Top 10 Movie Dinosaurs: CCC Issue #87

The Greatest Cinematic Dinosaurs of All-Time

 

When I originally launched this blog all the way back in December 2013 it was with the main premise that I would count down movies and TV shows, but over the years I’ve diversified and expanded…and somehow I haven’t done a countdown list since October 2020! It’s time to go back to my roots, and since I’ve had dinosaurs on the brain with the new Jurassic World Dominion finally coming out this summer, what better topic to bring back the classic CCC lists with than the greatest cinematic dinosaurs of all-time! 

 

Honourable mention: Godzilla

Even though he’s not a real dinosaur, Big G is one of the most iconic movie monsters, and his saurian roots have never been forgotten. In fact, they were embraced a little too strongly in TriStar’s American remake, turning him into more of an anemic lizard than an atomic beast, but from the beginning the Japanese kaiju has been identified as a combination of Tyrannosaurus rex, Stegosaurus, and Iguanodon. Having starred in decades-worth of films, as well as left an impact on pop culture as large as his giant footprint, you really can’t take an honest look at dinosaur cinema and not at least acknowledge the King of the Monsters.

 

10. Megalosaurus – When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)

The Megalosaurus was a real species of dinosaur, and bears the distinction of being one of the very first to be discovered and described. However, the fossil evidence for the creature has been scarce, so what it looked like, exactly, has been largely hypothetical. One of the first artist renderings depicted is as a bulky, quadrupedal creature–not a very accurate guess, but it seems to have served as the inspiration for the design in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. While it may not be very close in appearance to the real Megalosaurus or any other known species, this cinematic dino is more than just an overgrown lizard. It’s one of the largest creatures in the film, first seen bringing a deer to its newborn young in the nest. The stop motion effects are wonderfully done, and it gets a decent amount of screen time, including some memorable interactions with the cavemen characters. 

 

9. Brachiosaurus – Jurassic Park series (1993-2022)

The first dinosaur from the Jurassic Park franchise on this list, and not the last, either. It would be easy to fill every spot with Jurassic dinos (or do an entire list of just Jurassic dinos…which may or may not be coming soon…), but the Long-Neck Brachiosaurus deserves a spot on this list for more reasons than just being the first resurrected park resident seen and making Dr. Grant stagger to his knees in awe. The Brach shows up again after multiple scenes of mayhem when Dr. Grant and the kids are sleeping in the tree. There is a whole herd of these massive herbivores, and one of them gets close enough to be fed. It reminds us that even though some of the escaped creatures on Isla Nublar want to eat people, some don’t. They’re all still animals, and the Brach demonstrates this better than any other species. From the giant animatronic head to the cgi, it’s the best-looking Long-Neck of any dinosaur film. It might not be the first herbivore most people think of when they think of the franchise, but it outranks all the others, for me. 

 

8. Allosaurus – One Million Years B.C. (1966)

The Allosaurus is my favourite dinosaur of all, so of course I had to give it a spot on this list. When looking at all the vicious meat-eaters from a myriad of dinosaur movies, there are some obvious choices that appear closer to the top, but the Allosaurus from Hammer’s remake of One Million B.C. is an underrated one in the discussion among dino-movie fans, and it gets a great scene which showcases just how vicious it is, even though it’s much smaller in size than a full-grown adult would have been. The first time I saw this scene I was riveted; it kills some cavemen before battling others with spears, and eventually gets impaled and dies in a very dramatic, violent way. Ray Harryhausen made this stop motion killer, and is responsible for some of the greatest stop motion cinematic dinosaurs. 

 

7. Aladar – Dinosaur (2000)

It’s tough to pick a favourite dino from Disney’s Dinosaur. I almost picked the Carnotaurus, but I have to give it to the plant-eating protagonist that carries the whole movie: Aladar the Iguanodon. Never before had Iguanodon been so realistically portrayed in a film, which might sound surprising given these dinosaurs have the classic big Disney eyes and speak, with fully articulated lips. Those details aside, Aladar’s posture and proportions are quite spot-on, and he’s a pretty charming lead. His naivete isn’t too annoying, he’s emotive as well as combative, and the cgi to bring him to life holds up better than most other dinosaur films from the late ‘90’s/early 2000’s. He has a great roar (one of the better and more realistic examples for an herbivore), a great presence, and in terms of dinosaurs that transcend their movie monster roots and become full-fledged characters, he’s easily one of the top-ranking.

