RESTORED EDITION NOT QUITE COMPLETE
Added 1/28/2009
So far I have picked up on two missing elements available on the shorter versions, but not on this. One of course is the escaped brontosaurus in London, knocking over several people with it's tail. The other, in the short version you can clearly make out Major Hibbard of the Brazilian geodetics saying "Good God! What is that!?". It's deleted in this version. I personally found the color tint changes to be an annoyance. I prefer straight up Black and White. So I turned the color completely off. It would be interesting to see this movie colorized. As for the soundtrack choices. The tradional score by Robert Israel is a little more palatable for me, but where some scenes only required music of subtlety, Israel overcoated them with excessive sweetness. I do like the sound effects of animal and dinosaur noises from the Alloy Orchestra soundtrack, but at times I found the music with heavy percussion and bells to be too intrusive for many scenes. One thing I would like to mention is the "apeman" played by Mr. Bull Montana. To me he looks like Mickey the truant officer from The Little Rascals if he were to become a werewolf. Now the "Enhanced" version is available. So far the reviews for that are full of praise, but no technical information given. Streetlight is a good seller.
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A Revolutionary Film for Its Time
Added 10/31/2008
"The Lost World" was the "Jurassic Park" of the silent film age. While the plot of adventureres finding a South American plateau inhabited by dinosaurs may seem far fetched today, just sit back and let suspended disbelief sink in while enjoying a well made picture. There are plenty of dinosaurs and dinosaur confrontations in the atmospheric jungle/volcanic setting. The stop motion animation and even inflatible stomachs (to simulate breathing) gave the creatures a realism unmatched at the time. True, it lacks the modern special effects of "Jurassic park" or "Walking with Dinosaurs" but viewers should remember just how painstaking the processes that brought these beast "to life" were in the 1920s. The film contains a number of memorable scenes from fierce dinosaur battles to a volcanic eruption to a brontosaurs stomping around London. Overall, an enjoyable and revolutionary silent film.
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Slingshot version is not the one to buy
Added 8/9/2008
I bought the Slingshot DVD, and it's bad. The images are clean and clear enogh for a movie made in 1925 (this is what saves this from a 1-star grade), but virtually none of the features advertised is present on the disc.
Also, this is not a 90-minute cut, but a 66-minute cut. There's action here which barely makes any sense at all; having read the Arthur Conan Doyle novel, I can at least piece things together, but a viewer shouldn't have to do that.
To top it off, some engineer on a mission added sound effects -- why? More than anything else, they're just a distraction.
I have yet to see this movie at full-length. My thought is that at full length, it'll probably make more sense, at least I hope so. As such, I'm still in the market for a good version of this film.
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The first "Jurassic Park" blockbuster
Added 11/2/2007
It might come as a surprise to today's general movie-goer that back in 1925 audiences were already thrilled and delighted by a special effects action/romance/adventure spectacle not at all unlike the modern-day "Jurassic Park" type of films. This DVD really brings back the glory days of the silent era when all the genres of movies we have today actually developed and even reached their peak of sophistication, and "The Lost World" is a good example of how talented and skilled filmmakers already were back in the 1920s. Based on the famous novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Lost World" is a fictional adventure story based on a few facts, such as the discovery of a high mountain plateau in an unexplored jungle where unknown plants and animals were believed to exist. But then fancy and fantasy take over, and the explorers find aggressive, prehistoric dinosaurs roaming the plateau, and that's when the fun and excitement begins, culminating in a grand climax of a captured dinosaur wreaking havoc in the streets of London with scenes that could rival those of "King Kong" made only several years later. Watching these scenes, it is obvious that a great deal of dedicated effort went into the lengthy animation scenes, especially as many different kinds of prehistoric animals are featured in "The Lost World".
It is fortunate that we now have a nearly completely restored version (minus about 10 minutes) of this special film which was a worldwide sensation in 1925, and can still stand up to modern-day movies of the same genre. While some scenes are obvious props or paintings, and sometimes the animals' movements and volcanic eruptions are just a little less realistic than modern digital or computer-generated images, the overall impression of "The Lost World" is that it was a great achievement and landmark in cinema, and paved the way for King Kong, Godzilla, Jurassic Park and many other similar movies along the way. There are two excellent musical accompaniments to choose from on this DVD; a traditional orchestral score, and a more adventurous score by the Alloy Orchestra with unusual sound effects which I actually found to be more suitable at times, such as in the action scenes with the dinosaurs. Along with excellent music and near-perfect picture quality, there are also some bonuses such as the reproduction of the original souvenir program booklet with various interesting articles and pictures, as well as a good audio commentary by an expert on Arthur Conan Doyle. His commentary gives in-depth insight into Doyle's story, how the book differs from the film, but also explanations about how the special effects and animations were done. Even for those of us not especially crazy about dinosaurs, "The Lost World" is still an exciting and fun adventure, and an important, historically significant film for all sincere film enthusiasts.
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Image Entertainment version is very good
Added 7/8/2007
There had been dinosaurs in films before this 1925 feature, such as "The Dinosaur and the Missing Link" and "The Ghost of Slumber Mountain", both made before 1920. However, this was the first film to feature realistic looking dinosaurs on a large scale, setting the ground work for "King Kong" eight years later. Apparently, there are several versions of this film in circulation. In this case it pays to get the more expensive version from Image Entertainment. It has the longest running version of the film to date, and for all of the splicing that likely went into compiling it, the film actually flows quite smoothly. For all the abuse the original went through over the years, this version is pretty clear with only a few scratches in the film here and there. Plus you get a couple of treats you probably don't get on cheaper versions - a running commentary and the roughly 15 minutes of omitted scenes of dinosaur animation. When you view the omitted scenes you can quickly find the one flaw that caused their deletion - the cameraman has caught a frame or two of someone actually moving the dinosaurs through the stop-animation process. Otherwise they are very clear close-ups of the creatures.
Besides being a pretty good silent picture, this film is interesting for several reasons. First, it is interesting to see what people thought that the various dinosaurs looked like in 1925. Plus, for me, it was interesting to see Lewis Stone in an early film and to notice that he looks the same age - approximately 50 - in every film role I've ever seen him in, from this film up through the Andy Hardy pictures. The one real annoying feature of the film is the presence of the solitary caveman in the lost world. Why is he alone? Is he the last of his kind? The first? Is his chimpanzee companion a "relative" or just a companion? Nothing is ever said about it.
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