The Beast (1996)

[fred25_Ca]

Couldn't find any thread for it.
I'm talking about the 1996 made for tv mini-series The Beast, about a giant squid.
I'm just finishing to read Peter Benchley's novel, which i'm loving and next I was going to attempt to buy the blu ray but somehow it's sold for a fortune and the reviews are awful. I got the 2 discs dvd instead. Anybody knows who owns the right to this one? Somehow Benchley's much inferior The Creature was released on blu ray by Kino and has great a/v.
I'm bummed the Beast never had this treatment.
It's a wonderful mini-series and the best movie about a giant squid. The fx have aged really well because of some great practical fx.
Anyone else love this sea monster movie?

[rdodolak]

Are you referring to this one? If so, it looks like it did receive a release a long while back, but may be now out of print. Timeless Media Group is owned by Shout Factory. According to the back cover it appears SF licensed it from Universal at the time.

[Britbuffguy]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Are you referring to this one? If so, it looks like it did receive a release a long while back, but may be now out of print. Timeless Media Group is owned by Shout Factory. According to the back cover it appears SF licensed it from Universal at the time.

That is indeed the movie he's talking about. I just rented it earlier this year from the library. It's okay, was a much better book.

[fred25_Ca]

Yes, I am. And I made the thread in regard to this blu ray. What an awful cover haha, there's even a face cameo of William Petersen popping up on the right.

[Michael24]

Used to watch this in the late-90s all the time after I recorded it off TV. Haven't seen it for years now since the original DVD was a shortened two-hour version. Didn't know about the later extended DVD and Blu-ray until a couple years ago, but I've heard the PQ is really poor, especially on the Blu-ray.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Are you referring to this one? If so, it looks like it did receive a release a long while back, but may be now out of print. Timeless Media Group is owned by Shout Factory. According to the back cover it appears SF licensed it from Universal at the time.

SF didn't own Timeless Media when they released this. They acquired them in 2012.

[fred25_Ca]

Originally Posted by Britbuffguy

That is indeed the movie he's talking about. I just rented it earlier this year from the library. It's okay, was a much better book.

I don't know, i'm enjoying the book but I prefer the mini-series. I think they handle the main character (William Petersen) better in the movie. In the book he has a wife and a daughter but they are barely used. In the movie he is a single parent to a teenage daughter and it works much better. The book is also fairly small so they are easily able to fit pretty much everything in the 3 hour movie. And the squid looks great, nearly on par with the one from Disney's 20 000 leagues under the sea.
I know the ending is different but i'll have to finish the book first to be able to compare. :P

[fred25_Ca]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

SF didn't own Timeless Media when they released this. They acquired them in 2012.

Ahh I wonder if they still have it. I should write to them. A cool collector edition would be pretty sweet.

[Michael24]

On the topic of Peter Benchley, it amazes me how much of his work is out-of-print. I was looking to read more of his books a few years ago and most of them I had to buy used. The only in-print titles I was able to buy new editions of were Jaws (of course) and The Girl From the Sea of Cortez. I do have the original hardcover of White Shark I bought when it was first published, which was adapted as the awful TV mini-series Creature. I would love to see a faithful movie adaptation of it one day.

[fred25_Ca]

Yeah, I waited a few years for The Beast to come out on Kindle to read it but got tired of waiting and ordered a used copy online.
Hopefully this changes one day. I'd love to read more of his stuff, including White shark.

[fred25_Ca]

Just finished the book and while I enjoy it, the ending was pretty disappointing. Spoilers: at the last second as our heroes are about to die from fighting a 100 foot giant squid, a spe*rm whale comes out of nowhere and eats the squid. Like, really? I mean, the ending of his jaws novel was worse (the shark gets tired and stops swimming and in doing so dies...) but still! I wish we had at least gotten a fight between the squid and the whale haha.
The mini-series is a lot better. The characters are more developed, the squid actually appears more often and the ending is a lot more satisfying.
Still, i'm glad I read the book, I enjoyed it a lot more than Benchley's Jaws novel and it makes me even more excited to revisit the mini-series, even if it's on a crappy dvd. :P

[fred25_Ca]

I was curious about the making of the fx for the squid (it's really well done, especially for a mini-series) and found this little article that compares the book to the movie:

