Cast _* Story _* Interesting Facts _* Production Details _* WildLide: A Cancelled Follow-Up Project

Directed by: Ralph Zordeg, Eric Leighton
Score by: James Newton Howard

Production started on: September 15, 1997
Release Date: May 19, 2000
Running Time: 90 minutes

Budget: $125 million plus $28.3 million in marketing costs
U.S. Opening Weekend: $38.854 million over 3,257 screens
Box-Office: $138 million in the U.S., $347.8 million worldwide
 
 

CAST

Aladar... D.B. Sweeney
Pio... Alfre Woodard
Yar... Ossie Davis
Baylene... Joan Plowright
Eema... Della Reese
Kron...Samuel E. Wright
Suri... Hayden Panettiere
Kiefer Sutherland
 
 
 

STORY

Set 65 million years ago during the late Cretaceous Period, the film follows the adventures of an Iguanodon named Aladar, who is separated from his own species as a hatchling and raised on an island paradise by a clan of Lemurs.  When a devastating meteor shower plunges their world into chaos, Aladar and several members of his Lemur family escape to the mainland and join a group of migrating dinosaurs desperately searching for a safe new nesting ground.  With water and food in short supply and bloodthirsty predators posing an ever-present danger, the herd faces many life-threatening obstacles during the course of their treacherous trek. Aladar's innovative thinking and compassion for the "misfit" members of the herd brings him into conflict with Kron, the rigid and stone-hearted leader of the group, and his loyal lieutenant Bruton.  Winning support from Kron's sister, Neera, Aladar reluctantly challenges the "traditional ways" and shows how being adaptable is the best path for survival.
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS

  Dinosaur took 12 years to complete, including 5 years of intensive work for animation only, by a staff of nearly 900!  Bringing Dinosaur to the screen also required 3.2 million processing hours and the film's total elements occupied 45 terabytes of disc space (the equivalent of 45 million megabytes) or 70,000 CD-ROMs worth of information with 100 million individual files.

  Its official budget is estimated at $127.5 million, but a new facility had to be built to create the film, which brings Dinosaur's price tag up to nearly $200M. Technically, though, the facility, located in an old Lockheed aircraft plant, will pay for itself as it is used for uncounted Disney pics to come.

  Kate Bush was originally in negotiations with Disney to provide an emotional song for the film.  The original print included a song she had written and performed, but this was cut after unfavorable response from preview audiences.

  The success of Jurassic Park jump-started this project, that had been kicking around Disney since the late '80s, originally as a live-action picture with puppets called Countdown to Extinction.  At one point, director Paul Verhoeven was attached to helm and ilmed a brief test version.  But "the price tag was astronomical, about $300 million," co-director Ralph Zondag says.  Confirms Paul Verhoeven: "The original story was written by Walon Green; that story was written for me, Phil Tippet, Jon Davison, and Dennis Murren. So we started that project; it was an idea by Phil Tippet and me to do a movie about dinosaurs, when we were doing Robocop. Then we went to Walon Green and Disney, saying we want to do a story about dinosaurs. So we did. That original idea is a bit difficult to find in the Dinosaur.  To show you the difference…There's a meteor in the beginning of Dinosaur. But that was the end, of course; all the dinosaurs were killed. That was the difference. The dinosaurs were killed because a meteor; that's the most common thought. So we thought, 'Okay, we have a movie about survival and evolution.' So the dinosaurs would be living in the beginning, and at the very end they would be killed by the meteor that's coming closer and closer and hits them-boom!-and everybody dies. Except the small mammals-and that's us, because we are mammals, of course. It was a story about how evolution stopped one thing and went to another one, promoted the smaller mammals. The difference was that they took that meteor and put it in the beginning, and it was just a little fire. Just to give you an idea of the difference from what it could have been. And they did not sing or talk!"

  Though dinosaurs are completely computer animated, the scenery is live action: the backgrounds are live shots from all around the world.

  The Disneyworld ride Countdown to Extinction is a spin- off of Dinosaur and opened in 1999:  the Iguanadon in the pre-show footage is the main character in Dinosaur.  This is the 3rd time a show opens before the corresponding movie, after "It's Tough to be a Bug" for A Bug's Life and the Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland (1955), 4 years before the movie's theatrical release!

  Dinosaur marked Disney's third best opening ever, behind 1999's Toy Story 2 ($57.4 million) and 1994's The Lion King ($40.9 million).
 
