Line #8 YMMV/Carnosaur


1	!!YMMV Tropes for the book:
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3	* GeniusBonus:
4	** The novel discusses atavistic fear a few times. The concept being that because primitive mammals learned and instinctively evolved to stay away from giant reptiles, the smells and sounds they make reawaken survival instincts in humans and other modern mammals. Similar theories are put forth in RealLife about why nails on a chalk board or sirens causes unease (i.e. that they sound like the calls of predators that hunted our ancestors while they were still small.)
5	** One subtle way the ''Deinonychus'' demonstrates its bird-like qualities is when it spots someone through a glass display case, and it crashes straight through it rather than walk around. Like modern birds that fly into windows, it failed to recognize the glass was there.
6	* HilariousInHindsight:
7	** In the book, the characters outside of Penward routinely mistake the ''Tarbosaurus'' for a ''Tyrannosaurus rex''. When ''Tarbosaurus bataar'' was originally discovered, it was actually considered a second species of the ''Tyrannosaurus'' genus and there still are researchers like Dr. Gregory Paul and Dr. Thomas Carr who lump it and ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' into the same genus as ''Tyrannosaurus bataar''. If it turns out they're right, the characters in the book were right after all.
8	** At one point in the novel, Sir Penward suggests that ''Deinocheirus'' was a much larger relative of ''Deinonychus'' [[note]]At the time the book was written, ''Deinocheirus'' was only known from its claws and forelimbs [[/note]]and muses that he'd love to clone one just to see if his hypothesis is correct. One can only imagine how disappointed he probably would have been upon seeing what it really [[https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/ce6e3954c003d5b87cbc72669752797b366bdbd7/2022/05/24/ea86d97c-8e2a-4613-a33e-a8a1669921e2/prehistoric-planet-photo-010302.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200 looked]] like.
9	* JerkassWoobie: You eventually get to feeling sorry for Jane Penward, despite her many character flaws, due to her loneliness and agonizing death.
10	* JustHereForGodzilla: The escaped dinosaurs attacking people and eventually battling the military takes up less 40% of the book, but is the main draw for many readers.
11	* OlderThanTheyThink: This book had some key elements that ''Film/JurassicPark'' would later bring to the public conciousness several years before it came out. Namely, dinosaurs are portrayed as bird-like, quick, and intelligent instead of lumbering cold blooded brutes. The tyrannosaurs and dromaeosaurs even pin their prey with a foot as they bite into them, a behavior that would be reflected by ''JP'''s ''Tyrannosaurus'' and ''Velociraptor''.
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13	!!YMMV tropes in the films:
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15	* AccidentalInnuendo: Sarah Rawlins gets rather horrifically mauled by a raptor in the second film. If you're watching, it's extremely gory and grotesque. If you just listen to the audio however, viewers report it sounds like it's... doing something else to her.
16	* AdaptationDisplacement: There's a book. That's right, there is a book called ''Carnosaur''. And its author loves the movies, but in a SoBadItsGood sort of way. The book even predates ''Literature/JurassicPark''.
17	* BestKnownForTheFanservice: Besides the conspicuous StockFootageFailure, the [=DVD=] version of the fourth film is also known for its graphic eight-minute sex scene (only ten seconds of which are preserved in the streaming cut).
18	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: In the third film, while the main characters set up the plan to blow up the ship, they're attacked by a creature they call a "wolf rat". The series had never established any prehistoric creatures besides dinosaurs. Furthermore, the wolf rat appears without any setup, is never given any explanation or context and gets gunned down within seconds without getting to do anything. Wolf rats are never brought up again.
19	* CompleteMonster: [[MadScientist Dr. Jane Tiptree]] from the original is an amoral geneticist seeking to eradicate humanity to return Earth to a series of artificially-engineered dinosaurs. Tiptree, [[MisanthropeSupreme believing humanity to be a "disaster"]], creates a virus to forcibly impregnate human females with raptors, causing them to give birth to the specimens in a [[CruelAndUnusualDeath painful and eventually fatal manner]]. This virus is unleashed on [[BadBoss her own subordinates]], the surrounding countryside, and eventually herself, with the ultimate goal of this to [[{{Gendercide}} kill off every human female]] and starve out the rest of the male population. Tiptree's experiments in breeding raptors lead to one of her specimens prematurely breaking loose and going on a rampage in which dozens are killed, while Tiptree coldly has the father of someone whose daughter was killed by her creations killed off by a tyrannosaur. Though Tiptree is [[FauxAffablyEvil soft-spoken and amicable]], ultimately she's little more than an omnicidal misanthrope who seeks to wipe out mankind based on her own delusions.
20	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Polcheck is seen as the highlight of ''Carnosaur 3''.
21	* FanNickname: "''Carnosaurs''" for the second movie, due to its plot being '''extremely''' similar to [[{{Film/Aliens}} another sequel with a plural title]].
