Living in the Land Of The Lost

Land Of The Lost comes out tonight and I admit to being torn. On the one hand Spectral Motion handled the special effects make-up on the new film, so we know at least it's gonna look good. I'm loving their dead-on Sleestaks - all the creepy characteristics of the originals (with a few nasty upgrades from the looks of things) without the visible zippers up the backs. (By the way, if you'd like to read more about Spectral's work on the movie the Land Of The Lost film has their press kit release available on their website, with several interesting pages about the Sleestack suits and Chaka's make-up).

Plus it was a lot of fun to catch a glimpse of a Sleestak temple rising from the backlot of Universal Studios when I was in LA last summer for the HBII fan screening.

On the other hand - it's a Will Ferrell movie... I really don't like Will Ferrell movies myself. I just don't think acting like an idiot while speaking as loudly and obnoxiously as possible is all that funny. I usually want to shake him instead of laugh at him. And according to the reviews trickling into Rotten Tomatoes as I write this, Land Of The Lost is shaping up to be like just about every other film Will Ferrell's ever made (if you're on the fence but want to save yourself the time and cash you could always go play with the Will Ferrell Movie Generator instead - you'll get the gist at the very least).

I do have very fond memories of watching reruns of the original show on ABC in the early 80's - although admittedly not very many. For the complete and utter dinosaur nut I was as a small child it was a definite fave. If you're not familiar with the tv show the basic premise is that a forest ranger and his two kids, while on a white-water rafting trip, get sucked into another dimension populated by dinosaurs, ape-men, and a strange race of lizard/insectoid humanoids called the Sleestaks. Years before I ever saw my first Dalek it was the Sleestaks that freaked me out - it didn't matter that they were slow as heck. They always acted like they were being controlled by some giant hive-mind so if they did catch you there was no reasoning with them (at least as far as I remember). In the early 90's ABC produced a very disappointing Land Of The Lost remake and the much more bumbling trio of talking dinosaur-men "Sleestaks" on that show were nowhere near as creepy as the ever anonymous original drones.
The only other scene I remember vividly stuck with me because my 4 year old mind found it pretty darn disturbing at the time. The family finds a map, which they think will lead them home - until they follow it and come across the skeleton of the map-maker next to a river of lava. Their hopes crushed they attempt to retreat back the way they came - and I can't remember what happened next...

A couple years ago I found a couple LotL DVDs for rent at our awesome local video store and just couldn't resist the trip down memory lane - even though I was fully expecting things to be a bit of a trainwreck. I was pleasantly surprised. Sure the actions of the dinosaurs (and the attitudes toward them) are horribly out of date in a post-Jurassic Park world but the stop-motion animation and obvious minature backgrounds still gave me nostalgic warm fuzzies.
And I was astonished to discover that the writers for the series reads like a whos-who of science fiction names. From Star Trek alumni like Walter Koenig, and Tribble-creator David Gerrod who was the season 1 story editor to people like Larry Niven, Ben Bova, and Theodore Sturgeon (!!!)
So for a kids Saturday morning show from the 70's it's pretty obvious they were trying to do the very best with the budget they had. But then again I also love the original Battlestar Galactica, which gives you some idea of how I roll...

It does look like the new movie is trying to pay some homage to the original show but I do think in the end I'm definitely going to pass on seeing this in the theatre. But my curiousity is too great not to check it out when it eventually makes it way to cable tv.