Originally Posted By FiveBearRugs So I found out that 2000's Dinosaur is considered canon in the list of Disney's full-length feature animated films. I also found out via Wikipedia that the movie was a box-office hit. I thought the film was a failure? If it was a hit, I don't recall seeing a lot of hoopla for it...
Originally Posted By TheRedhead "Dinosaur" was on the cover of Newsweek the week before the film opened. McDonalds did an extra large promotion for the movie (Happy Meal toys and hand puppets you could buy separately), something they only do for the movies they think are gonna be huge. And there was a lot of talk about this movie being Disney's first official CGI movie. Lots of talk like, "Much like 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' this is the first film,,,," blah blah blah. Technically I guess the film was a hit. And if you look back at the reviews, the overall reaction seemed to have been positive. But here's the thing: "Dinosaur" was being pegged to be the biggest box office hit of the summer of 2000. This was gonna bring Disney back to "Lion King" numbers. I remember reading several different writers essentially saying (and some outright saying) Disney + dinosaurs = box office sure thing. Expectations were way high. Then it opened and had a decent opening weekend. Nothing spectacular and far below expectations, just decent. It didn't have legs, got lost, and ended with an OK total. The year before, Tarzan did better and Toy Story 2 did MUCH better. No one bought the merchandise either. It was embarrassing for Disney. And the reviews were weird. They claimed to be positive, and they all loved the visuals, but they all SLAMMED the plot and the dialogue and the acting. Many reviewers, along with just about every animation fan, said it was pretty much a computer animated "The Land Before Time." Ouch. To go from "Snow White" to that is not a good thing. So the film is forgotten. And in that respect, it is a failure. Disney had a chance to hit a home run in a new medium, and they hit a single. They could have done something bold, but they had super-real dinosaurs saying hacky animation dialogue. Even the title of the movie is lame and uninspired.
Originally Posted By cheesybaby It made about $135 million in the U.S., about $350 million worldwide. So not exactly a flop, but not a huge hit either. The idea was to have this huge new franchise, sequels in theaters, direct to DVD sequels, CGI TV show, everything. That never happened because it wasn't a big hit. But not quite a flop either. So was it a "hit"?. Well, ... kinda. To produce the movie Disney set up the Secret Lab, a hugely expensive CGI facility which was supposed to pretty much reverse-engineer Pixar's digital production facilities. If the movie wasn't a big hit compared to its independent budget, it certainly didn't pay for the Secret Lab project, and the Secret Lab was closed. So in that context the movie was a failure. Here's what's interesting - check out the packaging of the Deluxe Collector's Edition 2-Disc DVD of Dinosaur. There is a big 2-page introductory essay in the DVD booklet written by Tom Schumaker, then the head of Feature Animation. In this essay he trumpets the "experience" of the "concept" of the project, what it represented and how it was so significant, without talking much about the actual movie at all. What little he says about the actual movie/story is basically an acknowledgement that the story was very, very weak. I don't remember his specific words, but I remember being very surprised. It was as if the production of the movie and setting up the Secret Lab was the whole point, because Disney has always "broken new ground" and experimented with technology, and that the actual movie and its story were an afterthought. Very little of the long essay is about what actually made it to the screen. To have a big triumphant story about the movie but then to never really mention the movie... that's closer to an admission that the movie sucked than I would have imagined. The movie itself... what an odd duck. I found the opening sequence to be amazing, but then... lemurs? You can hear the execs talking as you watch: Exec 1: "Let's make a movie about dinosaurs! Boys will eat it up and it'll make us billions!" Exec 2: "Great idea - but you know what kids like even better than dinosaurs? Just one dinosaur!" Exec 1: "Right! But with lemurs!" Exec 2: "Yes! And co-stars that little boys will go crazy for!" Exec 1: "I'm thinking Della Reese and Joan Plowright!" Exec 2: "You read my mind! With those 2 in the cast, the merchandise will fly off the shelves!"
Originally Posted By SBSBelle22 LOL amen cheesybaby. I agree, it was obvious that the story was an after thought or not very well thought of at all. I remember watching trailers and seeing how beautiful it was and the anticipation for it... and then when I saw it I was a little put out. Surely they could have come up with a better story. I personally think they should try again with a better, well thought out story, not neccessarily dinosaurs either. It was just such a cool style.
Originally Posted By basil fan I thought the meteor shower sequence was quite thrilling. And I personally prefer the lemurs to the dinosaurs. The dinos are so ponderous, moving in slow-motion most of the time. That's what comes of trying for too much realism, IMHO. But, the characters had to be real enough to match the backgrounds. I remember reading that animators found the backgrounds restricting. It seemed like a good idea, but when you came right down to it, it was tough to pull off. Mouse Tales <a href="http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/disney/mice.html" target="_blank">http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/...ice.html</a>
Originally Posted By FiveBearRugs On a sidenote, Aladar, Kron and Bruton were featured in Upper Deck's "Disney Treasures" card set...
Originally Posted By TheRedhead I was baffled by the whole live-action background idea. They went to this great extent of creating not just the backgrounds, but the live-action movements - water splashing, rocks falling, etc. Talk about restricting. You're basically tying the animators' hands. I love the opening. I love the meteor shower. I sort of like the rest of it on mute.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I would also agree that it's pretty much better without the dialogue. I just can't figure out where to put it in my mental ranking of Disney movies. It really was ground-breaking at the time, and the effects are amazing. The fact that the characters still look so realistic after all these years (especially matching the lighting to the backgrounds) is just incredible, when you look at how other older CGI films look. The lemurs don't look as good as the dinos, but they still look better than pretty much anything else from that period. And the music is absolutely incredible. I'm really happy that it is being used for background music in DCA's Hollywood Pictures Backlot. It's also becoming some of that general stock music that gets used for smaller scale commercials and things, so it's not entirely looked over. IMO, the score could very well be the best thing about the film, so I'm really glad that others see that too. Overall, it just seems like one of those films that they needed a little longer to think about. The production crew did an excellent job with the script and made it as good as possible, but it does just seem a little like they gave up on having an interesting story around the time that Aladar meets up with the other outcasts.
Originally Posted By cheesybaby There really is no story reason why Aladar should get separated from the other dinosaurs. This is never a big story point later or in any way essential to the climax. This point - like all the story points really - feel random or like "leftovers" from previous versions of the "story," whatever that might have been. This is especially obvious when trying to watch the movie with its intended target audience - little boys. You put the movie on and the little boys are excited and psyched to see dinosaurs! But then Aladar immediately gets separated and grows up with the lemurs. The kids - expecting to see dinosaurs - lose interest. "Dad, what happened to all the dinosaurs? Why did he get separated?" You try to answer, "well, because later in the story..." but then you realize there is no answer. "I don't know" is your only response. The boys lose more interest and ask more questions. Even when you know the story, all you can answer to all these questions is "I don't know." The story points are pretty much random. You start to get the distinct feeling that they are for some reason consciously avoiding showing you any dinosaurs. And then when Aladar does finally meet the big herd, nothing much happens. By then even the little boys are bored.
Originally Posted By TheRedhead I was in the Disney Store yesterday and they were playing the score over a montage - I think a D23 commercial? Yeah, it reminded me how amazing that score is.