 

6. Brontosaurus – The Lost World (1925)

This is the oldest dinosaur on this list, but even though the stop motion effects are dated, the Brontosaurus is still an impressive feat of movie magic. First of all, it has a great fight with an Allosaurus, biting it on the throat, then it falls off a huge cliff! You think it’s dead for a while, but the explorers discover it’s still alive, and bring it back to London, where it gets to go on an all-out rampage. These London scenes really cement it as one of the greats in dinosaur cinema: it’s a foreboding force, and would inspire many other filmmakers for a number of decades to follow. Of all the Long-Neck dinosaurs, this one remains one of the most destructive, memorable, and impressive.

 

5. The Great Valley Friends – The Land Before Time Series (1988-2016)

I couldn’t pick just one, because each and every young prehistoric protagonist in The Land Before Time has contributed to the enduring popularity of so many different species for multiple generations of kids and parents. There’s the classic Long-Neck, “Little Foot” who takes the lead role, “Cera” the Three-Horn Triceratops, “Ducky” The Duck-Billed Saurolophus, her non-biological brother “Spike” the Stegosaurus, and the only non-dinosaur member of the friend group, “Petrie” the flying Pteranodon. Even just looking at the first movie, they are appealing characters for children and unique as far as cinematic dinos go. Their enduring popularity meant more and more sequels (though all were direct-to-video), giving some of the other species besides the Long-Neck a chance to get more of a spotlight. With every sequel came new friends and new foes, and in terms of animation, no other cast of dinosaurs has had the same lasting impact.

 

4. Gwangi – The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

This would mark Ray Harryhausen’s peak in bringing to life dinosaurs for the big screen. Gwangi is more than just a big meat-eater, he’s the most ferocious resident of the Forbidden Valley, and a whole crew of cowboys on horses with lassos can’t bring him down. The wrangling scene is one of the most impressive combinations of stop motion effects and live-action actors ever seen. Gwangi is a brute; he kills a fast-running ornithomimid, then a hulking Styracosaurus, and as soon as that Styracosaurus is dead he immediately pursues the cowboys. It’s not about hunger for him! He kills a couple cowboys, too, and after they bring the carnivore back to civilization, he breaks out of his cage and kills an elephant! Gwangi has a great snarl, swishing tail, and is the pinnacle of cinematic dinosaurs from this era. The movie he’s in may be silly at times, but he’s the real star, and that’s why his name is in the title.

 

3. Velociraptor – Jurassic Park series (1993-2022)

Everyone thought they knew what to expect from a dinosaur movie before Jurassic Park came out, but it completely changed the public’s perception of the terrible lizards and made them into more than just movie monsters. Everyone had seen T. rex before, but no one had seen anything quite like the Velociraptor, and its impact was immediate and palpable. The scariest thing about the raptor was its intelligence. There were ways to avoid T. rex, but the raptors hunted in packs, they were fast, sneaky, creative, and wicked. The combination of Stan Winston’s animatronics and puppetry with ILM’s computer generated effects made them a force to be reckoned with. The lead raptor, known by fans as “The Big One” led the charge in the original movie, and she had attitude and character. The way she clicks her sickle claw on the kitchen floor as she’s stalking the kids gets me every time. Only the combined genius of Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, and Stan Winston could have made a dinosaur smaller than T. rex into something even scarier.   

 

2. The Meat-Eater – King Kong (1933)

Every dinosaur on Skull Island is awesome, and picking just one for this list is kind of hard. The Meat-Eater (sometimes referred to as a T. rex, sometimes referred to as an Allosaurus) was the only one brave (or dumb) enough to take on Kong himself, though. Hold up, you may be saying, what about the serpentine creature in the cave that almost strangled Kong to death, or the Pterandon that nearly pecked his eyes out? Both of those creatures aren’t technically dinosaurs (plesiosaurs were marine reptiles and pterosaurs were flying reptiles), but it doesn’t matter, because no other scene is as re-watchable or as jaw-dropping as the fight between The Eighth Wonder of the World and the Tyrant Lizard King. The Meat-Eater has so much character right from the first moment it comes through the trees, making its raspy roar and reaching up with its tiny arm to scratch its chin.

