The original tale of Prehistoric Terror
For the Jurassic Park sequel movie also from the late 1990s, see The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Based off the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel of the same name, this movie shifts the action from South America in 1912 to Mongolia in 1938.
In 1938, American Paleontologist and Mongolian explorer Maple White and Azbek discover a pterosaur egg which they plan to bring back to civilization, but die from the hostile wildlife with White managing to get back to Azbek's brother and sister at the base of the plateau. In his dying breath, he hands his research off to his British zoologist colleague Challenger. Challenger returns to Britain and vouches for a second expedition to return to the plateau with skeptic Paleontologist Summerlee, Anthropologist and Maple White's daughter Amanda White, Azbek's siblings Djena and Myar, journalist Malone, and at the insistence of his financial backer but with great reluctance, big game hunter John Roxton.
This film contains examples of:
- Adaptation Personality Change: Only Professor Summerlee and Malone are more or less unchanged.
- Professor Challenger is far, far less pugnacious than he is in the novels and is completely open to Malone accompanying them.
- John Roxton is far more smug and trigger happy than he was in the source material, as well as exceptionally greedy.
- Adaptation Species Change: The ape-men of the novel of debatable species are changed to Neanderthals, who are either a a very similar species to modern humans or a subspecies of Homo sapiens.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In the original novel, Professor Challenger is squat and ape-like; to the extent that Frazetta Men on the plateau take him for one of their own. Here he is portrayed by Patrick Bergin.
- Adaptational Nationality: As well as undergoing Adaptational Villainy, John Roxton also becomes an American, rather than tthe British lord he is is the original novel.
- Adaptational Villainy: John Roxton is made the main human antagonist of the film.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Partially justified by saying the species on the plateau are similar descendants of the ancient versions, but not direct one to one comparisons.
- Bad with the Bone: At the end of the film, Malone is shown to be still alive on the plateau and wielding a weapon made out of a dinosaur bone.
- Bat Out of Hell: The researcher Maple White and his assistant Azbek discover a world populated by dinosaurs situated on a Mongolian plateau. Soon after the pair are attacked by what are supposed to be Eudimorphodons ( a species of pterosaur) but which are depicted as more like a swarm of large, vicious vampire bats.
- Booby Trap: The Neanderthals have placed booby traps across the plateau; marking each of them with a skull. A skull which Malone somehow fails to spot every time he encounters one.
- Chased by Angry Natives: After Challenger and Roxton rescue Amanda from the Neanderthals, the Neanderthals chase them back to their camp, hurling spears at them. This forces the group to take off in the balloon before all the supplies are loaded.
- Cigar Chomper: Macho Egomaniac Hunter John Roxton almost always has a fat stogie clenched in his teeth.
- Cigar-Fuse Lighting: Roxton uses his cigar to light the fuse on the dynamite he intends to use to kill Challenger and Amanda and seal of the tunnels so the others cannot escape the plateau.
- Couldn't Find a Lighter: Cigar Chomper John Roxton lights a cigar from the flaming torch he then uses to light the funeral pyre of the party's dead guide.
- Disney Villain Death: After being bitten by an Eudimorphodon, Roxton falls out the mouth of the cave and plummets down the side of the plateau, being swallowed up by the mists below.
- Egomaniac Hunter: John Roxton is far more smug and trigger happy than he was in the source material, as well as exceptionally greedy.
- Fed to the Beast: After being drugged and captured, Summerlee is tied up at the wreck of the balloon and left to be eaten by a Tyrannosaurus.
- Human Sacrifice: Amanda is abducted by Neanderthals, prompting a search. Challenger and Roxton find Amanda suspended from a ritual framework. Judging from he bodies suspended in the other frames,it appears they intended to leave her there to die.
- Impairment Shot: After Summerlee is shot with drugged dart, shots from his POV are distorted with psychedelic colours.
- Improvised Parachute: The survivors of the expedition construct a makeshift parachute from the remains of the envelope of the balloon, and Challenger and Amanda ultimately use it to escape the plateau.
- Kill the Cutie: Djena sadly gets mauled by Eoraptors before being eaten by the Tyrannosaurus in the finale.
- Man Bites Man: Roxton is holding a knife at Djena's throat. When he turns his head to take the gun away from Challenger, Djena bites his wrist, forcing him to drop the knife.
- The Mockbuster: Often considered one to The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
- Outside Ride: Myar is the last one of the party to reach the balloon as it takes off, and leaps on to the outside of the cage; clinging to it as the balloon ascends the plateau.
- Proportionately Ponderous Parasites: The party's Native Guide dies after being bitten in his sleep by a giant mosquito.
- Raptor Attack: Very perplexingly the film opts to use jackal sized Eoraptors, who despite the name is not actually a Dromaeosauridae note , though it is accurately sized. A Jurassic Park styled Velociraptor does feature, but only as a corpse.
- Taking You with Me: Malone detonates a pocket of swamp gas in order to destroy the Tyrannosaurus that had eaten Djena. However, the end of the film reveals that he had survived the explosion and is still living in the lost world.
- The Team Benefactor: Oscar Perreault, a spectator at the lecture, proposes to pay for the expedition's expenses if the scientists capture a living dinosaur and sends his associate, John Roxton, to represent his interests.
- Terror-dactyl: The team attempts to escape the plateau in a hot air balloon. Summerlee observes nearby Quetzalcoatlus, and they attack the balloon, causing Myar to fall. The balloon also suffers a large tear and drops back to the plateau.
- T. Rexpy: Naturally features, albeit as an evolved species in the Tyrannosaurus genus. Curiously for a genus notorious for short arms, it has an enormous set of skinny forelimbs with flared-out elbows. Coincidentally, this makes it resemble Indominus rex seventeen years before the latter became a thing.
