March 16, 2011
The Dinosaur and the Missing Link
It’s easy to take computer-generated dinosaurs for granted. They are everywhere from commercials and documentaries to Hollywood films. But a century ago, filmmakers had to bring dinosaurs to life the old fashioned way. Frame by frame and centimeter by centimeter, poseable models provided the best way to bring dinosaurs to life.
In 1917, special effects artist Willis O’Brien released a short silent film called The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy. It’s a strange bit of cinema. Cavemen, the ape-like “missing link” and an ornery sauropod dinosaur act as the players in this early precursor to films like 1981′s Caveman. Crude though they were, these stop-motion creatures created by O’Brien would help launch his film career. Better known as the special effects wizard behind The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933), O’Brien was among the first filmmakers to resurrect dinosaurs on film, leaving an impressive legacy still carried on by special effects experts today.
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I just wish I could go to the theatre and see more stop-motion dinosaurs. But if I want to see that, I have to do it myself.
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Scott: We came close with the first Jurassic Park, but, as much as I love Phil Tippett’s work, I have to saw that the puppets and cgi dinos worked better. Still, the stop motion dinosaurs in the documentary Dinosaur! – the one hosted by Christopher Reeve – are still among my favorites.
don’t forget Ghost of Slumber Mountain. O’Brien did that one too. And if i remember correctly: didn’t the velociraptors in the stop-motion tests have a flickering tongue?
Doug: Thanks for mentioning Slumber Mountain. I didn’t include it in the post because I assumed that most people would not have heard of it. And yes, Tippett’s stop-motion Velociraptor had flicking tongues. In the supplementary materials on the Jurassic Park dvd, I remember seeing some test footage from the kitchen scene.