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Dinosaur

Dinosaur

List Price: $19.99
Your Price: $15.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great stuff
Review: Every once in a while a good movie that has a cast of non-human characters comes out. This is one of them.

I watched this movie on the big screen and I thought it was very touching. It's interesting seeing situations though the capabilities of creatures.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: stunning visuals
Review: This film must be seen to do the amazing visuals justice. Sadly, the plot and dialogue are thin; however, this is one incredible piece of eye-candy. Said to be eight years in the making, obviously it was the scenery and dinosaurs that took up all the time, not the storyboards.
Beginning with the telling of how the main hero(Aladar) winds up on his lemur-infested island,the film really has its best punch in the meteor shower which hearalds his return to dinosaur life. This sequence is among the most amazing put to animation film, and is a guarenteed jaw-dropper.
Unfortunately, the story snags quite a bit after that, only working in fits and starts. The Carnotaurs are credibly fearsome, but seeing how all the other charactors in this film speak, it seems odd that the Carnotaurs don't. The whole point of the film after the meteor is to reach the lush, verdant nesting grounds, which are undeniably beautiful...
... Despite that, the CGI work in this film is truly amazing, you really can't tell where reality ends and computer takes over, with real-life backgrounds with computer-rendered dinosaurs and effects. While certainly not award-winning for its story, the film is worth having just for those eye-popping visuals, which are, again truly astounding.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent collector's edition for Disney fans
Review: The Collector's Edition of Dinosaur contains material that every Disney fan/collector will enjoy. It's worth the extra money to upgrade to the collector's edition of this movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not a candidate for Disney's Animated Movie Hall of Fame
Review: I was really looking forward to Disney's animated epic Dinosaur. After all, it was reportedly eight years and million[s] in the making. I don't know exactly what I expected. Did I I think that the recent explosion in computer graphics technology would result in a corresponding breakthrough in movie storytelling? If so, I must have been naive, for what the powers that be at Disney decided to do was to take this dazzling technology and graft onto it a story that is merely a rehash of those used in some of their past hits. Dinosaur proves that playing it safe isn't always the best way to go.

The opening is spectacular. A herd of dinosaurs is grazing peacefully. We see a mother watching over a nest of eggs. Suddenly, a huge carnasour emerges from the woods looking for dinner. In the ensuing mayhem, only one egg survives. What follows is a spectacular series of events in which this egg is transported to an island faraway is populated by mammals rather than dinosaurs. A family of lemurs finds the egg, and it is here that the movie starts to disintegrate The lemurs begin to speak, and this is the first time that words are used in the movie. I did not expect Disney to make a movie so profoundly different that none of the characters talked, but I was startled to find that they had been lifted straight out of The Lion King and Tarzan. It is as though the jungles of Africa is primitive as it gets in Disney World, as if how things might have been millions of years ago is beyond anyone's imaginings.

I cannot emphasizing enough how beautiful this movie is to look at. It shows us that CGI technology continues to advance at breathtaking speed. The camera flies through marvelous landscapes, the dinosaurs are fanstastic to look at, and colors are wonderful. One scene in particular, in which the dinosaurs' world is nearly destroyed by a spectacular meteor shower, is among the best animated sequences ever produced.

