This movie was very enjoyable for me to watch as a six year old i first saw it when it came out and i really loved them, i rented every single one of the six part movies. its really an awesome movie for kids that is. It is sad how they were discontinued they were not meant for adults and the budget was low and the acting was not top notch but still when you are young you do not realize these things. I honestly enjoyed it ten years ago and i saw it today after many years and still enjoyed it although not as much. But come on people let the kids see it, its sad how they were discontinued these movies. If you do get a chance to see this movie i am certain you will want to see the other five. I was very lucky to find part three trapped in toy world at Big Lots the other day although it is not as good as the first one.
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lovableannie5 November 2006
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Leofwine_draca11 September 2017PLANET OF THE DINO-KNIGHTS is the first in a series of children's adventure films from Full Moon Pictures. These were made on minuscule budgets in Romania, and mix sci-fi and fantasy principles with glee. Josh Kirby is the youthful hero, who gets drawn into a time-travelling plot and sent to a medieval world where dinosaurs are harnessed as steeds for knights (hence the title). You get giant robot action, hammy acting, cheeseball stop motion effects, and mildly amusing scripting. Barrie Ingham is the old timer explaining things to the kids, while Charisma Carpenter has a small role long before Buffy.
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bigdinosaur27 July 2001My youngest kid got all of these Josh Kirby titles and this review is based on all 6.
Storyline is definitely for juveniles: Josh encounters time traveling pod and its occupants (Irwin, Azebeth & Prism) and is pursued by Dr. Zoetrope who is trying to obtain the crystal pieces of a time nullifier device. At least the ending (in episode 6) has a twist. Azabeth is a headstrong girl who eventually likes Josh. Prism is a cute little alien who reminds me of a cross between gremlins & yoda. Irwin is the professor running the time pod trying to get the nullifier pieces before Zoetrope can. Each episode leads into the next just like old time serials did.
Zoetrope!...At least let's be original here. Effects are what you'd expect if you did this on your PC (except the costumes---they weren't all that bad). Acting...well they train dogs too.
Make no mistake; these are good movies for kids (younger kids of maybe 6 to 12). But if you're going to watch them with your kid you may want to catch a nap instead.
I gave these movies as a whole an 8 out of 10 because they are totally suitable for the audience they were intended to entertain. Kids will like them. My kid has watched them several times. If your kids like "The Clockmaker", "The Shrunken City", "The Borrowers" and similar titles, they will like the Josh Kirby series. -
Although not total garbage, it's pretty crappy.
The dino stop-motion is worse than the old 1933 version of King Kong, and the dinos look like rubber. The effects are like something from a Nintendo game. The Prism creature looks like a troll doll. Everything in this looks as phony as a nine-pound note.
Acting is awful...like something you'd expect from a primary school play. And that horrible piece of crap bike that kid rides is a disgrace. No one could race that junk heap (I'm glad it got vapourised). Azebeth Siege and her codes of kong (is this movie riddled with references to King Kong?) is lame, lame, lame. And there's one scene where this little kid just runs underneath the dino for no apparent reason. And what's with all the moths flying around in the beginning sequence...Did they film this in an old barn?.
The sword fighting with the dino was also way lame. And sacrificing people to the "dragon" (dino)...hmmm...again, somebody's been watching too many King Kong movies.
I wonder what the budget for this was...$2.
It's sort of cool though how this is set up like old serials. Chapter one at least leaves you hanging & shows a preview of the next chapter.
My friend gave us a laserdisc player & a box of movies. In the box were chapters 1 & 2 of this series. We watched the first one. And maybe one of these days when I'm extra bored I'll watch chapter 2...that is if I haven't used the laserdiscs for frizbees by then.
I wonder if laserdiscs will shatter nicely upon impact with a tree...In this case that's about all they're good for. Well maybe some really bored little kids might like Josh Kirby. -
JoLeigh3311 August 2006If you want to give kids a taste of Sci-Fi, try this series. I found these videos at Blockbuster years ago and my mom rented them for me. At 9 years old, I thought these were the best movies ever. I would want to watch it again if given the chance, but I can't find it anywhere. But from what I could recall, this series was fun. I thought Azabeth was awesome. I never realized the lack of quality in this Sci-Fi series in regards to the special effects or acting. It is time-travel. This series is what sparked my interest in Sci-Fi. Nowadays, my favorite movies are Back to the Future - 1,2,and 3. My favorite TV Show is Stargate SG-1. Josh Kirby... Time Warrior! From a child-like memory, I'd give it a 9 out of 10.
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Jusenkyo_no_Pikachu14 June 2002I have seen all 6 episodes of the series, and while it is childish and rather cheesy (look at the special effects for Zoetrope 366's suit in the hypertime scenes) it still managed to offer a bit of fun.
The story for this episode is that 25th-century scientist Irwin 1138 has invented the Nullifier, a machine capable of...well, something large scale. If it wasn't large-scale, he wouldn't bother scattering it all over time and space. Anyhow, this rival scientist called Zoetrope 366 (apparently a reference to George Lucas, just like Irwin 1138/THX 1138) steals the coordinates and Irwin is forced to pursue him through to 1994, where the first piece is kept.
Here, young Josh Kirby enters the story. Until now, his only excitement has been racing his bicycle to school. But when he finds a glass bone in his dog's kennel, he suddenly ends up joining Irwin and magical creature Prism on a journey to ancient England, where he has to get the second Nullifier piece. Unfortunately, some weird disturbance has dinosaurs in England...
