That was clear while watching Will Ferrell limp across the sun-scorched set of Land of the Lost on a badly sprained ankle.
"It's the hazards with this kind of terrain," the grimacing star said, during one of the harsher days on the set of the new film.
"One of the reasons we came out here to the desert was we wanted a movie that was very rooted in reality. We didn't want it to look kitschy in any way.
"We wanted real and, well, that was a very real rock that messed up my ankle."
The hazardous minerals of the Trona Pinnacles near Death Valley were genuine, but Land of the Lost has a foot firmly in the fantastic - with its loopy characters and rollicking sensibility it aspires to join Night at the Museum, Men in Black, Ghostbusters and even Galaxy Quest as special-effects hits that aim to amuse as well as amaze.
The Universal Pictures release has a $100-million budget but its heritage is decidedly lower-rent and proud of it.
For a generation of youngsters watching Saturday morning television in the mid-1970s, Land of the Lost was one of the low-budget productions churned out by Sid and Marty Krofft, the brothers who specialised in trippy live-action kid shows produced on shoestring budgets.
The challenge of the new film, according to director Brad Silberling (Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events), is to hold on to the singular charm of the old series in deference to older viewers but also deliver a fresh new adventure that pulls in the young movie-goer.
"A key part of that is Will Ferrell and everything he brings to a movie," Silberling said.
"The action is quite intense and the effects are completely of-the-moment and dazzling, but he is the comical figure in the middle of it all, as is Danny."
The premise of the film is an interdimensional misadventure in which three travellers find themselves trapped in an otherworldly wasteland that is a sort of cosmic catch-basin, where debris and unlucky souls from different eras end up like so much time-travelling lint.
The trio is led by Ferrell's character, a feckless park ranger named Rick Marshall whose career as a palaeontologist ended in disgrace as his theories were roundly mocked.
It turns out he was actually right about the tachyon fields and the Land of the Lost, but he is pretty much wrong about everything else, such as the life-saving benefits of Tyrannosaurus urine.
- Geoff Boucher
