Search - The People That Time Forgot on DVD

DON'T BUY THIS LAME DUCK EDITION

Lawrance M. Bernabo | 07/18/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"For years now, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT was not on DVD .Obviously some moron thought it was better release the second part first. Looks like he was fired and THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT is coming to DVD. THE GOOD NEWS except for those of us that already bought THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT and have every reason to feel ripped off:It's Part of an MGM Midnite Movies Double Feature wave
Street Date August 24th 2004
THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT/THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOTTHE BAD NEWS:EXCLUSIVE to BEST BUY"

Who cares about finding Tyler Bowen. What happened to Lisa?

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 02/04/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

""The People That Time Forgot" is a 1977 sequel to the 1975 film "The Land That Time Forgot." In between these two there was the 1976 film "At the Earth's Core," which is mentioned mainly because all three films star Doug McClure, are directed by Kevin Connor, and are based on novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Ironically, the tag line for this film makes it sound like the films are a trilogy, although "At the Earth's Core" is based on the Pelucidar series. This film is definitely the weakest of the three, which is not all that surprising because it is based on the second book of a second rate series of potboilers by ERB. Once you get past Tarzan if you are looking for an ERB property to turn into a film you should be looking at the Martian novels about John Carter first, and then maybe Carson of Venus series or "The Outlaw of Torn." But this Burroughs rehash of "The Lost World" is not the place to go looking first.The basic plot reminds you a lot of "Return to the Planet of the Apes. Major Ben McBridge (Patrick Wayne) leads an expedition to Antarctica to find his friend, the American adventurer Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure), who is marooned on the lost continent, Caprona, a.k.a., the land that time forgot, where there are dinosaurs and cavemen. McBridge has a plane, but it crashes and his little expedition has to survive until they find McClure (where they can break the good news that they are there to rescue him!). McClure had to deal with Germans from a U-Boat but McBridge has to put up with Lady Charlotte Cunningham (Sarah Douglas), who goes from royal pain to damsel in distress pretty quickly once things start happening, Dr. Edwin Norfolk (Thorley Walters), who fortunately knows everything about dinosaurs and cavemen, and Hogan (Shane Rimmer), the faithful side kick who is the obvious first choice to be dinosaur food."The People That Time Forgot" provides the same sort of lousy special effects that plagued "The Land That Time Forgot," but without the non-stop action and adventure that redeemed that first film. Besides, Tyler has ditched Lisa, his paramour from the first film and replaced her with Ajor (Dana Gillespie), a cave woman who probably took the pretty English biologist apart with that big knife. There is no need to watch this sequel out of a sense of completeness to the "story," because you are not going to be happy to the ending. However, pay attention to the Executioner, who is played by David Prowse, who came to this set after having wrapped up a little film called "Star Wars.""

The special effects that time forgot

Mark McKinney | Maryland | 01/31/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Have you ever watched a film from the 1970's and looked at the special effects and thought "Gee, they were using these same scraping the bottom effects twenty years ago in the fifties and they weren't all that impressive then!" Well, this was the third in a series of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptions and the sequel to 1975's the Land that time forgot. The Dinosaurs are done with handpuppets, guys in rubber suits and pulled along on strings and wheels. The cavepeople (except for Dana Gillespie) wear greasepaint and many of them wear latex pieces between the bridge of their noses and their foreheads, I guess that was to give their cranium such a different shape from the modern characters. Making the realization that this film was made the same year as Star Wars also makes one grimace a little more at the effects. If this film has these visual shortcomings, why then did I give it three stars? I think director Kevin Connor (who has done a whole lot of films since this time) realized that this was going to be a kids movie, so he kept the science and explanations ata minimum and kept the characters moving through the film. The key here was pacing and the stars are running a track meet here, searching, chasing and fighting, but never stopping too long for the budget's flaws to catch up to it. Fight scenes and explosions can go along way and this film has plenty of both. Not a classic, but still a fun film fro all ages. This one is just a little better than the Land that time forgot, but not quite as good as At the earth's core."

