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Released by: Warner Archive
Released on: 3/22/2011
Director: Tsugunobu Kotani, Alexander Grasshoff
Cast: Richard Boone, Joan Van Ark, Steven Keats, Luther Rackley
Year: 1977
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The Movie:
In this politically correct age we live in men can learn a lot from The Last Dinosaur's Maston Thrust (played masterfully by the late, great Richard Boone). He's a man's man, the kind that they don't really make anymore. He likes hunting and killing and yelling and calling people he doesn't like ding-dongs. He even comes with his own powerful and spoiler-laden theme song performed by jazz singer Nancy Wilson. It goes a little something like this:
Few men have ever done, what he has done.
Or even dreamed, what he has dreamed.
His time has passed, there are no more.
He is the last dinosaur.
Few men have even tried, what he has tried.
Most men have failed, where he's prevailed.
His time has passed, there are no more.
He is the last dinosaur.
The world holds nothing new in store for him.
And things that startle you and me, are just a bore to him.
The spark of life has gone, his life grows dim.
And there is something left in the world to challenge him.
Few men have ever lived, as he has lived.
Or even walked, where he has walked.
His time has passed, there are no more.
He is the last dinosaur.
He is the last dinosaur.
When we Mr. Thrust he's hanging out with a foxy woman who is basically hanging off of his every word. She accompanies him on a car ride but then he sends her back to wherever it is that she came from with a plane ticket and a golden bullet to remember him by, telling her that when times get tough she can 'bite on it.' You see, Maston Thrust is a wealthy industrialist playboy who runs a multinational corporation but whose heart is in big game hunting. We know this from all the trophies hanging on the walls of his massive home.
At any rate, an expedition to somewhere beneath the Earth's surface killed four of Thrust's employees and he's got to handle a press conference wherein he'll announce that he's going to personally go along for the second attempt. After he yells at people a lot he tells us that joining him will be the only survivor of the first mission, Chuck Wade (Steven Keats), a female photojournalist with a penchant for fake strip teases named Frankie Banks (Joan Van Ark), a Japanese scientist named Dr. Kawamoto (Tetsu Nakamura) and Thrust's personal right hand man, a Masai tracker named Bunta (Luther Rackley). We're told that Bunta may just be the best Masai tracker in the world, but it's never actually confirmed - but you know he's good because he's really tall, he doesn't talk much and he carries a giant spear.
This unlikely crew of heroes cram into a drill machine called a Polar Borer that burrows beneath the ocean floor and soon drops them in the middle of a prehistoric world where pterodactyls and cavemen rule the scene. What we know, however, is that Thrust and his pals are after the big one, the king daddy of dinosaurs - the almighty Tyrannosaurus Rex! It was T-Rex that wrecked the first mission and so they have to capture it - note capture it, not kill it. This all changes pretty quickly though when Dr. Kawamoto is left alone to guard their camp while the others explore and return to find him pretty much flattened. Thrust gets pissed quickly and before you know it he's running around the jungle with Bunta, throwing spears and yelling at things while Frankie takes photos and Chuck checks out Frankie's tight body, his glances telling us all we need to know about his intentions.
With the T-Rex running around trying to eat everyone and their Polar Borer missing, Thrust's quest becomes increasingly chaotic and all involved find themselves having to fend for their lives against the dinosaurs and cavemen who populate this strange world - who will live and who will die? Who will make it back to the Earths' surface? Will we find out, Cannibal Holocaust style, who the real last dinosaur is?
A co-production between Rankin-Bass (the guys who made all those awesome stop motion holiday specials like Frosty The Snowman) and Japan's Tsuburaya Productions (the guys who made Ultraman), The Last Dinosaur finds the notoriously hard drinking Boone at his scenery chewing best. More likely to spit out his dialogue and yell at people than talk in anything resembling a normal tone, his performance here is one for the books and his Maston Thrust actually a bit of an asshole. He's completely entertaining, however, and his story makes for some mighty fine movie watching.
Couple Boone's powerhouse performance with the awesome 'guy in a suit' monster effects (notice that the T-Rex seems to change size a few times, appearing anywhere from twenty to fifty feet high depending on the scene!) and some cool old school miniature sets and props and you've got a pretty great film on your hands. It's goofy as goofy can get but there's enough monster mayhem and intrigue that it's never even close to dull. A remarkably dramatic score by omnipresent Rankin-Bass composer Maury Laws adds to the awesomeness of it all.
Video/Audio/Extras:
While this film debuted in North America as a made for TV movie, it definitely enjoyed a theatrical release in Japan indicating that the 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer here is probably a pretty reasonable approximation of how it was meant to be seen. Warner's transfer is clean and colorful and while it's soft in spots, there aren't any rampant print damage issues nor are there any problems with compression artifacts. Fans of the film should be quite pleased with the results.
The audio is handled by a fine English language Dolby Digital Mono track, no alternate language options or subtitles are provided. Again, it's free of any major problems. If a few scenes sound a bit flat, it's not to the point where it'll take you out of the movie or anything like that. The levels are fine and there's no background hiss or audible defects to complain about.
There are no extras outside of a static menu and chapter stops are set up on the disc five minutes apart. It would have been awesome to see some sort of retrospective documentary on the making of this picture or get a commentary from anyone involved but that didn't happen. In fact, in terms of extras, nothing happened and that's a shame because this movie is rad. The Japanese DVD release did contain some extras, but they weren't carried over here.
The Final Word:
While it's obvious that the film's fan base would have liked some love in the extra features department, realistically anyone familiar with the Warner Archives program wasn't really expecting it. While that's a shame, the silver lining is that the film is now readily available to anyone who wants it in a nice widescreen transfer and in its full length version. The movie itself is wildly entertaining and chock full of awesome miniature and rubber suit monster effects and can proudly lay claim to one of Richard Boone's wonkiest performances. In all seriousness and without one once of sarcasm, this movie is a goddamn blast from start to finish. See it with someone you love and a cooler full of cold ones.
