Sunday, May 29, 2005

A Change of Pace

You may have noticed a section in my links called "Here There be Monsters..." I am actually quite addicted to Monster Movies. I prefer the older ones especially anything staring Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr or Bela Lugosi. I also like anything with Chris Lee (last seen as Saruman)or Peter Cushing (last seen as Darth Vader's right hand man Grand Moff Tarkin) - anything with Godzilla in it is also good.
I bring this up because yesterday I watched all three Jurassic Park movies and had a couple of thoughts on them - the fact that I just did a longish post on Stegosaurs also factored into it.
There is a tradition in horror movies dating back to 1925's The Lost World to portray dinosaurs as nothing but killing machines wandering from one killed beast to the next with nary a pause for dinner.
Lost World 1925 Posted by Hello


King Kong continued the tradition. While they are still on Skull Island Kong has to fight off any number of dinosaurs. There is also the scene with the Stegosaurus and the scene with the bronto - umm - apatosaurus (where a large majority of the crew are killed).

King Kong 1933 Posted by Hello


Valley of the Gwanji , made in 1969, continued the trend. Gwanji (I have never quite made up my mind whether it was supposed to be a T-rex or an allosaurus) roamed the valley indiscriminately killing anything that moved.

Valley of the Gwanji 1969 Posted by Hello


In some ways the Jurassic Park movies are a continuation of this trend. Granted the herbivorous dinosaurs are portrayed somewhat realistically, but the carnivores still kill anything that moves - even if it just ate.