Talk:The Lost World (1925 film)

Tyrannosaurus
As stated in the Lost World (novel) article: There is No T-Rex in the 1925 film version. All carnosaur models are of the Allosaurus. If you believe there is one, cite the time code/edition/all relevant information to support your assertion. Otherwise, I will continue to deleete it's addition, and I will go so far as to lock the article if the vandalism persists. -- Majin Gojira 03:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

It is not vandalism, Mr. Gojira.

Majin Gojira, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance; Skye Reynolds. I had hoped that this site had a message board with which I could openly debate you on the subject and this makes for a nice substitute. I’ll try and be as polite and straight forward as I can on the subject. I own a copy of the script, the program, and a copy of the most complete DVD available with restored picture. That being said, I can say with no agenda that there is a tyrannosaurus present in the film.


 * Unfortunately, with the internet, it is very hard to accept the validity of any one assertion made by a person online without serperate verification. I assume your editions is Kinnard, Roy (editor). "'The Lost World' of Willis O"Brien: The Original Shooting Script of the 1925 Landmark Special Effects Dinosaur Film, with Photographs". Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1993, ISBN-0899508618 ? From what I understand, it is an abridged script, correct?
 * To be frank, the ignorance displayed about Wikipedia's more obvious policies is what drove me to such vehemence. It threatened either outright maliciousness or pure ignorane.

First I point to the argument that the tyrannosaurus is never mentioned aside from the program. I can honestly say that neither the stegosaurus and agathaumas are mentioned in the script. But we, who are familiar with dinosaurs, recognize the spikes of the tail and the fin on the back of the stegosaurus. Those of us familiar with the work of Charles R. Knight also recognize the styracosaur-like frill of the agathaumas as well as the long central horn and the smaller horns above the eyes. So, we recognize these two by sight alone. If you are to delete the tyrannosaurus for lack of written record, then the stegosaurus and agathaumas should likewise be stricken from the bestiary as neither are mentioned.


 * The logic of this statement does not follow, for it assumes that script or program verification are the only methods, when visuals are clearly acceptable. It is, as is known in debating circles, a strawman argument.

I do not know which copies of the film you have seen,


 * I have seen 3 releases of the film: an 80s VHS release, 2 DVD releases (|George Eastman House Release and |the restored edition).

but I know that the large carnosaur which kills the agathaumas is shown in almost silhouette form in most copies and appears as nothing more than a larger allosaurus.


 * This is not the case in either of the editions I posess.

However, in the restored edition by Image Entertainment (not spamming, just calling the facts) is digitally remastered so that the images appear crisp and clear from beginning to end. In this brightened version, the dinosaur in question has a distinctly different appearance from that of the allosaurus and this is due to Charles Knight’s work.


 * Please compare the specimen displayed within the following: |Knight's Tyrannosaurus and |Charles R. Knight's Early Work with Marcel Delgado's sculptured makets in The Lost World. Notice the Tyrannosaur's main distinguishing feature in the early works is the heavier jaw. Now, compare Marcel's sculptured puppets from the film |"Dinosaurus"|And the video here. Notice the line down the non-animated puppet's side.

The allosaurus has dark scales, three claws, and a rounded head with a relatively short snout. The creature which we are disputing has a much lighter skin tone, two claws and a dew claw-like thumb, a flatter longer muzzle, and a very pronounced spine.


 * I believe you are mistaken. The differences you sight are niether present in Knight's paintings, nor in Marsel's sculptures, as shown above. I will have to re-watch the film later on in the week to double check claims to compare it to the actual film. Another problem exists in its precaious absence from the volcano sequence (in which even the Stegosaur got a cameo).

These match up almost perfectly with Mr. Knight’s drawings of the allosaurus and tyrannosaurus. As a fan of Willis O’Brien’s work, I may note that this particular dinosaur bears a great resemblance to the tyrannosaurus present in King Kong.


