Line #53 Film/Prehysteria


1	[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/prehysteria_3158.jpg]]
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3	A trilogy of family-friendly fantasy movies made by Charles Band for Moonbeam Entertainment, a subsidiary of the DirectToVideo BMovie studio [[Creator/FullMoonFeatures Full Moon]], which is better known for producing R-rated horror movies.
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5	''Prehysteria!'' involves a young boy named Jerry and his family embark on a series of adventures when Jerry finds some mysterious eggs which hatch to reveal a brood of baby dinosaurs. The five baby dinos are named after famous pop musicians. Including Music/{{Elvis\|Presley}}, a male Tyrannosaurus Rex, Music/{{Paula\|Abdul}}, a female Brachiosaurus, [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand Jagger]], a male Stegosaurus, [[Music/McHammer Hammer]], a male Chasmosaurus, and Music/{{Madonna}}, a female Pteranodon.
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7	The first movie in the series, ''Prehysteria!'' is about [[OnlyInItForTheMoney Rico Sarno]], a museum curator, who enters a ancient temple in a South American jungle, and discovers a nest of five eggs. He steals them and brings them back to his museum. Frank Taylor, a farmer, sells fossils to Rico and in a mix up, the Taylor's dog takes a cooler, which has the eggs. The kids, Monica and Jerry discover the dinos when they hatch and try to keep it a secret, until their father finds out. Vicki, a woman who works for Rico, sees the dinos, she tells the Taylors not to give them back to Rico because he will expose them. Rico finds out the Taylors have them and hires two robbers to help him get the dinos back.
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9	Continuing in ''Prehysteria! 2'' Mr. Cranston is a friend of the Taylors and he watches the mini dinosaurs while they are on vacation. The five babies break out of the Taylors' farm and accidentally get shipped into a crate of raisins. The crate is found in a box car by Naomi, a girl whose father works at the train station and a rich kid named Brendan Wellington who she helped hide in the box car while being chased by [[KidsAreCruel bullies]]. When the two discover the dinos, desperate for attention because his father Brendan tries to keep them. Needless to say, things don't go exactly as planned.
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11	This follows straight into ''Prehysteria! 3''. This time, the saurian gang falls out of the back of Mr. Cranston's truck, and they make their way to another family's home. The dinosaurs help the [=MacGregor=] family, who is struggling with their mini-putt golf course. Ella [=MacGregor=], is in love with her Scottish ancestry, but is dispondant that the mini golf course is going under. She finds the dinos, and with her family's help, they re-build the golf course with a dinosaur theme, which helps them a lot. But Ella's evil uncle Hal [=MacGregor=] is determined to take over the course by all means, and Ella and her parents must hide the mini dinosaurs.
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13	Despite the similar sounding titles, these movies have nothing to do with ''WesternAnimation/{{Histeria}}''.
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15	----
16	!!The film series provides examples of:
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18	* AbusiveParents: Not exactly a parent, but Mrs. Winters is an emotionally abusive caretaker to Brendan in the second film.
19	* AllAnimalsAreDogs: The baby dinos are as playful and friendly as puppies, though Madonna is [[AllFlyersAreBirds more like a parrot]].
20	* AllFlyersAreBirds: Madonna's behavior is more similar to a parrot than to a pterosaur.
21	* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Invoked with Madonna, [[WordOfGod according to Andrea Von Sholly]], who had the real life Madonna in mind when designing her. Averted with the others, who are all relatively muted tones.
22	* ArtisticLicenseBiology: All of the baby dinos in the films were juveniles. Turns out the puppets used for them are minture models of adult-sized dinosaurs. Although given later revelations about pterosaurs, Madonna's design is now a case of AccidentallyCorrectWriting.
23	* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Avoided design-wise, as almost all of the dinos are accurate models for their time. Played straight behavior-wise, as all of the animals act like common house pets.
24	* AssholeVictim: in the first film, Rico Sarno. Mrs. Winters in the second. Hal [=MacGregor=] in the third movie.
25	* BigBad:
26	** Rico in the first film, who wants to take the baby dinosaurs and get rich off of them.
27	** Mrs. Winters in the second film, who emotionally abuses Brendan and later calls in an exterminator when she is led to believe that he is hiding an animal in the mansion.
28	** Hal [=MacGregor=] in the third film, who wants to take over a small time golf course.
29	* BigDamnHeroes: Madonna swooping in for the save being the most obvious.
30	* BigEater: ''All'' of the babies.
31	* CarnivoreConfusion: Despite being a ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', Elvis is mostly vegetarian, with one his favorite snacks being rasins. He enjoys eating dog food, though.
32	** ExtremeOmnivore: He actually seems to eat just about anything he can sink his teeth into. At one point, he catches a fly with his jaws.
33	-->'''Vicki''': (''after almost feeding a vegetable to him'') Oh, I forgot, [[LampshadeHanging you don't eat leaves]]. (''Elvis snaps at her'') Sorry!
34	* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: The dinosaurs' eggs seem to have this going on:
35	** Reddish-brown egg: Elvis
36	** Black egg: Jagger
37	** Brightly colored egg: Madonna
38	** Bluish egg: Hammer
39	** Brown egg: Paula
40	* CuttingTheElectronicLeash: The father of Brendan in ''Prehysteria 2'' violently throws his ringing phone against the wall, breaking it.
41	* DirtyCoward: Rico
42	* DomesticatedDinosaurs: The basic premise of the trilogy.
