Mar 14, 2009

Foam-Festooned Monsters

Niner asked for more reptile posts, and Morgan delivered. Morgan is a fan of your old-timey flicks in which dinosaurs and reptilian monsters were portrayed with live actors: namely, iguanas and monitors. Though no amount of painted foam can truly disguise these creatures' true identity, it's charming. And frankly, I would prefer foam-festooned iguanas over a lot of the CG being produced today.

So, this is a tribute to Lost World, One Million B.C, and every other show that delivered larger than life monsters with the budget, foam, and reptiles they had on hand.

Thanks for the screenshots, Morgan.










14 comments:

Carrie said...

I love this post & sent it to Digg!

Raging Wombat said...

I love it. Thanks, Carrie. Maybe one of these days I'll be dugg.

Anonymous said...

Those are truly awesome... in this MST3K kinda way. :)

Anonymous said...

Ok, who's been gluing costumes onto my reptiles again? This is the third time this week, guys! They just want lettuce (and maybe mealworms)

Anonymous said...

Oh, I LOVE this post! It is so happy, haha! Thanks Morgan and Wombat!

(P.S. Is it sad that I know most of those movies? >.<)

Raging Wombat said...

Sad would be not knowing them.

Anonymous said...

(1) Oh, hey, another BLARG ME HAET CGI BLARG post. How fresh! It'll be SO great when it's 1945 again!

(2) Many of the lizards used in this fashion by filmmakers were coerced into attacking each other for your amusement. And once they got going, they didn't quit just because the director said "cut." Yay animal cruelty!

Raging Wombat said...

Hey, yet another anonymous drive-by rant. How fresh! And one that's rife with web speech too! Yeah! I didn't know I had struck a sensitive spot, and one that's been struck by other bloggers at that. Wow, I must be very tuned in to the anti-CG zeitgeist.

Anonymous said...

If it makes you feel better, Usual Anon Person, the film division of the AHA was set up in the 1940s for animal protection in U.S. made movies. I can safely assume that most of these movies from the screen shots were made close to or after 1940.

Also, as a possible old fogey, I think CGI technolgy is so cheap that every Joe who has a computer can attempt to try. That doesn't make it look good though.

Back on topic though, I will now go attach some horns and wings to my iguana and take some photos.

Raging Wombat said...

I really hope you do that, niner. I do!

Anonymous said...

Hey, there's a monitor on my monitor.

Vanessa said...

I wouldn't put any stock in the AHA because they are not that effective in preventing animal abuse in entertainment.
They were on the set of Flicka and did nothing to prevent those horses from being killed.
You can learn more if you google 'Fox Films Kills Horses'.

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid I have to go with the "nuffers" on this one (is it okay to use that terminology?). If they didn't mind throwing cute lemmings off cliffs for a shot, the lower orders of critters probably had it hard in the film business.

Still, the iguanas and monitors were pretty cool. I prefer the stop motion beasts, however.

niner said...

It is considerably naive to think all institutions are infallible. Yes, the AHA is not perfect. Neither is PETA or as we have all seen, governmental institutions (AIG, and Wall Street?).

The point is, it was set up in good faith and actually HAS saved many animals' health and lives. It needed to be created. Whether or not it can act 100% of the time is up to people like you and me to call the movie-makers out when bad things happen.