Dinosaur (film)
Encyclopedia
Dinosaur is a 2000 American computer-animated (with live-action backgrounds) film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures
on May 19, 2000, and is the 39th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. At officially $130 million, it was the most expensive theatrical movie release of the year.
Much of the film's scenery is from Canaima
(Venezuela
) landscapes, various tepui
s and Angel Falls appears in the film.
mother forced to abandon her nest, with only one egg (D. B. Sweeney
) surviving a carnivorous Carnotaur (Frank Welker
) attack. The egg is taken by an Oviraptor
, who drops it into a river while fighting another Oviraptor, and finally is taken by a Pteranodon
to an island inhabited by lemurs, who see the egg hatch, name the baby dinosaur
Aladar, and raise him as their own. When Aladar is an adult, the island is destroyed by a meteor
, with only Aladar, his grandfather Yar (Ossie Davis
), his mother Plio (Alfre Woodard
), his best friend Zini (Max Casella
), and his sister Suri (Hayden Panettiere
) surviving the destruction of the island by swimming to the mainland.
After fleeing a pack of Velociraptors (also Frank Welker), the family meets a multi-species herd of dinosaurs led by the Iguanodon Kron (Samuel E. Wright
) and his lieutenant
Bruton (Peter Siragusa), who are on a journey to reach the "Nesting Grounds", a valley believed to be untouched by the devastation of the meteor impact. Aladar and the lemurs befriend a trio of elderly dinosaurs: Baylene (Joan Plowright
), a Brachiosaurus
, Eema (Della Reese
), a Styracosaurus
, and Url (also Frank Welker), Eema's dog
-like pet Ankylosaurus
. Aladar also develops romantic feelings for Neera (Julianna Margulies
), Kron's sister but she is uninterested. Meanwhile, the Velociraptors continue to follow them, but are scared off when a pair of Carnotaurus picks up the herd's trail too. The herd arrives at a lake they’ve relied on for past trips, but it has dried up. Aladar saves the herd from dehydration
when he and Baylene eventually dig up the trapped water
beneath the ground. Aladar and Neera eventually fall in love after Neera sees Aladar helping the dinosaurs (especially the elderly ones) survive; however, Bruton, having been sent by Kron to find water upon arrival at the lake, returns injured by the Carnotaurus. Kron evacuates the herd from the lake bed in a rush, leaving Aladar, the lemurs, the elderly dinosaurs, and the injured Bruton behind.
The small group recuperates in a cave during a rainstorm, with Bruton eventually befriending them. When the Carnotaurus pair attacks, Bruton’s loyalty is proven when he kills one of them as the others escape to the depths of the caves, being killed in the process. But one of the Carnotaurus escapes, enraged by the death of its partner but unable to follow the group. Upon reaching a dead end, Aladar begins to lose hope, after repeated failures and the loss of Bruton. His friends all join in breaking down the dead end, stabilizing his confidence. Finally, Baylene demolishes the wall. The dead end actually leads to the "Nesting Grounds", where Eema sees that the old entrance – where the herd has gathered on the other side – has been blocked by a landslide generated by the meteors.
Aladar rushes to find the herd on the other side, accidentally alerting and being tracked by the Carnotaur. He finds the herd being directed by Kron to climb the rocks
, which can't be passed without fatality, but when he suggests the alternate route he found, Kron battles him for leadership of the herd. Neera defends Aladar from her brother, and leaves with Aladar and the herd following. The Carnotaur then confronts them, but Aladar rallies the herd to drive it off by standing together and scaring it off with intimidation. The Carnotaur leaves the herd alone, but spots Kron stubbornly trying to climb the rocks alone, and is followed by Neera and Aladar as it charges to kill the former leader of the herd. In the ensuing fight, Kron is killed by the Carnotaur, but a brave Aladar is able to push the predator off a cliff to its death. Aladar and Neera lead the herd back to the "Nesting Grounds", where the two eventually mate and have children, and the lemurs find more of their own kind. Plio narrates the ending, wishing for their story to be remembered in history. She then says, "But one thing is for sure. Our journey is not over, we can only hope in some small way our time here will be remembered."
