Saturday, June 16, 2012

Here is some presentation art Charlie Chiodo did for an interactive game that we were working on in the early 90s that would have been based on the Midwich dinosaur shows with Gary and Eric.


More about that later, but for now leave a comment and tell us what's your favorite guilty pleasure dinosaur movie. We're not talking Jurassic Park here...it's those dumb, cheap, or corny ones that you enjoy watching.    
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10 comments:

  1. AlexWMcLeanJune 16, 2012 at 8:39 PM

    Mine is either the first Lost World or the Valley of Gwangi.

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  2. UnknownJune 17, 2012 at 7:50 AM

    I would say..The Last Dinosaur. The effects are by Toho famed for creating Godzilla, Boone is excellent in his role of the aging hunter and the theme song is kinda haunting..must have watched this one about 50 times or so..lol

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  3. DerrickJune 17, 2012 at 10:17 AM

    Mine is definitely Cesta do praveku, aka "Journey to the Beginning of Time". Originally a Czech 50s film about four boys who take a journey on a river back in time, starting with the Ice Age. It's a very episodic adventure that has a very nice leisurely tone to it, with some fairly impressive stop motion designed by Karel Zeman. There are some very neat sequences with some dinosaurs and great environments, but for me the standout sequence is when one of the boys gets chased by a creepy looking Phororhacos. Later on in 60s it was ported over to America, but re-dubbed with some fairly bad American voices. They also re-edited parts of the film, removing some scenes entirely. But they also actually shot some new scenes for the beginning and end of the film, adding a trip to the Museum of Natural History in New York, and also making a more "Christian"-type explanation of the beginning of time itself. The actors playing the characters from the film in these new scenes were different actors, so they were always shot from behind.

    This movie is extremely hard to find. The inferior US version was only ever released on Goodtimes VHS in pretty poor quality. The original Czech version was released on a couple different DVDs varying in quality, but those were only Region 2 or 4 releases and never released in the US. They also didn't have any English subtitles. However, a friend of mine actually gathered some Czech guys and came up with some English subtitles for the film. You can find this on YouTube if you look around. I actually do own the Czech DVD and the Goodtimes VHS, so I see no harm in viewing it in this mode for myself with the English subtitles so I can finally appreciate the film and fully understand it. And to me it is a masterpiece of it's time.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047930/

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    Replies
    1. AlexWMcLeanJune 17, 2012 at 10:01 PM

      I have a VHS of that film. I found the thing in the Prattville MovieStop years ago for under a buck and figured I'd take a shot and see what it was about.

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  4. BlightJune 17, 2012 at 10:44 AM

    I'm surprised no one has mentioned Planet of the Dinosaurs.

    That's right, a movie about coming to a planet filled to the brim with dinosaurs! It's never clear whether or not the people weren't humans, went to an alien planet that happened to have monsters exactly the same as dinosaurs, or they went back in time to earth during the period of the dinosaurs. Regardless, the Dinosaurs were made with stop motion and looked like they were created using bubblegum. Lots of walking. You can actually find this film with Rifftrax done by Mike and Pals from MST3K.

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  5. Dinosaurs and More DinosaursJune 17, 2012 at 5:26 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Dinosaurs and More DinosaursJune 17, 2012 at 5:34 PM

    Well, wanted to add something not delete the above. The post was..

    Wow, "Journey to The Beginning Of Time". It aired in Los Angeles decades ago cut up into short segments as a "serial" on an afternoon kid's show. It would be great to see the original.

    We actually tried to get the rights to use clips in the first Gary and Eric dinosaur show, but ownership was very complex and ultimately impossible to license a clip.

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  7. DinosaurTheatreJune 17, 2012 at 6:41 PM

    It's right here!

    http://youtu.be/9bjRVQvgMlA

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  8. DerrickJune 17, 2012 at 11:22 PM

    That above link is the US version. Below is the original Czech version with the fan-made US subtitles I had mentioned.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqsu2AhuXxA

    It is really interesting to watch both versions of this film, but I will prefer the original version with these subtitles any day.

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  9. Joshua BallseJune 21, 2012 at 7:02 PM

    Does Super Mario Brothers count? Good ol Dennis Hopper, long may his memory live! And if that movie doesn't count, then def a tie between GORGO or The Crater Lake Monster!

    ~Josh

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