Movies That Suck/Dino Flicks: Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)

Purely a blind buy from McKay's, this was. I had never, ever heard of this film, be it in movie books, trailer compilations like Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies, or any of the numerous science fiction and horror documentaries I've seen over the years, including The History of Sci-Fi and Horror, which especially covered some very obscure stuff. All I can say is that the title was intriguing, as was the DVD artwork, which showed someone shooting a dinosaur with a laser gun and a spaceship that looked like an X-Wing without the pair of upper wings (one of those visuals was actually in the film, and I'll let you guess which one; I've read there's another version of the poster that actually features the Millennium Falcon). And the universal appeal of stop-motion dinosaurs and the notion that this film, according to the information on the back of the DVD, was one of the last to feature them, was what really sealed the deal. Sure enough, the stop-motion dinosaurs are both a lot of fun to look at and the only reason to hunt this flick down, as just about everything else is total rubbish. The characters, most of whom are played by inexperienced "actors," are almost completely uninteresting and, in some cases, sheer cannon fodder; the location, while an inspired one, loses its charm very quickly and becomes monotonous to look at; while the stop-motion is well-done, there are other special effects that are more wonky; the music is terrible; and, worst of all, the movie is just boring, with long stretches of nothing happening.

In the distant future, the spaceship Odyssey's reactor goes critical and an escape shuttle under the command of Captain Lee Norsythe is ejected before the mothership explodes. With no other recourse, they land on a nearby planet that they learn has a breathable atmosphere and end up crashing into a large lake. Forced to bail out before it sinks, the crew of nine make it to shore and find that the planet is akin to Earth, albeit with no signs of civilization. They also find that it's far from uninhabited when Chuck, the navigator, and Cindy, the communications officer, swim back to the ship to retrieve the radio transmitter, only for the latter to be attacked and devoured by a large, aquatic creature. With only a few laser guns and some crates of rations, the crew move into the interior, as Lee attempts to find a place for them to safely camp and hold out until a rescue team comes, if it ever does. As darkness falls, they realize they're not safe on land, either, as they hear a roar that one crewman, Mike, recognizes as a "hunting call." The next morning, they come across a Brontosaurus near their campsite and figure the planet is following a similar path of evolution as Earth, only it's millions of years younger. They move on, coming across the remains of a dinosaur that was killed and partially eaten by a large predator, a heard of Stegosaurs, a loan Stegosaurus that attacks the group, and finally, a ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex that attacks and kills the Stegosaur. While trying to make it up to a plateau, Harvey Baylor, the Vice-President of Spaceways Incorporated, the company that built the Odyssey, and who has become unpopular among the group due to his constant complaining and pompous attitude, is gored to death by a Centrosaurus. Lee then decides to make camp in a small valley he feels is easy to defend and has a stockade built at the mouth which he feels will hold off the dinosaurs until help comes. However, there's dissension in the ranks, as Jim, the engineer, is convinced they're stuck on the planet forever and must go on the offensive to survive, meaning they have to kill the biggest threat to them: the T-Rex.

As low-budget and independent a film as you can get (its theatrical release was very, very limited), Planet of Dinosaurs was the one and only directing job for James K. Shea, whose earlier credits include working as miscellaneous crew on very little known, obscure movies like 1966's Suburbia Confidential, 1968's Tropic of Scorpio, and 1969's The Scavengers, which he also had a small acting part in. I can't find much on him after the film, except for some special thanks credits on a 1988 Sybil Danning film called The Phantom Empire and a 1991 film called Wizards of the Demon Sword (both were directed by Fred Olen Ray, which is always a sign of "quality"). According to co-writer and visual effects creator Jim Aupperle, who gave a lot of interesting info about the film on the message board for the site, tapatalk.com, Shea did plan to make a sequel to Planet of Dinosaurs and possibly wrote a script, but nothing came of it, obviously. Though I'm not sure how old he was, Shea, unfortunately, did pass away in 2009.