I also want to give a special shout-out to all the weird and wonderful occupants of Peter Jackson’s reimagined Skull Island from his remake of King Kong. Even though the computer generated effects don’t hold up quite as well comparatively, they stand out as some of the best non-Jurassic Park cinematic dinos of the 2000’s and are fearsome and amazing in their own ways.

 

1. Tyrannosaurus rex – Jurassic Park series (1993-2022)

What did you think number one would be, Theodore Rex? As far as being the #1 most realistic dinosaur in scientific terms, the Tyrannosaurus rex in Jurassic Park does not win. I don’t know which dinosaur would actually get that award, because even in 1993, Rexy’s design wasn’t exactly in-line with the most up-to-date paleontological research. The hands are not pronated, the teeth are too exposed, the skull shape isn’t quite right, and it’s a little lean, but inaccuracies aside, this dinosaur is truly the most-impressive in terms of the effects to bring it to life, the presence it has in multiple films, and the legacy it has spawned.

If the T. rex didn’t work, the whole movie wouldn’t have worked, but Spielberg knew how to make Rexy scary before even showing her, with those footsteps making ripples in the glass of water, then when she’s finally shown, it’s Stan Winston’s jaw-dropping life-sized animatronic, followed by a shot of the full animal, rendered in cgi, breaking through the fence. It was the combination of great writing, skillful direction, ambitious special effects, music, sound, and cinematography that all came together in just the right way to give the most famous dinosaur of all-time its greatest role in any film. Rexy set a new standard for dinosaurs in movies, and unlike many other examples on this list, has yet to be surpassed in terms of realism, dynamism, and its ability to generate pure, gob smacked terror.

The Complete Cinematic History of Triceratops (Part Two)

The (First) Diversity Era (1960’s-1980’s) 

 

Toward the end of the ‘60’s and going into the ‘70’s the Triceratops was seen less frequently in movies. When cowboys venture into the Forbidden Valley in The Valley of Gwangi (1969) they encounter multiple prehistoric creatures, and one of the largest and most aggressive is a Styracosaurus. The stop motion effects for the film were created by Ray Harryhausen, who previously animated the Triceratops for One Million Years B.C., but comparatively, this ceratopsian isn’t quite as well designed. For one thing, its skin is purple, which is fine, but the colour scheme is nearly the same as that of the big meat-eater, Gwangi, and its skin texture is pretty much the same too. The design of its skull is also not as accurate or as sharp as the Styracosaurus from Son of Kong. But, the stop motion is smooth, and the creature puts up a good fight against Gwangi, though ultimately loses.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) featured a different ceratopsian the following year, a Chasmosaurus that angrily stomps out of a cave and attacks some cavemen. Even though Harryhausen created many of the best dinosaurs to feature in motion pictures, this horned dinosaur was animated by Jim Danforth and is actually better than Harryhausen’s Styracosaurus from Gwangi. It’s detailed, the design of the skull is accurate to the real thing (a more angular shield with spikes on the edges, three horns, and spikes near its cheeks) and it chases one of the cavemen before accidentally running off a cliff, falling to its death. The Land That Time Forgot (1975) didn’t have special effects that were nearly as impressive as most of the earlier films looked at so far, but it did feature both Triceratops and Styracosaurus, brought to life with silly-looking puppets. They may not be quite as silly as the Triceratops from The Last Dinosaur (1977), though. It seems the other ceratopsians were better represented in this era, because this role for Triceratops—it’s biggest live-action role in quite some time—is downright embarrassing compared to earlier films. We get a classic T. rex versus Triceratops battle, and the two beasts far exceed their real-life maximum sizes, but they aren’t stop motion or mechanical, they are men in monster suits, a la Godzilla. Even for a Japanese monster movie, these suits look pretty bad, and it doesn’t help that the fight scene is shot in broad daylight, doing nothing to hide how floppy and rubber they are.

