The Last Dinosaur

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

1977 action-adventure film in which a drilling expedition unexpectedly finds a Lost World deep below the North Pole. Big game hunter and oil tycoon Masten Thrust is determined to hunt his last and ultimate predator, a Tyrannosaurus rex that killed nearly the entire first explorer group. Ultimately the team becomes trapped in the lost world and must try to survive against the T. Rex and vicious cavemen. This film was a co-production between Rankin-Bass (best known for the stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special) and Tsuburaya Productions (best known for Ultraman and its countless spin-offs).

Tropes used in The Last Dinosaur include:
  • Double Meaning Title: The Last Dinosaur refers to not just the Tyrannosaurus, but also Masten Thrust.
  • Great White Hunter: Masten Thrust, complete with a black tracker to carry his rifle for him.
  • Five-Man Band
    • The Hero: Thrust, even though he's much more of an anti-hero.
    • The Lancer: Banks the photographer.
    • The Big Guy: Bunta the Masai tracker.
    • The Smart Guy: Dr. Kawamoto a, well, scientist. Wade is also a geologist and knows most about the dinosaurs but is...
    • The Chick: Wade, who honestly is the whiniest of the group.
  • Large Ham: Richard Boone is an absolute delight as he chews up the scenery. Reportedly he was heavily drinking while filming and even drunk during some scenes.
  • Last of His Kind: The Tyrannosaurus is assumed and said to be this, and Thrust also declares himself as such, giving the film it's Double Meaning Title.
  • Narm: "You ding-dong! We were about to get killed back there!"
  • People in Rubber Suits: Well the effects were Japanese-made, and what are they most famous for?
  • Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying: There are a lot of inaccuracies you can point out, but most of this is averted when you take the film into proper context. However there are a few things that are completely unforgivable, most egregious being the Uintatherium (a prehistoric rhino-like mammal) that attacks the group shortly after their arrival, which Chuck identifies as a "ceratopsian" (the group of horned dinosaurs that Triceratops belonged to). This is especially hilarious considering earlier in the film Chuck claimed to have taken a year of vertebrate paleontology.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Chuck, who is nominally a geologist, exhibits expertise in zoology, paleontology and botany. Likewise Kawamoto is both a machinist/engineer, geologist and botanist.
  • Stock Dinosaurs: A Tyrannosaurus is the main star, also with an appearance by a Triceratops, complete with a showdown between the two. Pteranodons also make several appearances.
  • The Voiceless: Bunta. Though Thrust says he is "very articulate if you happen to speak his language", he is never heard saying a thing in any language.
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex: Paleontologists have called them the crown of creation...the king of the super tyrant lizards!