From what I can gather from Aupperle on that message board, Planet of Dinosaurs was very much a passion project for all those involved, as they came together with very little money in order to make a movie akin to the stop-motion dinosaur and monster movies they saw as kids. Aupperle also makes it clear that it all came down to Shea, who had supreme confidence in his effects artists' abilities and whose enthusiasm for the film as a whole is what got it made. And because the already

low budget was being spent almost entirely on the effects and the hiring of notable artists like Doug Beswick and Jim Danforth, they had virtually no money for anything else, including props, sets, and even payment for the actors, who had to agree to deferments in their contracts. While they were able to get a couple of people with some experience, most of them had never done a movie before (many have the same first names as their characters, as if the filmmakers were worried they wouldn't be able to remember any names besides their own) and, for the most part, did little to no acting afterward, although some did have success in other aspects of the industry. So, despite what I might say about this flick, I'm well aware that it was simply something that was put together for fun by a bunch of people who just wanted to make a movie. However, I'm not going to sit here and say the low budget and inexperience of most of the actors doesn't hurt it, because it does.

Before we go any further, I want to say that it was difficult to get really good screenshots, as while the movie was shot on 35mm, it's never gotten a really good remastering. The rips of it you can find either come from the 2007 DVD release by Retromedia, which is in widescreen but has a washed-out, public domain look to it that, in streaming, only goes up to 360p, or HD versions that, while certainly clearer, also seem to have filters that make it look a lot darker in many scenes, sometimes to where they're virtually impossible to make out (though some are hard to make out in either print). Initially, I was going to take all of my screenshots from the HD version in order to get the best image quality possible, but when I realized just how hard it sometimes is to see, I opted instead to go back to the brighter but lower quality DVD print. And instead of replacing the images I used from the HD rip, I decided to keep them here so you can see the difference for yourself. But, in short, this isn't going to be one of my best-looking reviews, so I apologize.

Because most of the actors are amateurs who deliver very wooden performances, and the characters are woefully underwritten, it's nigh impossible to care about any of them. For instance, Captain Lee Norsythe (Louie Lawless) comes off as a complete and utter tool. Though you have to cut the guy some slack, given the crazy situation he finds himself thrown in, and he's smart enough to know to get the group to safety when they first realize there are dangerous creatures on the planet, he often acts like a pompous and clueless jackass. Early on, when the one crew-member, Mike, gives a civilian, Derna, a laser gun, only for her to accidentally drop it in water and render it useless, Lee chews Mike out for giving a weapon to a "hysterical civilian," adding that he just lowered their chances of survival. When Jim says he was simply doing what he thought was right, Lee says, "No one does what he thinks is right. You all do what I think is right. I'm in command, here." He later decides to move them to a plateau, figuring the bigger dinosaurs, like the T-Rex, won't be able to climb up it, but is proven wrong when a Centrosaurus is revealed to be living near a cave high up in the mountains, leading to one of the group getting killed. Shortly after that, he decides to settle down in a small valley he thinks is safe and has the others build a stockade at the mouth of it, which the T-Rex easily smashes through before killing another of them. Finally deciding to go along with Jim's notion to kill the T-Rex first, Lee devises a plan to do so by having him bite into the carcass of a dead dinosaur that's been smeared with the juice from poisonous berries. This plan doesn't work and, this time, Mike gets killed. And yet, after all this, as Jim and the others are attempting to kill the T-Rex by having him impale himself on long spears coated with the poison, Lee attempts to make them evacuate to another valley nearby, again assuring them it's safe. He also throws his weight around again when the others don't listen, saying, "I'm in charge here. You'll do what I say." He's almost ready to fight Jim over the position of leader but the constant threat of the T-Rex eventually makes him cooperate with the others.

