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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Bad Movies  |  The Last Dinosaur (1977) « previous next »
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Author Topic: The Last Dinosaur (1977)  (Read 4534 times)
akiratubo
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« on: June 06, 2016, 11:03:26 PM »

Billionaire industrialist/hunter/author/celebrity/rich old white man stereotype Maston Thrust (!!!!!) announces to a crowd of reporters that one of his subterranean drilling machines (!!!!!) has discovered a lost world complete with dinosaurs under the Antarctic ice.  He intends to personally lead a further expedition there, along with a couple of other white people who will survive and a couple of non-whites who can be safely killed by dinosaurs without upsetting middle America.

Almost as soon as the group reaches the prehistoric world, they are set upon by a gigantic t. rex.  They repeatedly say the thing is 25 feet long, but that's bull pucky.  It must be at the very least fifty feet tall and around a hundred feet long -- if not even bigger.  For instance, the drilling machine is said to be about ten feet in diameter, and the t. rex can easily pick it up in its mouth (without even opening as far as it is able) and carry it.  Anyway, Bunta, Thrust's African friend/henchman/tracker, etc, seems to be setting himself up for a heroic sacrifice to distract it so the white people can escape.  Perhaps not wanted its movie to be that hackneyed, the t. rex refrains from killing the black guy first, instead heading off to kill the Japanese scientist (who stayed behind to "set up camp" while the others went exploring).  This is also when it hijacks the drilling machine.

A very odd thing happens when the t. rex brings the drilling machine back to its lair.  While the t. rex tries to bury it under some rocks, a triceratops bursts forth from under the ground (?!?!) and starts a fight!  Huh?  What?  I mean ... what?   It immediately inflicts a fatal not very serious wound on the t. rex.  You'd think a t. rex might, I dunno, use its ginormous mouth full of pointy teeth as its primary weapon but you'd apparently think wrong.  No, the tyrant lizard prefers to kick its opponent into submission.

Meanwhile, the group has returned to camp to find Dr. Fujimoto, or whatever his name was, dead and the drilling machine gone.  Well, darn.  An unspecified amount of time passes.  The movie wants us to think it was a long time but no one's hair has grown and no one's clothes seem to be all that dirty, either.  There has been time, however, for Thrust to build a crossbow out of "parts", which he uses to murder the cavemen who pester them from time to time.  The t. rex comes around to harass them every so often, too.  Oh, and a cavegirl has developed the hots for Thrust and hangs around, trying to get into his pants.

Eventually, the t. rex kills Bunta, which sends Thrust off the deep end.  He becomes obsessed with killing "the last dinosaur".  The other guy, the one with the gap between his incisors, finds the t. rex's lair and the drilling machine, which is apparently undamaged and still has enough fuel to get them back to the real world.  The t. rex considerately doesn't bother the group while they set to work digging the machine out and getting ready to go.  Thrust, unconcerned with leaving, spends his time building a catapult.  The t. rex, again rather considerately, meanders directly into the perfect position for Thrust to shoot it.  The boulder he launches at the t. rex bounces off the rubber costume, which "boings" very noticeably harmlessly deflects off the giant dinosaur's thick skull.

Everyone else is like, "Oh, well, see ya," and leaves.  Thrust dejectedly walks into the jungle, with the roars of the t. rex and other stuff surrounding him.

What the hell was going on in 1977?  Were monster movies so out of vogue that a few producers decided to commission the worst ones ever made to kill the genre completely?  That was also the year that Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds got made, after all.  The Last Dinosaur is not nearly as bad, if only because you can laugh at parts of it, whereas Legend ... is about as funny as having hot needles shoved into your perineum.  The funny parts are, of course, when the t. rex shows up.  Every single time it appears on screen, you can expect something hilarious to happen.  The burrowing triceratops, for instance, or the even more gut-busting scene where Thrust ties a boulder to its tail (don't ask) and sends it rolling down a mountain.  Like most monster movies, The Last Dinosaur is varying degrees of intolerable whenever the monster isn't around, but this is mitigated somewhat by Richard Boone's performance as Thrust.  He alternates between "has-been actor ashamed at what he's doing for a paycheck these days" and "has-been actor way too drunk to care what he's doing for a paycheck these days".

And the music!  Good grief!  The composer apparently let his kid hammer away at the synthesizer and called it a day.  It's utterly trippy and is so unsuitable for the movie, it somehow loops all the way back around to perfect.  (Like, for another example, the music from Ladyhawke.)  While watching, I realized I had seen The Last Dinosaur on TV as a kid.  It was during the burrowing triceratops fight, a scene which I had convinced myself I had dreamed or imagined, because the music made it too psychedelic an experience to believe.

Now, let me tell you the absolute funnest thing to do while watching this movie: pick out each and every monster roar the t. rex makes.  It uses just about every monster roar in the Tsuburaya monster roar library.  Godzilla is only the most easily identifiable example.  I guarantee you can pick out at least three or four others.
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indianasmith
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« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2016, 03:58:44 PM »

I saw this on TV as a kid!  I remember that goofy theme song's closing chorus:

"His time is past, there are no more;
He is the last dinosaur."
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BoyScoutKevin
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« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2016, 04:27:06 PM »

I saw this as well on TV, but . . .?! I was no longer a kid, when I saw it. Though, I do remember there are two things to remember about it.

1st. It stars Richard Boone.

2nd. T Rex's must have the hardest head in the dinosaur kingdom. Just watch as the rubber boulder bounces off its head without even phasing it.
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Skull
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« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2016, 09:27:59 AM »

Is it me but wouldn't this movie would be an awesome remake :)
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Ted C
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« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2016, 09:42:18 AM »

I think I still have mental scars from seeing that on TV as a child.
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claws
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« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2016, 12:56:26 PM »

I was just about to ask if the badness is comparable to The Crater Lake Monster (1977) when I saw the high IMDb rating and the Warner logo on the poster art.

Now I'm confused  Question
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Flangepart
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« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2016, 03:20:50 PM »

Yup. Goofy story, goofy end credits song, Paladin earning a house payment,...
Hey, wern't the FX by Toho?
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akiratubo
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« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2016, 06:36:51 PM »

1977 was an even worse year for giant monsters than I realized.

The Last Dinosaur
Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds
The Crater Lake Monster
Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century
Empire of the Ants
Mighty Peking Man
Orca (kind of counts)

Kee-ripes what a bunch of stinkers.
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Skull
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« Reply #8 on: June 09, 2016, 02:05:05 PM »

1977 was an even worse year for giant monsters than I realized.


Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds


I've googled the trailer and it looked awesome!!!!

:)
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WingedSerpent
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« Reply #9 on: June 09, 2016, 09:44:09 PM »

1977 was an even worse year for giant monsters than I realized.

The Last Dinosaur
Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds
The Crater Lake Monster
Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century
Empire of the Ants
Mighty Peking Man
Orca (kind of counts)

Kee-ripes what a bunch of stinkers.

I actually like a lot of these.

Its been awhile since I've seen The Last Dinosaur and Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds, but I do remember liking them.  It takes a lot to make me hate a movie with dinosaurs in it.  The only dino movie I can think of that I out right despised was the The Land of the Lost remake.

The Crater Lake Monster has some decent stop motion.  And its particularly funny when it doesn't try to give its day for night shots any sort of darken filter at all.  One of the scenes I remember is  a couple on a boat commenting on how lovely the stars are, and its clearly a bright sunny day.

And Orca is one of the more enjoyable JAWS rip-offs.

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