Not TOO bad. This is probably the best one of the lot. -
joe_briscoe15 November 2006I remember watching the Josh Kirby series one Chrismas. Each morning, one of the films was unceremoniously slipped into the early morning schedule, and so it was that every morning for one week of the Christmas period, before I got dressed and went downstairs to eat the food, and play with my new toys, I would be transported to god knows where by one of these awesome adventures. Unfortunately I haven't managed to find a copy since, so I can't vouch for how well they stand up if you watch them a decade later, but for what its worth, my memories of this series are very fond indeed. Believing that I was the only kid in the world who caught the films as they were shown, I was never able to talk about it with my friends... until a few years afterwards, a mate of mine casually asked if I remembered a program called 'Josh Kirby'. To which I was obviously very delighted! I must find a copy again to re-watch, as I think it must be quite special if I remember it so well. I think it was a great blend of comedy, sci-fi, and adventure - in much the same way that the 'Back to the Future' films were... only slightly more fantastical! So, if the opinion of me and my friend Michael is anything to go on, I would suggest this series for any children who are looking to be transported to interesting places for a few hours of each day, preferably if its the Christmas holidays!
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mshui13 April 1999This film surprised me. The cheezy plotline and the really corny dialogue fit right in because the lines were pretty much out of a "how to write bad sci-fi" book. But since the lines were delivered in a very tongue-in-cheek style, it's clear it's a spoof on bad sci-fi. Weird storyline and the special effects are nothing to write home about, but it fits. I enjoyed it, but others might not. Still...it's fun, but you do have to watch all 6 or else it's no good because you don't get the full story.
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zyrcona14 January 2016I watched this series as an undergraduate student on the long summer holiday, with my father. It is an American children's programme that seems to have been made on a limited budget in the 90s (although it is rather lurid and 80s-looking). We started watching it for laughs assuming it would be a cheesy, naff, American show, but as it went on we actually began to enjoy it.
The special effects are not very good. There's a character called 'Prism' that's supposed to be an alien creature or something of the sort. It looks like a Troll Doll. Other special effects are people or objects flailing on what I guess is a blue floor with the blue replaced with acid-trip colours. One of the other characters pronounces 'warrior' as 'woyer' and acts sword-fighting most unrealistically. The overall premise and setup is a pretty unremarkable blend of SF and fantasy -- the protagonist teams up with a time-traveller to save the world and discovers he is a 'time warrior' and has nondescript magical powers.
Despite all of these hindrances, the series is inventive and fun, and has an ambition reminiscent of Doctor Who in its golden age, another low-budget series that often showcased poor acting. In order to explain its strongest point, however, I'm going to have to use a total spoiler: towards the end, the protagonist discovers that the time-traveller he met at the start and teamed up with, is in fact the main antagonist, and the assumed villain they have been trying to defeat is really the hero, and the protagonist has been aiding and abetting the villain and obstructing the hero in his efforts to save the world. When the real villain is finally defeated, it's revealed that he did wrong because he believed it would lead to a better world overall. This sort of nuance in children's programmes that are dominated by black-and-white, good-and-evil narratives, is really unusual, and what makes it more enjoyable is that hints are scattered throughout the preceding episodes (the most immediately obvious one being why in the 90s a good- looking black man would cast as a sinister baddie!).
I think it is important for children to understand that there are two (or more) sides to every story, and this series explores this concept particularly well, and I recommend it for that, as well as being a silly and light-hearted bit of entertainment that doesn't take itself seriously, and which adults looking for something non- challenging might enjoy too. -
chris_gaskin12310 January 2002I watched this and was surprised to see the dinosaurs in it were stop-motion models, 70 years after the first major feature film used this method, The Lost World (1925). They look impressive, however.
I quite enjoyed this movie and rate it 3 and a half stars out of five. -
Sleepless_1289 June 2004I know I may be alone in saying this but I have to say that Josh Kirby...Time Warrior is one of the greatest film series ever created. Sure it may not have the best effects and the highest budget. And yeah people might find it a little childish but that's because most people only like high budget big effects movies. No one sees the true quality and work that people put into these "low budget" films. The story line to this series is brilliant. I don't watch movies to see nice cars and computer generated people. I watch movies for the storyline, the ideas, and the excitement. Now I'm getting off topic.
Josh Kirby is the story of a boy who comes in contact with a piece of an alien defies capable of destroying the Universe. He soon finds him self racing across the time stream in a Time Pod built by Erwin 1138 from the future. Erwin has scattered pieces of the defies throughout the time stream to hide them from the evil Dr. Zoetrobe but Zoetrobe has found out where the pieces are and now it's a race against the clock to find all the pieces before Zoetrobe does.
In this chapter you see how the whole story begins. After leaving 1994 Josh and Erwin find them selves in med evil England where dinosaurs are considered dragons and as Josh and Erwin search for a piece of the nolifier, the alien defies, they are caught in a med evil war between two brothers.
Be prepared for cliff hangers. -
danwroy19 December 2001This is one of the strangest and most idiotic shows I've ever seen. The premise is cheerfully boneheaded, but could only work with under a larger budget or better production values. While there are some rather original in-jokes littered here and there, namely the references to George Lucas (American Zoetrope Productions and THX 1138), the rest of the show - acting, plot, special effects, script - seems to be comfortable with it's sheer awfulness. I'm not tossing out the possibility that there is a higher intelligence at work here (the ridiculous premise and numerous in-jokes should make this show a cult classic alongside Beastmaster) but based on the empirical evidence... what an amazing piece of crap.