 

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Director Paul Verhoeven and special effects wizard Phil Tippet were passionate about their dream project: a stop motion epic that showed dinosaurs as they really were. Raw. Untamed. Wild. The Walt Disney Company also seemed pretty excited about this proposed film... at least until they got a look at its projected budget.

At $72 million, Verhoeven and Tippet's Dinosaur film was just too rich for Mickey's blood. So -- even though the studio had already poured considerable cash into developing this project -- Disney shelved the script in 1990. And this proposed film probably would have stayed on the shelf if Eisner hadn't decided that he needed dinosaurs for the soon- to- be- built "Dinoland U.S.A." area in Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park.
 
 
 

But having giant reptiles to people his theme park wasn't the only reason Uncle Mike revived Dinosaur in 1993. Eisner was concerned that the Disney Company might someday find itself in competition with its Toy Story production partner, Pixar Animation Studio. Which is why he authorized the creation of Disney's own computer animation operation: Disney's Digital Studio AKA The Secret Lab.

The Mouse recruited some incredibly talented people to help put their Dinosaur film together. But some poorly thought- out decisions (I.E. using live action background plates for the film) ended up accidentally creatively hobbling the production team. Given the difficult circumstances that they were working on, these folks did the best they could. They created a movie that is almost always visually stunning but still leaves the viewer feeling emotionally uninvolved.

What went wrong? In pre- release interviews with various members of the Dinosaur production film, there was one phrase that kept being used over and over: "If we had the chance to do this movie over again, I'm sure we'd do 'Dinosaur' quite different this time."

Nobody set out to make a mediocre movie.

It's true, kids. There isn't a film-maker in all of Hollywood that hops out of bed in the morning, saying to himself: "Today, I'm going make a movie that doesn't quite work. Today, I'm going to shoot a scene that almost emotionally involves the audience. That nearly delivers the goods. Something that shows lots of promise, but still misses by inches."

Everyone goes into the film- making business with the hope that they're going to be part of a project that succeeds, a movie that entertains and / or moves an audience. But sometimes -- in spite of the best efforts of a lot of talented people -- a film still manages to fall flat.

So what happened with Dinosaur? A lot of folks point to the film's story -- which awkwardly recycles plot points from Disney's The Lion King and Tarzan to come up with a tired tale that audiences have already heard too many times before.

Which is unfortunate. Because -- before they settled on that plot line -- the Dinosaur production team did have some really great story ideas for this film: Story lines that would have emotionally involved the audience. Sequences that would have thrilled folks viewing the film. Characters that people really would have cared about.

But -- for various reasons -- these things didn't make it into the finished movie.

Want a hint of what you missed out on? Well... What do you think of Bruton, Kron's loyal lieutenant in the film? As portrayed in the movie, Bruton's a tough old soldier who's seen way too many campaigns. The ways of the herd are so deeply ingrained in him, he's resistant to change and highly suspicious of anyone who questions the way things have always been done. But -- in the end -- Bruton comes to see the error of his ways and makes a noble sacrifice for the good of the herd.

I know, I know. Not exactly what you'd call an original character. His late Act Two change of heart -- sacrificing himself to save Aladar and the others from the carnotaurs -- is something you've seen in dozens of World War II films.

But would you have felt differently about Bruton's sacrifice if you had known that he was supposed to be Aladar's brother?

It's true, kids. In one of the first scenarios Disney mapped out for its Dinosaur movie, Aladar and Bruton were supposed to have hatched from the same clutch of eggs. The early scenes in the film would have showed the brothers to be highly competitive siblings, constantly battling to see who was the toughest, strongest, smartest, etc. These fights would have come across as good-natured -- showing the obvious affections the two brothers had for each other -- but also clearly showing how individual dinos achieved rank and position within the herd.

And then... Something horrible happened. Whether Aladar would be separated from the herd because of some natural calamity (I.E. an earthquake, a huge storm and / or the first strike of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs) or it was because of something Bruton did (The brothers fighting at the edge of the sea. Bruton accidentally knocks Aladar off a cliff. Aladar disappears into the surf and is presumed drowned. Bruton is wracked with guilt... You get the idea), the film- makers could never quite work out.
 

Whatever happens... Aladar eventually finds himself washed up on Lemur Island. Here, the adolescent dinosaur is nursed back to health by the kindly primates and eventually comes to appreciate their gentle ways. Aladar spends several years trapped on the island with the lemurs, becoming a valued and beloved member of their community. But he still misses his own kind.

