Dinosaur (film)
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| Dinosaur (movie) | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Eric Leighton Ralph Zondag |
| Produced by | Baker Bloodworth Pam Marsden |
| Written by | John Harrison Robert Nelson Jacobs Walon Green Thom Enriquez |
| Starring | D.B. Sweeney Alfre Woodard Ossie Davis Max Casella Hayden Panettiere |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Editing by | Robert Bagley Robert Brakey Mark A. Hester Anna Solorio-Catalano Don Thompson |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
| Release date(s) | May 19, 2000 |
| Running time | 82 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $127.5 million (estimated) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dinosaur is a feature film produced by Walt Disney Pictures, and released to movie theatres in 2000. It combines the use of live-action backgrounds with computer animation of prehistoric creatures, notably the titular dinosaurs, done by a special CGI unit that predated the creation of Disney's Secret Lab computer-generated imagery department. The Disney's Secret Lab department of the Disney company is now closed.
The film was the most expensive movie of 2000, costing $130 million United States dollars[citation needed], although unofficial estimates put it around $200 million[citation needed]. This film was rated PG by the MPAA for intense images.
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[edit] Production
The film was originally supposed to have no dialogue at all, in part to differentiate the film from The Land Before Time, with which Dinosaur shares many plot similarities. Michael Eisner insisted that the movie have dialogue in order to make it more "commercially viable." Coincidentally, a similar change was early in the production of The Land Before Time, which was originally intended to feature only the voice of a narrator.
Pop singer/songwriter Kate Bush reportedly wrote and recorded a song for the film but due to complications the track was ultimately not included on the soundtrack. According to HomeGround, a Kate Bush fanzine, it was scrapped when Disney asked Bush to rewrite the song and Bush refused; however, according to Disney, the song was cut from the film when preview audiences did not respond well to the track. In Asia, pop singer Jacky Cheung's song Something Only Love Can Do, with versions sung in English, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, was adopted as the theme song for the film.
The Countdown to Extinction attraction at the Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park was re-named and re-themed to the movie, and is now known as Dinosaur. The storyline was always intended to tie in with the movie, considering the usage of a Carnotaurus as the ride's antagonist and Aladar is the Iguanadon that guests rescued from the meteor shower and take him back into the present, seen wandering the Dino Institute in Security Camera footage seen on monitors in the attraction's unloading area.
[edit] Plot
The film begins with a mother Iguanodon watching over her nest. A young Parasaurolophus wanders up and looks into the nest, but the mother shoos it away. When the young reptile disturbs a large Carnotaurus hiding in a nearby forest, the whole herd of dinosaurs is sent running away from it. During the chaos, the Carnotaurus tramples most of the Iguanodon's eggs, leaving only one still intact. The surviving egg, stolen by a number of other dinosaurs, eventually ends up on Lemur Island, an island inhabited by, as its name suggests, lemurs. A baby Iguanodon soon emerges from the egg, to the fear of some and the delight of others among the tiny mammals. The lemurs are initially cautious about the dinosaur, but they nonetheless raise him, giving him the name Aladar. Not long after Aladar has grown up, a tremendous meteorite falls from the sky during a Lemur mating ceremony, landing in the ocean. The resulting fiery shockwave destroys Lemur Island, but Aladar and his adopted family, composed of the skeptical Yar, the caring matriarch Plio, and her children Zini and Suri, are able to escape by riding on Aladar's back away from the meteor and into the ocean, where they wash up on shore to find that they are supposedly the last of the lemurs.
Aladar and the four surviving lemurs go in search of a new home and eventually wander into a desert. They are soon attacked by a pack of Velociraptor but are rescued when a multispecies herd of dinosaurs crosses their path, scaring the predators away. The herd is heading for their traditional breeding grounds, believed to have been spared from the meteoroid's blast. Aladar joins the herd, despite Yar's protests, and befriends the elderly Eema (Styracosaurus), Baylene (An elderly Brachiosaurus), and their pet Ankylosaurus Url. Kron, the leader of the herd is a merciless Iguanodon with a strong belief in a Social Darwinism-like philosophy, wherein only those who can survive on their own power deserve to live. These beliefs are shared by his henchman Bruton. This causes strong tension between Kron and the more compassionate Aladar, which is only complicated by Aladar's instant attraction to Neera, Kron's sister – the first female of his kind Aladar has ever seen. Aladar and Neera's relationship is initially strained because of Zini's honest but ineffective efforts to help Aladar win her affections.