"Despite the technological advances made in computer-generated images (think of the galloping dinosaurs in Jurassic Park), all the giant squid in Beast were models. Based on careful studies of smaller squid, the "beasts" were designed by Mixon & Ellis FX, who had provided the special effects (known as "FX") for Predator 2, Night of the Scarecrow, and Stephen King's "It". Gene Warren (who won an Academy Award in 1991 for visual effects in Terminator 2), and Leslie Huntley, of the California firm Fantasy II, were responsible for bringing the squid to life. Built of various plastics, because most of the underwater shots actually had to be shot underwater, the squid models were controlled by a team of 30 puppeteers who pushed and pulled levers that were attached to cables inside the squid. The head, which weighed nearly 200 pounds, was pneumatically driven by hydraulics under 2,000 pounds of pressure. In those scenes where the squid attacks a boat, both elements were miniaturized, the boat to a workable five feet."

https://tonmo.com/articles/beast-by-peter-benchley.69/

Nice to see how much work was put on the squid, no wonder it looks so good!

[deltatauhobbit]

I remember liking this film when I first saw it on TV when it premiered. There's something about the quality of TV movies in the 90's that haven't been able to be replicated in the past 20 years.

Shame the blu-ray has been out of print for a long while, I'd certainly like to pick it up but I remember reading the transfer wasn't all that great either.

[Michael24]

I'm probably the only person here who actually has the original soundtrack, released by Varese Sarabande when the mini-series first premiered. I listened to it so much in the late-90s that most of the tracks I could probably hum in their entirety at one point. Haha!

[fred25_Ca]

Wow, haha that's awesome! I've seen some copies floating around ebay and was kind of intrigued. Great cover too!

[JMDiaz718]

Originally Posted by fred25_Ca

I was curious about the making of the fx for the squid (it's really well done, especially for a mini-series) and found this little article that compares the book to the movie:

"Despite the technological advances made in computer-generated images (think of the galloping dinosaurs in Jurassic Park), all the giant squid in Beast were models. Based on careful studies of smaller squid, the "beasts" were designed by Mixon & Ellis FX, who had provided the special effects (known as "FX") for Predator 2, Night of the Scarecrow, and Stephen King's "It". Gene Warren (who won an Academy Award in 1991 for visual effects in Terminator 2), and Leslie Huntley, of the California firm Fantasy II, were responsible for bringing the squid to life. Built of various plastics, because most of the underwater shots actually had to be shot underwater, the squid models were controlled by a team of 30 puppeteers who pushed and pulled levers that were attached to cables inside the squid. The head, which weighed nearly 200 pounds, was pneumatically driven by hydraulics under 2,000 pounds of pressure. In those scenes where the squid attacks a boat, both elements were miniaturized, the boat to a workable five feet."

https://tonmo.com/articles/beast-by-peter-benchley.69/

Nice to see how much work was put on the squid, no wonder it looks so good!

Sorry, but aside from a few shots, the squid in motion looked awful. Especially, the shot of it lunging out of the water, after the baby is killed and taken away.

Also, the CGI squid is laughable. The fire effects in the climax were also poor. I saw this When it originally aired and was excited for it. It turned out to be so so, with awful monster effects.

The actual full sized prop was great in design, but sucked when operational.

This movie deserves a bigger budget remake.

[JMDiaz718]

Originally Posted by fred25_Ca

Just finished the book and while I enjoy it, the ending was pretty disappointing. Spoilers: at the last second as our heroes are about to die from fighting a 100 foot giant squid, a spe*rm whale comes out of nowhere and eats the squid. Like, really? I mean, the ending of his jaws novel was worse (the shark gets tired and stops swimming and in doing so dies...) but still! I wish we had at least gotten a fight between the squid and the whale haha.
The mini-series is a lot better. The characters are more developed, the squid actually appears more often and the ending is a lot more satisfying.
Still, i'm glad I read the book, I enjoyed it a lot more than Benchley's Jaws novel and it makes me even more excited to revisit the mini-series, even if it's on a crappy dvd. :P

Basically the ending was ripped off by Jurassic Park and Jurassic World!

I agree, ending with the whale was weak and itself, ripped off from Tentacles
1977. Would be great if they remade this and White Shark, following the books closer.

[CaptWithNoName]

What a strange world of coincidences. I've always loved the mini-series, a pretty big deal for its time given its story and FX scope, but had never read the book. Ordered the hardcover from Half-Price books and finished it about a week ago; almost read as Benchley's apology for the reaction to Jaws given its pro-environmental leanings (Beast isn't just mindless killer, its food supply has been destroyed by over-fishing, the changing water temperature pushes it to different ocean regions, etc).

