Directors – Curt Geda, Dan Riba & Frank Squillace, Supervising Director – Tad Stones, Screenplay – Tony Bedard, Screen Story – Evan Baily & Tony Bedard, Based on the Dell Comic Book Turok: Son of Stone, Producer – Evan Baily, Music – James L. Venable, Animation – Film Roman & Lotto Animation (Supervising Director – Heechul Kang). Production Company – Gold Key Productions/Film Roman.
Voices
Adam Beach (Turok), Adam G (Andar), Irene Bedard (Catori), Robert Knepper (Chickak), Cree Summer (Sepinta), Mia Crowe (Aniwa), Gil Birmingham (Nashoba), Jay Tavare (Koba)
Plot
The young Native American warrior Turok is banished from his tribe for a violent attack on others and goes to live in the wild. Sixteen years later, Turok’s cousin Andar comes to beg Turok’s help as an enemy tribe attacks. Turok arrives only to see his brother Nashoba killed by Chichak who then snatches Nashoba’s wife Catori. Turok and Andar follow Chichak – only for all of them to emerge through into a strange valley that is filled with dinosaurs and prehistoric life. Turok, Andar and Catori fall in with another tribe of Indians living there where Turok’s fierce warrior skills soon impress them. Meanwhile, Chichak has made himself chief of a tribe of brutish primitives and wields them into an army against Turok and the others.
Turok: Son of Stone was a comic-book from Dell Comics. Who the creator of the comic is something that is in dispute. Turok first appeared in Four Color Comics in 1954 and later gained its own title before moving to Gold Key Comics in 1956 for a run that finally ended in 1982. The various comic adventures told the stories of Turok, a Native American teenager who, along with his brother Andar, strayed into a prehistoric lost valley that was inhabited by dinosaurs. There have since been several different revivals of Turok, including one from Dark Horse Comics, which expand the prehistoric setting to include aliens, other dimensions and the supernatural, or relocated the characters to a post-apocalyptic future.
This is an animated film based on the original Dell comic. It is co-directed by Curt Geda and Dan Riba who both worked in various DC animated films and tv with the various Bruce Timm animated DC series Superman (1996-8) and Batman Beyond/Batman of the Future (1999-2001), while Geda had gone on to direct the films Superman: The Last Son of Krypton (1996), Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000), Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (2003), Superman: Brainiac Attacks (2006), Ultimate Avengers (2006) and Dead Space: Downfall (2008). The film makes a point of casting almost exclusively Native American voice actors and hiring a consultant on Indian matters.
What surprises you about Turok is your initial assumption that it is just going to be essentially a kid’s animated film – my initial assumption was no more than Land of the Lost (1974-7) with the addition of a Native American brave as hero. Within the first few minutes, the film abruptly overturns all these expectations – there is a violent fight with hands severed and machetes buried in chests. That is superseded a few minutes later when it comes to the battle between the two tribes, which is filled with limb severings, beheadings and wholesale slaughter.
Turok fights for his life in the prehistoric land
Turok: Son of Stone is certainly no kiddie film, although the question might be who exactly Reba, Geda, Tad Stones and co thought they were making the film for. The violent barbarism was not a part of the original comic-book – as far as I can tell. In fact, in trying to compare the film to the original, it is hard to find any information online about the original comic-book despite it having been produced for nearly thirty years. As much as I am able to make out, Turok and Andar are brothers not cousins and enter the valley on their own in the original, while Catori and Chichak are characters that seem to have been added by the film. (Although going by the paucity of information I can find about the original comic, I could well be wrong about that).
The film is directed with a considerable degree of drama and tension. If this were a live-action film, I would be giving it a four-star rating for the intensity that it manages to generate out of scenes like Turok and co being pursued across a tree bridging a river or else Turok’s ascent up a cliff-face to steal a pterodactyl egg and ending up triumphantly riding the pterodactyl down. The best sequence though is the climactic one with Turok taming the T-Rex, riding into battle and his showdown with Chichak, machete against gun, while the T-Rex’s final bowing in respect is a perfect touch.
