The Complete Cinematic History of Allosaurus (Part 2 of 2)

Have a look at Part One of my spotlight on Allosaurus in film if you haven’t already. If you have, let’s now look at the second era, which brought the carnivore out of the 20^th century and into modern Hollywood.

 

Comeback Era (1990’s-present)

 

Allosaurus was absent from the 80’s, and even moving into the Dinosaur Renaissance of the early 90’s, it was still left out. T. rex was just bigger, scarier, and more well-known. Though Rex continued to hog the spotlight, and continues to do so to this day, Allosaurus would finally get a real chance to shine in the 21^st century. For Tri-Star’s Godzilla (1998), the King of the Monsters was radically re-designed, and no longer carried with it a strong sense of being a tyrannosaur mixed with a stegosaur. This new version, which was supposed to be a mutated iguana, had a stance more in-line with modern views of theropod dinosaurs, and I may be mis-remembering since I read it many years ago, but I believe a reference is made to the creature resembling or possibly even being descended from Allosaurus in the movie novelization. Connected or not, Tri-Star’s Godzilla sucked, and Allo’s one actual appearance in the 90’s was in the sixth Land Before Time movie, The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock (1998). There’s not much to distinguish this brute from the other large sharp-teeth in the series other than a narrower skull and lighter-brown scales (it incorrectly has two fingers).

Finally, in the BBC TV-movie remake The Lost World (2001) we got what I think is the best representation of Allosaurus in a film so far. Previous adaptations had featured an Allo because it was the main threat in the novel, but T. rex was often included as well despite being absent from the source material. Not this time: the only big predatory dinosaur to appear is Allosaurus, and the modern effects allow it to far outshine any previous iterations. This was right around the time the BBC docu-drama Walking With Dinosaurs opened people’s eyes to what Allosaurus really looked like and what it was capable of. While it’s not the exact same design, the Lost World Allo looks very similar to the one from Walking With Dinosaurs, and the same effects company created them. A pair of them attacking a village is the scene where they stand out the most, and a uniquely violent moment occurs when one is stabbed through the head with a spear and continues attacking with the spear still in its skull! Not only does this movie feature the best Allosaurus, it’s also one of the best of the many adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel.

I wish I was done talking about crappy examples of cinematic allosaurs and could end this thing talking about the best example, but that is sadly not the reality. Allosaurus makes a cameo in Anonymous Rex (2004)—this stupid movie keeps coming up! There’s nothing worth saying about it other than just stating yes, it has Allosaurus in it. But, as bad as that cameo appearance is, at least it’s less screen time than the worst role Allosaurus has ever had, in the sci-fi/action/adventure/horror/thriller A Sound of Thunder (2005). This movie is awful. People from the future take a hunting trip back in time to the Jurassic period and shoot a big, hungry Allo. The dinosaur looks like a shiny plastic toy that’s been animated with cgi from a pre-Jurassic Park era, but there’s a reason for this crappiness. Apparently, the film didn’t get the full budget needed to be finished properly, so the visual effects were never actually finalized, which is why the Allosaurus (and all other creatures) look like unfinished, un-rendered pre-visual-effects: they are unfinished.

In spite of having more terrible roles than good ones in this era, Allosaurus made a recovery, and could stand toe-to-toe with T. rex now. It’s worth noting that A Sound of Thunder was based on the short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury, and the source material actually featured a Tyrannosaurus rex, which means the writers or producers or whoever was responsible actively chose to feature the Allo over the Rex. For Land of the Lost (2009), both big meat-eaters got to share the screen. They weren’t fighting, trying to kill each other, which was surprising (and maybe a little disappointing, it would’ve made for a better scene), and the Allo gets a spectacular death: becoming frozen and exploding. Again, not a great movie, but at least the cgi was good and it held its own against the Tyrant Lizard King.