Animals:(in turns of when they appear)
Iguanodon
Parasaurolophus
Brachiosaurus
Ichthyornis
Longisquama
Dragonfly
Carnotaurus
Pachyrhinosaurus
Oviraptor
Koolasuchus
Talarurus
Pteranodon
Lemure
Velociraptor
Microceratops
Styracosaurus
Euoplocephalus
Struthiomimus
Stygimoloch
, with which Dinosaur shares excessive plot similarities. Michael Eisner
insisted that the film have dialogue in order to make it more "commercially viable." A similar change was also made early in the production of The Land Before Time, which was originally intended to feature only the voice of a narrator.
The film's score was composed by James Newton Howard
. 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. It 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 as the Iguanodon
that guests rescue from the meteor and take back into the present, seen wandering the Dino Institute in Security Camera footage seen on monitors in the attraction's unloading area.
George Scribner
was the original director of the film. Scribner spent two years on it and left to join Walt Disney Imagineering
. But fundamentally, the story was pretty much the same after he left.
Dinosaur combines the use of live-action backgrounds with computer animation
of prehistoric creatures, notably the titular dinosaurs, produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation's Computer Graphics Unit that was later merged with Dream Quest Images to create Disney's The Secret Lab department. The Secret Lab department closed in 2002.
Vision Crew Unlimited
provided the live-action special visual effects.
, and was released by Walt Disney Records
.
The German release has as track 2 the song "Can Somebody Tell Me Who I Am" (4:14), performed by Orange Blue; all the score tracks included above are on the German release.
gave the film three stars out of four praising the films "amazing visuals" but criticizing the decision to make the animals talk, which he felt cancelled out the effort to make the film so realistic. "An enormous effort had been spent on making these dinosaurs seem real, and then an even greater effort was spent on undermining the illusion" was his final consensus.
The overall rating of Dinosaur on Metacritic from critics is 56%, with 15 critics giving positive reviews, 12 giving mixed reviews, and 5 giving negative reviews. However, the overall user rating of Dinosaur on Metacritic was a very positive 88%.
, PC
and Game Boy Color
in 2000.
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
on May 19, 2000, and is the 39th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. At officially $130 million, it was the most expensive theatrical movie release of the year.
Much of the film's scenery is from Canaima
Canaima National Park
Canaima National Park is a 30,000 km² park in south-eastern Venezuela that borders Brazil and Guyana. It is located in Bolívar State, and roughly occupies the same area as the Gran Sabana region....
(Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
) landscapes, various tepui
Tepui
A tepui , or tepuy, is a table-top mountain or mesa found in the Guiana Highlands of South America, especially in Venezuela. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the Gran Sabana....
s and Angel Falls appears in the film.
Plot
The film opens with an IguanodonIguanodon
Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
mother forced to abandon her nest, with only one egg (D. B. Sweeney
D. B. Sweeney
Daniel Bernard "D. B." Sweeney is an American actor.-Early life:Sweeney was born on Long Island, New York and raised in Shoreham by an educator father and a municipal government employee mother. He attended Shoreham-Wading River High School and both Tulane and New York University...
) surviving a carnivorous Carnotaur (Frank Welker
Frank Welker
Franklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:...
) attack. The egg is taken by an Oviraptor
Oviraptor
Oviraptor is a genus of small Mongolian theropod dinosaur, first discovered by the paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, and first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn, in 1924...
, who drops it into a river while fighting another Oviraptor, and finally is taken by a Pteranodon
Pteranodon
Pteranodon , from the Late Cretaceous geological period of North America in present day Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota, was one of the largest pterosaur genera and had a maximum wingspan of over...
to an island inhabited by lemurs, who see the egg hatch, name the baby dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
Aladar, and raise him as their own. When Aladar is an adult, the island is destroyed by a meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
, with only Aladar, his grandfather Yar (Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
), his mother Plio (Alfre Woodard
Alfre Woodard
Alfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
), his best friend Zini (Max Casella
Max Casella
Max Casella is an American actor. He is known for his roles on the television series The Sopranos, Doogie Howser, M.D., and as the voice of Daxter in the Jak and Daxter video game series.-Life and career:...
), and his sister Suri (Hayden Panettiere
Hayden Panettiere
Hayden Leslie Panettiere is an American actress and singer, best known as cheerleader Claire Bennet on the NBC television series Heroes. She began her acting career by playing Sarah Roberts on One Life to Live , and Lizzie Spaulding on Guiding Light , before starring at age 10 as Sheryl Yoast in...