Take a journey into the (cough, cough) lost land....

cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 11/18/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I purchased this not expecting a lot, and I wasn't disappointed. Loosely based on the writings of Edgar Rice Burrows, The People That Time Forgot (1977) is actually the third movie in a trilogy, the other two being The Land That Time Forgot (1975), and At the Earth's Core (1976). The movie starts off on a ship cruising around artic waters. We learn an expedition has been mounted to locate Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure) who went missing from a previous campaign. The team is made up of your fairly standard expedition team members, including the somewhat chauvinistic and handsome leader, Major Ben McBride (Patrick Wayne, son of John Wayne), his comic relief, boozy (he calls it 'nerve tonic'), smart alecky co-pilot/mechanic Hogan (Shane Rimmer), a beautiful and spunky photographer Lady Charlotte Cunningham (Sarah Douglas), and finally the crusty, brushy mustached anthropologist type (you know what I'm talking about) Dr. Edwin Norfolk (Thorley Walters). Once the boat arrives at a certain location among the icebergs, the team sets out in a rather goofy looking amphibian aircraft. Now I'm no aeronautical engineer, but I credit the fact that this thing could fly more to Hollywood magic than to its' soundness as an aircraft.After flying for about, oh ten minutes or so, the snow-capped mountains give way to a tropical landscape (some lost land). This sets up the first encounter with a dinosaur, a very amorous yet lifeless, wooden pterodactyl. After the flying creature tries to mate with the plane, the amphibian aircraft suffers some damage and must land. Once on the ground, Ben decides that he, Lady Charlotte and Dr. Norfolk will go searching for Bowen Tyler, while Hogan will stay behind and make the necessary repairs to the dubious aircraft.During their search, the trio runs into a rather busty cavewoman named Ajor (Dana Gillespie) clad in typical, skimpy, barely there cavewoman attire. I have to say, Ajor is one of the most well groomed cavewoman I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them. Turns out she knows Bowen, as she came from a tribe that he's been living with for the last two years. She also states (she learned to speak English from Bowen) that another tribe wiped out her tribe out of jealousy and kidnapped Bowen. Apparently, competition to evolve within the cave dwelling community is pretty fierce, and Bowen would certainly provide and advantage. Okay, so Ajor leads the group to the ancient City of the Skulls. See that really bad matte painting? This must be the place. On approaching the city, a group of samurai soldiers comes out to greet and escort them into the city. Once there, we get to meet the leader, Saballa. Oh man, this guy's a treat! Imagine the Jolly Green Giant only shorter, uglier, and extremely out of shape and you've got Saballa. I kept expecting him to produce a can of corn niblets. Anyway, seems Saballa doesn't want to be friends, and throws the men into a cell, while keeping the women with the intention of sacrificing them to the mighty volcano god. While in their cell, the two men found out Bowen Tyler is in the next cell, and they push their way through the wall (some cell) and we get our first look at heavily bearded and unkempt Bowen (Doug McClure). The men escape, mount a rescue for the women, which leads up to a final confrontation with Saballa and some of his goons. I have to say, those samurai outfits looked pretty good, but seem very much out of place in a movie about a prehistoric land. The group escapes, but now the volcano god is angered (I guess), as all hell breaks loose. I had to wonder if the studio had a surplus stash of explosives they wanted to get rid of, as the last ten minutes or so of the movies is laden with the landscape blowing up, blowing up real good. Do they all make it? Does everyone survive? Do I really care at this point? No, and you won't either.Basically this movie played out like an hour and a half version of the TV show Land of the Lost. Looking for a good, or even passable adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's book? Stick with the book. This isn't a completely awful movie, as there's plenty of laughs, and a little eye candy, but I'd be hard pressed to recommend anyone run out and buy this one.Another reviewer mentioned the appearance of David Prowse as the executioner in this movie and his going on to play Darth Vader in a little movie called Star Wars...another tie in to that movie is the hairstyle Sarah Douglas sports is exactly the same as Princess Leia's except Sarah's cinnibuns are a bit smaller."