After wanting to see one in the Jurassic Park franchise for almost two decades, I finally got my wish when Allosaurus appeared in the first trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018). However…it wasn’t everything I had hoped for. The design left a lot to be desired, and the cgi was fine, but still lacking compared to the T. rex and Spinosaurus from earlier films. It didn’t end up having more than a bit part in the actual film, and is stated to be an adolescent. Then, a year later, redemption! Imagine my surprise when the short film Battle at Big Rock (2019), set after the end of Fallen Kingdom, was released online, featuring the Allosaurus, now full-grown, attacking campers and three-horns in the North American woods. In case you haven’t seen Fallen Kingdom, here’s how Battle at Big Rock connects. The dinosaurs are transported from the ruins of Jurassic World to the main land and are freed at the end of the 2018 film, so now there are dinosaurs running loose everywhere, which sets up the premise for the next film, Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) (and it looks like Allosaurus will make another appearance based on the trailer). Battle at Big Rock isn’t a particularly remarkable short film, but it is pretty well shot, and the Allosaurus’ design is better than in Fallen Kingdom. Finally, Allosaurus got the lead role it deserved.

Even though T. rex continues to reign supreme, Allosaurus has become known in the Jurassic franchise and beyond, now recognized by the general public as a formidable predator in its own right. If there is ever another film adaptation of The Lost World I would love to see it come back, and hopefully we see the Allo again in another kind of dinosaur film at some point, too. 

The Complete Cinematic History of Allosaurus (Part 1 of 2)

Dinosaurs in Film: Allosaurus 

 

The most famous meat-eating dinosaur is still Tyrannosaurus rex, but looming in its shadow has always been another more ancient species known to science since the 1860s. The Allosaurus did not grow as large as T. rex, but it was even more ferocious and frightening in multiple ways. For one, it had wicked three-fingered hands ending in talon-like claws. These were not like the tiny two-fingered arms of a tyrannosaur, they were strong front limbs built to grasp at prey and tear it apart, or hold onto it while its sharp teeth and powerful jaws did the work. Even though they were smaller than the tyrannosaurs to come (but not by much), they were faster, swifter, and undoubtedly predatory, with small crests above the eyes, creating a mean expression. They may have also hunted in packs and been able to bring down the largest of dinosaurs: the long-necked sauropods. This should have been the real king of Jurassic Park if they wanted to be true to the name.

Allosaurus did not gain the same enduring fame as the Tyrant Lizard King, but it was still a pioneer of the early days of dinosaur motion pictures, with many memorable roles in multiple decades and a long-awaited rise to stardom in the 21^st century. I’ve broken it down into just two eras for this vicious carnivore. We’ll begin with one of the essential primary examples of prehistoric cinema.

 

Underdog Era (1920’s-1970’s)

 

Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle envisioned a world atop a plateau in the middle of the South American jungle where prehistoric life had survived unchanged for millions of years, and he would go on to write a novel with this premise called The Lost World, which became one of the classic dinosaur tales, as well as a source of inspiration for the earliest films to feature prehistoric creatures. The first film adaptation, The Lost World (1925), stayed true to the source material, right down to the main antagonist on the plateau. When Doyle wrote the novel, T. rex wasn’t as well-known yet, so he described Allosaurus as the most frightening top predator he could imagine. The design for the movie was based on a painting by famous paleo artist Charles R. Knight, and for the time, it was a pretty good debut. Sure, you can easily pick it apart today—the stop motion isn’t that smooth, the model isn’t that detailed, the posture is wrong, the arms are a bit too short—but for 1925, it was groundbreaking, and to this day the creature still exudes undeniable menace.

The Allosaurus attacks a Trachodon (duck-billed dinosaur) and within seconds of appearing it is clear this is a creature to be feared. It kills the Trachodon, which slides into a bog, then moves on to fight a Triceratops, but is chased off. Later, the Allo invades the explorers’ camp at night, and there’s a great moment with a torch thrown at it, somehow ending up perfectly in its jaws. This deters it, but the Allo is hungry and gets desperate enough to attack a spiky three-horn Agathaumus. It hangs onto its back, trying to bite its neck, but its frill protects it. The ceratopsian manages to disembowel the predator—only to be killed by a Tyrannosaurus rex immediately after. A second Allosaurus comes in to a later scene with a Brontosaurus, forcing the long-neck over a cliff. While the encounters with the ceratopsians and Trachodon would not have been possible in the prehistoric past given the amount of geologic time between those creatures and the Allo, the battle with the sauropod definitely happened 145 million years ago, though probably not quite like that.