) surviving the destruction of the island by swimming to the mainland.
After fleeing a pack of Velociraptors (also Frank Welker), the family meets a multi-species herd of dinosaurs led by the Iguanodon Kron (Samuel E. Wright
Samuel E. Wright
Samuel E. Wright is an American film and theater actor and singer who is best known as the voice of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid, for which he provided the main vocals to "Under the Sea", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also voiced Kron in Disney's CGI film...
) and his lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Bruton (Peter Siragusa), who are on a journey to reach the "Nesting Grounds", a valley believed to be untouched by the devastation of the meteor impact. Aladar and the lemurs befriend a trio of elderly dinosaurs: Baylene (Joan Plowright
Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...
), a Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America. It was first described by Elmer S. Riggs in 1903 from fossils found in the Grand River Canyon of western Colorado, in the United States. Riggs named the dinosaur Brachiosaurus altithorax,...
, Eema (Della Reese
Della Reese
Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese , is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You...
), a Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus was a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period , about 76.5 to 75.0 million years ago...
, and Url (also Frank Welker), Eema's dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
-like pet Ankylosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Ankylosaurus is a genus of ankylosaurid dinosaur, containing one species, A. magniventris...
. Aladar also develops romantic feelings for Neera (Julianna Margulies
Julianna Margulies
Julianna Luisa Margulies is an American actress and producer.After several small television roles, Margulies achieved success in her regular role as Nurse Carol Hathaway on NBC's long-running medical drama ER, for which she won an Emmy Award...
), Kron's sister but she is uninterested. Meanwhile, the Velociraptors continue to follow them, but are scared off when a pair of Carnotaurus picks up the herd's trail too. The herd arrives at a lake they’ve relied on for past trips, but it has dried up. Aladar saves the herd from dehydration
Dehydration
In physiology and medicine, dehydration is defined as the excessive loss of body fluid. It is literally the removal of water from an object; however, in physiological terms, it entails a deficiency of fluid within an organism...
when he and Baylene eventually dig up the trapped water
Groundwater
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...
beneath the ground. Aladar and Neera eventually fall in love after Neera sees Aladar helping the dinosaurs (especially the elderly ones) survive; however, Bruton, having been sent by Kron to find water upon arrival at the lake, returns injured by the Carnotaurus. Kron evacuates the herd from the lake bed in a rush, leaving Aladar, the lemurs, the elderly dinosaurs, and the injured Bruton behind.
The small group recuperates in a cave during a rainstorm, with Bruton eventually befriending them. When the Carnotaurus pair attacks, Bruton’s loyalty is proven when he kills one of them as the others escape to the depths of the caves, being killed in the process. But one of the Carnotaurus escapes, enraged by the death of its partner but unable to follow the group. Upon reaching a dead end, Aladar begins to lose hope, after repeated failures and the loss of Bruton. His friends all join in breaking down the dead end, stabilizing his confidence. Finally, Baylene demolishes the wall. The dead end actually leads to the "Nesting Grounds", where Eema sees that the old entrance – where the herd has gathered on the other side – has been blocked by a landslide generated by the meteors.
Aladar rushes to find the herd on the other side, accidentally alerting and being tracked by the Carnotaur. He finds the herd being directed by Kron to climb the rocks
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
, which can't be passed without fatality, but when he suggests the alternate route he found, Kron battles him for leadership of the herd. Neera defends Aladar from her brother, and leaves with Aladar and the herd following. The Carnotaur then confronts them, but Aladar rallies the herd to drive it off by standing together and scaring it off with intimidation. The Carnotaur leaves the herd alone, but spots Kron stubbornly trying to climb the rocks alone, and is followed by Neera and Aladar as it charges to kill the former leader of the herd. In the ensuing fight, Kron is killed by the Carnotaur, but a brave Aladar is able to push the predator off a cliff to its death. Aladar and Neera lead the herd back to the "Nesting Grounds", where the two eventually mate and have children, and the lemurs find more of their own kind. Plio narrates the ending, wishing for their story to be remembered in history. She then says, "But one thing is for sure. Our journey is not over, we can only hope in some small way our time here will be remembered."