Later, when the herd arrives at the watering hole that they have relied on for past voyages only to find it empty, Kron orders the herd to move on, despite Neera's protests. Eema, growing weak of thirst, enters the empty lake bed. Aladar and Baylene follow her, and Aladar notices something is out of place about Baylene's footsteps. After digging, they find water trapped beneath the sand. He recalls the herd with a loud cry, and Kron is the first one to arrive, attacking all who try and drink the water before him. Nevertheless, Neera is impressed with Aladar and the two begin to develop a positive bond when he teaches two orphaned Iguanodons that Neera looks after, and later, Neera, how to get water. Bruton, who had temporarily left the herd along with a scout to search for water in the dry lake bed, returns alone mortally wounded, attacked by a Carnotaur. He warns Kron that there are in fact two Carnotaurs pursuing the herd, and Aladar, the lemurs, and the elderly dinosaurs get left behind as the herd picks up the pace. Bruton is also left behind, unable to keep up due to his injuries. Aladar invites him to stay with the misfits and himself. Bruton at first is reluctant to embrace this new idea and philosophy of helping others, but his loyalty is proved when the predators attack the stragglers inside of a cave. Bruton sacrifices himself to save the others, collapsing the cave onto one of the Carnotaurs.
The group is trapped in the cave, and Aladar begins to mold into Kron's philosophy of survival-of-the-fittest after Bruton's death and his repeated failures, only to have his friends and family to rescue him from this dark outlook, telling him that Aladar's philosophy for helping others is the reason that they are all alive. With this in mind, the group escapes the cave and eventually finds its own way to the nesting grounds. Once there, they see that the original route to the breeding grounds has been blocked by a landslide, leaving the herd without a way of entry. And even if the herd can manage to climb up the wall of rocks, they would face a sheer drop on the other end. Aladar leaves to tell Kron of the alternate route. On his way, he discovers that the remaining Carnotaurus is close on the trail of the herd. Aladar discovers that the herd is following the leader, Kron, in a perilous attempt to scale the wall into the breeding grounds. Aladar tells them of his discovery, but Kron refuses to listen. Instead he attacks Aladar, furious that his authority has been questioned and challenged. As Kron goes in for the kill, he is knocked down by his sister, who is tired of his cruel beliefs. Neera helps Aladar to his feet. Together Aladar and Neera led the herd away from Kron and towards the exit of the canyon.
Suddenly, the surviving Carnotaurus comes round the rocks and corners the herd. The hungry carnivore is discouraged from a meal by the unity of the group (led by Aladar), but then spots Kron climbing the wall, and follows him. Neera and Aladar follow to save Kron. Upon reaching the top of the rocks, Kron realises he is now cornered by the predator. Kron charges into battle; however, is thrown hard against the rocks. Aladar and Neera arrive just as the Carnotaur is about to bite into Kron, and manage knock the predator off the edge of the cliff. Neera rushes to Kron's side only to find that it is already too late. Aladar takes over as the new leader and ushers the herd through the cave into the nesting grounds, where the lemurs also find that they are not the last of their kind, and that there are lemurs in the nesting grounds. The movie ends with one of Neera and Aladar's eggs hatching, showing the dinosaurs' peaceful life in the valley. As the film closes, Plio's voice can be heard above the jubilant bellows of nesting mothers, saying, "None of us really know what changes, big or small, lie ahead. One thing is certain; our journey is not over. We can only hope that, in some small way, our time here will be remembered." This seems to be a comment on the idea that, while dinosaurs are extinct, they will never be forgotten, or on the nature of life itself.
