“I knew the job was dangerous when I took it,” laughed supervisor of digital effects Neil Eskuri when discussing Dinosaur in an interview in 2000. He also added, “We constantly had to break new bounds.”
New bounds are what this film broke, combining computer animation with live action to bring the Cretaceous world of the title character to life.
Celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this month, Dinosaur had a long road to the screen that dates back to 1986 when Phil Tippet, visual effects legend and master of stop-motion animation, approached director Paul Verhoeven (the two had worked together on Robocop) about partnering on a dinosaur movie using stop-motion animation.
“Dinosaur” had an attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park
When Jurassic Park was a massive success in 1993, Disney decided to move away from stop-motion and make the film digitally, moving the film over to Disney’s Feature Animation Studio.
It underwent several changes here, including one version with digital dinosaurs and miniature sets. That idea was eventually scrapped, and the miniature sets were replaced with live-action backgrounds.
There was another version where the characters were to speak only in voice-over (audiences would hear the dinosaurs’ thoughts). “That just wasn’t emotional or engaging enough for these majestic animals,” remembered Dinosaur co-producer Baker Bloodworth in an interview in 2000. Ultimately, it was decided to allow the dinosaurs to speak.
To complete this ambitious film and compete in the expanding realm of computer-generated imagery, Disney created a complete “in-house” digital studio to produce Dinosaur and future digital productions.
The new Studio was called “The Secret Lab” and was a merger of The Walt Disney Company and Dream Quest Images, a visual effects company that had created effects for such films as 1989’s The Abyss. Disney purchased Dream Quest Images in 1996, laying the groundwork for The Secret Lab, which was formed in 1999.
“We had to do what no other filmmaking crew has ever had to do,” added Bloodworth in 2000. “We had to hire three hundred and fifty artists, which took a year and a half. Then, we had to try and figure out how to make a movie that no one has ever made before.”
Directed by Ralph Zondag and Eric Leighton, Dinosaur tells the story of an Iguanodon named Aladar who is rescued and raised by a family of lemurs. Growing up among the lemurs, Aladar spends time with his best friend Zini and his adopted sister Suri but can’t help but feel different.
A violent meteor shower causes a massive explosion and shockwave. Aladar and his adopted lemur family escape. They join a herd of dinosaurs led by the stubborn Iguanodon Kron, who are all trying to find their way to the safety of the valley and their nesting grounds.
Helping to bring the characters in Dinosaur to life was an impressive voice cast that included D.B. Sweeney as Aladar, Alfre Woodard as Plio, the lemur who adopts Aladar, Ossie Davis as Yar, Plio’s father, Max Casella as Zini, Hayden Panettiere as Suri, Samuel E. Wright as Kron, Julia Margulies as the Iguanodon Neera, who becomes Aladar’s love interest. And, as members of the herd: Dame Joan Plowright as Baylene, the Brachiosaurus, and Della Reese as the Styracosaurus, Eema.
The journey the characters embark on features some visually stunning set pieces, such as the opening fifteen minutes of the film, devoid of dialogue, that depict a vicious Carnataurus who attacks and knocks the egg with Aladar inside it out of the nest. We then follow the egg as it goes on its adventure, bobbing down a river and taken by a Pterodactyl, who takes it in flight, dropping it into the jungle.
It was so impressive that this opening sequence of Dinosaur was shown as a teaser trailer ahead of Toy Story 2 when it debuted in November of ’99.
Additionally, scenes such as the meteor shower were astonishing, visceral action sequences, and the dinosaurs’ skin and movement had a tactile quality.
The latter was the result of paleontologists who were brought in to consult on Dinosaur, as well as time studying the movements of elephants. “We were able to reference their movements in terms of how a ten-ton character would walk, stretch, and essentially move,” said Bloodworth in 2000. “That was very significant.”
Bringing all this to life through computer-generated imagery was quite the task. “Making this movie was like jumping off of a cliff,” admitted co-director Leighton when discussing Dinosaur just before the film debuted. “I hadn’t really touched a computer before this film, and I’m not very good at video games, but it was a challenge and a good one. To me, that meant a potential for growth.”
“I think what’s happened is that technology has strengthened over the years,” added Zondag in a 2000 interview. “As it gets stronger, it starts attracting really talented artists, which makes it that much better. The possibilities with it then become endless. It opens up a new door for storytelling.”
Released on May 19, 2000, many critics noted that Dinosaur was indeed a feast for the eyes. However, those same critics also noted that those astounding visuals were married to a lackluster story that weighed the movie down.
MacDonald’s Happy Meals offered DINOSAUR puppets.
The film didn’t ignite the box office as hoped, and sadly, Dinosaur stands as the only full-length animated feature produced by The Secret Lab. Their second feature, Wildlife, was shut down, and after producing visual effects for several live-action films, The Secret Lab closed in 2001.
With all the possibilities that were there during its production and in the summer of 2000, when it debuted, twenty-five years later, Dinosaur stands as a daring film that, had it been a hit, makes one wonder what might have been.
