Dinosaur

**Dinosaur** is a 2000 live-action/animated film directed by Ralph Zondag and Eric Leighton. It is the 39th Disney animated feature film and was released on May 19, 2000.

## Plot

A Carnotaurus attacks a mixed-species herd of dinosaurs, destroying an Iguanodon nest before killing a young female Pachyrhinosaurus. The lone surviving Iguanodon egg is stolen by smaller predators, and, after a series of mishaps, is dropped on an island inhabited by prehistoric lemurs. Plio, the daughter of their patriarch Yar, names the hatched baby Aladar and raises him alongside her daughter Suri, despite Yar's initial objections.

Several years later, a fully grown Aladar watches the lemurs take part in a mating ritual, in which Plio's awkward teenaged brother Zini, who is also Suri and Aladar's uncle, is unsuccessful. Moments after the ritual ends, they are interrupted by a meteor crashing into the Earth, creating an explosive shockwave which destroys the island. Aladar and Yar's family flee across the sea to the mainland. Being the only survivors, they mourn the others, before moving on.

While crossing the burnt wasteland, they are attacked by a pack of Velociraptors. They escape by joining a multi-species herd of dinosaur refugees heading for the communal Nesting Grounds. Falling afoul of callous Iguanodon herd leader Kron, they retreat to the end of the line and befriend the old Styracosaurus Eema, her pet Ankylosaurus Url who acts like a dog, and her equally elderly friend Baylene, the only Brachiosaurus in the group. They travel for days without water to the site of a lake, only to find it seemingly dried up. Kron orders the herd to move on and let the weakest perish, but Aladar stays behind with a sick Eema. He and Baylene dig until they find her some water. The rest of the herd follows suit, and Kron's sister Neera, impressed by Aladar's compassion, begins to grow closer to him, while Kron fears he wants to take over.

Meanwhile, two Carnotaurus have been tracking the herd. Kron's Altirhinus lieutenant Bruton reports the approaching predators, after surviving an attack during a scouting mission. Kron quickly ushers the herd away from the lake, deliberately leaving Bruton, Aladar, the lemurs, and the elderly dinosaurs behind. The group takes shelter in a cave as night falls, but the predators catch up to them and attack. Bruton sacrifices his life to cause a cave-in that kills one of the Carnotaurus, forcing the survivor to retreat.

The group ventures deeper into the cave, but they reach a dead end. Though Aladar briefly loses hope, Baylene uses her strength to smash through the wall, and they arrive at the Nesting Grounds on the other side. Eema notices that a landslide has blocked off the usual entrance to the valley. Aladar rushes off to warn Kron and finds him trying to lead the herd over the landslide, unaware of the sheer drop on the other side. Kron fights Aladar, taking Aladar's warnings as a challenge to his leadership, until Neera, fed up with Kron's illogical behaviour, intervenes. Realizing Kron's selfishness and recklessness, the herd follows Aladar, while Kron stubbornly tries to climb the rocks by himself.

The hungry Carnotaurus arrives, but Aladar rallies everyone to stand together in defiance against it. The Carnotaurus is frightened off and pursues Kron instead. Aladar and Neera rush to save him but fail to get there in time. Aladar manages to push the Carnotaurus over the sheer drop to its death; he and Neera mourn Kron, then lead the herd to the nesting grounds. Sometime later, a new generation of dinosaur’s hatches, among them Aladar and Neera's children, and the lemurs find more of their kind.

## Cast and Characters

* D. B. Sweeney as Aladar
* Alfre Woodard as Plio
* Ossie Davis as Yar
* Max Casella as Zini
	+ Evan Sabara as Young Zini
* Hayden Panettiere as Suri
* Samuel E. Wright as Kron
* Julianna Margulies as Neera
* Peter Siragusa as Bruton
* Joan Plowright as Baylene
* Delia Reese as Eema

## Music

The film's score was composed by James Newton Howard with vocals by Lebo M, who did vocals for The Lion King (1994). In September 1999, it was reported that pop singer/songwriter Kate Bush had written and recorded a song for the film to be used in the scene in which Aladar and his family mourn the destruction of their island. Reportedly, preview audiences did not respond well to the song. The producers recommended that Bush rewrite it, but she refused. Ultimately, due to complications, the track was not included on the soundtrack.

The soundtrack album was released on May 5, 2000, by Walt Disney Records. Howard would later compose the scores for the Disney animated features Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Treasure Planet (2002), and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021). One track, "The Egg Travels", was heard in many trailers following the film's release, including Lilo & Stitch (2002), The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002), and Around the World in 80 Days (2004). In Asia, pop singer Jacky Cheung's song "Something Only Love Can Do", with versions sung in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, was adopted as the theme song for the film.

The film score received positive critical reception, with critics singling out "The Egg Travels" in particular. For his work, James Newton Howard was nominated for an Annie Award for Music in a Feature Production and Saturn Award for Best Music.

