March 18, 2024

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend

Intro:

This is a series on old dinosaur movies. Specifically, I am looking at anything released before 1990; before Jurassic Park revolutionized cinema with its CGI animation. I will not be covering anything "dinosaur-adjacent", such as kaiju monsters like Godzilla or the creature from The Giant Behemoth, which are perhaps inspired by dinosaurs, but clearly not meant to represent any real world genus. I will also be skipping over films that are heavily dependent on "borrowed" footage from other films, such as the Valley of the Dragons / Prehistoric Valley.

Also known as: Dinosaur...Secret of the Lost Legend

Runtime: 1 hr 35 min

 

Background:

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend is a 1985 American film produced by Walt Disney Studios under their Touchstone Films label, which they used for films with more mature themes. The movie used a combination of life-sized animatronics and puppets worn by people who had to be tended by medics every few minutes due to the severe filming conditions. Temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, hot water was only available once every few days, food quality was poor, power outages were common, vehicles would get stuck in clay mud, and each tribe spoke a different language making communication difficult. In an interview, William Katt (George Loomis) recalled having to film in murky, crocodile infested water with an armed man positioned in a tree to fend off wild animal attacks. The crew was often sick with parasites and malaria, and was once attacked by a mob wielding machetes because one of their vehicles (according to what they were told) had run over and killed a local women. This is one of those movies where the story of how it was made is more interesting than the movie itself.

The concept for 'Baby' was inspired by the real-life legend of mokele-mbembe (Lingala for "one who stops the flow of rivers"), a water-dwelling entity said to live in the Congo River Basin. Descriptions vary widely, but mokele-mbembe is generally said to be an elephant-sized creature, either corporeal or ethereal, with smooth skin and a horn; possibly a mixture of mythology and folk memory from a time when black rhinoceroses thrived in the region. It wasn't until newspapers published reports during the 'dino rush' of the 1910s that mokele-mbembe took on a more sauropod-like appearance. This sparked various expeditions by cryptozoologists with funding from young Earth creationists hoping to find evidence against evolution. Today most scientists and historians doubt the creature's existence due to a lack of evidence after a century of searching.

Plot Summary:

Paleontologist Dr. Susan Loomis finds evidence of sauropods living in Central Africa in the form of a non-fossilized vertebrae, although her post-doctoral advisor Dr. Eric Kiviat believes the bones to be from a giraffe (even though sauropod and mammal vertebrae look nothing alike). When the local congolese village gets sick from eating an animal the chief describes as looking like a brontosaurus, Susan and her husband, George Loomis, charter a plane into the jungle. Their pilot, Kenge Obe, arranges to pick them up in two days.

They have a brief run-in with a tribe that welcomes them to a community fire dance after swapping food and handing out photographs. When Susan mentions mokele-mbembe to Cephu the chief, the tribe mysteriously vanishes back into the jungle. Later that night, they are aroused from their sleep by a brontosaurus investigating their tent. In the morning they follow the trail left behind to a small family group of brontosaurs which they tame with food. The juvenile is nicknamed "Baby".


Dr. Eric, fully aware that the vertebrae Susan found was not from a giraffe but from a dinosaur, seeks to find mokele-mbembe for fame and fortune. With aid from his partner, Nigel Jenkins, and the local military led by Colonel Nsogbu, they manage to tranquilize the female brontosaurus and gun down the male when he tries to protect his mate. Susan and George escape with Baby, but decide to circle back to rescue the female brontosaurus. Both are captured by Eric and subsequently escape, but not before Eric frames them for the recent murder of Nsogbu, which he committed, and convinces the local military that the Loomises are with the CIA.

"It was one of two. Now that is a one of a kind specimen." -Colonel Nsogbu

 
Using fire as a distraction, Susan and George break into the military compound with help from Kenge and Cephu's tribe, who see Baby and his parents as mythical creatures. Nigel is electrocuted to death by loose wires and Eric is mauled to death by Baby's mother. Susan and George watch Baby and his mother swim away - presumably the last of their kind, and agree to keep the story of mokele-mbembe as a legend.

Thoughts:

Baby has your standard good-guy bad-guy narrative with decent acting. Susan and George work fine as a couple and the effects, while not always convincing, still manage to be an impressive technological feat. There is a good amount of screen-time dedicated to the dinosaurs and the actors interacting with them directly in the same frame, which is something you don't always get with stop-motion dinosaur movies. There is a wholesomeness and charm to it, mixed in with stabbings, shootings, chase scenes, and explosions. There is blood (not a lot) and full frontal nudity, although it is cultural and not sexual in nature, as it is only seen with the African tribes and reflects how many of them still dress today.

Baby didn't do well financially and likley struggled to find an audience because the plot is too silly for adults while simultaneously being too mature for children. At its heart I believe Baby is a children's film, but because of its darker elements parents should probably watch it for themselves and then decide if their child can handle it. 

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