As for the story, I wonder how many of the head honchos at Disney actually have children of their own. One wonders if they make decisions based on the children they see around them or based on focus groups. Did it ever occur to them that everything that fascinates children is not necessarily cute and cuddly or, for that matter, even safe. When I was young child, for example, I fell in love with the ocean, not because I thought it was warm and safe, but for deeper reasons I could not express. I'm not sure what today's children think dinosaurs were like, but I doubt they view them as big old puppy dogs or as creatures with Judeo-Christian ethics. In this movie, the dinosaur that the lemurs save grows up to be one who teaches his fellow creatures that survival of the fittest is wrong and that helping your fellow dinosaur is what it's all about. Somehow, I do not believe that the average child will buy his argument, not when it comes to creatures in the wild. I think they will find his preaching a bit tedious. In assuming that kids take everything and translate it into a cutsey-pie fantasy world, Disney has underestimated its young audience's intelligence and has demonstrated that it may have become somewhat out of touch with its target market, at least when it comes to this particular subject matter.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: MY 2-YEAR-OLD SON GIVES THIS ONE 5 STARS!
Review: Obviously, the animation is great, as are the backgrounds. I didn't even realize this movie is rated PG until I read it in someone else's review. I suppose the carnotaurs are a bit scary, but my 2-year-old (good-natured, non-violent) son doesn't seem to think so. There is a meteor that crashes to earth near the beginning of the movie. Surprisingly enough, that's the part my son found scary. I think he doesn't like the dark and gloomy backgrounds, and he can tell the main character is in trouble, which bothered him a bit the first few times he watched the movie. The plot is simple, but isn't it supposed to be?! This IS a kids' movie, after all. The story should be simple enough for a child to understand and enjoy. Disney made as much of the movie enjoyable as possible for those of us adults who have to sit through 300 or 400 viewings per month, but they didn't lose sight of the fact that their primary audience has a median age of about 5 or 6. I can't tell you how many times a day I hear my son say, "Watch Aladar?" (Aladar is the main character). The anticipation in his voice says it all--but then, I guess you have to take my word for it!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: OK OK
Review: Just an OK dino flick, with some cute and silly moments, as well as a couple of important "theme of the show" parts. Overall, a disappointment, however, that just never quite gets over its own self to have fun.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Socialism or death!
Review: Thus spake Castro and I half expected the dinosaur equivalent of the man to show up with cigar and beard. A nasty fascist dinosaur named Kron is leading the dino's to the promised land and he doesn't believe in committees. Old and lame must fall behind and die, it's the survival of the fittest that counts. But along comes a young idealist named Aladar (but they might as well have tied a red scarf around his neck and called him Che) who speaks of new ideas about cooperating with one another for the comman good. Everyone from Brontosaurus to Stegosaurus will be treated as equals and lo, all shall be bountiful in the garden of Eden. Inspired by this rhetoric, Kron's sister rushes off to join the revolution, much to Kron's horror. You see, Kron is like nowheresville, man. He ain't hip. He's a square. With a square head. He's a bit of a dinosaur. Goodness, could Walt Disney productions be pushing (gasp) socialism? Nay, COMMUNISM? What would Uncle Walt have said? Anyway, we are left with Aladar and his comrades in paradise begetting new children. What happens next? Lo, some dinosaurs become more equal than others and decide to form a party. They get the share of the food and shelter. And lo, there was collectivization, another cultural revolution, famine and mass starvation. Then they were invaded by other dinosaurs (denounced as fascist) who were repelled and from then on everything went to a year zero. Dinosaurs were told not to question the way things were and any who did were slaughtered by the dreaded 'Dino Rouge'. Dinosaurs informed on other dinosaurs. Whole families of eggs were wiped out. The green paradise became polluted and fell into disrepair. But Comrade Aladar told them everything was well and that there was no turning back and that the people must love him. No, actually the film ends with them all in paradise. Hey, this is Hollywood after all. Walt, you can rest easy. Sort of.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Disney's Dinosaur - Inspired by the ongoing LBFT mania
Review: Disney's 'Dinosaur' is an enchanting story about the dino Aladar, that ends up with a group of a charming lemur family, one day, a huge meteor crashes down, and under a spectacular odyssey, they must find a peaceful valley.
This is Disney's 100% computer animated version of 'The Land Before Time', and while 'LBFT 1', and further on..., is for kids of all ages, 'Dinosaur' is for the elder kids, and their adults, that surely will love it too, and also a gem for those who love spectacular movies on big screens.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Dinosaur Mania
Review: Presenting the all-encompassing 2-disc DVD edtion of Disney's Dinosaur. Go behind the scenes for an unique, inside view of the film that was twelve years in the making, and includes over 13,000 indivudual special effects. -From the back cover
Disney's Dinosuar is now in a wonderful 2 disc collector's edtition. The first disc includes the movie, 2 audio commentaries, 1 with Directors and effects supervisors, 2 with production team and producer, Film Facts Fossil Dig: Go behind the scenes while watching the film, Dinopedia, Dinosearch, Aladar's Adventure, Theatervision, Isolated Sound Effects Track, and DVD rom and Web Links. Disc 2 includes the entire making of process of Dinosaur. Something Dinosaur fans will not want to miss.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Dino Joke
Review: Let's face it: Disney movies are for kids. While Dinosaur does have some hefty action sequences and questionable humor, the premisis of this movie is geared towards a younger audience. The visuals presented in Dinosaur are very nice, and the movie really is easy on the eyes. Like I mentioned earlier, there is enough action and humor in here to keep it interesting, along with a "should have known better" moral. However, I feel the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs special is a better, and more accurate, way of looking at these prehistoric reptiles. Not only does Walking with Dinosaurs look better, but it's much more interesting. Dinosaur is a great children's shows, but it isn't what adults have been waiting for.


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