Not only is this the great-grandfather of the giant monster genre, but it’s the great-grandfather of the big budget blockbuster action movies we’re so used to seeing these days. This is where special effects as we know them today came from. This is The Lost World.
The Lost World is a 1925 silent film based on a novel by the same title written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film has the same basic story as the book. A man named Professor Challenger claims to have found dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures in an unknown land. To prove that his claims aren’t false, he leads an expedition back into his newly discovered ‘Lost World’. Things don’t go that well, and the team gets trapped for a short time, having to survive a dinosaur filled landscape. but eventually the expedition manages to bring a Brontosaurus with them back to London, where it goes on the first ever giant monster rampage along with the first ever large scale action sequence in cinematic history.
The story is just as classic and timeless as anything you could think of. Obviously it doesn’t look nearly as realistic as the films we have today. There was no CGI, and the only way to make the dinosaurs come to life was by using stop motion. It won’t seem impressive to the type of modern moviegoer that takes CGI for granted, but if you think about it, the time that this film came out, what they had to do in order to accomplish what they did, all the hours and effort that goes into stop motion and the compositing effects, you cannot honestly say that you aren’t amazed that the filmmakers were ever able to pull it off in the first place.
The attention to detail for this time was astounding. Of course, this isn’t a film you’d want to watch in order to learn about dinosaurs, since the fossil record of 1925 was not nearly as accurate as the fossil record of 2015. Trust me, if you’re one of the people that whines about how inaccurate Jurassic Park is, then you really won’t like this one. But for what they knew back then, the dinosaurs looked pretty darn cool. They each have decent skin textures, they’re mostly to scale, they’re very articulate, and they’re animated well. The animators even gave the Allosaurus saliva in its mouth, which I thought was a neat detail on the model.
It’s not just the dinosaurs that look awesome for the time. The environments and other effects look great as well. I can’t even start to describe how much detail was put into the backgrounds and forests and sets and all the other things. The backgrounds stretch on forever, and there’s always something going on in the far reaches of the environments. The compositing effects are done exceptionally well. Whenever the actors and dinosaurs are on the screen at the same time, and are interacting, it always looks good, and gives the impression that the stop motion models are enormous. The Brontosaurus’ rampage in London at the end showcases the compositing effects better than the rest of the film. The dinosaur is in a major city, not its natural habitat, so it could have been very easy for it to look like the dinosaur was even more out of place than it already was. Fortunately, they pull of those scenes almost seamlessly! It looks good! And for a film of that time period, it would be a miracle if it was functional at all, but it turned out looking good!
I almost forgot to mention the characters. I guess they’re alright…. they’re not the reason I like this film, though. And they’re definitely not what makes the film so groundbreaking. I’ll admit, I didn’t really care for anyone in this film. I didn’t care for the humans, or the romance (which had no real purpose in the story). There were a couple characters I liked. Professor Challenger was… okay. And there was a helpful monkey. A majority of the film was spent watching the people in silence, waiting for the cool stuff to happen. As much as I praised this film’s effects quality, I can’t say the same for the characters.
The characters aren’t stupid like many later movies like this. They’re all competent people. They’re simply boring. That’s it. They have to be one of the weakest parts of the film. The boring characters and slow pace are what bring this film down. The absolute weakest part of the film is the soundtrack. Obviously, I can’t hold that against the movie at all, because it’s a silent movie from the silent era.
(Side note- the lack of soundtrack is going to alter the final rating of the movie. I’m rating it out of 45 points instead of 50. I don’t really concern myself with scores that much to begin with, but I put it there anyway to give people who want a score something to go on)
In conclusion, it’s undeniable that the effects are outdated, but it’s still impressive that they were ever accomplished in the first place. If you are a moviegoer that appreciates special effects, then I’d say that you need to watch The Lost World. It’s necessary for everyone who loves movies to watch it. Everyone needs to know where their big budget, larger than life effects of Lord of the Rings and Avatar, and Avengers started out. The interesting characters of those movies are nowhere to be found in The Lost World, however, which is really the only downside to the movie.
The best part about this movie is that it’s on the public domain, which means you don’t have to pay to watch it! You can find it on Youtube. It’s only about an hour long, and it’s one of the most complete reconstructions of the movie. In case you didn’t know, the film was almost lost and destroyed. It remained in pieces over the decades, but the version I found on Youtube is presumably the most complete version. Check it out, and really take time to appreciate what it did right. You should never take any aspect of cinema for granted.
FINAL RATING: 30 / 45
STORY: 3 / 5
ACTING: 3 / 5
CHARACTERS: 1 / 5
STOP MOTION EFFECTS: 4 / 5
ADVENTURE: 5 / 5
TONE: 3 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 3 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 3 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 5 / 5
I find it to be a funny coincidence that several of the films that revolutionized special effects featured dinosaurs. The Lost World, King Kong, and Jurassic Park all changed the way special effects were done for their time, and they all starred dinosaurs.
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