Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)

Simply A Masterpiece

A lot of fun.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

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..

Lazy entertainment, which leads to a good way of spending your Saturday/Sunday afternoon. This low-budget, independent feature sees a stranded group of astronauts (in flashy sport tracksuits!) on a planet inhabited by dinosaurs. First they are simply trying to survive and wait for help, but eventually decide to turn that around and take on the predators. Largely that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex who's hunting them and goes on to demonstrate quite a few crushing headlocks.It's perfect b-grade fluff, which delivers on what the title suggests. It's hard to put my finger on it, but even though it's terribly shoddy and lamentable with it's laughably forced dialogues (moralistic claptrap), indifferent acting (with James Whitworth dominating the screen) and a chintzy electronic score with an eerie experimental side. However it consists of charm, some atypical touches and technically speaking the stop-motion animation looks impressive. For such a low-end production it's capably executed. Surprisingly it can be quite exploitative in its violence too. Director James K. Shea mixes many lively moments (mainly the prehistoric encounters) with ponderous stages (focusing on the turmoil or interactions between the group), but he commendably uses the weathered and rough terrain good enough.

After the success of Star Wars, there was a boost in interest in Sci-Fi movies. This was one of those cheap attempts to cash in quickly.A group of survivors from a spaceship land on a planet inhabited by stop-motion dinosaurs, where half of them are systematically killed off (the people not the dinosaurs). Porn-movie level acting. Cheap special effects, even for the time, although it looks like a lot of effort was put into them.Costumes were pure 1970's, as were the hairstyles. Ahh, the 70's. I expected a disco to break out at any minute.Nothing to really recommend in this film.

Planet of Dinosaurs is not a terrible movie, but neither is it terribly good. The main attraction is the stop-motion dinosaur effects. They are done fairly well, but other than that, there isn't much to see here.The acting ranges from passable (James Whitworth of The Hills Have Eyes), to downright wooden (Chuck Pennington as standard issue beefcake). The script does not manage to create any sympathy for our stranded astronauts, so it is merely a matter of waiting around to see who gets eaten by the dinos and who survives. By the end, I really didn't care. None of the cast behaves remotely like a real astronaut would in this situation and their performances aren't helped by the mediocre sound looping.Another problem in the film is that several of the scenes taking place at night or in a cave are so badly lit that it is nearly impossible to see what is taking place. I know this was low budget, but couldn't they have gotten some decent lighting? The film is only 84 minutes so it passes quickly and rather painlessly, however, you would do better to rent an older Harryhausen film like Beast From 20,000 Fathoms or Valley of Gwangi to see how to do it right on a budget.