Visions of War Eagles

After the excitement of finding the eBay site from a while back when Willis O’Brien’s materials relating to his aborted project War Eagles were put up for sale, it’s even more exciting to have been sent another group of production images via one of Undead Backbrain’s correspondents — my official War Eagles Undercover Agent, nicknamed Richfrog.

The following are conceptual drawings by the great animator himself:

Below is an endoskeleton for the articulated model of a War Eagle, built by Marcel Delgado:

This is another endoskeleton, this time of a Viking warrior (for animation when riding the Eagles, no doubt):

Three Allosaurus models constructed for the proposed film:

Below are two images from the animated sequence that O’Brien and his crew put together before the production was abandoned: an Allosaurs fighting a giant eagle, and an Allosaurus in its (miniature) environment. We’ve seen them before, but these versions are clearer.

The Spanish site where these images come from gives a somewhat longer description of the plot of War Eagles. Here is my rough translation:

It begins in 1938 when a historian called Hiran Cobb comes to believe that Vikings are still alive in a remote, and temperate, region of the north pole — a sort of the blind spot. In company with the stunt pilot Jimmy Mathews, Cobb begins a journey toward the pole to seek out the lost tribe, but his plane is forced to land in that unknown town after an attack by a giant white eagle controlled by the inhabitants. In “The Ancient Pass[?]”, as the area is called, Cobb will face a triceratops, a brontosaurus, a pterodactyl and a number of allosauri. Things get complicated when the German military comes on the scene, attacking New York from the air with a ray gun that neutralises all electric power installed in its giant Zeppelins. The Vikings and their giant eagles agree to stop the fleet.

Sources/References:

• Previous Undead Backbrain article on War Eagles
• Monster World via Richfrog