Animals:(in turns of when they appear)
Iguanodon
Iguanodon
Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
Parasaurolophus
Parasaurolophus
Parasaurolophus is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now North America during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 76.5–73 million years ago. It was an herbivore that walked both as a biped and a quadruped. Three species are recognized: P. walkeri , P. tubicen, and the...
Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America. It was first described by Elmer S. Riggs in 1903 from fossils found in the Grand River Canyon of western Colorado, in the United States. Riggs named the dinosaur Brachiosaurus altithorax,...
Ichthyornis
Ichthyornis
Ichthyornis is a genus of toothed seabirds from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Its fossil remains are known from the chalks of Alberta, Alabama, Kansas, New Mexico, Saskatchewan, and Texas, in strata that were laid down in the Western Interior Seaway during the Turonian-Campanian ages,...
Longisquama
Longisquama
Longisquama insignis is an extinct lizard-like reptile known only from one poorly preserved and incomplete fossil. It lived during the middle or late Triassic Period, 230-225 million years ago, in what is now Kyrgyzstan...
Dragonfly
Dragonfly
A dragonfly is a winged insect belonging to the order Odonata, the suborder Epiprocta or, in the strict sense, the infraorder Anisoptera . It is characterized by large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and an elongated body...
Carnotaurus
Carnotaurus
Carnotaurus was a large predatory dinosaur. Only one species, Carnotaurus sastrei has been described so far.Carnotaurus lived in Patagonia, Argentina during the Campanian or Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous...
Pachyrhinosaurus
Pachyrhinosaurus
Pachyrhinosaurus is a genus of ceratopsid dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous period of North America. The first examples were discovered by Charles M. Sternberg in Alberta, Canada, in 1946, and named in 1950. Over a dozen partial skulls and a large assortment of other fossils from various species...
Oviraptor
Oviraptor
Oviraptor is a genus of small Mongolian theropod dinosaur, first discovered by the paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, and first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn, in 1924...
Koolasuchus
Koolasuchus
Koolasuchus is an extinct genus of brachyopoid temnospondyl in the family Chigutisauridae. Fossils have been found from Victoria, Australia and date back 120 Ma to the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous. Koolasuchus is the latest known temnospondyl. Koolasuchus is known from several fragments of...
Talarurus
Talarurus
Talarurus is a genus of hippopotamus-sized ankylosaurid dinosaur with heavy armour and a club tail. It was named by Evgeny Maleev in 1952.-Age and location:...
Pteranodon
Pteranodon
Pteranodon , from the Late Cretaceous geological period of North America in present day Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota, was one of the largest pterosaur genera and had a maximum wingspan of over...
Lemure
Velociraptor
Velociraptor
Velociraptor is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that existed approximately 75 to 71 million years ago during the later part of the Cretaceous Period. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the past. The type species is V. mongoliensis; fossils...
Microceratops
Microceratops
Microceratus is a genus of small ceratopsian dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous period in Asia. It walked on two legs, had short front arms, a characteristic ceratopsian frill and beak-like mouth, and was maybe long...
Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus was a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period , about 76.5 to 75.0 million years ago...
Euoplocephalus
Euoplocephalus
Euoplocephalus was one of the largest genera of ankylosaurian dinosaurs, at about the size of a small elephant. It is also the ankylosaurian with the best fossil record, so its extensive spiked armor, low-slung body and great club-like tail are well documented.-Description:Among the...
Struthiomimus
Struthiomimus
Struthiomimus is a genus of ornithomimid dinosaur from the late Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada. It was a long-legged, ostrich-like dinosaur.The bipedal Struthiomimus stood about long and tall at the hips and weighed around...
Stygimoloch
Stygimoloch
Stygimoloch is a putative genus of pachycephalosaurid dinosaur from the end of the Cretaceous period, roughly 65 million years ago...
