The Last Dinosaur

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:

Polar Probe Ship: Polar Borer
The Last Dinosaur: Sub-Polar Exploration Ship Polar-Borer
Last Dinosaur - King of Monsters
 

Runtime:

1 hr 46 min (Japan)
1 hr 32 min (North America)

Background:

The Last Dinosaur is a 1977 Japanese/American film produced by Tsuburaya Productions and Rankin/Bass. Filming was done in the Japanese Alps with a mostly English-speaking cast and was intended for a U.S. theatrical release, but ended up as an edited 92-minute television film when a distributor couldn't be found. The dinosaur suits were worn by men, sometimes paired, in a manner similar to what had been done for the Godzilla movies. The sound department even borrowed Godzilla's trademark roar for the tyrannosaurus. The T-rex suit was later refurbished and reused in two more films, the first being Lord Tyrannus or Ururu in the TV series Dinosaur War Aizenborg. The second was Tyrannosaurus Jackie in Dinosaur Squadron Koseidon.

Plot Summary:

A multi million-dollar company owned by the wealthy big-game hunter Maston Thrust jr. is drilling for oil under the polar caps with a laser drill called the "Polar Borer" when a man, geologist Chuck Wade, returns without the rest of his crew. Chuck claims the drill surfaced in a valley heated by a volcano and that the crew was eaten by a tyrannosaurus. Thrust decides to see the dinosaur for himself, bringing along a crew consisting of Chuck Wade, Bunta (a Maasai tracker), Dr. Kawamoto and, reluctantly, Francesca 'Frankie' Banks (a Prize-winning photographer) but only after thinking she would sleep with him.

Upon arriving in the valley, the group sees pteranodons and are nearly trampled by a rampaging uintatherium, which Chuck misidentifies as a ceratopsian. They set out to find the tyrannosaurus, leaving Kawamoto behind to watch the camp. The group is successful in locating their quarry but is forced to defend themselves with gun and spear in order to reach a place of safety. The tyrannosaurus then goes on to destroy the camp, kills Kawamoto, and carries the Polar Borer to a bone pit, where it disturbs a triceratops.

"It eats meat. Us! This forty foot monster with a brain the size of a dried pea has just destroyed a man with one of the great minds of this century!" -Maston Thrust jr.

Enraged, Thrust vows to kill the dinosaur despite his promise to the research group that he wouldn't. With no way to get home, and knowing the staff were instructed not to send help before they left on the expedition, the group survives as best they can for the next few months. They have numerous hostile encounters with cavemen, whom they believe are copying their hunting and tool making techniques. Thrust manages to keep the cavemen away using a handmade crossbow, although a friendly cavewoman, whom they name Hazel, is accepted into the camp. After another encounter with the tyrannosaurus, plans are made to kill it once and for all with a catapult. While waiting for the tyrannosaurus to enter their trap, Chuck finds the Polar Borer. With help from Frankie, the two manage to get the vessel back in the water and operational. Meanwhile, Matson and Bunta remain with the catapult but Bunta is eaten and the catapult is destroyed by the tyrannosaurus. Frankie and Chuck plead for Matson to join them in the Polar Borer because it is about to return to base. Matson however, chooses to stay behind in the valley with Hazel and the "last" tyrannosaurus.

This movie has the most indestructible tyrannosaurus in cinema history: shot, speared, gored by horns, burned, dragged, and crushed.

Thoughts:

The Last Dinosaur gets a lot of flak for its unconvincing portrayal of dinosaurs who move, bend, and jiggle with the dead-eyed look of a frozen fish. Their sizes keep changing from scene to scene and all the blood looks like thick red paint. Disney's 'Baby' was more convincing. The rubbery dinosaurs aren't even the worst part of this movie though, its the human characters. Maston Thrust is a sexist jerk and all the women are portrayed as feminine stereotypes. The rest of the cast is either mute or part of the background. The caveman are acted out as slack-jawed, hunchback knuckle-dragging caricatures too stupid to catch their own food or make tools without guidance from modern man. They aren't even essential to the plot. You could remove them and it would impact nothing. I recognize this film is very much a product of its time and everyone has a different sensitivity to this sort of thing, but that doesn't wash away the gross feeling I have after viewing it, or fix the problems with its narrative. Like what did the characters even achieve? They traveled to this untouched world for research purposes, but give up on that to chase after a dinosaur they never catch. Two die, two survivors go home, and one stays behind because of his ego? It is a very underwhelming journey and conclusion.

Related Articles:

• Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955)
• One Million B.C. (1940) / One Million Years B.C. (1966)
• Dinosaurus! (1960)
• Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
• The Last Dinosaur (1977)
• Legend of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds (1977)
• Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)
• Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985)