Dinosaur (film)
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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.
Tagline: You have never seen anything like this.
Plot Summary
An Iguanodon egg is stolen from its nest by an Oviraptor, which starts it on a journey that ends it up on Lemur Island, an island inhabited by lemurs and other creatures. The baby Iguanodon Aladar 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 take him in and raise him.
Not long after Aladar has grown up, disaster strikes. A tremendous meteorite falls from the sky, landing in the ocean. The resulting fiery shockwave destroys Lemur Island, but Aladar and his adopted family are able to escape.
They soon are attacked by a pack of Velociraptors, but are rescued when a herd of dinosaurs crosses their path, scaring the predators off. The herd is heading for their traditional breeding grounds, believed to have been spared from the meteoroid's blast. Kron, the leader of the herd is a merciless Iguanodon with a strong belief in the survival of the fittest. He leads the herd at a strong pace, showing no mercy for the weaker dinosaurs. This causes strong tension between him and Aladar, which is only emphasised by Aladar's attraction to Neera, Kron's sister.
While the herd travels, they discover that they are being pursued by two large predatorial dinosaurs called Carnotaurus. Aladar, the lemurs and several weaker dinosaurs (a Brachiosaurus, a Styracosaurus and her "pet" Ankylosaurus) get left behind as the herd picks up its pace. The group struggles with several hardships, but eventually finds its own way to the breeding grounds through a cave. Once there, they see that the original route to the breeding grounds has been blocked by a landslide, leaving the herd without a way in. Aladar leaves to tell Kron of the alternate route.
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 won't listen. One of the Carnotaurus, who had been following Aladar, corners the herd. (The other one was killed by the combined efforts of Aladar and his friends in the cave) The hungry carnivore is discouraged from a meal by the combined efforts of the group (lead by Aladar), but then spots Kron climbing the wall, and follows him up. Neera and Aladar follow to save Kron. The resulting battle kills both the Carnotaurus and Kron, but Aladar and Neera survive, and usher the herd through the cave into the nesting grounds. The movie ends with one of Neera and Aladar's eggs hatching, showing the dinosaurs' peaceful life in the valley.
Box office
US Gross Domestic Takings: US$ 137,748,063- + Other International Takings: $216,500,000
Gross Worldwide Takings: $354,248,063
- D.B. Sweeney - Aladar
- Alfre Woodard - Plio
- Ossie Davis - Yar
- Max Casella - Zini
- Hayden Panettiere - Suri
- Samuel E. Wright - Kron
- Julianna Margulies - Neera
- Peter Siragusa - Bruton
- Joan Plowright - Baylene
- Della Reese - Eema
Trivia
- Iguanodon, like Aladar and Neera, did not have lips, but hard beaks. The artists found it difficult to create speaking Dinosaurs with beaks, so they added lips. The beaks act as pseudo teeth in the resulting characters.
- The film was originally intended to have no dialogue at all, in part to differentiate the film from The Land Before Time, with which Dinosaur shares many plot similarites. Michael Eisner, however, insisted that the movie have dialogue in order to make it more "commercially viable." Ironically, 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.
- It was the most expensive movie of 2000, costing $130 million (although unofficial estimates put it around $200 million).
- 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 [sic].
- Timothy Albee worked on Dinosaur before he made Kaze Ghost Warrior.
Animals featured
- Iguanodon (Aladar, Neera, Bruton, and Kron. Medium-sized ornithopods with a quadropedal stance and spikes on the inside of their "hands.")
- Lemur (Aladar's "family," small primates)
- Oviraptor (gangly, crested, beaked dinosaur that steals Aladar's egg)
- Velociraptor (a pack attacks Aladar and the lemurs until the herd scares them away, follow the herd throughout the film)
- Carnotaurus (main "villians;" large, red theropods with devilish eye horns)
- Koolasuchus (large amphibian that tries to swallow Aladar's egg)
- Talarurus (are seen in a roaring match as Aladar's egg floats downstream)
- Parasaurolophus (Large, mottled-green hadrosaurs with a protruding crest in the back of their head, traveling with the herd)
- Longisquama (a gliding lizard-like animal that distracts a young Parasaurolophus in the beginning of the film)
- Pachyrhinosaurus (Large, green ceratopsians with thich bosses, seen throughout film)
- Pteranodon (grabs Aladar while still in egg and tries to feed the egg to its young)
- Ichthyornis (briefly seen harassing the Pteranodon, forcing it to drop Aladar's egg)
- Brachiosaurus (Baylene, the only sauropods in the film)
- Struthiomimus (bipedal, beaked, plum dinosaurs, traveling with the herd)
- Microceratops (tiny, red frilled dinosaurs, traveling with the herd)
- Stygimoloch (small, spiked pachycephalosaurs, traveling with the herd)
- Styracosaurus (Eema, robust orange ceratopsians with large, prominent nose horns)
- Ankylosaurus (Eema's "pet")
Inaccuracies
- Iguanodon had beaks, rather than lips.
- Carnotaurus was not as large as the film depicted it. It was resized for entertainment's sake. In fact, it was smaller than Iguanodon. In the day when the film was made, however, there were reports of findings of a larger Carnotaurus. The size increase was probably due to the absence of a Tyrannosaurus in the film, a character the filmmakers probably thought to be a cliche in dinosaur films.
- Ankylosaurus most likely would not sleep on their backs, for doing this would expose their armor-less bellies (as well as cause them discomfort by being propped on their spiky, dorsal protrusions, or cause them to become stuck and unable to move.)
- There is no evidence that Oviraptor (despite its name's translation) relied on eggs as its primary source of food. It has been discovered that the eggs found under the Oviraptor's fossilized skeleton were actually its own unborn children, previously thought to have been its last meal.
- Lemurs did not exist in the Late Cretaceous period, but for entertainment's sake they were added, as the filmmakers claimed that the true mammals of the era were "hideous".
- Brachiosaurus and Longisquama did not exist along-side the other animals in the film. In fact, many of the animals were taken from different locations and time periods and mixed around. Velociraptor was from Mongolia, even Iguanodon and Carnotaurus themselves were Early Cretaceous dinosaurs.
- There is strong evidence to suggest that both Oviraptor and Velociraptor had plumage. In fact, the initial designs depicted them as plumed animals. However, due to time, technological, and budget restrictions, they ended up featherless.
- Pachyrhinosaurus is slightly smaller than Styracosaurus in the film. In real life, Pachyrhinosaurus was the same size or bigger.
External links
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