Dinotopia (TV miniseries)
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| Dinotopia | |
|---|---|
| Format | Science Fiction, Fantasy |
| Directed by | Marco Brambilla |
| Starring | See Cast and characters |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | 250 min |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Picture format | 1080! (HDTV) |
| Original airing | May 12, 2002 |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dinotopia is a six hour (three episode) TV miniseries co-produced by Disney Television and Hallmark Entertainment. It is based on the fictional world of Dinotopia, a utopia in which sentient dinosaurs and humans coexist, created by American author James Gurney. The miniseries uses plot details from Gurney's first two Dinotopia books, "Dinotopia" and "Dinotopia: The World Beneath", although it takes place in a time farther into the future. The main characters are two American teenage boys from a contemporary time frame (unlike the Victorian era castaways in the books...the film thus loses some of the Steampunk and classicism of the original books).[1] The boys crash their father's plane into the sea and get stranded on Dinotopia, where they must adjust to a new society. The story in the film contains references to many of the characters in the book series, with some of their descendents occupying key roles in the plot.
The miniseries premiered as an episode of the Wonderful World of Disney anthology on May 12, 2002 on ABC. It received an Emmy for best visual effects. It was soon followed by a television series which only lasted for one season.
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- Tyron Leitso - Karl Scott
- Wentworth Miller - David Scott
- David Thewlis - Cyrus Crabb
- Katie Carr - Marion Waldo
- Jim Carter - Mayor Waldo
- Alice Krige - Rosemary Waldo
- Colin Salmon - Oonu
- Hannah Yelland - Romana Denison
- Lee Evans - Zippo (voice)
- Terry Jones - Messenger Bird (voice)
- Stuart Wilson - Frank Scott
- Anna Maguire - Samantha Waldo
[edit] Featured Dinosaurs
- Ankylosaurus
- Brachiosaurus ("Brach")
- Chasmosaurus
- Dimorphodon ("Messenger Bird")
- Parasaurolophus ("Overlander"/Guard)
- Mosasaurus (more crocodilian in appearance than in real-life, with arms and legs instead of flippers)
- Pteranodon
- Quetzalcoatlus skybax
- Stegosaurus
- Troodon (Zippo's last name is Stenosaurus, which could be a shorter version of Stenonychosaurus, which is now believed to be a species of Troodon)
- Tyrannosaurus Rex
[edit] Plot
Based on the children's books by author/illustrator James Gurney, the three-part, six-hour ABC miniseries Dinotopia got under way when a pair of teenaged half brothers, Karl and David Scott, took over the controls of their father Frank's (Stuart Wilson) private plane. Not surprisingly, the boys crashed the plane into the ocean, whereupon they were washed on the shore of an unchartered continent. While searching for their missing dad, Karl and David wandered into Waterfall City, the capitol of Dinotopia, a hidden civilization where human beings and dinosaurs peacefully coexisted. In fact, some of the dinosaurs, notably a neurotic Stenonychosaurus named Zippo, possessed human intelligence and spoke perfect English. Among the many rules in Dinotopia was the edict that, once an outsider arrived, he or she was never allowed to leave. As Karl and David prepared to take their rightful places in their new surroundings, both boys developed a strong bond with young Marion (Katie Carr), who was on the verge of becoming a "matriarch" of the Dinotopian society. Unfortunately, the incursion of vicious carnivores, not to mention an unanticipated human villain, threatened to destroy Dinotopia and everyone living on the island.
[edit] Origin
Plans for a Dinotopia film were previously rejected due to the expense of creating a world populated by both humans and dinosaurs. Both Columbia Pictures and Disney at one time made the attempt, but both studios abandoned the idea, Disney opting to make their own homegrown film, Dinosaur. Hallmark Entertainment chief Robert Halmi Sr. then purchased the rights after having seen Gurney’s book.
[edit] Production
[edit] Special Effects
Halmi was willing to spend $80 million on the film, despite the poor performance of his previous fantasy miniseries, The Tenth Kingdom.[2] More than 75% of the scenes in the miniseries required visual effects, many of which required interaction between the live-action human actors and the animatronic or computer-animated dinosaurs. The computer-animated dinosaurs were created by a London-based company, Framestore CFC, who were also did the CGI work for the (Walking with Dinosaurs) series. The series also used other Visual effects techniques such as digital set extensions. Many of the sets were only partially built, the rest being done digitally, in order to create the enormous buildings used by both dinosaurs and humans in the film. Even so, the actual set for Waterfall City, Dinotopia’s capital, took up five-and-a-half acres of the back lot of England's Pinewood Studios. The sets were then scanned and photographed for use in the series (which came out after the miniseries). Jim Henson's Creature Shop provided the animatronic dinosaurs.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] Sources
- Joe Nazzaro, Humans Walk With Dinosaurs in TV Miniseries Visit to James Gurney’s Fatasy Island, Starlog Fantasy Worlds (magazine), February 2002, pages 36-38