As Jim, James Whitworth, who'd just played Jupiter in The Hills Have Eyes, undoubtedly gives the best performance in the film. For about the first half, he comes off as stoic and calm, but with a sense of strength about him. You learn he has a lot of experience on alien worlds and knows how to handle himself, coming off as more like the head of a military unit rather than an engineer. He really should be the captain, an opinion that he himself holds and, as you learn, has held for some time, but he doesn't speak up until Lee decides to make camp in the small valley. While Lee is hopeful that they'll be rescued, Jim figures they're stuck on the planet and they need to start fighting back against the dinosaurs and making it their home, rather than hiding and waiting. Unable to get anybody else on his side, Jim reluctantly goes along with Lee's plan to build a stockade at the head of the valley, but confides to Nyla, Lee's second in command, that he believes he's too soft to be leader on this hostile planet. Tellingly, while the others celebrate the completion of the stockade, Jim stands guard outside. His doubts in Lee's leadership are soon proven right when Charlotte and Chuck are attacked and their attacker is killed and devoured by the T-Rex, whose lair is nearby. After the T-Rex destroys their stockade and kills Derna, Jim decides enough is enough and becomes determined to find the dinosaur's lair and kill him. And when Lee's plan to kill the T-Rex results in another death, everyone else starts listening to Jim and even Lee himself eventually realizes they need to work together to survive.

Nyla (Pamela Bottaro), Lee's second-in-command, finds herself caught in the middle of the conflict between her captain and Jim. She thinks they're both fine men and that Lee is doing the best he can, but also admits that Jim sometimes has better ideas. She also tells Lee that she'll do what he says, unless she believes his decisions could jeopardize her and everyone else's survival, which offends Lee and prompts him to stomp off. Later, she talks with Jim and tries to get him to cut Lee some slack, as well as tries to get him to come down from being such a tough guy that everyone else can't keep up and stop thinking of himself as above them. More than anything else, she hates the idea of having to become hard and uncivilized in order to survive on the planet, which Jim puts to her. Despite continuing to tell herself and anyone else that Lee knows what he's doing and they have to have rules, even on this planet, it's obvious Nyla becomes more and more unsure as time goes on, compounded by her missing her home on Earth. Eventually, she comes over to Jim's side, deciding it's best to stand up and fight, rather than sit and wait to be killed, paving the way for everyone else to join Jim as well. In the epilogue, which shows they've been living on the planet for years, Nyla has made peace with the situation, saying it doesn't matter if a rescue squad ever comes for them.

A character who makes himself utterly unlikable right off the bat is Harvey Baylor (Harvey Shain), the Vice President of the company that manufactured the doomed Odyssey spaceship. Copping an attitude with Lee from the first moment he's onscreen, he proceeds to constantly complain and demean everybody around him, including Lee, telling him, "Captain, the next ship you get, you're going to be the steward." He really tends to throw his weight and position around, telling Mike when he calls him out on his prima donna behavior, "You know, I could have you docked two weeks' pay for that kind of smartass attitude," and later, when Lee asks him to accompany Nyla to check out an opening in the roof of a small cave, he flat out asks if his status means anything among the group. He also badly bosses around his secretary, Derna Lee, at one point asking her to go fetch him some water from a nearby stream because he's too tired to get it himself (despite his not carrying any heavy equipment), and is insensitive about everyone else's plight, caring more about losing the radio than the fact that someone just got eaten and making a crass joke about how one crew-member is in shock over it. Ultimately, though, Harvey is just plain stupid. As night falls at the end of their first day on the planet, he actually suggests, "Why don't we just go somewhere, and ask somebody for some help?" And later, when he and Nyla explore the roof of the cave near the plateau, he uncovers a bunch of eggs and actually thinks a big chicken laid them. Despite Nyla telling him that's not the case, he starts calling, "Here, chicky, chicky! Come here to Uncle Harvey, sweetheart!" That's when a Centrosaurus shows up and fittingly gores him to death with its nose horn and tosses him off a cliff (he hits bottom very softly and with an unconvincing, "Ugh," sound). 

