Disney Movie Challenge
Dinosaur (2000)
Dinosaur is a project that was long in development. Originally conceived in 1986 on the set of Robocop between special effects artist Phil Tippett and director Paul Verhoeven. They originally planned to do a stop motion movie with puppets and miniatures. The movie was to have no speaking dinosaurs and end with all the dinosaurs dying in a meteor strike. The development was long and costly. After Disney learned that Jurassic Park would be released using CGI they reassessed their plan. Verhoeven and Tippett eventually left the film and a variety of directors (including David W. Allen who just made Puppet Master II) were brought in to work on it before the movie ultimately ended up going to the animation department to become the first Disney Computer Animated Film. There were also a lot of changes to avoid being compared to other movies that came before. For example, Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Land Before Time, and Armageddon (they scrapped a meteor scene in space because it was too similar to Armageddon).
The plot is kind of bizarre but pretty straight forward. An orphaned iguanodon, Aladar, is raised by a family of lemurs. When their island is destroyed by a meteor shower they escape and join a herd of random other dinosaurs as they look for the fertile nesting grounds. Leading the herd is no-nonsense Kron who takes no interest in anyone who can’t keep up. Aladar takes sympathy on a few of the slow elderly dinosaurs that Kron leaves behind. Being chased by carnotaurus’, Aladar and his group seek refuge in a cave. After getting trapped they find a shortcut to the nesting grounds. Aladar then runs back to Kron to tell him the way he is going is impossible to cross. Kron reluctant to admit he is wrong fights Aladar but then a carnotaurus shows up and the group must now fight the predator.
While officially Disney’s first computer animated it felt behind the times. Pixar had already released Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2, and Dreamworks had released Antz. The one thing that Dinosaur did differently was they superimposed the computer animation on real world photos. They used tropical locals like Hawaii and Tahiti for the jungle sequences. Unfortunately I think using real world backgrounds highlights how fake the computer animation looks. I know that comparing it to current animation is not fair but I really feel like even in 2000 it had already started to age.
The biggest problem with the movie are the characters. First thing is it’s hard to get over the initial idea that a pack of lemurs will raise an iguanodon. Once you get past that mental hurdle the rest of the movie does a poor job of character development. Aladar is pretty one note. Once we meet him he is already a good guy and always does the right thing. There is some attempt at a romance with one of the female iguanodons in the herd but that feels forced. Kron is self centered the whole movie and doesn’t change. There is one character, Bruton, that does have a small arc and learns that sometimes it’s better to help others, but he doesn’t play a big role in the film.
The voice cast is pretty good with what they are given to do. Alfre Woodard and Ossie Davis are great as the parents of the lemurs. They both give a calm confidence and you really feel the love they have for other characters. Samuel Wright, who was the voice of Sebastian in The Little Mermaid, provides the voice of Kron in this one. He completely nails the role even if it’s just one note. D.B Sweeney as the voice of Aladar and while nothing spectacular does a fine job as showing his kind and thoughtfulness.
Overall: A boring film that doesn’t make you care about the characters. In an effort to avoid similarities to other films they kind of made a bland film. Animation might have looked passable in 2000 but now doesn’t look good at all. There were some scenes in a cave that were so dark you could hardly make out what was going on.
Random Facts
Second Disney Animated Film to be rated PG. First was The Black Cauldron.
Said to have the largest number of deaths in any Disney Animated film.
Originally was going to have a mosasaurus but was removed from the finished film.
Controversial decisions to have the dinosaurs talk. Iguanodons have duck bills. So when it was decided they would talk they had to change them to lips.
Wasn't considered Disney Canon till 2008. Still not considered Disney Canon in Europe (The Wild is considered Canon there but not in the U.S.)
First film that James Newton Howard scored for Disney. He would go on to score many of the films in the coming decades.
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