Unlike its fellow reptile the turtle, the lizard hasn't
often been depicted as a fun, lovable creature that inspires
great children stories and odd movies. That is
understandable given the fact that when you look into their
little faces what you see is the remnants of the great
lizards known as dinosaurs, the fearsome lizards that are
known to have lived in most parts of the world many years
ago and who could eat a human up in one dainty bite. It is
an interesting fact that if a lizard were able to live long
enough it would become just like those fearsome creatures
because most lizards never stop growing as long as they
live. We will start from that fact and work outward.

There are many famous movies depicting the dinosaur. One
such very popular movie is "The Land Before Time" starring
baby dinosaurs having adventures in the Great Valley. These
lovable little dinosaurs are mostly herbivores with a talent
for getting into fixes from which they then must escape.

It all starts in the first animated movie "The Land Before
Time," where the great climate changes and "earth shakes"
are remaking the earth into the way we know it today. Little
Foot, the main character, is separated from his grandparents
while they and many other creatures are all traveling to
find a suitable place for the dinosaurs to live during these
troubling times in the world. While searching for his
family, Little Foot meets up with other baby dinosaurs and
they set out to find the rest of the herd. Needless to say,
they are reunited with their parents and live happily ever
after. This movie was so popular it spawned several other
cartoon movies following the same characters.



Another popular series of movies that was inspired by
dinosaurs was "Jurassic Park," based on the novel by Michael
Crichton. Jurassic Park is a movie about the consequences of
a scientist finding some dinosaur DNA trapped within an
ancient mosquito encased in amber. From that DNA the
scientist was able to create many versions of the old
dinosaurs and populate an entire island with them for modern
day enjoyment, but with frightening results when the
dinosaurs begin to escape. This movie is basically a warning
not to tamper with either nature or cloning. This movie from
the nineties was popular enough to have two more sequels.

"We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" is an animated film,
produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio
and originally released to movie theatres in 1993. It was
loosely based on the 1987 Hudson Talbott children's book
"We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story," which was narrated from
the perspective of the main character, a Tyrannosaurus rex
named Rex.

"Dinotopia" is a utopian place created by James Gurney,
fiction author and illustrator of the book series also
called "Dinotopia." Dinotopia is a "lost island" inhabited
by sentient dinosaurs and humans who were stranded there by
shipwreck, and both have learned to coexist peacefully.

Since it was first published, over twenty Dinotopia books
have been published by various authors, including Gurney
himself, to expand the series. There have also been several
video games, a TV series, a TV mini-series, and a movie
featuring Dinotopia. A fourth Dinotopia book by James Gurney
should be available in the Fall of 2007.

There was even a television series starring dinosaurs, in
which a family gets caught in an earthquake resulting in a
fall through the earth into a dinosaur paradise where they
must learn to adapt and live with these giant lizards. It
was called "The Lost World" and it aired from April 1999 to
May 2002. The show centered mostly on the family and its
inner dynamics in adjusting to their new surroundings. The
story was a take off from a book written by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle.

Then there was "Dinosaurs," a TV series that ran on ABC from
April 26, 1991 to July 20, 1994. It was produced by Michael
Jacobs Productions and Jim Henson Productions in association
with Walt Disney Television, and was about a family of
talking dinosaurs (The Sinclairs). The show was screened on
ITV in 1992 and in reruns from 1995 to 2002 in the UK on
Disney Channel. The world of "Dinosaurs" is a parody of
human society. The entire series is available on DVD, in two
2-season sets.

But by far the most famous lizard known today is known as
Godzilla. Godzilla has had so many movies made about it that
it gets confusing whether this great lizard is hero or
villain. Even the origin is somewhat confusing; first the
lizard destroys Tokyo, then it saves the entire world in
later movies. It might be a she according to another movie,
but always the giant monster lizard is a great rendition of
humans' fascination with the giant lizard known as the
dinosaur or dragon or "reptilian creature".





Then, of course, there are so many renditions of the
dinosaur depicted in nature films and B-grade movies that
it's nearly impossible to count them. Again it's the
fascination with the giant lizards at work that created
those "B Movie" monstrosities. Mankind has always lived with
reptiles, and they have always held our fascination. From
the dragon in the Garden of Eden to Godzilla in Japan,
lizards represent a slightly alien yet familiar archetype.


Stuffed Plush Lizards & Dinosaurs