Late in the film, you learn that Derna Lee (Derna Wylde) met Harvey Baylor through his father, who thought she might be "good for him," suggesting she was more than just a secretary. This is likely why she put up with his bossing her around, despite how nasty and childish he acted. In fact, she has a very beaten down, demure attitude in general at first, apologizing for dropping the one laser gun into some water and ruining it, meekly saying that she'll do as she's told. When Mike (Max Thayer) attempts to intervene on her behalf at one

point when Harvey is bossing her around, Derna tells him to mind his own business. But when Harvey continues acting like a bratty kid, telling her that refusing to get water for him wouldn't look good on her "efficiency record," she turns in her resignation, giving him a rock that has "I Quit" written on one side of it and adding, "Sorry about the two week notice. Take it out of my vacation pay." Not surprisingly, Derna is the only to stay behind and say anything after Harvey has been buried following his death. Later, she and Mike have a conversation about him, as well as hint at the mutual attraction between. Speaking of Mike, he, for the most part, is the most upbeat member of the party, often making jokes and remarks about the situation. When they first land and make it to shore, he says, "We're alive and we're safe... and we're shipwrecked. Two outta three ain't bad." Shortly after, he tells Harvey, "This isn't Nebraska. There isn't any service station down the road. There isn't any phone. If there were, the long-distance rates would be something else." During their first night, he grabs something out of the rations crate and says, "It says here the government guarantees this product contains an, 'An adult's daily requirement of vitamins, minerals, and protein. It enables a person to complete his daily task with strength, energy... and a cheerful attitude.' Funny, I don't feel a bit cheerful."  Regardless of this jovial attitude, though, he does have his serious moments, like when he confronts Harvey and recognizes the dinosaur calls they hear during their first night as those of a predator on the hunt. He's one of the last holdouts for Jim's plan to hunt down and kill the T-Rex, and while he's more apt to go after him when Derna is killed, he's for Lee's plan to use a poisoned carcass, a plan that leads to him dying as well.

As the ship's nurse, Charlotte (Charlotte Speer) spends much of her time scanning the flora they come across to see whether or not it's edible, as well as worry about Chuck (Chuck Pennington), the crew's navigator who, despite being big, strong, and muscular (he has his shirt off for virtually the whole movie), proves to be quite sensitive. After Cindy dies while trying to help him retrieve the radio transmitter, Chuck goes into shock and doesn't say anything for much of the first and second acts. He also kind of just goes along with

everyone else and doesn't put his two cents in, but when Charlotte talks with him when he's setting up some reflectors meant to signal a possible rescue ship, he admits he's given up hope. She tries to encourage him, but when she's frightened by the sound of a dinosaur roar nearby, she's the one who becomes hopeless and he attempts to cheer her up, assuring her that the reflectors are made of a material the dinosaurs wouldn't find appetizing. Charlotte also begins to doubt whether Lee is up to the task of being their leader, suggesting it should be Jim since he has more experience, and also challenges Nyla on whether or not she could be effective as a leader should something happen to Lee. She reveals that she especially wants to go home very badly, admitting that she could cry when she thinks about Earth; Chuck comforts her on this, leading the two of them to hook up. Like everyone else, both of them are more willing to go with Lee's idea of poisoned bait, as it seems safer, but when that doesn't work, they start working exclusively with Jim. In the epilogue, it's revealed that, in the years they've been on the planet, Charlotte and Chuck now have a young son named Mikey.

Poor Cindy (Mary Appleseth), the communications officer, doesn't even last ten minutes into the movie before she gets eaten by an aquatic creature while attempting to help Chuck retrieve the radio transmitter from the sinking ship. Before she goes, she manages to give us some nice eye-candy when she strips down to her bra and underwear before heading into the water. It's just a shame that her acting, which is done through ADR (I don't know if that's even Appleseth's real voice or if, like Louie Lawless, she was dubbed), isn't as good as her body.

