Dinosaur

Rating:
Summary: Great visuals but problems with DVD...
Review: I purchased the Collector's Edition and it stutters and stops on my Pioneer Elite DV-37 player about every four minutes. I own over 200 DVDs and I have never seen this before. It's incredibly frustrating. I exchanged the DVD and experienced the same problem (possibly even slightly worse).

I wonder if others are experiencing this or if there's a difference between the Collector's Edition and the 'normal' one. Disc Two (all of the extras) seems to work fine. I ran it on the DVD player in my PC and it seemed to be fine. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Visually, the movie is stunning. Story wise, it's a "Land Before Time" kind of story. A little light for a lot of adults.

Rating:
Summary: PG means parental guidance
Review: Dinosaur is a fantastic journey into what modern day computer graphics can do. The scope of detail is unbeliveable at times and if you have an excellent home theatre, you can lose yourself in this film. The plot is simple, and the comercials may tempt toddlers into "wanting" to see this badly. If you have young kids under 4 or 5 you should preview this movie and gauge if it is too much for them. There are some scenes that show violent predator attacks. Make sure that if you want to share this with them, that you don't scare them into a weeks worth of nightmares. All kids are different, so just be careful.

Rating:
Summary: Great, if only it will play...
Review: A good fun, entertainment movie, though it could be too intense for kids under 10 yrs. My 3 yr old son loved it at the movies! 5 stars for content. Minus 4 stars because the "Film Facts Fossil Dig" (making of) feature on the 2-Disc Collector's Edition stalls the movie both on my PowerDVD software player and my standalone player. I've yet to play the DVD without interruptions!

Rating:
Summary: Disney walked a fine-line and stumbled a bit
Review: I don't know why there are so many people bad-mouthing this movie. "The story isn't original." So? Come on-how many Disney movies are original? All are based upon centuries-old tales. In fact, Disney has been re-using the classic "hero's journey" tale-you know, a child going through the rites-of-passage to become an adult-as the staple for their entire film franchise. Don't expect a revolutionary divergence in classic story-telling here.

What is revolutionary is the picture; the melding of live backgrounds and digital dinosaurs is very, very good. Not perfect (in some shots, the dinosaurs stand-out like a sore thumb, being too light in color compared to a darker and more detailed "real world"), but amazing nonetheless.

What really bugs me, however, is that after a breathtaking opening sequence showing the journey of the egg, I was let-down by the fact that the critters talk! I know this is a kids movie, but since Disney is marketing this directly at kids, maybe they shouldn't have made everything look so realistic. It's a fine-line to walk, and I think Disney tripped-up a bit here.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable movie for kids and adults. While some may see this as pure eye candy, Disney's route was to follow the path of tried-and-true success of the hero's journey tied with cutting-edge digital artistry.

Rating:
Summary: Visually stunning, disappointing story, good for kids
Review: I purchased this movie when it released based on the trailer I saw in the theatre (which accentuated the visual aspects of the movie). I was not let down in that regard, the blend of real world locations and computer animation is seamless and beautiful. What left me cold was the story. The characters are interesting (such as the Brontosaurus and Triceritops) but the story all to often falls into cheezy pop-culture references. It almost seems as if Disney spent all their time on the visuals and NO time developing a compelling story. You may be thinking "Yeah, but it's a Disney movie..." but all of the adult overtones that make other Disney movies soooo enjoyable for grownups(as seen in Toy Story 1&2, Lion King, etc.) are missing in Dinosaur. Being a huge fan of Disney and Disney movies for this reason (I am male, 23 no kids, by the way) I was dissapointed.

Now, that doesn't mean that kids won't love it. Children are pretty forgiving of cheesy stories, so they will definately enjoy it. The problem will come when the kids want to watch Dinosaur over and over again (I'm having flashbacks of my little sister watching "Little Mermaid" every day for SIX MONTHS... I can still sing along to every song in that movie..). The first viewing will be entertaining for adults, but after three times, you'll be ready to "lose" this DVD accidently.

