Finally saw Dinosaur (yes, the movie...)

[Lesley]

I know, I'm incredibly behind the times here....we've had this on DVD for a long time and I've never watched it. My ds did a few times and he's been really interested in dinos lately so I suggested we watch this.

I was really surprised at how bad this movie was! Story? Not much of one, was there? If anything it seemed like nothing but a poor ride tie in (Oh no...we're about to get eaten by a carnotaurus! AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!). The visuals were okay...I think they did a pretty good job with dino skin and mixing the cg with real scenery in parts....but the whole middle of the movie was just boring. The characters were, well, not very well developed. It was just bad.

I can't believe this movie was even made, nevermind by Disney.

 

[slam_mjg]

I recently saw the movie too for the first time. The movie wasn't great, but I thought there were some very good things about the film and I enjoyed watching it.

In particular, I thought the first 1/3 of the movie was very well done. All the visuals of the egg and its journey to the forrest were breathtaking. The computer animation and blending it with real world footage looked fantastic.

I enjoyed watching the lemurs on the island. They were happy and peacful and it was fun to watch them play with Aladar.

But, for me, the best sequence of the film was the meteor crash. It was heartbreaking to watch the lemurs lose their home and friends and have to flee the island. After the film had setup how wonderful their life had been, it was tragic to watch it all destroyed.

After this, I think the movie became very weak. The march across the desert was too long and I didn't think the various threats were exciting enough.


You've told us how much you dislike the movie, but what did DS think about it? Since you mentioned that you watched the film for him, I'm curious to know if he was as critical of the film as you are.

And, has anyone heard any rumors about "Dinosaur 2"? Since Disney is so sequel-happy now, I would think that a followup to this film is possible.

 

[Lesley]

I agree that the beginning is good visually.....but then the whole story just sort of flops. That's my major critcism here...there's just not enough of a story to even think about making a movie, but they did anyway! With a better story and visuals like the beginning this could have been very good. In the latter part of the movie, I think the carnotaurs were well animated..looked just like riding Dinosaur the ride. AS far as emotions go...I don't feel like I got to know any of the characters well enough to care about them....besides Aladar seeming like a pretty nice guy and Kron being the obnoxious jerk.

My ds saw the movie long before this...I think since we got it he's watched it about 3 times including this last one. So, no, this one isn't a big hit with him. He was asleep by the end. Of course that doesn't mean a whole lot...he likes a lot of movies I think are just awful! But he also likes a lot of good ones too.

I was just surprised...I expect better, I guess.

 

[Bob O]

I hope i dont upset thedscoop but i agree with him about Dinosaur!!! I thought it was very well done and was no reason for disney to go overboard just because the molvie didnt have the financial success they wanted!!

 

[Dznefreek]

Can you say, "Land Before Time", in CGI.

It was the same story line only the Dinos were in their "Wonder Years".

 

[OnWithTheShow]

I also enjoyed Dinosaur and loved CTX (pre-change and pre fast pass, you could actually enjoy the bill nye preshow) I also think Dinosaur the Ride is above average but not excellent

 

[Lesley]

CTX had a Bill Nye pre-show? Wow....sounds better than Phylicia Rashad....though that's not too bad either.

 

[Planogirl]

I felt the same way about Dinosaur. I loved the visuals but couldn't get into the characters or story. They weren't anything truly bad in my opinion but weren't particulary compelling either. My son who is 9 now was even less interested than I was but then he was never a big Land Before Time fan either.

I hope that Disney will consider bringing back this nice animation and spend some time working on a good plot and stronger character development too. Oops, that's what they used to do isn't it?

 

[OnWithTheShow]

The Bill Nye preshow is before the video preshow. It occurs in the large room with the carnotaur skeleton. It basically has 5 different segments of Nye describing what life in the age of the dinosaurs was like and the theories for their extinction. Now with Fast Pass you hardly ever spend enough time in that room to hear one of them let alone all five.

 

[Another Voice]

“I was just surprised...”

Well how about a shock. Did you know Disney spent over 10 years and $300 million on this movie?

The intent, way way way back, was that ‘Dinosaur’ was going to the film that launched computer animation as a serious form of movie making and to keep Disney at the forefront of the new form of animation. But things got a little mixed up along the way.

At the beginning the film was going to be an action movie featuring extreme accuracy in both the animation and in the behavior of the dinosaurs. The idea behind the film was going to be a high tech version of the old Walt Disney nature documentaries: photo-realistic dinosaurs acting as dinosaurs really did. And to emphasize that this was going to be a very unique movie, the film didn’t have any dialog in it. Watch any of the ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ episodes on the Discovery Channel and you will see the approach they were after.

To make the film, and to develop Disney’s CGI capability, Katzenberg started to invest heavily in both acquiring and developing the technology (where about half the budget went). Fast forward a bit: a guy called Steven made his own movie about dinosaurs, a small outfit called Pixar made another CGI movie, and a guy named Michael forced a guy named Jeffrey to leave his ears behind.

The result was that this Michael guy became bored with the movie. After ‘Hunchback’ and ‘Pocahontas’ didn’t perform well at the box office, Michael decided that animation was only suited for kids movies. So, everything that had been done on ‘Dinosaur’ was scrapped and the order went out to make the movie “younger”. That is another way of saying they could only recoup the costs from merchandise sales – so make sure all the characters look good as plush toys.