Amazingly, as bad as the acting is and how uninteresting most of the characters are, there actually is a bit of depth to the story. In fact, it's appropriate that James Whitworth did this after having played the leader of the savage cannibal clan in The Hills Have Eyes, as Planet of Dinosaurs also kind of deals with that notion of civilized man having to resort to savagery in order to survive. Moreover, his character of Jim embodies that notion, as he tries to impress upon the others that, in order to live on the planet, which he's now accepted as their new home, they have to

make themselves masters of the land and show the big predators like the T-Rex that they're not easy prey, just as primitive man on Earth did millions of years ago. This often leads to conflict between him and Lee, who's more apt to hunker down and wait for a rescue ship, even though it could be years before one comes, if it ever comes. Speaking of which, there's a surprisingly well-done scene that brings it all home on both sides. After they've finished building the stockade that Lee is sure will keep them safe until help comes, they celebrate by drinking some fermented berry juice Mike has

whipped up. That is, save for Jim, who stands guard nearby. Nyla goes and has a talk with him, and it turns into a discussion about Lee's leadership, as he tells her, "On this world, you have two choices: be cruel or die... Civilization is like that uniform you're wearing. It's getting dirty and torn. And pretty soon, it's going to rot away. You had better decide what you're going to wear then." Nyla flippantly answers, "I'll find something," to which Jim coldly responds, "You all have a lot to learn." Nyla then returns to the party and they

continue attempting to make light of their situation, singing Auld Lang Syne because, as Mike says, it's "Happy New World." But the song quickly drowns off and the scene turns somber as the reality of the situation sets in, with Nyla breaking down in tears and crying on Lee's shoulder. After that, everyone slowly but surely begins following Jim's example, which leads to their adapting to life on the planet to the point where, after being there for years, they don't care if a rescue ship ever finds them, as they now probably couldn't live anywhere else.

In addition to the inexperienced actors, the minuscule budget made it virtually impossible for everything else to be as well-crafted as the visual effects. As I said, they had very few props aside from those laser guns (which they rarely use and eventually get rid of altogether), some crates to carry their equipment and rations, a scanner Charlotte uses to check the toxicity of the plants, and, most memorably, grape Kool-Aid, which was used for the berry juice. Despite it being far into the future, the costumes are nothing to write home about in terms of how unique they are, save for

Jim and Mike's blue spacesuits with the white "V's" on the front and shoulders. Even the cinematography by Henning Schellerup suffered, as most of the lighting had to be done using reflectors, leading to a lot of obvious day-for-night shooting that, like I said, makes some scenes really hard to make out. And while the film was shot almost exclusively on location, a little bit of set was done for the opening in the cockpit of the escape shuttle, the rooms where the passengers are strapped in, and the emergency hatch they bail out of. These sets, however, are so limited that they were shot in extreme close-up so you can't tell how small they are, with the most detail being the control panel in the cockpit, with its buttons, knobs, and video screen.

The lake where the spaceship crash-lands at the beginning of the movie was shot near the Hansen Dam in the San Fernando Valley, as was, I'm sure, the thick forests, bogs, and streams they cross through during their first day on the planet. When they get into the rocky, more desert type of landscape, we're into the Vasquez Rocks National Park, which has been used in numerous movies and television shows. Additionally, the canyon that features in the film was shot in Pasadena. Altogether, these locations do give off a sense of an ancient, primordial world, with the jagged rocks,

occasional spots of shrubbery and streams, and the wide vistas of the landscape. This setting is very akin to those seen in past dinosaur movies like One Million Years B.C., The Valley of Gwangi, and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. But, as effective and nice to look at as they are initially, they start to lose their luster as the movie goes on and you continue to see nothing but the small valley they take shelter in and the area around it. And there are way too many dialogue-less scenes of the characters just walking and walking and walking through the environment for minutes on end, giving off vibes of not only stuff like Gerry (okay, maybe not that extreme) but, on the more low rent end, movies like Robowar.