Then the "Big One" hits. The asteroid that eventually lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The asteroid strikes and devastates Lemur Island, which forces Aladar and a few surviving lemurs to swim over to the mainland. Here, the story line pretty much follows what you'd see in the finished film... Except that -- when Aladar finally hooks up with the surviving dinosaur herd -- he meets up again with his long lost brother!

At first, Bruton and Aladar are thrilled to be back together again. But Bruton eventually comes to resent Aladar's new touchy-feely ways -- particularly when he coddles those furry little parasites that ride on his back. Bruton tries to win his brother back over to the ways of the herd. Aladar resists... Which naturally leads to conflict.

As you can see, this proposed story line would have added a whole different level of emotional under- current to Dinosaur. Would Aladar bow to peer pressure and become a member of the herd again, or would he stay loyal to his lemur friends? Interesting idea, yes?

So why didn't Disney go forward with this scenario? Too many story problems, kids. Key among these was Aladar's time on Lemur Island. If the adolescent already knew he was a dinosaur and -- more importantly -- knew where he came from, why would he have remained on the island? Wouldn't Aladar have tried to get back to the mainland and rejoin his own kind?

This particular plot point proved to be really difficult for the Dinosaur production team to work around. It particularly made it difficult to find time within the story where Aladar could be logically won over to the lemur's point of view. The young dinosaur's perfectly understandable desire to go back home ended up driving his story. This made the lemurs' lessons about sharing and caring for one's community came across as forced, stuff that had all too obviously been shoehorned into the story just for plot exposition.

So -- in the end -- the Dinosaur production team decided that there was only one way Aladar could be won over to the lemur way of life. The dinosaur would have to be raised on the island. So out went the film's original Act One as well as the whole Bruton brother thing... to be replaced by the spectacular opening sequence we see today.

There's no getting around the fact that Dinosaur's opening sequence *IS* amazing. It's a 10 minute long tour de force, crammed with incredible eye candy. The downside of this is that -- following the film's spectacular opening -- the initial scenes on Lemur Island now seem somewhat flat. Aladar's introductory sequence with Plio and Yar come across as a somewhat less- than- inspired retread of Kala and Kerchak's first dealings with the infant human in Disney's Tarzan.

It really is a shame that Disney couldn't have come up with a way to save its original version of Act One. Having Bruton as Aladar's brother might have added a lot of tension and conflict to Dinosaur's Act Two (a portion of the film that many consider particularly un-engaging now). It certainly would have made Bruton's sacrifice in the cave much more emotionally involving...

But these sorts of decisions happen all the time when Disney makes an animated film. Truly intriguing ideas fall by the wayside because no logical way can be found to include these elements in the story. On the other hand, sometimes surefire ideas get dropped from a film because unforeseen, tragic circumstances.

Take -- for instance -- Sorbus, the character that was to have originally provided comic relief for the last 2/3rds of Dinosaur. Sorbus was to have been an adolescent brachiasaur who was well meaning but clumsy (Think Chris Farley, the late "Saturday Night Live" comic best known for his strained vocals and his spectacular slapstick falls). A long necked dinosaur that was supposedly afraid of heights, Sorbus was someone that Aladar could befriend and end up winning over to the lemur view of the world. Thanks to Aladar's encouragement, Sorbus comes to believe in himself and eventually end up doing something truly heroic (I.E. knocking down the wall inside the cave, which finally allows Aladar and the misfits to reach the Nesting Grounds).

Does this sound like a great idea for a character? I think so -- as did the folks working on Dinosaur. There were even supposedly some preliminary discussions between Disney and Chris Farley about him coming on board the film to do Sorbus's voice... But then Farley tragically died from a drug overdose in December 1997.

The Dinosaur team thought about going forward with the Sorbus character as originally written. But -- without Farley's strangled voice underlining and heightening the teenage brachiasaur's already nervous disposition -- the character just didn't work.

(By the way, Dinosaur wasn't the only computer animated film that ran into problems due to Farley's untimely death. Dreamworks SKG's Shrek -- a project on which Farley had already spent hours recording dialogue for the film's title character -- was hit particularly hard. Work on Shrek actually shut down for weeks while Dreamworks decided whether or not they could go forward with the project. Did they dare complete the film using a Chris Farley sound- alike? In the end, Dreamworks *DID* decide to go forward with the film but opted to abandon all of Farley's wonderful voicework. Chris's friend and longtime "Saturday Night Live" co- worker Mike Meyers is now providing the voice for Shrek.)

