Showing posts with label stop motion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stop motion. Show all posts

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Dinosaur Movies: Part 7


If I absolutely had to pick my favorite movie special effects scene, I admit I would have a bit of a struggle. The Kong vs. T-Rex fight from the original King Kong would be on the short list. So would Ray Harryhausen-animated scenes such as Medusa in Clash of the Titans and the skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts.

But I might, in the end, go with the cowboys vs. Allosaurus scene from The Valley of Gwangi. A few men on horseback go after Gwangi the dinosaur with lassos, hoping to rope him into submission and use him as part of their Wild West show.

They don't stand a chance, of course, but it's a worthy effort.

-
-
-
-
-
--
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The Valley of Gwangi is a little slow getting started--the human characters are only mildly interesting and it takes 'em all a bit too long to get to that darn valley. But once there, the movie takes off like a bullet. They encounter a pterodactyl, which almost makes off with the young boy who accompanies them. Then they run into Gwangi. This eventually leads to their attempt to lasso the big guy. Gwangi drives off the humans and has a nifty fight with a styracosaurus before he's eventually caught and brought back to civilization.

Bringing a prehistoric creature back to civilization is never a good idea, though. Gwangi gets away, fights an elephant and stalks the hero through a huge cathedral.

All of this is made to work by Harryhausen's astonishing skill as an animator. He gives Gwangi life and personality--I love the brief moment where Gwangi pauses to scratch his nose. And--as I stated above--the scene in which the cowboys try to lasso the beast is simply magnificent.

This ends the dinosaur movie series--there's a lot more dino movies out there, but I've covered the cream of the pre-CGI crop. I will return to the subject of dinosaurs in popular fiction from time to time, though. Dinosaurs are, after all, far too cool to ignore.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Dinosaur Movies: Part 6





Everybody remembers One Million Years BC (1966) as the movie in which Raquel Welsh wears the fur bikini. She also had perfect hair--apparently, female hair care was invented even before the wheel or fire.



But my inner 8-year-old primarily remembers the magnificent Ray Harryhausen animation. A caveman vs. allosaurus fight; a ceratasaurus vs. triceratops fight; an all-too-brief shot of a brontosaurus walking through the desert; a giant turtle that I used to think was real (it was too life-like to be stop motion, I wrongly assumed during my errant youth).



It's all magnificent. The movie is a remake of a 1940 film that used photographically enlarged lizards to represent the dinosaurs. The remake does have a big lizard (and a big spider) appear briefly, but it otherwise sticks to stop motion to give us "real" dinosaurs.



The plot itself is perfectly servicable. Tumok of the barbaric Rock People is exiled from his tribe. He falls in with the peaceful Shell People. Despite helping save a child from a hungry allosaur, his uncouth ways tick off the Shell People and he's told to leave. But the beautiful Loana has fallen in love with him. She tags along with him as he braves the carnosaur-filled wilderness.




-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The plot, though, is really just an excuse to set up the dinosaur set pieces. Some of Harryhausen's finest work is on display here. My personal favorite scene is the fight at the Shell People village between the humans and a small (well, maybe 9-foot-tall) allosaurus. It's a perfect blend of animation and fight choreography.



But Ray Harryhausen's single best dinosaur moment would come three years later. We'll take a look at that one in Dinosaur Movies: Part 7

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Dinosaur Movies: Part 5

Dinosaurus (1960) presents us with yet another instance of dinosaurs being awakened from suspended animation, this time by a freak bolt of lightning. It's amazing how often that sort of thing happens.

This time, the setting is a small Caribbean island. The dinosaurs are a brontosaurus and a tyrannosaurus. There's a also a caveman who wakes up along with them, who encounters some hilarious culture shock when he tries to deal with things like mirrors and flush toilets.

The stop motion isn't anywhere near Ray Harryhausen-quality, but it still has the charm that seems to be an inherent part of the art form. The best scene is at the climax, in which the T-Rex does battle with a large contruction crane at the edge of a cliff.