Like everyone says, the real draw for this film is the dinosaurs, and there are a ton of them. While you don't get a good look at the aquatic creature that kills Cindy (that photo of James K. Shea giving direction shows what it looked like; it seems like it was based on a Mosasaurus), you get your first good look at one eighteen minutes in: a Brontosaurus, who's eating some shrubbery near the crew's camp. While he doesn't act threatening towards them, they make sure to be quiet so as not to spook him and move away from the spot as quickly and silently as they can. As they leave the

forested area and enter the more arid landscape, they see a herd of Stegosaurs grazing nearby and they're later charged at by an aggressive one when they stop to rest at one point. That Stegosaurus is then killed by the Tyrannosaurus Rex, who makes his first appearance during this chase scene. The Triceratops-like Centrosaurus mercifully kills Harvey Baylor when he's stupid enough to mess around with her eggs, thinking they were laid by a big chicken. The freakiest creature in the movie is a big spider, the size of a small dog, that attacks Nyla when she gets around its burrow. Thankfully,

it's only onscreen for less than a minute before it's killed but, being someone who's terrified of spiders, the sight of that thing scuttling after Nyla and her having to fling it off her body at one point really makes my skin crawl. An Allosaurus attacks Charlotte at one point but Chuck spears him in the back and Jim is able to drive him away with his laser gun. When they chase after him, they find that the T-Rex attacked and killed him. After that, they come across a pair of dinosaurs that remind me of the Gallimimus but with sharp claws on their

hands and feet that make me think of the Velociraptors from the Jurassic Park films. They seem to be arguing, with one holding a dead, smaller creature in its talons, and the group decides to kill the other in order to make it into a meal. Lee and Jim also see another of these dinosaurs by itself when they're trying to find the T-Rex's lair. In their plan to kill the T-Rex with poisoned bait, they use the carcass of an Ankylosaurus they kill. And when Lee is pursued by the T-Rex while he's by himself, he comes across a four-legged dinosaur that was based on the Rhedosaurus from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

The Tyrannosaurs Rex, naturally, is the movie's big bad and main threat towards the crew. His presence is felt before he makes his first appearance, as the crew come across his footprints and a half-eaten carcass he'd left behind. He pops up when they get charged by the one Stegosaurus, and after initially seeming interested in them, he attacks the Stego instead. He's so focused on him, in fact, that he doesn't see Mike when he slips into the midst of the fight to retrieve a dropped laser gun. The T-Rex manages to kill the Stegosaurus and is not seen again until almost an hour in, when he easily kills the smaller Allosaurus that menaced the group. He later proves Lee's faith in the stockade to be very misplaced, as he smashes through it as though it wasn't there and corners and kills Derna. The next day, Lee and Jim find his lair, which is a large cave in the side of a cliff, but when they try to kill him with the poisoned bait, he turns the tables on them by attacking them from behind when they approach his cave, allowing him to kill Mike, who tries to fight him off with spears. Later, when Lee comes across him, he momentarily distracts him by using a reflector to shine a light in his face, prompting him to give chase. He loses Lee, but does make a meal out of the Rhedosaurus. But the T-Rex proves to be only so intelligent, as when the group gets him to chase them from his lair, back to their valley, his blindly chasing them leads him to impale himself on one of the poison-tipped spears that have waiting for him.

While the rest of the movie may have suffered, there's no denying that spending the budget mostly on the visual effects was worth it. Not only do the dinosaurs look really cool, designed in the classic Ray Harryhausen mold of crocodile-like scales and tails that drag along the ground, but the stop-motion animation, most of which is the work of Doug Beswick, is about as good as you can get. It's very smooth and nicely detailed, with the dinosaurs having little tics that give them moments of character all their own. In addition to stop-motion, there is some work done with on-set props, like the

aquatic dinosaur that kills Cindy at the beginning and the still, life-sized prop of the big spider before it attacks Nyla (which freaks me out even more than the stop-motion, as it looks all the more real as it sits there in its burrow, waiting for a would-be victim). The spaceship Odyssey that figures at the very beginning of the film, before it's destroyed by its out of control reactor, is designed well enough, even though it is a pretty generic-looking ship and never looks like anything other than a small model. And the opening credits sequence, featuring drawings of dinosaurs floating out in place, is