Without the right vocal talent to make Sorbus work, Disney had no choice but to abandon the character. But the Dinosaur production team had come to like the idea of Aladar having a brachiasaur to interact with. Eventually, someone came up with the idea of changing this character's persona from a clumsy adolescent to a fussy older woman... and Baylene was born.
 
 

As effective as this elderly brachiasaur might be in the finished film (And Joan Plowright's vocals *ARE* admittedly wonderful), there are admittedly some drawbacks to having an older female play the Chris Farley role. First of all, The clumsy comic relief aspect of this brachiasaur character has all but disappeared from the movie. And then there's that scene where Baylene rears up and bashes down the wall in the cave. Having an older, somewhat frail actress provide the voice for this character adds an unfortunate undertone for this sequence. You can't help but worry that Baylene -- as she suddenly starts doing all these strenuous activity -- is going to end up breaking a hip.
 

Speaking of activity... There were two huge action sequences that had also been storyboarded for Dinosaur that ultimately didn't make it into the finished film. One detailed a river crossing where the herd ends up being attacked by a mosesaurus. (What's a mosesaurus? Imagine what you'd get if you crossed a crocodile with a great white shark. *THAT* -- my friends -- is a mosesaurus.) Only through Aladar's quick thinking and heroic action does the herd survive this deadly encounter.

Then there was the original version of the film's finale -- where Aladar and Kron have this colossal fight at the edge of an erupting volcano. Kron meets his demise on a slab of rock that's swept away on a fast moving slab of lava.

Both of these sequences sound fairly entertaining, don't they? Why didn't they make it into the finished film. Two reasons, kids. Time and money.

By late 1998, Dinosaur was a film that had already been in active development for over three years. At that point, the Mouse had very little footage to show for the tens of millions of dollars that had already been poured into production of the film. At the rate the project was moving, it looked like it be another three years before Dinosaur would be ready for theatrical release.

Disney Studio executives thought that was just too long to wait. So they ordered that Dinosaur's story be simplified, all unnecessary sequences cut -- whatever it took to get the film into theaters for the summer of 2000.

So out went the mosesaurus attack as well as Aladar & Kron's battle at the volcano's edge. This financial downscaling of the project also explains why Aladar spents most of his time in the movie hanging with Baylene, Eema and Url at the back of the herd. After all, it's much less expensive to create a sequence that features just eight computer animated creatures ( four dinosaurs and four lemurs) than it is to stage a scene that feature 200 computer animated creatures.

None of these moves were deliberately made to hurt Dinosaur's  chances at the box office. At the time, these decisions all seemed like the smart business thing to do. But -- when you pile up a bunch of little creative compromises -- you can end up with a fairly flawed film.

It's not that Dinosaur is actually a bad film. Far from it. There are individual moments in the movie that amaze and dazzle. But when you take the film as a whole, it just... sort of lays there. All these incredible visuals. All this finely detailed animation. But the story never really grabs your attention. Consequently, without a script that emotionally involves the viewer with the characters, all those pretty pictures add up to squat.

Mind you, in spite of my reservations about the movie itself, I still believe that Dinosaur will someday be viewed to be an important film in the history of the Walt Disney Company. For it was the production of this film that lead to the creation of the Secret Lab. And I believe that the Secret Lab will soon become an important weapon to Disney's creative arsenal.

After all, now when the Mouse needs incredible effects for a film the studio wants to produce, it doesn't have to farm all those scenes out to ILM. It can now produce most of these sequences right in house thanks to the wizards in Disney's digital studio. (Mind you, there are still film-makers who will insist on sending FX sequences for their Disney projects off to outside effects houses. That's what director Michael Bay is currently doing with his still- in- production WW II epic, Pearl Harbor. In spite of Eisner's insistence that Bay contain costs down on this big budget project, the director is still having much of his battle scene effects footage being done by George Lucas's team at Skywalker Ranch.)

The staff of the Walt Disney Company learned a lot of tough lessons during the production of Dinosaur. What's the most important lesson? Don't start work on a huge computer animated project unless you have a really strong script already in place.

As for Dinosaur... Well, here's hoping that the storyboard for these alternate scenes and characters to featured in the film turn up on the deluxe edition of the film's DVD. Then you can get a sense of the great film you *almost* got to see, the project that got undermined by people who thought they were doing the right thing.