Movie:
Discs:
Land
of the Lost is a children's TV show dating from the mid-1970s in case
you've never heard of it (it shouldn't be confused however with a rehash - also made for TV
- in later decades).
It's about a family - father, son and daughter - who during
a canoeing trip in the mountains fall through some kind of dimensional
portal and ends up in a typical lost world a la Edgar
Rice Burrows style world, replete with irate dinosaurs, a hostile
reptilian race which only comes out at night and so forth.
The special effects were by some of the people who worked
on George Pal's original movie adaptation of H.G. Wells'
Time Machine and quite cheesy by today's
standards (though it's better than 'Sixties Star
Trek probably). Even cheesier is the theme song, a huge cornball
ditty sung by one of the stars that will have you either slack jawed in
bemusement or grinning in post-modern irony. In fact, after a while I got
used to the show's poor special effects, mediocre acting and plot
inconstancies, but not that theme song! Man, is it one goofball tune! All
together now: The . . . Land . . . of . . . the . . . Loooosssst!!!
A minor cult has grown around Land of the Lost,
which means only one thing. Yup, there's going to a big screen Hollywood
version starring Will Ferrell.
Now, minor cults have grown around L. Ron Hubbard and
Chizuo Matsumoto, and it is a bit difficult to see why a fellow critic
would call Land of the Lost what science fiction is all about. Did he
mean sci-fi is all about cheap-looking, stop-motion dinosaurs?
THE
DISCS: Little in the line of extras. An audio commentary here and
there and a compilation of songs from the series itself, which is just
goofy fun.
WORTH IT? To be fair, the third (and final) season obviously isn't
the place for a newbie such as myself to start. Besides, it is generally
considered to be the weakest season of the series. Still, there is
something to be said for that goofball theme song and the show's general
endearing goofiness, so it is difficult to actually dislike Land of the
Lost.
RECOMMENDATION: One can see only imagine ageing it's so bad,
it's good Generation X'ers who watched this show as kids and
small children (after all, the intended audience) liking it. They should
check it out. (I must mention here that those reptilian creatures scared
the heebie jeebies out of my little girl, so we stopped the player and put
on some tried and tested Looney Tunes instead . . .)