## Production

### Development

The initial idea for the film originated in 1986 during the filming of Robocop (1987) in which Phil Tippett recommended to director Paul Verhoeven that they should produce a "dinosaur picture". Verhoeven responded positively to the idea and suggested an approach inspired by Shane (1953) in which "you follow a lead character through a number of situations and moving from a devastated landscape into a promised land." Veteran screenwriter Walon Green was then brought in to write the script. Verhoeven then drew two storyboards and calculated the project's preliminary budget to be $45 million. When the idea was pitched to then-Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, he suggested that the project should be budgeted at $25 million.

In 1988, the project began development in Disney's live-action division in which Verhoeven and Tippett had originally planned to use stop motion animation techniques such as puppets, scale models, and miniatures. The film's original main protagonist was a Styracosaurus named Woot and the main antagonist was originally a Tyrannosaurus rex named Grozni, with a small mammal named Suri as a supporting character. The film was originally going to be much darker and violent in tone, in a style akin to a nature documentary. After Woot defeats Grozni in a final fight, the film would end with the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which would ultimately result in the deaths of the main dinosaur characters. In 1990, producer/director Thomas G. Smith became involved in the film and briefly became the director following Verhoeven's and Tippett's departure. Reflecting on his tenure, Smith said that "Jeanne Rosenberg was still writing the script, but it was in trouble. Disney wanted a cute story of dinosaurs talking, and I didn't like the idea. I thought it should be more like Jean Annaud's The Bear. I wanted to have actual lemurs in it. They actually existed at the time of dinosaurs... We actually located a guy who trains them." However, Katzenberg called Smith to help on Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992) in which he was replaced by David W. Allen who had just finished directing Puppet Master II (1990).

After multiple months were spent auditioning lemurs to portray Suri and creating visual development, Allen's version also fell into development hell. Smith stated, "The thing that ultimately killed it is that Disney knew that Jurassic Park was coming along pretty well, and they knew it was being done digitally. They figured, 'Well, maybe, we should wait until we can do it digitally.'" In late 1994, Walt Disney Feature Animation began development on the project and they began shooting various tests, placing computer-generated characters in miniature model backdrops. The idea to use computer-generated backgrounds was considered, but rejected after the earliest proof-of-concept animation test was completed in March 1996. Ultimately, the filmmakers decided to take the unprecedented route of combining live-action scenery with computer-generated character animation. The filmmakers then approached then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner about not knowing how much the project would cost or how long it would take to finish, but that they could fully complete it. Trusting the filmmakers, Eisner decided to green-light the project. However, at his insistence, it was decided early on that the dinosaurs would talk during the film. To accommodate this change, Aladar would be given lips in contrast to actual Iguanodons who were duck-billed.

George Scribner was selected as the director, and he was later teamed with Ralph Zondag as co-director. Storyboard artist Floyd Norman stated that Scribner envisioned the film "to be more than just a struggle for survival. He wanted this dinosaur movie to have elements of fun and humour Our director wanted to explore the fun elements of dinosaurs, such as their size, shape, and texture. George also knew that since dinosaurs come in all sizes—what wacky relationships might I come up with? What funny situations might plague a critter of such massive size?" Scribner left the project to work at Walt Disney Imagineering, and Eric Leighton was brought in as co-director. The new script had an Iguanodon named Noah as the protagonist wandering with his grandparents and a lemur companion named Adam, and a group of Carnotaurus as well as a rival Iguanodon named Cain playing the antagonists. The story dealt with Noah, who had the ability to see visions of the future, foreseeing the coming of an asteroid and struggling to guide a herd of other dinosaurs to safety. Further into production, Noah, Cain and Adam were renamed Aladar, Kron and Zini, and certain aspects of the story were altered further into what was later seen in the final product.

### Animation

On April 17, 1996, the Walt Disney Company announced they had acquired the visual effects studio, Dream Quest Images. The studio was merged with the Feature Animation department's Computer Graphics Unit in order to form The Secret Lab. Vision Crew Unlimited provided the live-action visual effects. At the time, the Secret Lab's initial studio was reconstructed from a former Lockheed Martin (former Lockheed) building in Burbank, California. Most of the computers were used from Silicon Graphics and additional machines were installed to create a render farm in order to provide workstations for artists, software engineers, and technical directors. The production team eventually re-located to the Feature Animation's Northside building in January 1997, and animation officially began eight months later, although some preliminary work had already begun.

To ensure realistic CG animation, 3D workbooks were created using Softimage 3D software. 48 animators worked on the film, using 300 computer processors to animate the film. Having aspired to be a palaeontologist, David Krentz supervised the character design and visual development teams. He had an orthographic view of the dinosaurs, and his character designs were drawn on paper and scanned into the PowerAnimator software for the modelers to rig in the computers. In the character animation department, the dinosaur characters were first visualized in the computer in skeletal form. The rough character animations were then transferred into three software programs to strengthen the visuals of the characters. The programs were "Fur Tool," which was used for the lemurs and to create feathers and grass; "Body Builder," which was used to create skin and muscles for the dinosaurs; and "Mug Shot," a shape blender that works within Alias Maya for facial animation and lip-synching.