On the Planet of Dinosaurs (1977) there are many species of prehistoric creatures, including such famous ones as Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus, but once again there is a different ceratopsian from Triceratops. A Centrosaurus chases one of the characters over a long distance, but lucky for him the heavy creature can’t move too fast. His luck runs out when he reaches a cliff. The Centrosaurus impales him with its long nose horn and he falls to his death. To be fair, moments earlier the guy was trying to steal the eggs the Centrosaurus had laid. She was just a good mother protecting her clutch, making this yet another example of a ceratopsian defending her young. Phil Tippett’s short film Prehistoric Beast (1985) depicts a Tyrannosaurus rex hunting a Monoclonius, which at that time was believed to be its own species of ceratopsian, but it is now believed to be a synonym for Centrosaurus. Comparing the two designs, Tippett’s is much more scientifically-accurate, with a sleeker body, more proportional skull, and better skin texture.

The last film in this era reinstates the Three-Horn as the main ceratopsian star and stands out as the most memorable example in hand-drawn animated form since Fantasia. The Land Before Time (1988) introduced audiences to Cera, a temperamental baby “Three-Horn” who becomes separated from her father (Cera’s dad would later become known canonically as “Daddy Topps”) and makes friends with other young dinosaurs on their journey to the Great Valley where they will reunite with their families. Cera’s dad instills his racist views to her, claiming Three-Horns never play with Long-Necks, but Cera remains friends with Little Foot and the others anyway, and they would remain friends for many sequels. Daddy Topps has a pretty typical design, but Cera looks quite different from him, with peach-coloured skin, no horns above her eyes yet, only a rudimentary nose horn, and a small shield with only a few bumps. She definitely stands out among the other young dinos, in terms of both her behavior and appearance, and her interactions with the “Sharp Tooth” Tyrannosaurus rex in the original film are very different from any previous films showing interactions between the two species.

                                                                           

The Comeback Era (1990’s-2000’s)                           

           

With the success of Land Before Time came a further thirteen direct-to-video sequels over the years, and going into the 1990’s Triceratops was starting to make a resurgence in popularity. Adventures in Dinosaur City (1991) had anthropomorphic dinosaurs played by actors in suits, and one of the main characters was Tops the Triceratops. This family-friendly flick was made as a direct-to-video feature, and is not as well remembered as the theatrically-released We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993) which had a Cretaceous quartet of lovable animated characters, including Woog the Triceratops. He is blue, chunky, and goofy, but a different family film had a different species of ceratopsian the same year.  Prehysteria! (1993) was a bigger success than We’re Back! and introduced viewers to Hammer the Chasmosaurus. He gets his name from MC Hammer, and pals around with other miniature prehistoric creatures (all of them have a taste for raisins, strangely enough) in this film and both sequels.  

The real reason this era is the comeback era for Triceratops is thanks to one dinosaur movie in particular. Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) set a new precedent for prehistoric cinema, and after getting to meet a towering Brachiosaurus, audiences (along with the characters in the film) wanted to see what else the park had in store. Everyone is frustrated that the first dinosaur on the tour, Dilophosaurus, doesn’t show up, and they even wait outside the T. rex paddock, hoping to see it snack on a goat, but it never comes. Just when it feels like we’re never going to see another dinosaur, Dr. Grant spots something in a field, and the other characters follow him from the jeep over to a sick Triceratops. The camera is low, pushing through the grass, and happens upon the Three-Horn just as Timmy says “Oh wow…” It’s an awesome moment.

The Triceratops was created by Stan Winston Studios, and is a life-sized animatronic that moves its head, its leg, blinks, salivates, and breathes. It looks absolutely real. We get to see it up close and in detail, with the actors touching it and interacting with it in a way that makes you believe this creature really is alive. Ellie Sattler refers to it in a quick piece of dialogue as “The Trike” which is a nickname taken from the novel, but it’s not one I ever liked. Call it after the number of horns on its face, just like the Latin name, not after a children’s three-wheel. This Triceratops never gets on its feet, but in the sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), a healthy individual makes a brief cameo in the breakout scene, destroying a tent and flipping over a jeep. This would be the last big moment for the Three-Horn in this era, and going into the 21^st century, it would once again have to share the spotlight with many other species.