The first time I saw The Lost World I didn’t actually realize the dinosaur attacking the long-neck was an Allosaurus, I thought it was the T. rex. In real life they look quite different, but in the movie they look pretty similar and the scale of them is hard to determine, so it’s not surprising that when effects creator Willis O’Brien went on to make the dinosaurs for King Kong (1933) there was some confusion yet again as to the identity of the big meat-eater. You see, T. rex technically did have three fingers, but one of the fingers was so vestigial it wasn’t even visible. Next time you eat a chicken wing, look for that tiny little claw near the joint. That’s kind of what the third finger of T. rex was like: present, but barely detectable. If you look at a T. rex arm compared to an Allosaurus arm, there’s no confusing one for the other. But, Charles R. Knight instigated some of the confusion when he painted his T. rex with the same number of fingers as his Allosaurus. This resulted in the T. rex’s on the Lost World plateau and on King Kong’s Skull Island having three distinct digits. It’s not quite the same case as Walt Disney wanting the Rex to have triple-clawed hands in The Rite of Spring for Fantasia because he liked the way it looked. That dino was always intended to be a T. rex, but the big meat-eater in King Kong was referred to as both an Allosaurus and a T. rex by O’Brien. To him, they were interchangeable.

This same problem happened again in The Valley of Gwangi (1969). There’s debate about whether or not the purple predator is an Allosaurus or Tyrannosaurus rex, because it, too, has three fingers, and is scaled to be roughly in between the maximum size for an Allo and the average size for a Rex. In the original script it was identified as an Allosaurus, but again, they didn’t draw much distinction between them. Ray Harryhausen, who created Gwangi was even quoted as saying “They're both meat eaters, they're both Tyrants... one was just a bit larger than the other.” But I think the case can be laid to rest. Harryhausen confirmed he used Charles R. Knight’s T. rex painting as inspiration/reference, and three fingers or two, that makes Gwangi a Tyrannosaurus in my books. Allosaurus got shafted. This would have been its biggest role thus far.

Allegedly, one of the creatures in One Million B.C. (1940) is supposed to be an Allosaurus too, but all they did was put real lizards on miniature sets and claim they were dinosaurs. They could’ve said they were any species and it wouldn’t have been any more or less convincing. The dinosaur in The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) is unquestionably an Allosaurus, and beat Valley of Gwangi to the punch as far as mixing dinosaurs and cowboys. But, Harryhausen’s Gwangi far outshines the Allo of Hollow Mountain, which is brought to life with a mix of lesser-quality stop motion and cheap rubber suit. That being said, it’s still not bad for the time it was made, especially considering neither Harryhausen nor Willis O’Brien did the stop motion (though O’Brien did work on the screenplay).

Hammer Studios remade One Million B.C., this time calling it One Million Years B.C. (1966) and featuring much better special effects. It still mixed in some real animals using rear projection to make them appear large, but also had stop motion animation created by the new go-to man for the job, Ray Harryhausen. One of the distinct parts of the original movie was the Allosaurus attack, and this was re-imagined with a stop motion one that actually looked like a real dinosaur, not some overgrown lizard. This Allo is easily one of the best in all of cinema history. It picks a guy up out of a pond and brutally kills him, then goes after a little girl in a tree. Main caveman character Tumak fights it with a spear, eventually getting the beast to fatally impale itself. This Allo, like many Harryhausen creations, has expression, attitude, and an incredible level of detail.

