That Bermuda Depths turtle looks nothing like this one. It has some kind of huge sagittal crest that the prop doesn’t, and the prop has huge eyebrow ridges that the one in the movie doesn’t.
I think it’s from a kids’ movie or TV show. Look at the big, cartoony eyes on that prop – it’s so cute!
For what it’s worth, most underwater special effects are shot “dry for wet.” In other words, a low-light stage with some heavy floating smoke to simulate the translucency of the water, plus vertical shafts of light, with bubbles or rippling effects superimposed later. Almost all of the exteriors in Cameron’s The Abyss were done this way, for example; the minisubs were three-to-four-foot miniatures manipulated on hanging wires, like marionettes.
And no, I don’t recognize the turtle. My first thought was that it’s not an actual on-screen prop, but a maquette, i.e. a sculptural prototype used as a reference by people in various departments of a film’s production. Pixar, for instance, makes 3-d sculptures of all their characters and scans them (example). I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s a possibility.
I asked on another board. Their suggestions were Dinotopia or Dinosaurs, the TV series from Disney, the one with the really cute baby what kept asking “Who’s the momma?” (or something like that).
I know about dry for wet, but the still that was shown on that one page showed the giant turtle’s head sticking out of the water. It looked like a giant fake turtle, like the giant fake shark they used to make Jaws.
It looks too big to be a maquette, and the eyes look like a puppet’s eyes (i.e. they look like they could be manipulated for movement, either manually from the inside or remotely).
I think Dinotopia might be a good candidate. I seem to recall the Dinosaurs dinos being even less realistic.
So the video store has no idea where they got this prop, or when? Can they tell if its insides appear to be rigged for animatronics, or if it’s a puppet head?
Not in the same style as Dinosaursat all. Dinotopia’s a good guess though. I haven’t found that one precisely, but it’s within the realm of possibility, style-wise.
Dinosaurs was made by Jim Henson’s group (“Not the Mama!” baby is performed by Kevin Clash, using his Elmo voice) and they do much better work than this shows. Dinotopia had 100% computer generated dinosaurs, I think. So it’s neither of them.
Maybe it’s from the remake of Land of the Lost from the 90s.
Is that one of “The Boogens”?
That was a really bad, low budget horror flick from my college days (1980 or so?).
They were supposed to be these gruesome, bloodthirsty subterranean beats, but they looked more like Muppet turtles.
I liked The Boogens. I like any movie where a yappy little dog is a victim.
I don’t think that’s it though. The critter looks too friendly.
This thread has bugged me since it was first posted, but since the board has done what it does, and figured out the Big Bang Theory prop, I figured I would give this a bump.
I was also looking through Hulu and came across the screen cap for Gargantua. Though I haven’t seen the movie, it looks like there could be a chance this is it. Has any one else seen this movie?