 * If you have ever actually visited the King Kong page, you would see that the identification of the species of Skull Island has been in despute for months now. Furthremore, do recall that Delgado's sculpture had 3 distinct claw upon it and a triangular head, as well as an arched back akin to the first Knight painting I linked (foreground Tyrannosaur).

Yes, they both have two claws and a thumb,


 * Your argument lacks consistency: First, it was a dew Claw, now it is a thumb. It has three digits on each hand, in any case.

but it wasn’t until the Tarbosaurus was discovered some years later than the tyrannosaurus was first depicted as having only two claws and it was even longer still before a complete tyrannosaur hand was found.


 * I was aware of this.

It is also worth noting that much of the dinosaur action from the film is not present in the script. Marian Fairfax did not trust that Willis O’Brien’s dinosaurs would get the job done, so she wrote the screenplay to have the dinosaurs as an afterthought.


 * I wish you could point to an online copy of the script (I'm sure you can find one, of upload one yourself given time) to make the citation more easily verified.

For example, the only place in which a triceratops is mentioned in the script is that one gets lost in the woods and killed by an allosaurus. This does not appear in the film, but a small herd triceratops are present in the film and an adult drives off an allosaurus in a brief confrontation. Later, we see an agathaumas, which is easily mistaken for a triceratops, gore a carnosaur to death, only to be eaten by a much larger carnosaur, the one which we are having this dispute about.

I have photographic evidence to back up my claim as well. I would like to speak with you more privately if possible, so that I do not have to give outside links or upload unnecessary pictures on this site. If you would be so kind as to give me a chance to discuss this with you, I can be reached at ZXZXZXZXZ Thank you for your time.

Yours truly, --Skye Reyonlds

P.S. I do not think it would be fair to lock me out of the site until I have been able to present my case, with photographic evidence. Perhaps, if nothing else, we could compromise by locking the page and having “Tyrannosaurus (disputed)” or “Tyrannosaurus (unconfirmed)” in the bestiary. Skye Reynolds 03:27, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I would much rather keep the debate open and visible on the site. I know of several hosting sights for images that you can use freely and link without worries of bandwidth (some pictures may even make it into the article if they are noteworthy). One of the things I enjoy (and loath, on occasion) is it's openness to edits and information. Disputes such as this should be left out in the open so that others can see the evidence and when the matter is settled, easily access the relevant data.
 * In lieu of a full upload (a tedious process indeed!), page citations and direct quotes will suffice.
 * Also: it's generally not a good idea to advertise an E-mail address like that. Unless you WANT spambots to find it. - Majin Gojira 04:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, with the internet, it is very hard to accept the validity of any one assertion made by a person online without serperate verification. I assume your editions is Kinnard, Roy (editor). "'The Lost World' of Willis O"Brien: The Original Shooting Script of the 1925 Landmark Special Effects Dinosaur Film, with Photographs". Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1993, ISBN-0899508618 ? From what I understand, it is an abridged script, correct?
 * To be frank, the ignorance displayed about Wikipedia's more obvious policies is what drove me to such vehemence. It threatened either outright maliciousness or pure ignorane.

It is the Roy Kinnard shooting script, but I do not believe that it is abridged. Unfortunately, I have misplaced it at the moment..


 * The logic of this statement does not follow, for it assumes that script or program verification are the only methods, when visuals are clearly acceptable. It is, as is known in debating circles, a strawman argument.

Good, then that makes my job easier.


 * This is not the case in either of the editions I posess.

On the restored version, watch the Chapter 10. In “Search of a New Camp” and see if you cannot find visual differences between the allosaurus which attacks the crew and the beast which kills the agathaumas.


 * Please compare the specimen displayed within the following: |Knight's Tyrannosaurus and |Charles R. Knight's Early Work with Marcel Delgado's sculptured makets in The Lost World. Notice the Tyrannosaur's main distinguishing feature in the early works is the heavier jaw. Now, compare Marcel's sculptured puppets from the film |"Dinosaurus"|And the video here. Notice the line down the non-animated puppet's side.

