|
|
|
Disney's latest animated venture "Dinosaur" opened last Friday to an audience of excited dinosaur fans of all ages.
Overall, I have to say this film is definitely worth seeing. The computer animation is brilliant, and the animals are incredibly lifelike. This is due in part to the years of work and millions of dollars that Disney invested in this project. Every hair on the lemurs was individually animated by "fur stylists", and the effect is incredible. The film begins with a mother Iguanodon tending her nest. A Carnotaurus erupts from the nearby forest, scattering fleeing dinosaurs. The mother Iguanodon attempts to protect her nest, but the nest is crushed by the huge foot of the Carnotaurus, leaving only one surviving egg. The lone egg is soon snatched away by an Oviraptor, and begins a not-so-believable process in which the egg escapes being eaten, floats along a river, is picked up by a Pterosaur, and finally crashes into the jungle, startling a group of lemurs. The young Iguanodon, Aladar, is adopted by the lemur family, and despite his loneliness at not knowing any other dinosaurs, he quickly adapts to life among the lemurs. Their happy life is unfortunately disrupted when a meteor shower destroys the vegetation on the lemurs' island, and forces Aladar and the lemurs to move to the mainland. After a skirmish with a group of hungry Velociraptors, Aladar and the lemurs join a mixed-species group of dinosaurs that are trekking to their nesting grounds in search of food and water. Aladar makes some enemies among the migrating dinosaurs due to his tender heart. He encourages an elderly Titanosaurus and Styracosaurus to keep up in order to avoid being eaten by the Velociraptors and Carnotauruses that are following the herd. The herd leaders instead feel that the old and weak who cannot keep up with the herd must be left behind. The message for children in this is that being nice and considerate is really the best way to go, and those who do not want to help you will ultimately be eaten. The film is very accurate scientifically. The only complaints that I had about paleontological accuracy was the fact that well-developed grasses were shown. As the film is set in the late Cretaceous Period (140 to 65 million years ago), and grasses (belonging to the angiosperm group of plants) did not develop until the late Eocene Epoch (55 to 36 million years ago) and were not well-developed until the Oligocene Epoch (36 to 22.5 million years ago). A technical point that only a paleontologist would notice. See my article "Paleobotany I" for more information about plants. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Disney's "Dinosaur", A Review in Paleontology is owned by . Permission to republish Disney's "Dinosaur", A Review in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|