Dinotopia (miniseries)

For other uses, see Dinotopia (disambiguation).
Dinotopia
Based on Dinotopia by James Gurney
Written by James Gurney
Simon Moore
Directed by Marco Brambilla
Starring Wentworth Miller
Tyron Leitso
David Thewlis
Katie Carr
Jim Carter
Alice Krige
Colin Salmon
Lee Evans
Composer(s) Trevor Jones
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 3
Production
Executive producer(s) Robert Halmi Sr.
Robert Halmi Jr.
Producer(s) Dusty Symonds
William P. Cartlidge
Editor(s) Oral Norrie Ottey
Cinematography Tony Pierce-Roberts
Camera setup John Bailie
Running time 250 minutes (total)
Release
Original network Disney Channel
Picture format 1080i (HDTV)
Audio format Stereo
Original release May 12, 2002
Website

Dinotopia is a four-hour (three-episode) TV miniseries co-produced by Walt 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 original score was composed by Trevor Jones.

The miniseries premiered as an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney anthology on May 12, 2002 on Disney Channel. It received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special. It was soon followed by a television series which only lasted for one season.

Plot

A pair of teenage half brothers, Karl and David Scott, are on a flight with their father on his private plane when Karl takes over the controls, allowing his father to fall asleep. After flying into a storm, Karl struggles, causing Frank to retake control before it crashes into the ocean. Frank saves his sons, but had trouble escaping the crashed plane as his seatbelt failed to release. Karl and David wash up on the shore of a large uncharted island. Looking for help, Karl and David meet a man named Cyrus Crabb who leads them to Waterfall City, the capital of Dinotopia, a hidden civilization where human beings and dinosaurs peacefully coexist. In fact, some of the dinosaurs, notably a neurotic, but friendly Troodon named Zippo, possess human intelligence and speak perfect English. Among the many rules in Dinotopia is the edict that, once an outsider arrived, he or she was never allowed to leave. As Karl and David prepare to take their places in their new surroundings, both boys develop a strong bond with young Marion, who is on the verge of becoming a "matriarch" of the Dinotopian society. Unfortunately, the incursion of vicious carnivores, not to mention an unanticipated human villain, threaten to destroy Dinotopia and everyone living there.

Cast

Production

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 in 2000. Hallmark Entertainment chief Robert Halmi Sr. then purchased the rights after having seen Gurney’s book.

Halmi was willing to spend $80 million on the film, despite the performance of his previous fantasy miniseries, The Tenth Kingdom.[2] ABC had so much confidence in the miniseries that they began shooting episodes of the spin-off television series before the miniseries had aired.[3]

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 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. Jim Henson's Creature Shop provided the animatronic dinosaurs.

Although Dinotopia started out as a TV miniseries, later all the parts were combined and put on DVD as one film. Except in the UK, where the mini-series was put onto discs as separate episodes instead of a combined film.

Featured species

References

  1. ↑ . Moria.co.nz, article, "Dinotopia" ?, 2002.
  2. ↑ . Entertainment Weekly, On the Air, "Dinotopia" October 13, 2000.
  3. ↑ Jensen, Elizabeth (2002-05-10). "A Tall Order for ABC’s ‘Dinotopia’". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-09-14.

External links

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