I also have the paperback of White Shark which is always a fun summer read. Aside from Stan Winston's FX work and Kim Catrall, ya the movie is pretty terrible.

I'd say TV movies have changed simply because all the $$ and therefore quality and talent is in streaming and premium channel content. Why pander to a broadcast audience (and limited TVPG-TV14 ratings) when you can freely tackle heavier themes w/ Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Cinemax, etc. The audience has an abundance (too many really) of choices today. Whereas when The Beast and even Creature came out, they were actual movie premieres. If you didn't watch the two-parters the night they were on NBC or ABC; sorry, too bad, no dice. No queue to put the titles in to watch later. I recorded The Beast to VHS as well during its premiere; being so careful to hit record at the EXACT right moment to cut out any commercials but not to miss any movie on the fade in. Of course, maybe a year later, they released a double VHS set, but still even that is a long wait compared to the 3-4 month turnaround movies have (had) from theaters to home theater market.

Glad there are other Beast fans out there!

Kudos Michael24 on that soundtrack! I bet you have that opening main title horn cue down pat in your head. It has a kind of a pre-Matrix hint to it given its the same composer.

[fred25_Ca]

Originally Posted by JMDiaz718

Basically the ending was ripped off by Jurassic Park and Jurassic World!

I agree, ending with the whale was weak and itself, ripped off from Tentacles
1977. Would be great if they remade this and White Shark, following the books closer.

Never saw Tentacles but was always slightly intrigued. How does it end? The Squid gets eaten too?

And wow, haha, i'm so glad to see other fans of the book and the mini-series. I also saw it when it first aired and absolutely loved it. Took me years to rewatch it but I finally did in 2012 with my wife and the during the whole movie I kept freaking out how much I was loving it. When we finished I turned to my wife and said this was excellent, even better than I remembered. She looked at me as if I was crazy haha. She wasn't quite as impressed as I was. We'll be rewatching it again this week together and she ain't that excited but I sure am. :P
I might try Creature again, I was disappointed last time I rewatched it. Didn't know it was Stan Winston back then. Maybe I should order the book too!

[fred25_Ca]

Here's a nice article from back when the series came out with an interview with Benchley.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.lati...ml%3f_amp=true

“The Beast” marks the first time one of Benchley’s novels has been produced for the small screen. Universal originally optioned it for a theatrical film but then decided Benchley’s script was too expensive to produce. “They got John Carpenter to do one and they deemed his too expensive,” says Benchley, who also is one of the executive producers. “So when NBC wanted to do it, they went to Universal and the movie division gave the project to the TV division. They hired J.B. White to turn it from a two-hour movie to a four-hour miniseries.”

Benchley actually went searching for a giant squid back in 1979 with a fisherman pal who is the basis for the character played by Petersen.

“He and I are old friends in Bermuda and we felt it would be fun to see if we could get one to the surface because no one had ever seen a live one before. The first time we went out we took cables--48 woven strands of stainless steel--down to 3,000 feet with hooks and lights and baits.”

They stayed out all night. Much to their disappointment, there wasn’t even a nibble. “When we brought the cables up the next day, we discovered they had been bitten off at 2,000 feet! I suddenly thought, ‘Gee. This is an interesting animal. We should have more acquaintance with him.’ We kept going and getting more equipment lost and damaged and beaten up. I don’t know what the first impulse was to turn it into a book, but it was based on, like, 12 or 15 years of looking for him.”

Earlier this year, Benchley relates, a group of New Zealand scientists managed to bring four giant squids to the surface. “They caught them in nets, but they were all dead by the time they hit the surface. The biggest ones, according to the papers, were 26 feet--relatively small. The biggest one ever documented, fully weighed and measured, was 55 feet long, also in New Zealand. When you get into less scientifically ascertained figures, the biggest one people accept is 72 feet.”

“The Beast,” Benchley says, has a strong environmental message: “Don’t mess with Mother Nature. If we start screwing around with a food chain, then you never know what can happen. You do something and the dominoes begin to fall. You have no idea what the ramifications will be.”

In fact, Benchley says, these mysterious creatures have attacked boats. “There are very few [incidents], but they have been really documented quite well,” he says. “Nobody knows what they will eat, really. It’s very hard to analyze stomach content--either the animals have been dead too long or the stomach was gone. But they are known to be cannibals. They are known to be utterly fearless. One squid scientist said memorably that it is the only Cephalopoda mollusk that knows vengeance. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s certainly a nice phrase.”