Dinotopia (TV Miniseries)
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Movie Reviews of Dinotopia (TV Miniseries)
Movie Review: The Dinotopian Fan Will Adore It!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd read Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time By James Gurney years ago. Its format-a journal like book, full of spectacular painted pictures of Dinosaurs living amoungst humans (or perhaps the other way around) was exciting to me, and I loved the book straight off, with it's lovely illustrations and even better story, with superb characters and a wonderful plotline. When I heard about this series debut as a "mega series" on TV, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd heard some rumours, and I believed that the storyline had been changed. (I was getting ready to be disappointed.)
I was wrong. This charming and wonderful movie is what takes place after the book...and I was thrilled to hear the books characters names-Lee Crabb, Will and Arthur Denison and Sylvia of the Hatchery, intertwined with the story of David and Karl.
David and Karl are half brothers, who were never close and couldn't be more different. Karl is defiant and modernized, while Dave prefers to stay at home, reading books and being alone. But their father ask them to go on a plane trip in his personal plane, and reluctantly they agree. Their father puts Karl that the controls, and they're off.
But quickly, they run into a severe storm, and the plane crashes into the ocean below them. Quickly fighting to get out, Karl and David go to the surface, only to find that their father is not with them.
Presuming he is dead, they are practically washed upon a strange island, which at first seems to be empty of life.
As they explore, trying to find someone to help them, they find a carved head of some creature. Suddenly, a loud explosion comes from within it, and it blows somewhat apart.There they meet the peg-legged Cyrus Crabb, who informs them that he was on some sort of archaeological job, and that they've been washed upon "Dinotopia".
He takes them to the village nearby, and to their intense amazement, they come across an angry dinosaur, flinging it's spiked tail at huts and stand along the roads of the small town. A girl mysteriously appears, and soothes it into submission.
The next day, Karl and David travel with the girl-Marion, daughter of the mayor of Waterfall city,who they will eventually BOTH fall in love with (and does this create conflict) to find out more about where they are and try to find a way to make it back home...but little do they know, they will be needed to help and save the entire island of Dinotopia from destruction, aided by a scholarly dinosaur anemd Zippo, a new baby Twenty-Six (aptly named by Karl, who has not much imagination) and the maybe trustworthy Cyrus Crabb.
It is an enchanting movie, great for true lovers of the Dinotopia books or just fans of Dinos or great movies, it was much better than I ever hoped it would be. I'm truly excited for it to come out on DVD-my whole family really enjoyed it, and we will hope to watch it many more times in days to come.
One raindrop raises the sea...
Movie Review: Excellent mini-series film of the book
Summary: 5 Stars
My son (now 10) and our family fell in love with this original Emmy award winning Dinotopia mini-series with it's 'all star' cast. It's a two DVD set edited into a superb long film (running over to the second DVD). Personally I prefer serials like these kept to their original episodes and credits to maintain pace and the episode cliff hanger, particularly for the kids at bedtime, but this film works quite well. The DVD set includes an actually interesting 'making of' featurette. Initially my son absolutely couldn't tolerate the spin off Dinotopia full series than came later when they changed all the actors, and has taken a few years to get round to watching his multi-DVD `series' set despite viewing this original Dinotopia film many times. The spin-off series has a more jocular mood with the charactor's presented in a more likeable way than the moody, angry and pious (bordering on pompous in the Mayor's case) tone of this original.
All the family preferred this film's darker style, with classy Brit's Katie Carr and Jim Carter as the Dinotopians and American's Wentworth Miller and David Thewlis as the believable in-fighting step-brother's coping with their sudden change of lifestyle and recent loss of their father. I also really, really loved Lee Evans as dinosaur Zippo's voice, Terry Jone's as the messenger's birds voice and Canadian Tyron Leitso as hustler Cyrus Crabb. None of these actors carried over to the spin-off series - but of course any Dinotopia is better than nothing so check out the series as well - it's particularly cheap via Amozon resellers in NTSC. The darker nature of this DVD set is well suited to older pre-teens and teenagers (probably boys mainly), as many of the rampaging carnivore dinosaur scenes are a bit scary (but definitely not as much as Jurassic Park - although in heavily populated Dinotopia the body count does pile up more).
So overall, highly recommended, particularly as no more promised Dinotopia seems to have materialised. Picture & sound quality is superb, and the special effects are quite dazzling (particularly Waterfall City). This miniseries looks like it cost a million dollars. Well actually it cost 86 million dollars - with the single dino-hatchling animatronic character costing $100,000 alone. We got this DVD set very cheaply via Amazon resellers as the NTSC set, and our fuzzy VHS copies are now in the bin. Dinotopia (technically translated as 'terrible place') is a fictitious utopian island created from the imagination of author and illustrator James Gurney - his beautiful picture laden book 'Dinotopia, A land apart' is a good read as well.
