Dinosaur

Dinosaur
DVD/VHS cover
Directed by	Eric Leighton Ralph Zondag
Produced by	Baker Bloodworth Pam Marsden
Written by	Walon Green Thom Enriquez
Starring	D.B. Sweeney Alfre Woodard Ossie Davis
Music by	James Newton Howard
Editing by	H. Lee Peterson
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Running time	82 min.
Language	English
Budget	$127.5 million

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 Universal 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; the Oviraptor fights with its mate over the egg, which falls into a river; a Koolasuchus tries and fails to eat it; Talarurus are distracted by its passing; Pachyrhinosaurus nearly trample on it; a Pteranodon takes it over the ocean, and loses it in a struggle with two Ichthyornis. It lands on Lemur Island, an island inhabited by lemurs. 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.

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. 

This seems to be a comment on the idea that, while dinosaurs are extinct, they will never be forgotten.

Box office

US Gross Domestic Takings: US$ 137,748,063

+ Other International Takings: $216,500,000

= Gross Worldwide Takings: $354,248,063

Voice cast

• D.B. Sweeney - Aladar
• Alfre Woodard - Plio
• Ossie Davis - Yar
• Max Casella - Zini
• Hayden Panettiere - Suri
• Samuel E. Wright - Kron
• Julianna Margulies - Neera
• Peter Siragusta - Bruton
• Joan Plowright - Baylene
• Della Reese - Eema
• Anne Archer as Aladar's Mother
• Frank Welker as Url Aladar's Mother (Bellowing) and Carnotaurus

Additional Voices

• Matt Adler - Dinosaurs
• Jack Angel - Kron's Heard
• Sandina Bailolape - Chorus
• Michael Bell - Dinosaurs
• Bob Bergen - Dinosaurs
• Edie Lehmann Boddicker - Chorus
• Zachary Bostrom - Various Lemurs
• Rodger Bumpass - Dinosaurs
• Corey Burton - Dinosaurs
• Catherine Cavadini - Various Lemurs
• Robert Clotworthy - Dinosaurs
• David Cowgill - Dinosaurs
• Jim Cummings - Dinosaurs
• Jennifer Darling - Female Dinosaur
• Holly Dorff - Female Dinosaur
• Paul Eiding - Dinosaurs
• Bill Farmer - Dinosaurs
• Greg Finley - Dinosaurs
• Jeff Fischer - Various Lemurs
• Barbara Iley - Female Dinosaur
• David Allen Kramer - Dinosaurs
• Susan Stevens Logan - Chorus
• Sherry Lynn - Female Dinosaur
• Danny Mann - Dinosaurs
• David McCharen - Dinosaurs
• Mickie McGowan - Female Dinosaur
• Tracy Metro - Female Dinosaur
• Daran Norris - Various Lemurs
• Bobbi Page - Chorus
• Paul Pape - Dinosaurs
• Patrick Pinney - Dinosaurs
• Phil Proctor - Dinosaurs
• Noreen Reardon - Female Dinosaur
• Chelsea Russo - Baby Dinosaur
• Evan Sabara - Young Zini
• Gary Schwartz - Dinosaurs
• Aaron Spann - Orphan Iguanodons
• Melanie Spore - Female Dinosaur
• Andrea Taylor - Female Dinosaur
• John Walcutt - Dinosaurs
• Camille Winbush - Various Lemurs
• Billy West - Various Lemurs

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 similarities. Michael Eisner, however, 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.
• 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 renamed 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 Carnotaur 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.
• Timothy Albee worked on Dinosaur before he made Kaze Ghost Warrior.\
• 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.
• Kiefer Sutherland Tom Hanks And Jonathan Harris who voiced Samson Woody And Manny from The Wild Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life Will voice the other characters but this was dropped out due to the films preview on March 13 1999

Animals featured

• Iguanodon (Aladar, Neera, Bruton, and Kron. Medium-sized ornithopods with a quadrupedal stance and spikes on the inside of their "hands.")
• 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 "villains;" large, red theropods with devilish eye horns)
• Koolasuchus (tries to eat 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 (Url, Eema's "pet")
• Meganeura (seen briefly at the nesting grounds)
• Formicium (identified as ant)

Inaccuracies

• Lemurs did not exist in the Late Cretaceous period. They were added for entertainment's sake, as the filmmakers claimed that the true mammals of the era were "hideous".
• Longisquama and Brachiosaurus did not exist alongside 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 the Velociraptor as plumed animals. However, due to time, technological, and budget restrictions, they ended up featherless.
• 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.
• 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 offspring, previously thought to have been its last meal. Of course, neither is there evidence to support that the movie's Oviraptor had a diet limited to eggs, since we only see one occurrence in the film where the Oviraptor obtains food.
• Ankylosaurus was much larger in real life than in the film.
• Iguanodons supposedly used their spiked thumbs to fight off predators more often than tail-whipping and head-butting. Kron uses his thumb-spike once, but the creators most likely found it to be too violent to use frequently.
• Struthiomimus were omnivores and would not have traveled with herbivores (though they may have stuck close for protection).
• Longisquama could not fly as it did in the film.
• Talarurus was smaller than in the film.
• Meganeura was bigger than in the film.

Rating

This film was rated PG for mild violence.

Trailers

• On May 13 1999 a Teaser trailer was released and it was shown in front of Tarzan but seven scenes were cut from the film On November 24 1999 a Second teaser was shown in front of Toy Story 2 and Fantasia 2000 and on January 1 2000 a First trailer and UK Trailer was on the scene but it was cut from the film

External links

• Dinosaur at the Internet Movie Database
• Box Office Information