Carnosaur Thread

Because what's Jurassic Park without bringing up the supreme schlock that is the Carnosaur saga? Both novel and films.

Carnosaur (Novel)-  1984
Carnosaur (Film) - 1993
Carnosaur 2 - 1995
Carnosaur 3 - 1996
Raptor - 2001
Eden Formula - 2006


Trivia
-The novel was written by John Brosnan used the pseudonym "Harry Adam Knight" was a case of comical self depreciation. It was an acronym he used when writing what he knew was B-movie like science fiction and horror. "H.A.K."

Carnosaur (both films and book) beat Jurassic Park to the punch on the following
-Feathered dinosaurs (the Deinonychus has a blink-and-you'll miss it feather coat as a baby)
-Popularizing Dromaeosaurids as intelligent, agile antagonists
-Scene with a Tyrannosaurid (Tarbosaurus in the novel) chasing a car down a city's downtown
-Said Tyrannosaurid destroying a bus and a shop
-Smart dinosaurs with human DNA
-Large herbivore takes out an armored vehicle
-Someone hiding from a Tyrannosaurus in a shipping crate

-The Deinonychus and Tyrannosaurus props from the series got reused in a softcore porno. Thankfully not being used for said X rated scenes.

-The novel and film share a grand total of one, maybe two scenes.

-The description of the novel Deinonychus and Movie!TLW male raptors are remarkably similar.

-There is a scene similar to the JP kitchen scene in the novel.

-At the time of its writing, most large Theropods were thought to be members of Carnosauria, hence the title. Since then we've learned different and only one of the novel's nine species, Altispinax, is a legit Carnosaur. None of the film series' three species are.

A film series so bad it's good . I'll have to go back and rewatch all of these next time I do a dino marathon.

I recently got the novel and was pleasantly surprised. Had it been given a bigger budget and been adapted closer, it could have been pretty damn good movie. Not necessarily something to outright rival JP, but a solid dinosaur film nonetheless.

Time for trivia!

Love these films (in a so bad its good way)!

Trivia: Dr. Jane Tiptree was played by Diane Ladd was is the mother of Laura Darn (aka: Dr. Ellie Sattle)

Most favorite is the first one but as a kid I was so shocked by the ending.

Yeah the ending of the first Carnosaur is very abrupt. And sort of meant to be shocking I guess.

For anyone who wants to see it, the series "Movie Magic" did an episode on animatronics and practical monster effects and they actually were around during the production of the first film. While the effects can't hold a candle at all to Jurassic Park, it is still neet to see the teams work their stuff on such an enormously low budget. Fact they made anything that was tough enough to last five movies on just around 400,000 dollars and a couple of weeks of time (most of Carnosaur's 850k budget went to renting out spots to shoot and the cast) is pretty impressive in itself.

I need to read the novel, man.

I got it. It's not half bad and a lot like British horror writing of the time (Like the Rats series). Not perfect, and more than a bit cynical, but not bad. Probably say my favorite part is the Tarbosaurus rampage.


If anyone wants to see the movies though, got all the core series right here!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq4hU6BAiBn84NkGjGbVqmLcRD7qQa0A1

Is the book any good?

Raptor Blue wrote:

Is the book any good?

Actually quite a different beast than the movie. Off the top of my head the only scenes in either that just resemble each other is a Deinonychus mauling two teenagers in a car and confronting a large theropod with a very large vehicle. It's not as good as Crichton's handiwork, but Brosnan is a genuinely good writer in my mind. It's a bit of a detective story at first with a investigative reporter checking in on some murders across the rural English countryside, finding out it was an animal attack, then that some men from a local aristocrat were on scene before the police somehow and there's a cover up afoot. There are some weird parts (like a few sexual scenes that just come off as out of place), but still pretty good.

One thing I especially liked in the story was the use of "primal fear", it actually being something Brosnan put to the forefront that Crichton only touched upon. Because carnivorous dinosaurs were such principle predators for mammals across a majority of mammalian evolution, the fear of them and things that remind mammals of them persisted even after they died out. The reason things like nails on a chalkboard or jet engines unnerve people is because they sound like theropods. Just smelling a theropod in the story is enough to send most people and other mammals into an instinctual panic, like they have a voice in their head screaming for them to get out of there. Conversely, because most Theropods ate mammals as youngsters, the reason they go after people so much is they are hardwired to think mammal = easy prey.

I remember watching the first film and Raptor on the SciFi channel every now and then. I thing they're fairly harmless b-movies. Though it has always bugged me that they always used the two same dinosaurs for every film. I recall that the same effects company made a Triceratops puppet got Dinosaur Island, but I never knew why they never recycled it for one of the Carnosaur Films. I wouldn't mind see this cheese fest get a remake.... but let's make sure the Asylim doesn't get their filthy hands on it. lol.

I remember wanting to see them as a kid, but my parents were against letting me see R-rated films, so I never got to see them. When I did eventually see them years later, I was underwhelmed to say the least.

The second and third ones are okay. I liked the one where the raptors were on a ship.

Definitely need to pick up a copy.

We need a big budget version of this movie ASAP.