Movie Review: A wonderful 'fantasy world' miniseries
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a GREAT 4 hour fantasy miniseries, with beautiful sets and production artwork, terrific special effects, and a pretty decent story line. Having said this, I have to admit that the plot was targeted at adolescents and young teens, and for an adult to fully enjoy the story requires that you slip your mind out of `critical gear' for a few hours.
Every time I watch Dinotopia, I am blown away by the unexpectedly high production values in this relatively unknown miniseries. Some of the reviews posted here lean in the direction that Dinotopia's effects are `almost as good' as movies like "Jurassic Park", and "Walking with Dinosaurs" but I actually think, in fairness, I would have to say that the effects in Dinotopia are better, or at least, at a minimum, more ambitious. The reason I say this is that Dinotopia takes on the MUCH more difficult challenge of turning some of the dinosaurs into full time, walking, talking, supporting characters, (and pulls this off remarkably well). Also, in this miniseries, a much higher percentage of the scenes are special effects shots involving a dinosaur character, and under these circumstances, you would think that there are bound to be a few shots that just don't quite hold up, but I'll be darned if I can pick out a single scene to cite as an example.
Given the fact that we are talking about maybe ten times the number of effects shots involving dinosaurs as there were in the first "Jurassic Park" movie, and given that the dinosaurs are interacting with the human characters in much more complex ways (in one scene, a man sized dinosaur named `Zippo' plays ping-pong with one of the human characters), I think they did an absolutely remarkable job on the effects in this miniseries.
Even minor characters like the `postal bird' are executed beautifully, and aside from the dinosaur effects, the quality of the sets and production artwork in many of the scenes is absolutely stunning, making this miniseries a real visual treat.
As far as the story line goes, I have to admit that I had to chuckle at times over the `psycho-babble', `granola-flake' perfection of the Dinotopian society, but this is, after all, a fantasy. Given the quantity and quality of the material, and the low cost of this DVD set, I think this miniseries was quite a bargain, and I can't think of another recent DVD purchase that has pleased me more.
Movie Review: Inspiring and artistic - Peacefull and magnificent
Summary: 5 Stars
at LAST !
one film with no fearfull scenes - (to be entertained doesnt mean someone needs to be frightened.. )
no nightmares ,...!
AT LAST no unnecessary stupid killing.
innocent JUST LIKE A KIDS HEART.
beautifull images original imagination,.... INSPIRING !
SO artistic...
all that critic others wrote, just has to do with technical stuff.
kids dont see a film criticizing it - they watch it with their feeling, and this film is full of love , piece, honesty and respect, hurt and loss.. about feelings.
SO NATURAL....not overplayed! .
I dont want steril films that just keep my eye busy ..
and I really dont think this film is in any way threatening to democratic beleifs... !!! I would say it gives kids the sense of authority...like their parents authority.
I liked that the bad charakters werent over-the-top bad - they were just like people in reality are. they werent unnaturaly "absolute" bad guys and good guys.
kids need to learn these things. that there arent just bad guys and just good guys.
they need to see that good guys can do bad things and bad guys arent always totally bad guys but can be good also..
I LOVED Dinotopia and am gratefull that I had a chance to see it. will see the other movies with dinotopia too..
Movie Review: Way better than you expect
Summary: 5 Stars
I rented this on tape because I saw that FRAMESTORE did the effects. They seem to only choose quality productions to work on (I love WALKING WITH DINOSAURS and LOST WORLD), so I thought I'd give this a shot. After seeing it, I've come to believe that I HAVE TO OWN IT. It was THAT GOOD. This movie has PHENOMENAL effects work to rival any StarWars movie. As a matter of fact, you'll see Lucas ripped off Dinotopia with the Naboo city scapes when you see this movie. That's right... they came from the Dinotopia book first.
This film has a good story, GREAT EFFECTS WORK (to rival a released movie), and good acting. Okay, maybe the acting is not that great, but the acting (the two main actors) got better as the movie went on. The effects more than make up for it. The character arcs are good... often I was wondering what direction the story was going, but it has a great payoff at the end.. and the characters resolve their individual challenges pretty well.
Much better than I expected, and not typical television fare. It should have come out in the theater in an abbreviated, three hour version. I say that because I can't see myself in the theater for more than the longest LOTR movie, anyway. Anyway, great buy!!