Cast and Characters
- D. B. SweeneyD. B. SweeneyDaniel Bernard "D. B." Sweeney is an American actor.-Early life:Sweeney was born on Long Island, New York and raised in Shoreham by an educator father and a municipal government employee mother. He attended Shoreham-Wading River High School and both Tulane and New York University...
as Aladar, a brave and compassionate IguanodonIguanodonIguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
who has 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. - Ossie DavisOssie DavisOssie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
as Yar, a lemur patriarch whose occasional gruff demeanor is just a front covering his more compassionate interior. He is the father of Plio and Zini and the grandfather of Suri. - Alfre WoodardAlfre WoodardAlfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
as Plio, a lemur matriarch who cares for her family. - Max CasellaMax CasellaMax Casella is an American actor. He is known for his roles on the television series The Sopranos, Doogie Howser, M.D., and as the voice of Daxter in the Jak and Daxter video game series.-Life and career:...
as Zini, Aladar's best friend, lemur stepbrother and wisecracking sidekick. Suri's uncle and Plio's younger brother. - Hayden PanettiereHayden PanettiereHayden Leslie Panettiere is an American actress and singer, best known as cheerleader Claire Bennet on the NBC television series Heroes. She began her acting career by playing Sarah Roberts on One Life to Live , and Lizzie Spaulding on Guiding Light , before starring at age 10 as Sheryl Yoast in...
as Suri, Aladar's stepsister, Zini's niece, Plio's daughter and Yar's granddaughter. - Samuel E. WrightSamuel E. WrightSamuel E. Wright is an American film and theater actor and singer who is best known as the voice of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid, for which he provided the main vocals to "Under the Sea", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also voiced Kron in Disney's CGI film...
as Kron, an IguanodonIguanodonIguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
leading a herd of dinosaur survivors who is characterized by a strict adherence to social DarwinismSocial DarwinismSocial Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
. He believes in survival of the fittestSurvival of the fittest"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase originating in evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of Natural selection. The phrase is today commonly used in contexts that are incompatible with the original meaning as intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert...
, which repeatedly clashes with Aladar's merciful manner. - Peter Siragusa as Bruton, Kron's domineering second-in-command. He is betrayed and left for the dead by Kron, and ultimately gives his life to kill one of the Carnotaurs to save Aladar, the lemurs, and the weak dinosaurs.
- Julianna MarguliesJulianna MarguliesJulianna Luisa Margulies is an American actress and producer.After several small television roles, Margulies achieved success in her regular role as Nurse Carol Hathaway on NBC's long-running medical drama ER, for which she won an Emmy Award...
as Neera, Kron's sister, who ends up falling in love with Aladar because of his compassionate ways. - Joan PlowrightJoan PlowrightJoan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...
as Baylene, an elderly and dainty BrachiosaurusBrachiosaurusBrachiosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America. It was first described by Elmer S. Riggs in 1903 from fossils found in the Grand River Canyon of western Colorado, in the United States. Riggs named the dinosaur Brachiosaurus altithorax,...
, who is the last of her species. - Della ReeseDella ReeseDelloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese , is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You...
as Eema, a wizened, elderly and slow-moving StyracosaurusStyracosaurusStyracosaurus was a genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period , about 76.5 to 75.0 million years ago...
, and has a pet AnkylosaurusAnkylosaurusAnkylosaurus is a genus of ankylosaurid dinosaur, containing one species, A. magniventris...
named Url. - Frank WelkerFrank WelkerFranklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:...
as the CarnotaurusCarnotaurusCarnotaurus was a large predatory dinosaur. Only one species, Carnotaurus sastrei has been described so far.Carnotaurus lived in Patagonia, Argentina during the Campanian or Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous...
, Velociraptors, Url, and dinosaur sound effects.
Production
The film was originally supposed to have no dialogue at all, in part to differentiate the film from The Land Before TimeThe Land Before Time
The Land Before Time is a 1988 American animated adventure film directed and co-produced by Don Bluth , and executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall....
, with which Dinosaur shares excessive plot similarities. Michael Eisner
Michael Eisner
Michael Dammann Eisner is an American businessman. He was the chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 until 2005.-Early life:...
insisted that the film have dialogue in order to make it more "commercially viable." A similar change was also made early in the production of The Land Before Time, which was originally intended to feature only the voice of a narrator.
The film's score was composed by James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
. Pop singer/songwriter Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
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
Jacky Cheung
Jacky Cheung is a Hong Kong singer-songwriter and actor. The Chinese language media refers to him, Aaron Kwok, Andy Lau and Leon Lai as the Cantopop Four Heavenly Kings , with more than 60 million records sold as of 2000....
