Crabs at the Movies 2

Who can forget the battle with Ray Harryhausen's magnificent giant crab in the 1961 film 'Mysterious Island'.

(It is this scene that animation director Rob Colman paid tribute to, in 'Star Wars Attack of the Clones', with the fight between the Acklay and Obi-Wan Kenobi).

In 'Revenge of the Sith', the Separatist Ground Forces include this Crab Droid, which is used on Utapau.

Sadly the film includes a scene of a Clone Trooper standing on one whilst shooting it.

The other big Sci-Fi film of 2005 is 'The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy'. Unfortunately this film also shows the destruction of crabs.

Possibly worse than their poetry is the cruel way in which Vogons treat the scintillating jewelled scuttling crabs from their home planet, Vogsphere. Smashing their shells with iron mallets. Every year 27,000 of these poor creatures are imported to the Vogons working at the Galactic Civil Service, in the Megabrantics cluster.

One might hope that this film will bring the plight of these crustaceans to a wider audience, and maybe something can be done to save them.

Of course there is Disney's Sebastian, the crustacean from the Caribbean, who starred in the two 'Little Mermaid' films, as well as making a cameo appearance in Disney's 'Aladdin'.

The new Disney/Pixar film 'Monsters Inc' includes the character Henry J Waternoose, described as a large crab-like monster with multiple eyes.

And of course in Pixar's next film 'Finding Nemo', there was plenty of crab action!

Thankfully Dreamworks included brachyurans in their film 'Madagascar', where a crab is spotted as part of Gloria's swimming costume.

The highlight of Disney's 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' has to be the glimpse of the crab as Johnny Depp rows past!

Apart from Davy Jones in 'Dead Man's Chest' we see Bootstrap Bill eating a hermit crab and Tia Dalma using crab claws to guide Jack to Davy Jones. 

Finally there is Hadrus, a member of the Flying Dutchman's crew. His head is a hermit crab with his face on the back of the crab, encased in a conch shell.

Also at the bottom of the sea in James Cameron's 'The Abyss', a crab was used to great effect by crawling from the mouth of a drowned submarine crew member.

And would his later film 'Titanic' have been such a big hit if it wasn't for that shot of the crab on the wreckage ...I think not!

Finally the fantastic Ziyi Zhang in 'Memoirs of a Geisha' has a close encounter with a Dr Crab.