Planet of Dinosaurs

source: Planet of Dinosaurs

Planet of Dinosaurs is a wonderful movie. It opens with dramatic scary music and images of dinosaurs and a spider. These people in a gigantic spaceship have some disaster in space. Part of the spaceship explodes or something. They crash land on an Earth-like planet in a lake or something. They get out of the ship and it sinks. This is like Planet of the Apes, and with the name Planet of Dinosaurs, it is obvious that this is imitating Planet of the Apes. They discover that there are dinosaurs and other animals on the planet. Some are killed by them and they kill a tyrannosaurus which had killed some of them, making them much safer. I think the idea of the movie is that the planet had life come about on it millions of years later than on Earth and was in the dinosaur stage of evolution. But it's very unlikely that humans would ever land on a planet like that because evolution doesn't have a way it always goes. Life isn't programmed to evolve the way it did on Earth. The monster special effects in the movie are probably the best of all the dinosaur movies before Jurassic Park.

Planet of the Dinosaurs is a science fiction masterpiece. A group of space traveling humans are in their space ship when they realize that it is about to crash. So they land on a planet before their space ship crashes, landing it in the water but the ship sinks down before they can save it. They then begin to travel across the planet in hopes of making a signal that will allow them to be rescued. Along the way they find out that there are dinosaurs on the planet, in particular a bloodthirsty Tyrannosaurus. So the struggle for survival on this planet soon becomes more of an issue than trying to escape from the planet. This is a great plot for a science fiction film. Space travelers find themselves stranded on a planet that is inhabited by Dinosaurs. Brilliant!! Acting is good too, there is a good bond between the characters in this film. I always liked survival type films and this film is one of those. The dinosaurs look really good in this film. They really did a good job making the dinosaurs look real. The Tyrannosaurus is the main focus dinosaur in this film and is a great bad guy dinosaur. Other dinosaurs appearing include Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Strithiumimus, Styracosaurus, and a dinosaur that closely resembles the Rhedosaurus from "The Beast From 20000 Fathoms". The only complaint I have has to do with a few illogical parts, nothing too bad. There is one part where the Tyrannosaurus eats a Brontosaurus and then a few minutes later eats a Stegosaurus. I mean, there is no way that he could possibly be hungry. They just wanted to portray it as a terrifying monster and it is not entirely accurate. But it is a movie so it does not have to be realistic. There is a lot of great action in this film. Both between humans and dinosaurs as well as Dinosaurs against Dinosaurs. This movie will keep you entertained. Great dinosaur film, really underrated one. Highly recommend it.

After the success of Star Wars, there was a boost in interest in Sci-Fi movies. This was one of those cheap attempts to cash in quickly. A group of survivors from a spaceship land on a planet inhabited by stop-motion dinosaurs, where half of them are systematically killed off (the people not the dinosaurs). Porn-movie level acting. Cheap special effects, even for the time, although it looks like a lot of effort was put into them. Costumes were pure 1970's, as were the hairstyles. Ahh, the 70's. I expected a disco to break out at any minute. Nothing to really recommend in this film.

First, This movie was made in 1978. So that tells you that the movie is going to be bad anyway.But I am not saying that all old movies are bad . Second, The special effects we're terrible for even that time. Finally, The acting was so bad, Bozo The Clown could have done it better. It makes you wonder how people get the money to make movies this pathetic. This movie sucks!

A spaceship in some unspecified future where human beings are equipped for space travel and have laser guns for weapons, crash lands on a strange young planet where dinosaurs are coincidentally also evolved and only on this world, have not gone extinct...yet. The survivors of the crash, roughly ten bland characters wearing blue, white, and yellow suits, fight for survival against the alien prehistoric monsters. "Planet of the Dinosaurs" is a peculiar movie. Like I said in my summary above, the stop-motion animated dinosaurs in the film are the only colorful actors. The models are crude, but effectively animated. And they are much more fascinating and intriguing than these characters portrayed by inexperienced actors and speaking lines from a script that must have been written overnight without a single revision. Obviously, most of the budget was put into the dinosaurs, and although there is a fair share of them, there's not nearly enough to save us from our boredom. These human characters are only there to scream, run around, and mutter these poorly-written and verbose speeches about survival. And unfortunately, not nearly enough of them get eaten by the dinosaurs. Overall, "Planet of the Dinosaurs" is not a film I plan on seeing again. Some people will simply love it for being so cheap and so poorly made. Sometimes, I enjoy movies like this. But this particular film is just too long, too boring, and very exhausting on the mind.