As great as the One Million Years B.C. Allosaurus is, it still got the short end of the stick. It’s a young one, much smaller than a true full-grown adult, and this scene happens in the first half of the film. The centerpiece action scene is between a Triceratops and a Ceratosaurus. In real life, Ceratosaurus was smaller than Allosaurus, and probably not as good of a fighter. I don’t know why Ceratosaurus was chosen for this scene over Allosaurus. Maybe because someone thought it looked scarier with its nose horn. The Allo had a chance to replace T. rex in Toho’s reimaging of the Eighth Wonder of the World, King Kong Escapes (1967), but the Jurassic predator would not be honoured. Kong fights Gorosaurus on Mondo Island while a blonde woman screams for her life, which is essentially a mini-remake of the T. rex fight from the 1933 original. Gorosaurus is a fictional dinosaur, and in supplementary material he is identified as being an Allosaurus relative, which checks out, given his three-fingered hands and tapered snout, but he’s still clearly meant to be seen as a giant stand-in for the T. rex from the original. Gorosaurus later went on to join the fray in Destroy All Monsters (1968), starring alongside most of the big Toho monster stars, like Godzilla and King Ghidorah.

A pair of allosaurs appeared in The Land That Time Forgot (1974), but not in the sequel. Maybe that was for the best: these ones look more like lizards than dinos, for one thing, and are not stop motion or mechanical, but instead floppy puppets. The only other Allosaurus appearance from this era was in Planet of Dinosaurs (1978), but this one is at least memorable for a good reason, and looks much more appealing than the previous example. It’s another small individual, barely taller than a human, and its scene is short. We see sand thrown in its face, a spear thrown at its back, and for good measure, one character shoots it with a laser blast. Though not as full of personality, the quality of this stop motion Allo is comparable to the one from One Million Years B.C. and, just like in that movie, its role is smaller than that of another large meat-eater.  

We’ll look at the second era next time. Check it out soon!

The Complete Cinematic History of Stegosaurus (Part 2 of 2)

Here’s part two of looking at Stegosaurus on film. Be sure to check out the first era in part one if you haven’t!

 

Victim Era (1960’s-1980’s)

You might think Stegosaurus had more and more roles as Hollywood moved into the age of colour pictures, widescreen lenses, and increasingly sophisticated special effects, but actually it struggled to make any memorable appearances in the 1960s. The biggest dinosaur movies from this time (One Million Years B.C., The Valley of Gwangi, and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, to name a few) ruled out the Steg in favour of other spiky plant eaters: namely ceratopsians like Chasmosaurus, Styracosaurus, and one of the other old standbys, Triceratops. Godzilla continued to make appearances throughout this era, but that was about as much representation as Stegosaurus had for a while.

The Forgotten Duology is an unofficial term I just made up for a pair of films based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who dabbled with dinos in his Tarzan and Caspak books, the latter being the inspiration for this pair of films. The Land That Time Forgot (1974) only shows Stegosaurus briefly, and it’s a puppet that looks a little ridiculous. The thing that stands out the most about it is how the back plates are shaped like teeth, making it resemble a Huayangosaurus (other species of stegosaurian) more than a Stegosaurus. Some characters get up close and personal with the Steg in the sequel, The People That Time Forgot (1977), and this one gives the dinosaur more of a spotlight. Sure, the people comment on its stupidity and slow metabolism, but it’s just munching away on plants, doing its thing. Then they mess with it by tying a rope to its spiky tail and shooting a gun to scare it so it can pull their plane free. The special effects still aren’t great, but at least it actually looks like a Stegosaurus this time around.

Finally, in Planet of Dinosaurs (1978), the first decent-looking Steg since Journey to the Beginning of Time graced cinema screens. The movie itself? Not good. The dinosaurs, though, were stop motion, and the models were detailed. There’s a small Stegosaurus herd shown briefly, then a grumpy loner shows up not long after to menace the group of humans. They flee from the stampeding behemoth, only to run into a Tyrannosaurus rex. Steg and Rex meet head-on, and the humans get out of the way so the giants can battle. It’s a fantastic fight, and the Steg looks great, with a swishing tail and staggered plates. But, it doesn’t stand a chance against the Rex, and the fight ends with the carnivore clamping its jaws over its little head, twisting and breaking its neck. This was how Stegosaurus would be characterized for most of the era: a dim-witted salad muncher with a brain no bigger than a walnut (not true, for the record) that stood little chance against the big meat-eaters despite its impressive armament.