especially memorable. Where the visual effects become more than a little shaky is in the matte paintings and the compositingof the live-action elements with the stop-motion and miniatures. As for the former, most of which were the work of Jim Danforth, some of them look really good, like the shots of the planet out in space and the escape shuttle approaching it, but others, like a shot of the planet's nighttime horizon late in the film, don't look that great. Similarly, the compositing of the actors with the animation and miniatures

sometimes looks quite good, and even amazing, like when the Stegosaurus charges at Charlotte and when the group first runs into the T-Rex, but more often than not, it looks rather rough, with one element always seeming more faded than the other and the separation of the two being very obvious. And in the instances where the actors or parts of the set have to physically interact with the dinosaurs, like when the T-Rex kills Mike, you can tell they're not even close to actually touching each other, as one of them looks like an image on a rear-projection screen.

While not a gorefest, Planet of Dinosaurs is often surprisingly violent and bloody, starting with Cindy's death, which leaves a lot of blood floating on the lake's surface. Most of the violence is the work of the T-Rex, as you not only see the ugly aftermath of one of his meals but, during his fight with the Stegosaurus, he bites the plates on his back and his back right leg, then kills him by biting his head and wrenching it back and forth with his jaws, as you hear bones cracking and start to see blood leaking out. You then see him munching on the dinosaur after he's dead. Later, the T-Rex bites

the smaller Allosaurus right on the head, kills and lifts Derna up in his jaws, does the same to Mike before taking him into his lair, and grabs the Rhedosaurus by the neck and throws him to the ground, before twisting his head with his jaws and crushing his skull. On top of that, the Centrosaurus impales Harvey with her nose horn and tosses his body off a cliff, the big spider gets speared to death by Jim, the Allosaurus gets a spear to the back courtesy of Chuck and is blasted by Jim's laser gun before meeting his demise by the T-Rex, the one

Gallimimus-like dinosaur gets shot with an arrow and then impaled through the front by Chuck, an Ankylosaurus gets bashed in the head in order to be used in the poison bait plan, and finally, the T-Rex gets his just desserts when he's impaled by the poison-coated spears at the end of the movie.

For the most part, I don't like the music score, composed by Kelly Lammers and John O'Verlin, at all. It kind of reminds me of the score John Carpenter came up with for his first film, Dark Star, as it's an electronic score, but it's really obnoxious and unpleasant to listen to, with bizarre fluttering and screeching sounds, the latter of which sometimes come off as downright piercing to the ears. It gets especially overbearing during the long walking scenes where there's no dialogue to listen to, and there's one transition to morning where the music tries to emulate a classical piece often used for such scenes, only it'd make you want to cover your head with a pillow rather than get out of bed. There are, however, a couple parts of the score that I do like, such as this low-key, ambient music in the lead-up to the T-Rex's first appearance that gives off a nice feeling of atmosphere, and a guitar solo for the "Auld Lang Syne" scene which plays the melody in a melancholic manner that fits nicely with how the reality of the situation hits them in the midst of their singing. But on the whole, this could be the weakest aspect of the movie, even more so than the actors.

In looking it up, Planet of Dinosaurs does have a very devoted cult following and that doesn't surprise me, as it really is that kind of movie, especially for those who saw it when they were kids. Had I seen it when I was younger, I might have enough affection to cut it some slack, but having first seen it as an adult, I must be honest and admit that I think the movie is pretty freaking lame. While the stop-motion dinosaurs are a lot of fun and are very well-executed, as are many of the visual effects, and James Whitworth does the best he can with the script and his character, everything else really flounders. The amateur actors are not helped by some bad dialogue and underwritten parts, the locations, as nice and appropriate as they are, get old really fast, some of the matte paintings and compositing effects don't hold up, the music score is often unpleasant to listen to, and when the dinosaurs aren't onscreen, the movie is often just boring and a slog to get through. For those who don't have nostalgia for it, I would suggest avoiding it altogether, unless you think you can sit through a lot of crap to see some pretty awesome dinosaurs.