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
I never understood the lackluster response to “Dinosaur”. When I first saw it, I expected it to be a big hit. The storyline certainly engaged me and the special effects were dazzling. Plus, at the time, you couldn’t go anywhere without being bombarded by Dinosaur this and Dinosaur that. Usually, that much hype leads to a major box office explosion. And I don’t recall being “disappointed” by the film. To me, it was PPIEW (Practically Perfect In Every Way).
It has always seemed to me that this film should be released on a double bill with the first film in the Ice Age franchise. Combined, they give an inventive and visually arresting look at pre-history.
For my taste, I prefer the dinosaur sequence in irwin Allen’s “The Animal World”.
First, aesthetically: the animation of the creatures was a Ray Harryhausen/Willis O’Brien collaboration.
Second, nostagically: I remember the View-Master “Dinosaurs” 3-D slide set.
I followed this film’s progress with some interest during it’s long production and remember reading how the constant improvement in CGI technology at that time kept forcing Disney to continually scrap footage and redo it as every new advancement made existing work look outdated. Eventually the studio drew the line in the sand and decided they had to stick with the resources at hand and finish the film. This was a large part of why the movie’s budget had ballooned to its staggering final tab.
I caught the film opening weekend with great anticipation and confess I was terribly disappointed. The script was symptomatic of Disney’s formulaic storytelling at its most generic but I was also underwhelmed by the animation that looked and felt blandly plastic and washed out.
Still, the film was perhaps the last example of Disney taking a huge financial gamble in breaking new animation ground which was a hallmark of the studio since Walt started it but is but a long dead memory under the new regime.
I just watched it recently. The themes of an immovably strong leader refusing to take care of the vulnerable within his heard definitely hit better than when I was a kid. The movie stating that kind of behavior is older than humans is definitely statement worth exploring, even if the individual characterization doesn’t go too deep.
After rewatching it earlier this year, I dumped my discs.
Too many of the Disney 3D computer animated movies after 1998 that I can tolerate cannot sustain interest for me after a couple of viewings.
I’ll say this: The movie is at least better than The Wild a few years later.
My memory, however accurate it is 25 years later, is that the early marketing sort of gave the impression it would be a dialogue-free film, and the initial teaser was a real stunner. The air kind of went out of the room when it became clear it would be a more conventional film, and the film that came out was yet more disappointing still
But hey it was groundbreaking and maybe it would be a pleasant surprise if I gave it another shot now.
The plot of “Dinosaur” parallels that of the biblical Book of Exodus: An infant drifts across the water and is adopted into a very different sort of society from his own. When he matures, he discovers that his own kind are suffering, and so he defies authority and leads them to a promised land. It also parallels that of any number of epic westerns in which the pioneers of the wagon train endure great hardship while crossing the desert on their way to the Golden State, as well as the Great Trek of the South African Boers from the Cape to the Transvaal, with Carnotaurus and Velociraptors standing in for Zulus. Since the event that triggers the dinosaurs’ extinction occurs early in the film, we know all along that the success of their venture is going to be a temporary reprieve at best.
Animator Eamonn Butler, quoted by one Michael Lyons in his book DRAWN TOGETHER: DISNEY’S ANIMATION RENAISSANCE (plug), referred to the production of this film as “the rubber-hose days of computer animation.” The metaphor may be a little unkind; while the technology was still in its early days, the standard of realism in “Dinosaur” equalled or exceeded that of most computer-animated films made over the next twenty-five years. Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off. Would the “Madagascar” movies have been better if the animal characters had been more realistic? Of course not. By bringing together dinosaurs from all different contents and geological periods, showing an iguanodon adopted by a family of lemurs (oh, don’t get me started on the lemurs!), and increasing the size of the Carnotaurus by five- or tenfold to make them appear more threatening, Disney had already thrown realism right out the window. If the dinosaurs could talk, why not have them sing and dance while they’re at it? The Jurassic Park movies succeed because they bring living dinosaurs into our own world, but “Dinosaur” never quite succeeds in taking us into the dinosaurs’ world, because the world that Disney constructed is made up of so many overly familiar movie tropes.
What would Walt Disney have done? I don’t know, but if he had had this technology at his disposal he might have made a dinosaur documentary along the lines of his True-Life Adventures series, maybe even a trilogy: Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. Such a film, even coming out in 2000 in the aftermath of “Jurassic Park”, would have filled cinemas, garnered accolades and awards, and been a valuable addition to school curricula. In other words, it might have been something along the lines of the BBC’s wonderful “Walking with Dinosaurs” series, which is much more highly regarded by dinosaur fans than Disney’s “Dinosaur”.
Thank you for the plug, Paul. I always appreciate your support and your insightful comments. Thanks again.
The themes of a powerful, unyielding leader who refuses to care for others who are weaker than him struck a deeper chord with me than they did when I was younger. The movie’s claim that such behaviour predates humans is undoubtedly one that merits investigation.