I would be more than happy to, but none of those links work.


 * I believe you are mistaken. The differences you sight are niether present in Knight's paintings, nor in Marsel's sculptures, as shown above. I will have to re-watch the film later on in the week to double check claims to compare it to the actual film. Another problem exists in its precaious absence from the volcano sequence (in which even the Stegosaur got a cameo).

Actually, it does not. The beast which leapt onto the back of the brontosaurus during the stampede was the same which felled the agathaumas and it did not resemble the allosaurus.


 * If you have ever actually visited the King Kong page, you would see that the identification of the species of Skull Island has been in despute for months now. Furthremore, do recall that Delgado's sculpture had 3 distinct claw upon it and a triangular head, as well as an arched back akin to the first Knight painting I linked (foreground Tyrannosaur).

I know that. I’m the one who mentioned about the tyrannosaurus being intended for Creation and how the script mentions it only as “meat-eater.” I would assume that you’ve also been there and have deleted my reference to the tyrannosaurus from Lost World also having a third finger.


 * Your argument lacks consistency: First, it was a dew Claw, now it is a thumb. It has three digits on each hand, in any case.

The allosaurus has three claws in a tripod-like stance. The tyrannosaurus has two claws that stick out in the front and a smaller one at the side where a thumb would be on a human being. That is why I went back and forth between calling it a dew claw and a thumb. It vaguely fits in both.


 * I wish you could point to an online copy of the script (I'm sure you can find one, of upload one yourself given time) to make the citation more easily verified.

If I could find an online copy of the script, I wouldn’t have paid $53 to win one off of Ebay. Nowhere in the script does she explicitly say “I don’t trust Willis O’Brien, so I’m making a script that’ll be good without dinosaurs.” No, she told Willis O’Brien not to worry and that the film would still contain adventure and drama should the dinosaurs fail to do their job. Still, this information can be found at

If you don’t trust that, then the Restored Edition of the DVD has an alternative commentary track on it with Roy Pilot, author of the Annotated Lost World, and during the scene in which they are searching the caves, Roy mentions about Marian’s distrust for Willis O’Brien’s dinosaur script and how Willis O’Brien held a grudge because of it.


 * I would much rather keep the debate open and visible on the site. I know of several hosting sights for images that you can use freely and link without worries of bandwidth (some pictures may even make it into the article if they are noteworthy).

It would have gone a lot more smoothly if we could have had a chat outside of this sight, but I can understand many of the reasons behind wanting to keep it here.

One of the things I enjoy (and loath, on occasion) is it's openness to edits and information. Disputes such as this should be left out in the open so that others can see the evidence and when the matter is settled, easily access the relevant data.

I know that feeling


 * In lieu of a full upload (a tedious process indeed!), page citations and direct quotes will suffice.

What do you want a citation or direct quote on? Also, I’ll try to have those pictures available tomorrow.

Oh, and thank you for the warning on the e-mail. --Skye Reynolds 05:31, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

---

You have read my argument. Now, I offer you the photographs.



--Skye Reynolds 19:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I appologise for the failed links, but those images do prove your point--and they match Knight's early drawing of a Tyrannosaur. I would have responded more thuroughly if not for Criminal Law work. -- Majin Gojira 12:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I'm glad that we don't have to go back and forth about the who's in the film and who isn't anymore. I actually wouldn't mind the page being locked now, except that after I find my copy of The Lost World of Willis O'Brien, there are a handful of uncredited individuals I'd like to add to the list, such as Percy Potts. I have more important things to work on, but I'm a bit of a stickler for accuracy, so I figure the site would be better off having the entire known cast present. I'm glad we could get this resolved peaceably. Take care. --Skye Reynolds 18:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Oviraptor, Elasmosaurus, and Kronosaurus
None of these animals were seen, mentioned, or implied in the film. Please address this. The "Tyrannosaurus" has some validity as we see a large predator (larger than the allosaurus) killing the Aguthamas. These other animals, however, are not in the film


