contortionist people come out on the table.
I just this review and boy did that take me back. My grandma bought me that movie as a kid because I loved dinosaurs. I used to watch that movie every day as a kid. One day I dropped it and broke the VHS. I couldn't find it anywhere. Then one day I did find at a pic n save. That was like a cheaper Kmart. Anyways I still have it and watch it every now and then.
I saw this as a kid and the water scene where the lady gets eaten scared me as a kid so much. I had just seen Jaws so both movies made me never want to go swim again but at least the pool is safe...till I saw Alligator then Nightmare on Elm Street and finally Arachnophobia I'm surprised my parents got me clean lol I hated water
The shower scene in Arachnophobia, I assume? Scared the hell out of me, too. Still can't watch that movie without major creepy-crawlies, though I doubt anyone can. It's very good!
Production manager: "Should we have a motorized mode of transportation while they're on the planet like a speeder??" Director: "WITH THIS BUDGET & A SCRIPT 1 PAGE LONG??? ARE U CRAZY??? Got to pad this schlock out to feature length! Let them walk everywhere silently!!" 😕
I grew up with this movie, it’s awesome. I think the special effects are pretty damn good. Plus this movie just has this creepy tone to it, with one person getting picked off every scene, with that 70s feel that can never be replicated.
Good Review of a wonderful movie about walking. Also, I liked when the film devolved into a HR film what with Lee whining to Nyla about Jim's lack of respect, and Nyla--prior to hittin gon Jim--advises him on how to treat people.
this was one of my go to movies when i was at home from school sick as a kid. when i watch it as an adult, i'm pretty sure it was originally intended to be a porno.
Screen-writing for Dummies 101: Introducing a plot device item, (especially a weapon) some time during the first act, only to use it to solve a problem during the 3rd act, is know as Chekov's Gun. Now you know! 😆
Sorta. Chekov's Gun is just that if you intro a gun in Act 1, you should use it by Act 3/the end of the play. It's more about not introducing extraneous elements into your narrative. All you want in there is the strictly relevant stuff, nothing else, because extra crap confuses and distracts the audience.
@@Guernicaman Good point! Not to be a dick, but it's "deus ex machina", literally "god from the machine", in reference to the apparent trope in old Greek plays of lowering an actor (via "machine") from the ceiling to be a "god" and float there magic-ing all your problems away at the end of the narrative. You had the point exactly right; just wanted to note the label. Sorry if it feels dickish; very much not my intent. I appreciate the interesting conversation!
You know. There was a video game about Dinosaurs and Humans fighting, it was called Paraworld and it was an RTS. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7VL7lSRFTMs.html I'd love to see a movie about that.
Damn! That T-Rex was like a serial killer in this film. On a more interesting note, this film feels like a precursor to all the 1 million B.C. Movies (and other related films), as it has people and Dinosaurs Co-habiating on the same planet! Not to mention it seemed tailor made to explain how that sort of thing is possible, it's very interesting stuff.
My dad bought me this movie at Kmart and I absolutely loved it. The moment the Mosasaurus took the lady under water, I was immediately hooked to the screen.
the movie was base on a book by Anne McCaffrey and it was the first on her Pirate series. she kind of link it to her other works and the reason why the ship crash is explain in later books
you...got it backwards, the movie came out before the book, the book came out in 1978 while the film was a whole year earlier. in the late 50s to early i wanna say 80s monsterish movies were being produced quickly and on low budgets because of the big boom that was Godzilla in 1954 or King of the monsters. It may be similar but not based
I have a soft spot for this movie. My parents owned the VHS of it back when I was a kid. I used to watch it all the time. I never understood why my dad found it as hilarious as he did until I got older and developed better taste in film. He always did love a so-bad-it's-good flick.
I found 'Planet of Dinosaurs' on VHS at my local Value Village last week for only 99 cents, so I had to scoop it up for some cheesy fun. The stop-motion animation of the dinosaurs is pretty cool for the most part and it's its only saving grace. :)
Good review. BTW, if you ever want to do another Canuxploitaton marathon, I can recommend the 1977 movie "Starship invasions" starring Christopher Lee as an evil alien. Lee has said that it's the worst movie he's ever been in (and that's saying something).
I grew up with this movie as a kid. Was a favorite with me and my brothers. Fun fact, that soundtrack actually won awards because it was innovative at the time.
I have very vivid memories of seeing this movie when I was younger, or at least seeing clips of it in another show about dinosaurs. The guy getting impaled by the styracosaur was what I remember the most, that and when he was yelling "chickie chickie!"
Sweet effects, considering the budget. I took a class with the film's director James K. Shea on horror films at my film school hosted by Alan Ormsby who made "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." You should consider immortalizing that gem.
THANK YOU!!!!!! i recomended this a few months ago on the youtube channel's discussion channel and a video, this one of my favorite dinosaur movies btw
This is another one I've seen on Rifftrax. One thing I found amusing is that at the end the characters are shown in order of who died. ...at least I think they were.
I grew up loving dinosaur movies. One Million Years B.C. is, to this day, my very favorite movie of all, yet, when I saw Planet of the Dinosaurs around 1990, I turned it off half an hour into it. As you say, lots of walking.
This was my favorite movie when I was a kid until I saw STAR WARS for the first time in 1987. I was completely oblivious to how horrific the entire thing was until I was an adult, except for one thing: PLANET OF [THE] DINOSAURS has the worst laser guns of any sci-fi movie ever made. They are completely and utterly worthless.