Planet of Dinosaurs starts deep in uncharted space where the spacecraft Odyssey has run into problems with it's reactor, which explodes but not before Captain Lee Norsythe (Louie Lawless) & his crew manage to escape in a spare shuttle designed for just such an occasion. The craft lands on the nearest planet which helpfully has exactly the same atmosphere as Earth so everyone can breathe & walk around properly, in fact the planet looks very much like Earth. As the stranded survivors wait to be rescued they discover the planet is infested with prehistoric dinosaurs which want to eat them & communications officer Cindy (Mary Appleseth) is the first to end up as dinosaur food. They must learn to adapt to their surroundings in order to survive as they wait for the rescue party to show up, but being in uncharted space will a rescue team ever turn up? Produced & directed by James K. Shea Planet of Dinosaurs is a bit of an obscurity, certainly here in the UK it is anyway but like any good good sci-fi/horror/monster film fan I finally managed to track a copy down after a pretty long search. Unfortunately like most films you look forward to seeing for such a long period the final product didn't live up to my hopes but I still found it an enjoyable piece of sci-fi. The script by Ralph Lucas tries to be different & succeeds to an extent but it is a bit uneven as it can moves along at a nice pace & then suddenly become frustratingly dull. There are good ideas here, the usual soul searching, having to cope without technology & the lack of clichés although I think that might be down to the filmmakers not being able to write proper characterisation as most of the character's in Planet of Dinosaurs seem lifeless, surplus to requirements & undistinguished. I wasn't convinced by the logic that if they killed the T-Rex everything would be alright & that it was the only living T-Rex on the planet, surely there would be more than one T-Rex? When it's good it's very entertaining but when it's bad it's embarrassing. However, I would recommend it to sci-fi/monster fans who I'm sure would enjoy it to some degree. Director Shea must have been working on a low budget & I think he did a pretty good job. The real star of Planet of Dinosaurs are the special effects which are extremely impressive when all is considered, I mean don't expect it to be on a par with the latest multi million CGI work but their very good in their own right. The stop-motion animation is great & so is the interaction between them & the human cast. From T-Rex's to a Stegosaurus & from a Brontosaurus to Triceratops & the filmmakers even manage to stick a giant spider in there. There's some cool dinosaur sequences that impressed me, it's just a shame that the rest of the film isn't quite as impressive suffering from a somewhat repetitive story which doesn't really go anywhere. Technically the film varies, from the impressive special effects & dinosaurs to the awful sound as it's painfully obvious that the entire film is badly dubbed throughout. The acting is pretty poor which doesn't help but the dinosaurs are the real stars here... Planet of Dinosaurs was something that little bit different, the special effects are good & I found it a very watchable way to pass just over 80 minutes. Definitely worth a watch if you can find a copy. Footage from Planet of Dinosaurs was edited into no less than four other films, The Phantom Empire (1986), Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991), Galaxy of the Dinosaurs (1992) & Teenage Cavegirl (2004) while it uses the monster from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) in one of it's scenes.

Planet of the Dinosaurs is one of the funniest unintentional comedy movies that I have ever seen. It is right up there with "Twin Sitters," "The Ice Cream Man," and "Maniac Cop 3." The acting is awful, the special affects are terrible even for their time (Star Wars came out a year before it), and the logic of the crew is comparable to a pack of drunk gorillas. The only saving grace of the film is Harvey Shain's performance. His wisecracks are second to none, and he seems to be the only one that realizes what a piece of crap he is appearing in, and therefore doesn't take it seriously. He also has the funniest death scene ever recorded on film. The only reason I would recommend this movie is for a good laugh.

One of the amusing things about this movie is that it looks so much like a porno film, but instead of sex you get action scenes with pretty well done effects. The rest is a laugh riot; but a touchingly well meaning one. You can now find this film on a "Goodtimes" video release with the watershead dino/kids flick "Journey To The Beginning Of Time" on a double bill. If you dig dinos and the seventies, you could hardly do better.

I received this movie as a birthday present from my new uncle when I was about 5. I must say that while it is an unabashedly "B" movie, it is an acquired taste. It has grown on me to the point that I love it. The characters, while unbelievably amateur in their portrayal, are a fond memory of my childhood and make this movie a pleasant diversion from the mundane world.