22	* FirstInstallmentWins: Generally in fan circles only the first two movies are seen as having merit.
23	* HamAndCheese: Cyril O'Reilly and Creator/TonyTodd in ''3'' and ''Eden Formula'', respectively.
24	* HilariousInHindsight: One of the cast members is Clint Howard, uncle to Creator/BryceDallasHoward, who herself would eventually star in the ''Film/JurassicWorld'' trilogy which also deals with resurrected and genetically modified dinosaurs wreaking havoc. Moreover, ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' also stars Bryce Dallas and follows a similar plot to the original book in its last two acts (both involving dinosaurs breaking loose in a public area, while a raptor stalking the protagonists through a mansion).
25	* {{Narm}}:
26	** The shot-per-shot ripoff of ''Carnosaur 2'' to ''Aliens'' is downright cringeworthy to anyone who's seen the latter film. A team of mercenaries called in to investigate a mining site after they lost communication? Check. Traumatized survivor kid who helps the heroes escape the dinosaurs? Check. Raptors sneaking up on people in vents, visible as blips on a radar? Check. Two injured characters sacrificing themselves together to hold the raptors off? Check. A fucking T. REX TAKING THE PLACE OF THE ALIEN QUEEN AND FIGHTING A FORKLIFT? Double check.
27	** In the the first film and novel a Deinonychus gets into and kills two teenagers in a van. Unlike in the novel however, where the creature is fully grown, the animal in the film starts as a baby and grows up throughout it. The attack occurs when it is still a juvenile, so the resulting scene is a critter the size of a schnauzer killing two people.
28	** Aside from the bad special effects in general, a character in ''Carnosaur 2'' attempts [[TooDumbToLive to box with a velociraptor]]. Really.
29	** The rather obvious ProductPlacement for Coca-Cola in the first movie's boardroom scenes.
30	** Sarah Rawlins' death in the second film is extremely [[{{Gorn}} graphic]] visually. But turn the video off and just listen to the audio it... sounds like the Raptor is doing something else R rated to her.
31	** The ending of the first movie; Want an easy way to take out the impact of the government hazmats killing the protagonists and burning everything to cover up their mistake? Have the last thing shown being burned a [[Magazine/{{Mad}} framed Alfred E. Newman picture]].
32	* SoBadItsGood: While not even fans disagree they are definitely B movies, many will consider at least the first two films pretty firmly this.
33	* SpecialEffectsFailure: With a budget of only 50,000 dollars allotted for effects, you don't really expect much. But even for a Corman flick it's pretty rough.
34	** In the raptors' case, you can immediately tell they are "men-in-rubber-suits". In the T-rex's case, it often appears to be stop-motion animation of someone playing with a T-rex toy. Even though it isn't. [[note]]It's a puppet all the way through, as the budget was so low, coupled with ExecutiveMeddling from Corman himself, that StopMotion was not able to be used in any capacity[[/note]].
35	** The Deinonychus effects in the first film were done with a mix of animatronics and a hand puppet of all things. It looks less like a dinosaur attacking people and more like [[Franchise/TheMuppets Kermit the Frog]] going on a homicidal rampage.
36	** The HellishCopter in ''2'' is obviously a plastic figure.
37	** The T. rex in the ''Eden Formula'', when it's not stock footage from ''Carnosaur'' 1 and ''2'', is rendered in CGI so terrible it makes the original ''Carnosaur'' look like ''Jurassic Park'' by comparison. There is what appears to be at times an animatronic head and what appears to be a hand puppet, but the CG dinosaur, the handful of new practical effects and the stock footage from previous films is so badly put together that the T-Rex looks vastly different in between shots.
38	** Also from ''The Eden Formula'', one scene has a villain hotwire a car and drive off with it. The scene of him driving is stock footage and the car in question suddenly has two passengers!
39	*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0_AylAfq_s Leaping T-Rex]]. No more need be said between its awful compositing and they way it makes physics its bitch.
40	* SpiritualSuccessor:
41	** ''Carnosaur 2'' ripping off ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' also results in an unintentional ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'' adaptation, basically having similar plots: a crew of combat specialists infiltrating a high tech facility crawling with velociraptors and a T. rex.
42	** ''Film/DinoCroc'', a Roger Corman production in which a large PrehistoricMonster is brought back by mad science that wreaks havoc on the general populace.
43	* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: In the third film the music that plays when the ship is being piloted out to sea sounds very much like the main theme music from ''Film/{{Predator}}''.
44	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: After youtuber [=DinoDiego=] did a deep dive into the series and revealed the original film was supposed to have a budget over ''ten times'' higher than it wound up being, many have near unanimously expressed the opinion the already mostly-decent horror film the 1993 film was could have been substantially improved had the budget been higher for more scenes and action.
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Context YMMV / Carnosaur