A whole generation learned what Stegosaurus was from the animated kids film The Land Before Time (1988), which introduced audiences to Spike: a baby “Spike Tail” that becomes the adopted brother of Ducky the duckbill. Spike is immediately established as a non-verbal, constantly-starving, frequently-sleepy young lad, and he lacks the plates and spikes of the full-grown adults, but the row of bumps along his spine hint at what he will one day grow into—if he can survive the perils on the journey to the Great Valley along with the rest of his friends. Spoilers: they do survive, and Spike doesn’t get any bigger. Spike was never seen as the cutest of the group, but was a favourite of director Don Bluth. According to the internet, the character was written to be comparatively slower than the others in the group not because that fit best with the preexisting stereotypes of Stegosaurus, but in order for him to appeal to the mentally handicapped children in the audience. I searched for verification of this fact and could find none, so I think that’s a dubious claim. Spike also has big stoner energy, being sleepy and always having the munchies, but I don’t know if that was intentional or not either.  

So not only was Stegosaurus a victim of being typecast as a dumb herbivore (if it was cast at all), it was a victim of bullying for being so dumb, and repeatedly pitted against big meat-eaters as a victim despite its armament of plates and spikes. The next era would give the dinosaur some better roles, though, and show the world it was more than just a moronic vegetarian.

 

Character Era (1990’s-Present)

Land Before Time’s Spike was an indicator of the direction Stegosaurus would take going into the early 90’s: a period of time affectionately called the Dinosaur Renaissance. Dinosaurs have always been a fascination for people big and small, old and young, curious and timid, but everyone’s interest in them grew exponentially during this era. Spike returned for the direct-to-video sequel The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure (1994) with the same character traits but a slightly different design. The end of his tail lacked the rudimentary Thagomizer that was previously present, and his back ridges were reduced, likely to make it easier for the animators to draw him. Spike was a fully-fledged supporting character by this point, and he returned for every sequel, even getting to speak a few times throughout the series and being featured more prominently in The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze (2001). 

In 1993 Stegosaurus had another notable role…but it wasn’t in Jurassic Park (1993). Carl Denham comments on the length of the one in King Kong, and as far as I can tell it’s the largest cinematic stegosaur of them all, but the one in Prehysteria! (1993) has to be the smallest example. There’s a quintet of miniature prehistoric beasts, all named after famous singers, and the Stegosaurus “Jagger” gets its moniker from the Rolling Stones leading man. Jagger is one of the only stegosaurs other than Spike that I can think of who has a name. He looks similar to the one from Planet of Dinosaurs and was brought to life using mainly rod puppetry, which works well since it’s such a small individual.   

The Steg wasn’t completely absent from the first Jurassic Park. In the novel the characters come across a sick Stegosaurus, but it was changed to a Triceratops for the movie. During the scene in the cryo chamber when Nedry steals the embryos you can see its name on one of the columns of DNA vials. It stands out because the spelling is wrong: it’s incorrectly labelled Steg[a]saurus. Guess they forgot to use spellcheck. Steven Spielberg received more requests for it to be featured in the sequel than any other dinosaur. Not wanting to disappoint the fans, the first big dinosaur shown in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) is the plated giant. The tiny Compsognathus that attack the little girl in the opening scene were from the first novel, and used in the opening specifically to subvert the audiences expectations. Instead of something huge and terrifying, a tiny little chicken-like lizard leaps out. But, when the main characters arrive on the island we get a scene comparable to that of the Brachiosaurus reveal in the first movie, around the same twenty minute mark. A herd of Stegosaurus stroll out from the forest and everyone’s jaws drop. “Yeah, ‘ou, ah’ that’s how it always starts,” Ian Malcolm laments, “but then later there’s running, and, and, screaming…”