Some more back and forth on the story, another start-and-stop-and-start in production with major story changes and a studio management that just wanted to get the whole thing over with – and you end up with a movie that executives where bad mouthing even at the premier.

The original treatment and work would have produced a film unlike any that had ever been made before and would have had as much influence as ‘Snow White’ had in the 1930s. Given the tremendous box office that ‘Jurassic Park’ received later, I don’t have any doubt that the original ‘Dinosaur’ would have been a tremendous box office success.

Instead the film fell victim to short sighted people without vision or confidence. And it still didn’t sell any plush.

 

[hopemax]

It's nice to know that the "no dialog" was the original intention, I thought I read that somewhere but wasn't entirely sure. When I saw the movie, I thought the most effective scenes were the ones with...no dialog. I certainly didn't think Dinosaur was the worst thing Disney has done, but like a lot of their recent attempts, it could have been SO MUCH MORE if someone just dared to be different. Like my poor maligned Hunchback. I love the richness of the music, and the art style so much that I wish someone had just decided this wouldn't be marketed to kids. Ditch the gargoyles, have a more faithful-to-the-book ending, and just do it.

 

[Bob O]

If Av is correct, which i dont doubt its another example of disney being shortsighted and will now suffer as other companies use this technology to create films while disney spent the money to buuld theirs and then dismantled most of it.

 

[Lesley]

I should have known you'd give me some completely depressing info like that, AV!

At the risk of sounding simplistic.....what idiots! Another "could have been" movie...

 

[OnWithTheShow]

Yeah Voice, thanks for raining on my parade and ruining my day, AGAIN.

 

[raidermatt]

Alright, I'll be the first to say that while Dinosaur didn't turn out well, the "no dialogue" version would have been at the very least a commercial disaster. (Yes, probably much more so than Dinosaur, which at least had some success in Japan I believe)

A souped-up version of those Discovery specials? Hellooooooo, there's a reason those specials are on the Discovery channel and not on 3,000 screens across the country. It sounds like a cross between those specials and Quest for Fire. There's no way Disney animation fans flock to see something like that. Am I the only one who see this?

I'm all for ripping bad products, and Dinosaur is deserving, but lets keep our heads shall we?

Ok, rant over.


I will say this, AV, you almost disappointed me. Somewhere in your first 5 or 6 opening lines I knew there would be a plush reference, but then it was 3 paragraphs later before it showed up!

By the way, what is Disney going to do with all of those plush submarines left over from Atlantis?

 

[TheLionKing]

Even some of the animators openly admit that the story was weak in Dinosaur.

I don't know what went on behind the scenes. But Disney has been interested in CG since 1982 in a secret short done by Glen Keane.

Technically, it is an extraordinary movie.

 

[hopemax]

Alright, I'll be the first to say that while Dinosaur didn't turn out well, the "no dialogue" version would have been at the very least a commercial disaster.

I don't know, this sounds a little too much like "no one is going to sit through an hour long animated movie. Just doing that would make people's eyes go bad." Which was what even the Disney animators thought while making Snow White.

A souped-up version of those Discovery specials? Hellooooooo, there's a reason those specials are on the Discovery channel and not on 3,000 screens across the country

And it has nothing to do with the recitation of hunting & mating habits that accompanies the Discovery specials? I'm not sure you can say that's the same as a movie that is accompanied by a rich & powerful score, throw in IMAX (where people expect something of a non-traditional movie) and I just don't know, but I would want to find out.

Maybe it would flop, but I have a feeling that it would be something like Fantasia. Not a success in initial release, but gained momentum with later releases.

 

[Another Voice]

Ms. Hopemax stole my basic response – “commercial disaster” has been thrown against every mega-hit movie ever made (you should read some of the comments about both ‘Snow White’ and even ‘Star Wars’). As for the box office potential, the ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ shows drew huge ratings both in the US and in Europe (some of the highest rated cable shows ever).

Besides, who went to go see ‘Jurassic Park’ for the dialog! Or how about $250 million for ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ when the all the dialog is in Chinese? As for the Disney animation fans shunning movies without words – I don’t recall a lot of witty banter in either of the Fantasia films yet both seemed to have been accepted by the Disney faithful.

The audience is a lot smarter than many people give them credit for. And certainly smarter than the suits that thought elderly dinosaurs yakking it up with plush-friendly comic sidekicks was the recipe for a “sure fire hit”. The tragedy is that ‘Dinosaur’ is a technical marvel that will be forgotten in Hollywood history. It should have been a breakthrough, now it’s just a bargain tape at Wal-Mart.

And as for my plush reference, I never want to disappoint my fans. But I do want to keep them guessing.

 

[Lesley]

I think the no dialogue concept is exactly what the movie needed (well, besides an actual story)....hey, weren't we talking about innovation recently? With an idea like that I'd go see the movie regardless of reviews or trailers...unlike most of their recent efforts.

And hopemax, you hit it right on the head...the reason Discovery Channel shows are on the Discovery Channel is because of the informative voice overs with all that dry stuff like migration, mating, eating, why they had this body part, and whatever else. And from what I can tell, the dinosaur shows that they did were really something quite special for that genre. Not your average documentary.