Dinosaurs fighting in Robot Monster...is it animal cruelty?

[vukxfiles]

I've been wondering about the fighting dinosaurs scene from near the beginning of Robot Monster, where we clearly see a crocodile grabbing a monitor lizard by the leg and doing the death roll. I've been wanting to ask anyone if the monitor lizard was real or was it just a toy, because if it was real, the movie portrayed animal cruelty.

Oh, and yes, I know the scene isn't actually from Robot Monster, but from another movie.

[Psycho Circus]

But it's an animal killing another animal? If you feel very strongly that that's animal cruelty, then you better not watch the Discovery channel anytime soon...

[vukxfiles]

Yes, but the guys who made the scene put the two animals together on the purpouse of one of the getting killed. Just like someone putting a poodle in shark infested waters just to shoot a scene for a movie.

[Flick James]

In that case anyone who owns a boa constrictor, or python, or any other large constricting snake is guilty of animal cruelty on a regular basis.

[vukxfiles]

In that case, the person is feeding his pet, and is not shooting a movie scene to make money off of it. Every death should have a meaning, in the case of a boa, the mouses death's meaning is to feed another animal, as it would do so in the wild. In the case of this particular scene there isn't any natural meaning.

[Javakoala]

Just like someone putting a poodle in shark infested waters just to shoot a scene for a movie.

Isn't this the definition of "a great idea"?  Not a poodle fan.

Technically, what you are referring to is animal cruelty. But if that is something you feel you should avoid watching, then you can forget a crapload of Westerns prior to the 70s. They used trip wires often and a number of horses broke legs and most of those had to be put down.

I understand I'm watching something I wouldn't accept in this day and age. If I felt personally wronged enough, I would just not watch the movie. But then I have low morals, and I drink a lot these days, so what do I know?

[vukxfiles]

I'm not really that emotional towards the subject, I was just wondering if a real monitor lizard was used or a fake one, and if this scene can be considered animal cruelty?

[WingedSerpent]

Just like someone putting a poodle in shark infested waters just to shoot a scene for a movie.

You've been reading my screenplay!...just kidding.

As far as I know real animals where used and killed for that scene.  Today, it would be considered animal cruelty, but back when the movie was made-laws probably weren't that strict about these sorts of things. Doesn't mean it was right, just not illegal.  It reminds me of an interesting conversation I had with some friends about what you can and cannot get away with today vs what could be done back then in films.

[JaseSF]

Are yo talking about the stock footage of lizards fighting from ONE MILLION B.C. that was used and re-used in countless films?

[vukxfiles]

Yes

[JaseSF]

Well you have to remember that ONE MILLION B.C. was released in 1940 and different rules applied in those times. I'm sure at the time they saw it as a low budget way to giving people "dinosaurs" in a film that really didn't have any (unlike Willis O'Brien stop-motion dinos in 1925's THE LOST WORLD). Ignatz and Rumsford would appear in many more films over the years, the stock footage from this was reused right up till the 1970s if I'm not mistaken.