This is without a doubt the best Stegosaurus has ever looked in a movie. They aren’t dragging their tails or their bellies, their backs aren’t perfect bridge arches, they aren’t crashing into things, and they aren’t roaring senselessly or being ruthless. They are acting like real animals. A Steg is usually depicted as grey or brown or green in colour; Stan Winston Studios didn’t do anything too crazy with their colour palate, which I think was for the best. We get up close and personal with a baby that looks even cuter than Spike from Land Before Time, but its cries for help put Paleontologist Sarah Harding in a tight spot: a stampeding adult takes a swing at her with its Thagomizer, nearly killing her. We only see the infant and adults a couple more times, once briefly in a later scene at the camp and in the final shot before the camera pans up to a Pteranodon. Even though these stegosaurs don’t feel as much like characters as previous examples from this era (or even compared to other dinosaurs in the Jurassic franchise, for that matter) they still transcend previous iterations, thanks to the beautiful design, high-quality mix of cgi and practical effects, and more scientifically-accurate representation.

Stegosaurus still stayed predominantly true to this era of being a character rather than being typecast as a cliché victim or miscast as a bloodthirsty monster. Spike returned for a further twelve sequels after Land Before Time II and Jagger came back for two Prehysteria sequels. It made only brief appearences in Jurassic Park III (2001), Jurassic World (2015), and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), as well as the TV miniseries Dinotopia (2002) and the bizarre Anonymous Rex (2004). Stegosaurus was much better represented on the small screen compared to the big screen going into the 21^st century, appearing in dramatic docuseries’ like Walking with Dinosaurs and Jurassic Fight Club. I think this is what has helped contribute to the Steg’s continued popularity and recognition, because looking at the cinematic history of the extinct creature, it definitely hasn’t been featured as frequently in recent years. At least it finally earned the respect it deserved and came into its own after a long, complicated history, and hopefully continues to be well-represented in future films.

The Complete Cinematic History of Stegosaurus (Part 1 of 2)

Dinosaurs in Film: Stegosaurus

 

With a new dinosaur movie coming out this summer, I thought it would be fun to look at some different species and their history on the big screen. For this follow-up to Tyrannosaurus rex, I’m looking at another one of the most famous of all dinosaurs. Unlike the Tyrant Lizard King, this one is a plant eater from the Jurassic period, but it, too, is instantly recognizable thanks to its distinct appearance, and almost everyone knows its name when they see it. Stegosaurus is a thirty-foot long, four-legged weapon of an animal, with a small head and two rows of diamond-shaped plates running along its spine. Its tail ends with what is known as a “Thagomizer”: an arrangement of four spikes designed to inflict damage on large predators (the term comes from a Gary Larson cartoon).    

The history of Stegosaurus on film is quite different from that of other dinosaurs in the motion picture business. When paleontologists first found its fossils, they incorrectly thought the plates on its back laid flat (hence the name, which translates to “Roof Lizard”) but since then there’s been continued debate about the positioning and function of the plates. Did they line up or were they staggered? Were they armor or weapons? Did they act like solar panels or mating displays? Today, it’s mainly agreed the plates were in two staggered rows, but the function is still debated. Though the scientific understanding of this creature has changed in the decades since its discovery, the general look of the Steg hasn’t been too dramatically revised, but its film roles have been quite varied. We’ll begin with the earliest era, which I think is characterized in particular by these varying roles.

 

Identity Crisis Era (1920’s-1950’s)

The first Stegosaurus to appear on film was a quaint, quiet individual just minding its own business in Along the Moonbeam Trail (1920). This stop-motion model might be the most lizard-like of any Steg. It has a long flickering tongue, thick scales, and practically crawls on the ground. It pops in for a short scene and leaves, bringing no harm to the characters. In The Lost World (1925) it is depicted in the same way. In a wide shot of the plateau with lots of prehistoric creatures scattered around, Steggy is munching on plants in the foreground, and later it bothers a grazing Agathaumas (the three-horn is killed by a T. rex immediately after). The Steg is shown to have a back arched like a bridge, with its dorsal plates lined up next to one another down the length of its spine. We don’t get much more from it than that, but it seems harmless enough. That sense of harmlessness would be completely absent from its next big role.