 * I hereby attest that the Serge Bromberg/David Shepard restoration contains none of these. --Tbrittreid (talk) 21:49, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Use as Stock Footage
I was wondering how useful it would be to mention that the dinosaur scenes from this film are frequently used as stock footage in museums, television and film documentaries when the subject is about now-outdated perceptions of dinosaurs' appearance and/or the evolution of such perceptions through time on the basis of better paleobiology. It would be hard to cite and it may be a bit of a stretch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.160.176.190 (talk) 18:32, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

German dubbed version
Hi, I bought this movie as DVD. I was astonished when I played it. It is German dubbed. The written texts are removed - not very carefully, sometimes half a second of the title blinks up.

Is there also an English dubbed version? Was it common to dub silent movies?

I wrote a hint to this sound version in the German Wiipedia, but I am unsure whether it should come into the English one. But it may be of interest.

The German sound version is tinted and seems to be restored. --Hutschi (talk) 14:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I can answer only one question: It was not common to dub silent movies, at least not to seriously convert one to a sound version of the same film. Fractured Flickers and the like, yes, but not what you describe. By "restored" do you mean cleaned up or with the recently discovered footage included? Dubbing wasn't even possible for some years. Several 1930s films were simply shot twice in order to have a version in a foreign language, the most famous being a Spanish-language Dracula. This wasn't limited to Hollywood, either: see Germany's The Blue Angel. So I'd say that this was done recently. --Tbrittreid (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think too, that this was done recently, after looking it again, because the sound does not sound "old". The pictures at the beginning look very clean, later it has some scratches. With "restored" I basically meant that it is cleaned up, and I meant the soundtrack, but may be this is the wrong word, because it is new and not restored. It is longer than the 16 mm version mentioned in the Wikipedia article. In case of "The lost world" the German version they did following, as far as I see: 1. They used the English tinted version with a little bit more than one hour. 2. The removed almost all subtitles (I do not know if this is the proper Englisch name for the titles between the scenes - they are not really "sub".) 3. The sound seems to be rather new. They added sounds according to the scenes - shoots, steps, and so on. Very strange. Had I not known that it is originally a silent movie I would not believe it. At the first moment I thought it is another movie. It is on the (2006) DVD: "Urzeit Collection". On the cover it is called "Lost world", on the DVD it is called German "Die verlorene Welt". The publisher is "Best Entertainment". In German dubbed movies are very common. But I never saw a dubbed silent movie before.


 * My proposal is to include as curious:
 * There exists a German dubbed version with sound effects and German dialogues and removed subtitles. (ref DVD "Urzeit Collection" (primeval times collection), (c) 2006, Best Entertainment) - Please correct the English style. --Hutschi (talk) 08:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * PS: I compared the German version now with the version in the Internet Archive. The German version is cleaner and almost not flickering and wobbling, compared with the internet archive version. --Hutschi (talk) 10:49, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Rewiting and Expansion
Looking over this article and taking into account the level of significance and how influential the film has been, it's rather sad to see the article in the poor state of underdevelopment. Not only is the article severely underdeveloped, but it is also missing almost all the information about the film including its production (given the rather detailed information that exists on it), theatrical/home media releases, reception, legacy, influences, and rediscovery. The information that IS present in the article is unsourced and poorly written and essentially needs to be rewritten entirely. The problem here is that the sheer volume of information missing from this article would make this a monumental task for just a single person to accomplish (although some editors have been known to accomplish the impossible). What we need here is a group effort to bring this article up to standards and, considering the amount of information that is out there on this film, it could EASILY be placed in FA status if done with all the love and care that it deserves. I would do it myself, but I have neither the skill nor the time to do so. Hopefully the right people come along and give this article the attention it so desperately needs.--Paleface Jack (talk) 18:15, 9 December 2019 (UTC)