But the human characters are also handled well. Most notably, the little kid who befriends the caveman and the bronto is likeable. All too often, "cute" kids in movies come across as annoying, but little Julio does okay for himself.

Also, the villain is appropriately vile and the hero acts intelligently. But it's the dinosaurs that make or break such movies. And any movie where you get to see a dinosaur fight some construction equipment is always worth your time.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Dinosaur Movies: Part 4

There's a great story behind The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). Ray Harryhausen was doing the special effects. When science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (a friend of Harryhausen) was visiting the set one day, someone asked him if he could take a look at the script and rewrite it.



Bradbury mentioned that the script seemed to be a lot like a story he'd written for the "Saturday Evening Post" a few years earlier. The next day, he recieved a telegram from Warner Brothers, asking to buy the rights to the story. Apparently, sometime during production, the crew had lost track of where they'd gotten the original story idea from.

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The finished movie really doesn't resemble Bradbury's story that closely. The original story is about a dinosaur--probably the last of his kind-- who mistakes a light house fog horn for a mating call.

The movie does include an atmospheric scene in which the dinosaur smashes a lighthouse, but mostly it follows the standard monster movie conceits of the 1950s. The dinosaur is frozen in the artic ice. A nuclear explosion thaws it out. It eventually makes its way to New York City, where it goes on a rampage before the puny humans figure out how to kill it.


In terms of plot and characters, there's nothing original here. (It may, though, be the first movie that uses a nuclear blast to revive/mutate a monster. Godzilla wouldn't put in his first appearance for another three years.)

In terms of special effects, it's still fun to watch. Ray Harryhausen is a true artist, able to give life and personality to the creatures he brought to the screen. The Rhedasaurus (a fictional species created for the movie) is fun to watch in every scene in which it appears. Its death scene at the movie's climax is particularly good.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms isn't the best dinosaur movie ever made. It's not the best Harryhausen film by far either. But it's a fun way to spend 80 minutes.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Dinosaur Movies: Part 3

When King Kong proved to be a huge hit for RKO Studios, the executives in charge quite naturally wanted a sequel as soon as possible. This was rushed through production and arrived in theaters before the end of 1933.

The character of Carl Denhem, running from countless lawsuits brought against him after Kong's rampage through the Big Apple, runs off to the South Pacific. Not surprisingly, circumstances soon bring him back to Skull Island.

Once there, he meets Kong Jr., a small (well, about 12 feet tall) albino version of his dad. He's not as grumpy as his dad, either. When a guilt-ridden Denham helps save little Kong from a pit of quicksand, the ape returns the favor by saving Denham and his friends from several different monsters.










-









-
Son of Kong doesn't have any thing close to the dramatic power of King Kong, but it's a fun film all the same. It's a little too slow in getting started and its increased emphasis on humor sometimes falls flat. Also, the ending is somewhat contrived, invovling the most conveniently timed earthquake ever. But little Kong's fights against a small sauropod and a cave bear are both imaginatively choreographed. Special effects wizard Willis O'Brien wasn't happy with the movie, but the quality of his work is still enormously high.

Making a sequel to a great film is always a dangerous proposition--the filmmakers have so much to live up to. If we compare Son of Kong with the King Kong in terms of overall quality, then the later film doesn't stand up at all.

But if we look at it for what it is--a good B-movie with some nifty stop-motion fight scenes--then it holds up perfectly well. It has the same sense of pure, simple fun infused through it as did the B-movie detective films of the same decade.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Dinosaur Movies: Part 2



The original King Kong (1933) wasn't trying to be an epic. It just kinda turned out that way.

With Willis O'Brien's wonderful stop-motion animation giving the movie backbone and heart, this fairly straightforward adventure story is perhaps the single most entertaining and entrancing film ever made.

Everyone knows the plot--or if you don't, you should be taken outside and shot. A filmmaker named Carl Denham, famous for shooting jungle pictures on location, sponsors a trip to a previously undiscovered island. He isn't sure what might be there at first--but he's pretty sure it'll look good on film.