 

The (Second) Diversity Era (2000’s-present) 

 

The first major dinosaur movie of the new millennium, appropriately named Dinosaur (2000), did not take the previous Disney route from Fantasia of making up a purely fictional prehistoric landscape populated by terrible lizards that were nothing like the real creatures. The world of Dinosaur (while still highly imagined and mixing creatures that would never have met in real life) mainly features species from the Cretaceous period, but not the usual pairing of T. rex and Triceratops. There are two species of ceratopsians; the first one seen is the Pachyrhinosaurus, which is part of a mixed herd that’s ambushed by a ferocious Carnotaurus. The massive predator kills one of the Thick-Nosed Lizards, then, not long after, we get a look at a whole herd of them drinking from a river. The designs are among the most accurate ever seen, but the other species that we meet later is one of a kind. There are more Pachyrhinosauruses travelling with a mixed herd on its way to the nesting grounds, and tagging along at the very back is an old Styracosaurus named Eema. She is quite unique, in that her nose horn is broken and has been worn down with time, and she has a pet Ankylosaurus named Url, as well as an equally old Brachiosaurus friend named Baylene. Eema is more plainly coloured and stockier compared to the Pachyrhinosaurus, but she is incredibly detailed, emotive, and stands out from the herd.

The biggest TV movie event of 2002 was Dinotopia (2002) and again, despite having a huge cast of terrible lizards, there was no Triceratops to be seen. Instead, we get a Chasmosaurus, although it’s called the wrong name by the girl working in the hatchery. One of the main characters has to adopt a baby as his “saurian life partner” and because it’s labelled the 26^th egg in the long line of unhatched eggs, that’s the name the baby gets: Twenty-Six. It’s a combination of an animatronic and cgi, and is definitely one of the cutest baby ceratopsians from any live-action film. King Kong (2005) has a brief cameo for a ceratopsian in the theatrical cut, but it’s just drinking from a river, and that’s it. In the extended cut, the creature gets a full scene, and we see it much more closely. This fictional species, Ferrucutus, is similar to Chasmosaurus, with lots of spikes on its shield, and its aggressive behavior is reminiscent of the Stegosaurus from the 1933 original. Triceratops was no longer the favourite ceratopsian of filmmakers, and its one appearance in the 2000’s was a complete embarrassment. Anonymous Rex (2004) features a world full of dinosaurs disguised as humans, and a private investigator Triceratops reveals itself, created with cgi so texture-less and terrible it makes the very first cinematic Triceratops look more convincing by comparison.

The 2010’s started out with Triceratops getting a decent role in a big Pixar franchise. Toy Story 3 (2010) introduced Trixie, another blue Triceratops (the first one this colour since Woog in We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story, except this one is female), acting as a counterbalance to the green, male Rexy from the previous two films, but her design suggests she’s from the same line of prehistoric toys. She returned for Toy Story 4 (2019) but had a smaller role, and the big Pixar dinosaur film from this era, The Good Dinosaur (2015), featured a Styracosaurus instead of a Three-Horn. This one is cartoonier than Eema from Dinosaur, and has many animals decorating its exaggerated shield horns.  

Walking with Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie (2013) takes place in Cretaceous-era Alaska, and since it was going for scientific accuracy (minus the corny human voiceovers) it featured Pachyrhinosaurus in the lead role. These ones are even more accurate than the ones from Dinosaur, and the cgi is better, too—it’s just too bad the movie they are in sucks. The Jurassic Park franchise evolved into the Jurassic World (2015) franchise, following continuity with the previous movies but trending toward sci-fi monster mayhem over intended scientific accuracy. Still, the Triceratops makes another cameo, although only created using cgi this time. It gallops majestically (well, as majestically as such a big animal can) through a field, which would have been impossible given its short legs and great weight.

The Jurassic World sequel, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) still gave Triceratops its token cameo, but also included a new ceratopsian: Sinoceratops. The short film Battle at Big Rock (2019), taking place after the ending of Fallen Kingdom, has another new ceratopsian, the Nasutoceratops, which looks like a Triceratops without its nose horn. At this point, it’s obvious the world knows the truth now: Triceratops isn’t so special anymore. I think the best visual representation of it from this era comes from its role in Kong: Skull Island (2017): a giant skull in a bone field. What was once one of the most impressive dinosaurs in all of cinema is now nothing more than set decoration.

But…is Triceratops a thing of the past in terms of movie roles? I doubt it. It seems a safe bet to expect another cameo in Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) and some more big roles in future dinosaur movies. Even though Hollywood now realizes just how many different species of ceratopsians there are to pick from, the Three-Horn Face will always remain a favourite, and its legendary rivalry with T. rex will never be forgotten. If Jurassic World: Dominion can deliver at least one herbivore-versus-carnivore fight, it should be between Rexy and the Trike.