An Essay about Celluloid and Digital Dinosaurs ®. (There had to be a catch, right?)

Eventually, sometime or another, somebody has to imagine what a dinosaur looks like. Maybe it is a Paleontologist, maybe it is an Artist, maybe it is a Movie Maker, and maybe it is you. The "picture" of the dinosaur -- whether it is in our mind or on paper or celluloid motion picture film --  helps us to understand how these animals behaved. Ideas about how dinosaurs looked have changed over the years as our research improves. At one time, for example, some scientists thought that dinosaurs hopped like kangaroos. If a dinosaur in Jurassic Park did that, everybody would laugh.

There is a sort of partnership between paleontology and painting and movies: they help to define each other. The paleontologist digs up the bones, the artist paints a painting, and the filmmaker brings it to "life." Then everyone complains about how silly the movie dinosaurs look (or do they?) and little by little, things improve. If dinosaur paintings like those in the Paper Dinosaurs exhibit have helped us to learn about dinosaurs, so have Celluloid Dinosaurs,  realistic and otherwise.

The only information we have about what might be the very first dinosaur movie, Prehistoric Man (1905 or 1908?) or Prehistoric Peeps, 1905(?), are the title and the possibility that they contain cartoon animation or mechanical dinosaurs. There is a lost French film from 1909 based upon Jules Verne's A Journey to The Centre of The Earth that allegedly contains dinosaurs. So far, however, we cannot turn up any proof of this. And the acknowledged maestro of modern movies D.W. Griffith walks away with another milestone:Man's Genesis, 1912, which apparently contains the first verifed dinosaur scene, though we haven't seen it ourselves. Brute Force, a sequel from 1913,  was actually shown, in part, on the American Academy Awards show in 2000. There is no doubt that there is a big, clunky, mechanical dinosaur in that film!

However, the first really important dinosaur movie was Gertie The Dinosaur, a wonderful animated cartoon made in 1914 by Winsor McCay. This cartoon captured the imagination of the American public -- if not the world -- and set off  a motion picture "dinosaur rush" that still hasn't stopped.

Leading up to Gertie, we have included a few major events in dinosaur history -- starting in 300 BCE in China when the first written record of a "dragon bone" was found, then moving to 1676 when the first modern dinosaur bone drawing was made, and on through the important artwork and books of today  --  to help "frame" what went on in the movies. We all know that Native Americans and Chinese peasants really discovered dinosaur bones hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before Europeans, but this had little impact on the beginnings of  Western movies.

When this essay was first written around 1999, digital Computer Graphics were just being introudced in films like Jurassic Park. Today (2009) almost every movie includes digital graphics. Celluloid Motion Picture Film is slowly but surely being phased out of production, so "Celluloid Dinosaurs" will become nearly as extinct as T. rex. But history is history, and celluloid movie film is still an important part of the history of paleontology, art, and the movies. In honor of progress, we have renamed this feature Celluloid and Digital Dinosaurs in honor of the Winter Solstice of 2008 and probably some other things, too.

Over time, we will add additional illustrated essays about the films that explain not only why they are so much fun, but also how they were affected by or affected our knowledge of dinosaurs, paleontology and evolution. Check back so that you don't miss out!

 

Animation - drawn by hand on cels or paper.	Live action with stop-motion dinosaurs.   Live action with CG or CGI dinosaurs	Live action film that shows a dinosaur skeletal reconstruction or mentions dinosaurs.
Stop Motion animation.	Live action with lizards dressed as dinosaurs or prehistoric animals.	Live action film with unknown form of dinosaur "portrayal."
Cut-out silhouette animation.	Live-action with people dressed as dinosaurs and/or mechanical dinosaurs.	Japanese "dino-like" monster (non-Godzilla).
CG or CGI (Computer Graphics Imagery) animation.	Godzilla movies.	Dragons.

Important related events are marked with the following labels:

PALEONTOLOGY

DINOSAUR ART

MOTION PICTURE TECHNOLOGY

LITERATURE

Other inscrutible symbols include:
?? = missing information. For example: How were dinosaurs done? Contact us if you have more information.
A White background behind a title means that we have not identified the process used for the dinosaurs

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Historical "Eras"

300 B.C.E. Paleontology Begins

1676 Dinosaur Art Begins

1872 Just Before Movies

1894 Movies Begin

1905 Dinosaur Movies Begin

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Note: Titles marked with ? may not exist or we can't find anyone who has actually seen them.

Unless otherwise noted, these movies were produced and premiered and science-related events took place in the United States. Other countries have been marked when appropriate.

For the most part, we have listed Godzilla movies in a separate list. You can click here for that list. Eventually, we may integrate the two lists for easier reference.

Request: Anyone with further information (additions and corrections) is urged to contact us by e-mail. We are especially interested in titles and information about dinosaur films produced in countries beside the United States. For example, there were dinosaur type films produced in Korea during the 1950's and 1960's, but we have little information on them. If you have "stills" or posters or "illustrations" of any of the films on this list -- especially the rare ones -- please make them available to us.

Acknowlegments: In addition to our obsessed staff, certain other individuals have taken time away from what we imagine are otherwise normal lives to pitch in. These include Ralph Miller III, Donald Glut, Dan Varner, Peter Von Sholly and a number of members of the Dinosaur Mailing List who will undoubtedly throttle us for forgetting about them. Ms. Shuko Funaki, Ms.Waida Rika, and Mr. Soeno were kind enough to translate valuable information about some Japanese films. We would also like to acknowledge "The Complete Dinosaur" by James O. Farlow and M.K. Brett-Surman for paleontology reference, and Samuel R. Delany for literary reference. Others include: Berislav Krsic, the Internet Movie Database, SF Online, Kenvin Hedgpeth, Bruce Calvert, Mark Leeper,Callie A. Vanderbilt White, David Schechter, James Kirkland (10/99), Sergio Angelini (NFTVA Cataloguer)(11/99), The Handy Dinosaur Answer Book by T. E. Svarney & P. Barnes-Svarney (2/2000); Alfonso Hinojosa, Mexican Films (1/21/2001); Dr. Michael Delahoyde, Instructor, Department of English,Washington State University several unknown titles from Dinosaur Films, an annotated list, (2/5/2001), Dave Witthans (typos), John Crossen (3/2001), Roy Webber, Classic Horror Movies 4/2001

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