[edit] Cast of characters
| Character | Species | Role | English voice actor | French voice actor | Spanish voice actor | Japanese voice actor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aladar | Iguanodon | A brave and compassionate Iguanodon who's been adopted into a family of lemurs and does what he can to make sure that the old and weak aren't left behind during the herd's migration. | D.B. Sweeney | Bruno Choël | Mariano Alameda | Yoshihiko Hakamada |
| Plio | Ring-tailed lemur | A lemur matriarch who cares for her family. | Alfre Woodard | Micky Sébastian | Mercedes Sampietro | Gara Takashima |
| Yar | Ring-tailed lemur | A lemur patriarch whose occasional gruff demeanor is just a front covering his more compassionate interior. | Ossie Davis | Med Hondo | Pepe Mediavilla | Takeshi Watabe |
| Zini | Ring-tailed lemur | Aladar's stepbrother and wisecracking sidekick. | Max Casella | Jamel Debbouze | Javier Cámara | Ryūsei Nakao |
| Suri | Ring-tailed lemur | Aladar's stepsister | Hayden Panettiere | Marie Sambourg | Paula Ribó | Yumi Sudō |
| Kron | Iguanodon | The fascist ruler of the herd who doesn't care for the weak dinosaurs in his herd. He believes in survival of the fittest. | Samuel E. Wright | Richard Darbois | Alfonso Vallés | George Nakata |
| Neera | Iguanodon | Kron's sister, who ends up falling for Aladar and his compassionate ways. | Julianna Margulies | Ninou Fratellini | Maribel Verdú | Makiko Esumi |
| Bruton | Iguanodon | Kron's domineering right-hand assistant. | Peter Siragusa | Marc Alfos | Joan Crosas | Tesshō Genda |
| Baylene | Brachiosaurus | An elderly and dainty Brachiosaurus | Joan Plowright | Lily Baron | Marta Martorell | Miyako Shima |
| Eema | Styracosaurus | A wizened and slow-moving Styracosaures | Della Reese | Perrette Pradier | Enriqueta Linares | Masako Isobe |
[edit] Inaccuracies
Like other modern films such as The Day After Tomorrow or Jurassic Park, Dinosaur contains a number of inaccuracies concerning science and biology, most of which occur due to either production restrictions or for the sake of entertainment. The film featured a wide variety of prehistoric animals from various time periods and geographic region living alongside one another (the film is set in North America during an unspecified time period). For example, the film includes Longisquama from the Triassic of central Asia, and Velociraptor, Talarurus, Microceratops, and Oviraptor from the late-Cretaceous of Mongolia. Several animals featured in the film hail from the early Cretaceous, such as the North American/European Iguanodon and the Australian Koolasuchus, or from the late Jurassic, like the brachiosaur. Many featured dinosaurs existed only at the very end of the Cretaceous in North America, such as the Pachyrhinosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Struthiomimus, Stygimoloch, Ichthyornis and Pteranodon. The Carnotaurus also lived in that period, but in South America (in the context of the film, characters note that the latter "have never gone this far north before"). The giant dragonfly Meganeura lived during the Carboniferous Period, 160 million years before Iguanodon. Though primates existed in the late Cretaceous, lemurs did not exist until the early Cenozoic Era. The lemurs were added for entertainment's sake, as the filmmakers claimed that the true mammals of the Mesozoic Era were "hideous".
Many of the animals in the film also bore anatomical inaccuracies. For example, there is strong evidence to suggest that both Oviraptor and Velociraptor had plumage. In fact, the initial designs depicted the Velociraptor and Oviraptor as feathered animals. However, due to time, technical, and budget restrictions, they ended up featherless. The animators also found it too difficult to animate beaks as mouths, and decided to give the Iguanodon lips, turning their beaks into teeth. The Iguanodon were also shown galloping when they ran; this would have been very difficult to do, as their spine was very inflexible vertically. Several dinosaurs, including Velociraptor and Carnotaurus, were not as large as the film depicted. The Carnotaurus were resized for entertainment's sake. In reality, they were smaller than Iguanodon (and half their weight), and less bulky than depicted in the film. Longisquama could not fly as it did in the film, though some have suggested it could glide or parachute from trees. And grass evolved after the Mesozoic Era, unlike in the movie.
[edit] Reception
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The film was a box-office success, since its US take of $137.75 million covered its production and marketing costs. The film was eventually accepted overseas earning $218.4 million for a worldwide take of $356.15 million. Reviews were fairly good (despite being mixed), earning a 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 67 reviewers praising the film, and 39 criticizing it.
