La planète des dinosaures

Remember the first 40 minutes of the original "Planet of the Apes" in which the surviving team of a spacecraft explore the desert-like environment of the mysterious planet wherein they crash? (It was the best part of the movie, except for the very end). Okay, imagine that scenario for an entire 84 minute flick, albeit WITHOUT notable actors, great soundtrack and first-rate filmmaking; not to mention replace the apes with dinosaurs. If you can picture that, and it sounds like your cup of java, you might want to pick up "Planet of the Dinosaurs."

This film is so amateurishly done on most levels that the average person would likely rate it pretty low. I grant it 5/10 Stars, however, for five reasons:

• The picture was filmed at Vasquez Rocks, Northeast of Los Angeles (I visited this park in July of 2003). If you're not in the know, this location is where many of the original Star Trek episodes where filmed, such as "Arena" wherein Captain Kirk fights the Lizardman.

• The stop-motion dinosaur animation is very good for the time period and, I hear, won some kind of an award when the film was released in the late '70s. It's pretty much on a par with "One Million Years B.C."

• There are four (count 'em, four) female survivors of the space wreck and two of them are babes (the other two aren't that bad either, that is, if you're stranded on a deserted planet). One beauty unfortunately gets eaten almost immediately, but the other survives for quite awhile. The latter, by the way, appears to be of Native American ancestry and her tight outfit shows off her midrift and bellybutton the entire stint she appears in the film. And, trust me, if you have any doubt that American Indian women can be truly beautiful, you need to see this fine piece of womanhood.

• After the first 20-30 minutes I was able to mentally adjust and accept the film's limitations; I strangely started to get into the story at this point and even care about the characters.

• Lastly, this is definitely not a kiddy flick, nor is it goofy, comedic or even campy. It's a serious sci-fi story.

If "Planet of the Dinosaurs" had better actors, sound, music and worked out various other kinks in the story, direction, etc. I would give it a higher rating.

BOTTOM LINE: It's worth picking up if (like me) you're a sucker for Sci-fi survival-on-deserted-planet type flicks. Just keep in mind it's strictly Grade Z and mental adjustments will have to be made to appreciate it.

"Planet of the Dinosaurs" has garnered a worthy "guilty pleasure" spot in the cult/independent film section of my video library.

GRADE: C+

I gave this sci-fi outing a 5 because of the incredible special effects. A stranded space crew must fend for itself on a primitive planet full of dinosaurs and the like. The dinosaurs are classic stop motion creatures, most probably by Jim Danforth, a student of Ray Harryhausen's and best known for his work on "The Outer Limits" and "Jack the Giant Killer." Danforth, if it was indeed he who worked on this film, obviously learned well from the master, not just the quality of the stop motion work but the blending of live and animated footage, employing a technique invented by Harryhausen called Dynamation or Super Dynamation. The human actors in this flick are pretty awful, and the plot is from nowheresville. But the dinosaurs make up for a good deal. I understand Harryhausen visited the set during production, so I'm not surprised by the excellence of the animated sequences..

Planet of Dinosaurs was one of those movies which I wanted for ages but got hold of it eventually.

A spaceship crashes onto a mysterious planet and its occupants discover they are millions of years into the past as this planet is occupied by dinosaurs (more of which later). After setting up camp following the spaceship's sinking in a lake, they explore the planet and start to live like stone age man. Several of the crew are eaten by the dinosaurs and the survivors accept they will be never rescued and have no choice but to make this planet their home.

Now to those dinosaurs, which are done in stop-motion and look excellent. These include a T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Policanthus and also a giant spider.

The cast is made up mostly of unknowns and their acting is certainly not brilliant.

Despite this, I rather enjoyed this movie and is worth watching just for the dinosaurs.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

First of all, this movie is awful - not good awful, worse, mediocre awful. Somewhere in California in the mid '70's someone was stoned and watched Planter of Apes and One Million Years BC one night and thought, Dude, I've got an idea for a movie!

Ah the 1970's where every man had a beard or mustache, space uniforms were tight polyester and Rule #1 was no one could look look dirty despite falling, running, etc.

I'm guessing they filmed the movie in days without ever doing a retake or, at the very least, only 1 retake was allowed per shot. Good enough was the mantra.

The Dinosaur stop motion was passable given the budget and direction.

Honestly this moving screams TV movie w/o any of the B or C List actors involved. Maybe the guy who was stoned when coming up with this movie had the right idea, watch with "help"

A spaceship crashes on a planet inhabited by dinosaurs and the (young, attractive, and scantily-dressed) crew struggles to stay alive. The special effects (the stop-motion dinosaurs) surprisingly good, for a low budget film. One by one members of the crew get eaten by carnivores, and you never know which one will be next. The debates amongst the crew members about various survival strategies are actually fairly reasonable, if you can get past the bad acting.

If you want to hear it with comedy riffs, get the "Rifftrax" version.