When the rescue team pursues Anne Darrow past the wall in King Kong (1933) they have no idea what creatures will be waiting for them—Anne just got packed away by a giant ape, after all—but it turns out most of the creatures on Skull Island are prehistoric, and the first one they encounter is a Stegosaurus. It’s far away in the background, but it catches sight of the explorers and stampedes through the jungle right toward them, roaring. They throw a gas bomb and stun it, but it quickly gets back up. They shoot it over and over until it drops again, and even as they get close to it, the creature is still alive, but a shot directly to the face seems to finally kill it.

We get a pretty good look at this monstrosity; Carl Denham says it’s “something from the dinosaur family” and dubs it “a prehistoric beast” which is a term that would be re-used as the title for Phil Tippett’s short dinosaur film released over fifty years later. This Steg appears to be much larger than it was known to grow in real life, and has bumpy scales. Once again, the plates are arranged in two rows all lined up, and a unique trait of this one is the tail. It twitches like a cat as they walk past—one man shouts “it’s still alive!” (And I ask how? They shot it directly in the face!)—and instead of the normal four spikes it has twice as many. It would have seemed obvious for Peter Jackson to bring back the plated lizard for his King Kong remake, but surprisingly, it doesn’t make an appearance, and there isn’t even a creature that’s equivalent to it anywhere in the film. In the extended cut the first dinosaur the crew encounters is a ceratopsian called Ferrucutus, and the scene is meant to be reminiscent of that stegosaur encounter in the original.

In contrast to Tyrannosaurus rex, Stegosaurus could take on more diverse roles in this early era of dinosaur cinema. It could be an antagonistic brute, like in King Kong, or it could be a peaceful plant-eating protagonist. Disney’s Fantasia (1940) cast the Steg as the victim to the vicious Rex in the segment The Rite of Spring, and it’s a harrowing battle that ends tragically for the herbivore. As great as the colourful animation and epic music make it, this scene would have been impossible in the prehistoric past. Stegosaurus lived in the Jurassic period, millions of years before T. rex evolved. What would have been possible was seeing Stegosaurus terrorized by Allosaurus, but T. rex was bigger and scarier, so at the expense of scientific accuracy Disney went with Rexy instead. This Steg has the same posture as previous depictions, with the correct number of tail spikes this time, though the tail is way too fat and flops all around as if it has no bones. What can I say though: it’s a cartoon. 

So Stegosaurus had a couple unassuming roles, then played a bad guy, then a good guy. It was notably miscast twice in the 1950’s. Its most recognizable feature are those massive dorsal plates, and when you look at Godzilla, it’s easy to recognize the influence there. In the original Godzilla (1954) his spikes are more jagged and erratic than any real stegosaurians (plus they light up when he breathes his atomic breath), but it’s not just suggested there’s a relation between dino and monster through the way he looks. There’s a scene with scientists showing pictures of dinosaurs and explaining where Godzilla came from, suggesting he’s from the Jurassic age and is a mix of Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex. I don’t need to repeat it but I will: no, they did not live at the same time, so this is yet another example of pure science fiction, not science fact. Over the years Godzilla’s dorsal spines would change size and shape, but always remain spiky, never coming closer to the real look of an actual Stegosaurus. In The Land Unknown (1957) a giant monitor lizard is stated to be a Stegosaurus. It clearly isn’t one, it’s just a lizard on a miniature set. It doesn’t even have any plastic spikes glued to it. They didn’t even try. 

After so many varying roles, Stegosaurus came back around full circle to being a peaceful plant eater created with stop motion animation again in Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955). This Czechoslovakian film didn’t depict dinosaurs as monsters but rather as living creatures, which made it ahead of its time (no pun intended). Stegosaurus encounters a Ceratosaurus (Hey! That dinosaur did live at the same time!), and they have a suitably exciting battle. The stop motion is a little jerky but not bad, and Stegosaurus looks less monstrous and more scientifically accurate than ever before, with the correct number of tail spikes and a staggered plate arrangement. Steggy still had a long way to go before being utilized to its full potential on the big screen.

Just like T. rex, this dinosaur’s cinematic history is too big to contain in one part. Check out the conclusion soon!