Boy, was he ever right. Not that he gets a chance to do much photography. He and Jack Driscoll (first mate of the ship that brought them to the island) are soon hip deep in dinosaurs, desperately trying to save leading lady Ann Darrow from the clutches of a giant ape named Kong.









-









The two heroes (along with a rapidly shrinking group of sailors) encounter a stegasaurus and a brontosaurus before Kong knocks most of them into a pit. Kong himself then battles--in rapid succession--a tyrannosaur, an elasmosaur and a pteradactyl. Eventually, the big ape is gassed unconcious and brought back to New York for exhibit. That proves to be a very bad idea.


The special effects are backed up by strong direction and photography. The dinosaur stuff is so much fun it makes your toes curl--especially Kong's classic fight against the T-Rex.




It's interesting to compare the original film to Peter Jackson's 2005 remake. (We will, of course, pretend the 1976 remake does not exist.) The 1933 film sets out to be a simple (in terms of story and theme) adventure film. It was done so well it became an epic story on its own merits.


Jackson (a brilliant filmmaker who did a great job with Lord of the Rings) tries to make an epic and largely fails. His King Kong demonstrates that CGI special effects can be a work of art (Skull Island looks fantastic), but he practically beats us over the head with the idea that we are supposed to be sympathetic to Kong, rather than trusting to the story to make this point. He adds a number of unnecessary characters and the film as a whole runs far too long.


And he jiggles the stupid camera all over the place during Kong's fight with a couple of big carnosaurs, so you can't really follow the action. NOTE TO ALL CONTEMPORARY FILMMAKERS: HOLD THE CAMERA STEADY!!!!!!!!!!


So its the original film that is still the true classic. It's still the best darn dinosaur film ever.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Dinosaur movies--part 1


The 1925 movie adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's movie The Lost World is unabashedly in love with its dinosaurs. And, by golly, it should be.



The story is the prototype of all the future "lost world" books and films. A group of explorers discover a remote area (in this case--a nearly inaccessible plateau in the South Amercian jungle) in which dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures have survived. In the book, the expedition reaches the plateau, has a run in with one or two dinosaurs, then gets involved in a genocidal war between a tribe of Indians and a tribe of primitive cavemen.


It's a great story, highlighed by the wonderful character of the cantakerous Professor Challenger, who heads up the expedition. But the movie opts to reduce the Indian/caveman war to an appearance by one ill-tempered apeman, thus leaving more time for more dinosaurs.


With Willis O'Brien, the pioneer of stop-motion animation, heading up the special effects, this is exactly the right decision. O'Brien and Marcel Delgado (who built the models) do a wonderful job of bringing extinct creatures back to life and giving them personality.





Again and again, the movie breaks away from the human characters just to show a few more minutes of dinosaurs battling one another. Towards the end of the film, a volcano erupts and there's a massive dinosaur stampede that is as delightful to watch today as it was 83 years ago.


The finale, in which a brontosaurus brought back to civilization escapes and rampages through London, was the start of a long and honorable tradition of movie monsters destroying a modern metropolis.





In fact, the dinosaurs easily outshine the human actors. Due to some poor editing when the movie was originally released (exasperated by some footage being lost over the years), the actual story has some narrative and pacing problems. All the same, Wallace Berry is excellent as Professor Challenger and the remaining actors do a fine job with their roles.





But it will always be the dinosaurs that are the most important element of this movie. In 1925, stop-motion was still a new technology. In fact, when Arthur Conan Doyle showed the film to a group of stage magicians (including Harry Houdini), nobody could figure out how the special effects were done. Somebody even suggested the filmmakers must have found live dinosaurs somewhere.


Nowadays, with all of us spoiled by modern CGI effects, we're not fooled at all. And O'Brien's animation on The Lost World isn't quite as smooth as it would be 8 years later when he brought King Kong to life.


But the movie is still fun to watch. Stop-motion has its own charm--a look and feel that brings the viewer more fully into a fantasy world than the "perfect" look of CGI can ever do.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...