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, but...
Review: If you plan on using this CD solely on a DVD-ROM I wouldnt recommend getting this colectors edition. The movie stopped playing :01 (minute) into it using Power DVD. It also did this at various points during the movie, in other chapters too. I went and used it on my stand-alone player and it worked fine. The movie is great, but a little short, the visuals and sounds are amazing, not to mention a great score that can be heard in most of the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Good graphics, stock story, but still a fun time
Review: Dinosaur is really an odd kind of movie in a few ways. On the one hand the 3D graphics are gorgeous and the landscapes are picked and filmed well. On the other hand the two do not blend together as well they could. There are many times in the movie where you can really see that the dinosaurs are placed over top the landscapes and it does take you out of the movie if even for a few moments. Another thing is the story itself. Many people will recognize the basic background story as that of "A Land Before Time" (The first one, not all the sequels). However, Dinosaur is enough of its own movie that its worth seeing anyway. And, besides, there really are only three types of dinosaur movies you can make: 1) the type where Dinosaurs meet Humans (ie: Jurassic Park) 2) The End of the age of dinosaurs (Land Before Time, Dinosaur) or 3) the documentary (Walking with Dinosaurs). Anything else really wouldn't work. But while we're on the story, I might also mention one other thing about it: its entirely predictable. When I was watching it the first time I remember being able to say "Oh, here is the scene where they are going to get together and use team-work" or "That's how they're going to defeat the Carnotaur". A kid would not be able to figure it out, but anybody over 13 should be able to with ease. Another thing that needs to be mentioned is the idealogy portrayed by this movie. The Darwinistic leader of the herd is pretty much the bad guy of the film, aside from the two Carnotaurs. I must disagree with the portrayl of him because in the situations presented to him all the way up until the end he actually makes the right choices and is doing what needs to be done, but he is shown as a bad guy because of it. Its an annoyance to see this, but because this is directed at kids the brutal nature of darwinism cannot be "good". But even with that this film is fairly brutal at times. I can think of 7 different dinos that die throughout this film off the top of my head, all but 2 of them never get any real screen time but it is still fairly harsh for a kids movie. Still, despite all that, it is an entertaining movie and a good watch (you should watch it before your kids so you can decide whether or not it is suitable for them).

Moving on from the story I should mention the features on the Special Edition. Well, to begin with the stuff on the first disk (aside from the Commentaries and the FX track) is all pretty much unimportant. But the aforementioned FX track and commentaries are very interesting and you should certainly listen to them. Disc 2, on the other hand, is an awesome resource. It really is a guide of the movie from the beginnings of pre-production all the way up until post-production, and every thing you could think about has been included. The only unnessacary part was the trailers/teasers, which probably should have been on the first disc with all the other Disney trailers (including one for the upcoming Atlantis). The 2nd disc alone is probably worth the price for anyone interested in 3D design or movie making. Disc 2 I would give 5 stars by itself.

Basically to sum up: the movie itself is fairly interesting and a good watch for anyone who likes dinos and/or CGI stuff. It gets a bit brutal at times, which is kind of a draw back. The graphics are truly hit and miss (though I must note that I am a graphics artist and I probably am more sensitive to these things than a casual viewer) in terms of blending with the scenery and the ground. The second disc along is worth the price if you are interested in that sort of thing. I would recommend this to most people, but only as a quick entertainment fix, don't expect anything really groundbreaking here.

Rating:
Summary: Dino-sad
Review: When I think Disney, I think about leaving the real world for 90 minutes. A departure from the grind of daily life. That includes comedy and light-hearted Disney animation. Ever seen Toy Story? Ok, Dinosaur is 90 minutes of dino-despair. Every turn brings more death and depression. Yeah, there's a happy ending, but did I even want to get there?

Of course, the animation and scenes were very beautiful - but this was a departure from what people know of Disney. I was disappointed with this one.

Rating:
Summary: Great Visuials
Review: But the story is to simple. The movie could have been a 5 star if the story had some imagination. Instead we have a story that has been done many times before. This movie would be a good purchase on DVD because of the visuials. But to give this film 5 stars when there are some truly outstanding Disney films out there would not be fair.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but a story as old as the dinosaurs
Review: The computer animation here is absolutely flawless, bordering on brilliant and perfect. However, the script is a hybrid of everything from "The Land Before Time" to "Tarzan" to "The Lion King." Sure, the voices and action are intense, but when the dinosaurs found the magical breeding grounds where they could live out life, my three year old screamed "the great valley!" Good, if not derivative, film.