'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
Disney's Animal Kingdom
Disney's Animal Kingdom is an animal theme park located at the Walt Disney World Resort. The fourth park built at the resort, it opened on April 22, 1998, and it is the largest single Disney theme park in the world, covering more than . It is also the first Disney theme park to be themed entirely...
theme park, was re-named and re-themed to the movie. It is now known as DINOSAUR. The storyline was always intended to tie in with the movie, considering the usage of a Carnotaurus
Carnotaurus
Carnotaurus was a large predatory dinosaur. Only one species, Carnotaurus sastrei has been described so far.Carnotaurus lived in Patagonia, Argentina during the Campanian or Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous...
as the ride's antagonist and Aladar as the Iguanodon
Iguanodon
Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
that guests rescue from the meteor and take back into the present, seen wandering the Dino Institute in Security Camera footage seen on monitors in the attraction's unloading area.
George Scribner
George Scribner
George Scribner is an artist, director and animator known for his work at Disney.Scribner was born and raised in the Republic of Panama, where he attended grade schools and drew his way through most of his classes. After high school in Florida, he majored in film at Emerson College in Boston and...
was the original director of the film. Scribner spent two years on it and left to join Walt Disney Imagineering
Walt Disney Imagineering
Walt Disney Imagineering is the design and development arm of the Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation and construction of Disney theme parks worldwide...
. But fundamentally, the story was pretty much the same after he left.
Dinosaur combines the use of live-action backgrounds with computer animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
of prehistoric creatures, notably the titular dinosaurs, produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation's Computer Graphics Unit that was later merged with Dream Quest Images to create Disney's The Secret Lab department. The Secret Lab department closed in 2002.
Vision Crew Unlimited
Vision Crew Unlimited
Vision Crew Unlimited was a motion picture and TV commercial visual effects company founded in 1994 by visual effects artists Evan Jacobs, Jon Warren and Douglas Miller. The company later expanded into a full service visual effects firm....
provided the live-action special visual effects.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack album was composed by James Newton HowardJames Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
, and was released by Walt Disney Records
Walt Disney Records
Walt Disney Records is a family music record label owned by the Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Records was formed in 1956 as Disneyland Records. Before that time, Disney recordings were licensed out to a variety of other labels such as . It was Walt Disney’s brother Roy O...
.
- Inner Sanctum/The Nesting Grounds (2:57)
- The Egg Travels (2:43)
- Aladar & Neera (3:29)
- The Courtship (4:13)
- The End Of Our Island (4:00)
- They're All Gone (2:08)
- Raptors/Stand Together (5:37)
- Across The Desert (2:25)
- Finding Water (4:14)
- The Cave (3:40)
- The Carnotaur Attack (3:52)
- Neera Rescues The Orphans (1:13)
- Breakout (2:43)
- It Comes With A Pool (3:01)
- Kron & Aladar Fight (2:58)
- Epilogue (2:32)
The German release has as track 2 the song "Can Somebody Tell Me Who I Am" (4:14), performed by Orange Blue; all the score tracks included above are on the German release.
Critical response
Dinosaur received generally favorable reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 65% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 122 reviews (79 "Fresh" and 43 "Rotten"); with an average score of 6.2/10. Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film three stars out of four praising the films "amazing visuals" but criticizing the decision to make the animals talk, which he felt cancelled out the effort to make the film so realistic. "An enormous effort had been spent on making these dinosaurs seem real, and then an even greater effort was spent on undermining the illusion" was his final consensus.
The overall rating of Dinosaur on Metacritic from critics is 56%, with 15 critics giving positive reviews, 12 giving mixed reviews, and 5 giving negative reviews. However, the overall user rating of Dinosaur on Metacritic was a very positive 88%.
Box office
Dinosaur was a box-office success. It opened at #1 making $38,854,851 in its first weekend from 3,257 theaters, for an average of $11,930 per theater. It had a final gross of $137,748,063 domestically which covered its production costs. The film was eventually accepted overseas earning $212,074,702 for a worldwide take of $349,822,765.Other media
Disney Interactive released a tie-in video game on the Dreamcast, PlayStationPlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
, PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
and Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color
The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...
in 2000.