Headed by David Womersley, live-action photography units shot on actual jungle, beach, and desert locations including California, Florida, Hawaii, Australia, Jordan, Venezuela, and Samoa. In total, two live-action film crews shot more than 800,000 feet (240,000 m) of film, although one scene, which takes place inside a cave, utilized a computer-generated background. In order to approximate a dinosaur's perspective, visual effects supervisor Neil Krepela invented the "Dino-cam", in which a camera was rigged on a cable suspended between two 72-foot (22 m)-tall towers. The computer-controlled camera allowed for panning and tilting on 360 degrees and moved at up to 30 miles (48 km) per hour across a span of 1,000 feet (300 m). With the live-action elements shot and the character animation reaching completion, the footage was moved into the Scene Finaling department. Under Jim Hillin, the effects-compositing team blended 80–90 percent of the live action plates against the computer-animated characters. The lighting department then adjusted the final lighting of the shots by changing the lighting conditions and replacing the skies.

## Release

In conjunction during its theatrical release, the film was accompanied by an exclusive interactive dinosaur exhibit centre adjacent to the El Capitan Theatre titled The Dinosaur Experience.

### Marketing

Similar to the promotional marketing of The Lion King (1994), Disney began the promotional rollout for Dinosaur by attaching a teaser trailer consisting entirely of the film's opening scene to the theatrical release of Toy Story 2 (1999). The same trailer was also included on the home video release of Tarzan (1999), and the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection DVD release of The Aristocats (1970). A second trailer was later released in March and attached to the theatrical release to DreamWorks Animation's The Road to El Dorado (2000).

To promote the release of Dinosaur, the Animal Kingdom theme park ride "Countdown to Extinction" was renamed after the film, and its plot, which had always prominently featured a Carnotaurus and an Iguanodon, was mildly altered so that the Iguanodon is specifically meant to be Aladar, the film's protagonist, and the plot of the ride is now about the riders traveling through time to a point just before the impact of the meteor that caused the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, to bring Aladar back to the present and save his life. A "Dinosaur Jubilee" was held at the Animal Kingdom's DinoLand U.S.A. It ran from May to July 2000 and included interactive games, music, and a display of the replica of the dinosaur Sue.

### Home Media

Dinosaur was released on VHS and DVD on January 30, 2001. It was also released on 2-Disc Collector's Edition DVD that same day. Both DVD releases are THX certified and feature a DTS 5.1 audio track. In December 2001, Variety reported it was the fourth best-selling home video release of the year selling 10.6 million copies and garnering $198 million. It was re-released on VHS on February 25, 2003. The film was released on Blu-ray for an original widescreen presentation on September 19, 2006, becoming the first animated film to be released on the format. It was re-released on Blu-ray on February 8, 2011.

## Reception

### Critical Response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 123 reviews and an average score of 6.2 out of 10. The website's consensus reads, "While Dinosaur's plot is generic and dull, its stunning computer animation and detailed backgrounds are enough to make it worth a look." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, praising the film's "amazing visuals" but criticizing the decision to make the animals talk, which he felt cancelled out the effort to make the film so realistic. Ebert wrote, "An enormous effort had been spent on making these dinosaurs seem real, and then an even greater effort was spent on undermining the illusion". On the syndicated television series Roger Ebert & the Movies, the film received two thumbs up with guest host Michaela Pereira from ZDTV's Internet Tonight additionally praising the vocal performances for the characters. Todd McCarthy of Variety called it "an eye-popping visual spectacle", but later wrote, "somewhere around half-way through, you begin to get used to the film's pictorial wondrousness, to take it for granted, even, and start to realize that the characters and story are exceedingly mundane, unsurprising and pre-programmed." A. O. Scott, reviewing for The New York Times, praised the opening sequence as "a visual and sonic extravaganza that the rest of the movie never quite lives up to. Those scores of animators and technical advisers have conjured a teeming pre-human world, and the first minutes of the film present it in a swooping, eye-filling panorama." Summarizing the review, he later wrote that "the reason to see this movie is not to listen to the dinosaurs but to watch them move, to marvel at their graceful necks and clumsy limbs and notice how convincingly they emerge into sunlight or get wet."

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "astonishes and disheartens as only the most elaborate, most ambitious Hollywood products can. A technical amazement that points computer-generated animation toward the brightest of futures, it's also cartoonish in the worst way, the prisoner of pedestrian plot points and childish, too-cute dialogue." Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune wrote "The action is easy enough to follow, and the screen is never dull. But for a story that takes place some 65 million years ago, Dinosaur is awfully reliant on recent recycled parts." Desson Howe, reviewing for The Washington Post, felt the movie "was somewhat derivative and lacked a narrative arc" and claimed it was too similar to The Land Before Time.

### Box Office

During its opening weekend, Dinosaur grossed $38.8 million from 3,257 theatres, for an average of $11,929 per theatre, beating out Gladiator by taking number one. This made it Disney's third best opening ever at the time behind The Lion King and Toy Story 2. The film would stay at the top of the box office until the spot was given to Mission: Impossible 2 the following week. It grossed $137.7 million in North America and $212.1 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $348.8 million. Although not a flop, the high production and marketing costs meant that the film did not come close to breaking even during its theatrical release. However, with the home video release, the film garnered an additional $198 million in sales.