43	* EggMacGuffin: The eggs the baby dinos hatched from were treated like this, until they hatch.
44	* {{Expy}}: In a similar vein to [[Film/JurassicPark1993 Dennis Nedry]], Rico Sarno is a greedy FatSlob who works in a dinosaur-related project just to obtain a huge financial profit for himself and is more than willing to resort to underhanded methods to get what he desires.
45	* FatBastard: Rico is overweight and is an avaricious asshole.
46	* FatSlob: Good ole Rico is basically [[Film/JurassicPark1993 Dennis Nedry]] with a mustache, minus the glasses.
47	* FunSize: The dinosaurs. Vicki deducts that they were dormant in their eggs for so long that they'll never get any bigger than they are now (or, [[LaymansTerms as Mr. Taylor puts it]], "[they] got the runts of the litter").
48	* ForScience: Rico's excuse for everything he does, [[spoiler:he's really just [[OnlyInItForTheMoney doing it all for monetary gain]].]]
49	* FreudianExcuse: In ''Prehysteria 3'', Mr. [=MacGregor=] seems to overreact to squeaky sounds (like his back door). Later Ella finds out that her father's golf pro hopes came to an end when a loud, high-pitched bird cry (later revealed to be [[spoiler:Hal using a whistle disguised as a cigarette]]) caused him to miss his putt.
50	* GoofyPrintUnderwear: Mr. Taylor wears boxers with raisins on them.
51	* HandWave: The explanation as to why the dinos are stuck in their small size. See FunSize.
52	* HarmlessVillain: Rico Sarno and Ella's uncle Hal [=MacGregor=] in the third. As well as Rico's two helpers in the first film.
53	* HerbivoresAreFriendly: All the babies are heroic herbivores (except for Elvis and Madonna — Madonna being a pterosaur and fish eater. And Elvis, for obvious reasons...though he seems to like dog food).
54	* HiddenInPlainSight
55	* LittleStowaway: The baby dinos in the second movie.
56	* LonelyRichKid: Brendan in movie 2. He's a somewhat more realistic example, though, as his loneliness stems less from his wealth and more from his father's absence.
57	* [[MagicalNativeAmerican Magical South American]]: Jefe
58	* MamaBear and PapaWolf: All the children are very protective of the babies.
59	* MissingMom: Mrs. Taylor in the first movie (dead) and Brendan's mother in the second (divorced his workaholic father, who won custody of him since he could afford the best lawyer).
60	* MusicalThemeNaming: The five dinosaurs are named after singers and musicians: Elvis, Madonna, Jagger, Paula and J.D. Hammer.
61	* NiceJobFixingItVillain:
62	** In the first film, Rico and his goons kidnap all the dinosaurs except Madonna, who escapes by flying through a hole in the greenhouse roof. How did the hole get there? One of Rico's goons tried to shoot Madonna.
63	** In the third film, Hal and Needlemeyer get paranoid that Heath overheard their plan, so Hal asks Needlemeyer to make sure he doesn't squeal, so Needlemeyer forcibly cuts Heath's hair. Guess who [[spoiler:pulls a MistreatmentInducedBetrayal followed by a BigDamnHeroes moment when Needlemeyer tries to sabotage Ella's putt at the ''Triceratops'' hole]]?
64	* NonMaliciousMonster: Elvis, no doubt when he grows up.
65	* NonIndicativeName: In-universe example.
66	* ParentWithNewParamour: A plot point in the first film, with Mr. Taylor (a widower) falling in love with his coworker Vicki. Monica doesn't take to kindly to this at first, but a heart to heart with her father helps her warm up to the whole situation.
67	* ParrotPetPosition: In the first film, Madonna's favorite thing to do was sit on Monica's shoulder.
68	* PollyWantsAMicrophone: Madonna can mimic human speech like a parrot.
69	* ThePratfall: This would befall some of the villians. Thanks to the baby dinos.
70	* PrehistoricMonster: Totally and utterly averted. All the dinosaurs are adorable and gentle. [[BewareTheNiceOnes Until you anger them]].
71	* Really700YearsOld: The babies are technically over 20 million years old. It's justified as their eggs where in some form of stasis before they hatched.
72	* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: Every single one of the five baby dinos.
73	* SamusIsAGirl: Monica is not pleased at the amount of people who get Madonna's gender wrong.
74	-->(''while Madonna is swooping in to save her siblings'')
75	-->'''Thug''': (''angry'') I'm gonna rip his little beak off!
76	-->'''Rico''': (''panicked'') He's gonna rip his little beak off!
77	-->'''Monica''': It's a ''she'' you crooks!
78	* ShownTheirWork: Anatomically, the baby dinosaurs were quite consistent with the adult versions of their real life counterparts at the time (the inaccuracies that are in the film are mostly due to RuleOfCool mixed with ScienceMarchesOn). Very much justified, as the artists who designed them (Peter and Andrea Von Sholly) have both done research on dinosaur anatomy.
79	* StarringSpecialEffects: And really good special effects too!
80	* StrawHypocrite: In the first film, Rico claims to be trying to revolutionize the scientific community but is really just in it purely for profit. In the second, Mrs. Winters claims that she wants to ship Brendan to a boarding school for his own good when in reality all she wants is to get rid of him.
81	* StupidScientist: Rico Sarno.
82	* ThemeNaming: The five dinosaurs (well, four dinosaurs and one pterosaur) are all named after famous musicians.
83	* WhenYouComingHomeDad: Brendan's relationship with his father in the second movie.

Context Film / Prehysteria