Still Lovin’ Vintage SyFy Movies…
If there’s still a ten-year-old boy buried in you somewhere, you can appreciate vintage 1960 science fiction movies like Dinosaurus, because hey, who among us wouldn’t jump at the chance to fight a T-Rex with a steam shovel?! You’ve always wanted to, right? ‘Fess up, now… 🦖
We all know that explosives, atomic or otherwise, can unleash beasts from the past from the ocean bottom, frozen underground rivers, you name it. So when blasting to expand a harbor on a Caribbean island brings a T-Rex, Brontosaurus, and caveman to the surface that are reanimated by lightning, you all know that mayhem is gonna ensue…but a least you may get a dinosaur ride out of it!
Possibly this girl below has had worse dates than this one, too. At least she doesn’t have to provide an intellectually stimulating conversation…
Now the climatic scene of Dinosaurus featured a foreman (Caucasian, of course!) in an excavator battling a T-Rex on the edge of a precipice. This has got to be iconic for brains versus brawn, or the modern versus the primitive…and we’ve seen variations on this theme play out on cinema screens since, such as Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in a power lifter suit fighting the formidable alien queen in Aliens…
Well, our human hero in Dinosaurus gives the T-Rex several uppercuts with the earth mover bucket before deciding that he can get better momentum against the carnivore by swinging the whole rig around against him, a tactic which wins the day and gives us hope for tourism on that Caribbean island…hooray for heavy equipment manufacturers and Earth-denuding capitalism! 😸
Whether it’s for simple nostalgic value, to laugh along with outdated special effects, or to simply appreciate the heritage of the genre, vintage science fiction movies continue to be a kick to watch…
Tags: Dinosaurus, vintage science fiction
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FOXSYLVANIA 
September 3, 2023 at 4:35 pm
I’ve never seen this! It seems to have influenced Carnosaur (1993).
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September 4, 2023 at 12:40 pm
Of course, we must never forget the biggest influencer of all. Willis O’Brien! The stop-motion pioneer who gave us the silent film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World.” And, of course, the 1933 classic KING KONG.
I wonder how many people ever stopped to realize that his fights with the T-rex, the plesiosaur, and the pteranodon were supposed to represent Kong’s mastery over land, sea, and air (at least, on Skull Island)?
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September 5, 2023 at 4:42 pm
Of course, there is always an opposite extreme. Take, for example, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. The Doug McClure vehicle (very loosely based on the eponymous ERB novel) which featured rubber-suited dinosaurs that make even the corniest of the Showa-era Toho daikaiju flicks look like Oscar nominees for Best Picture!
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