Pam Marsden, producer of Disney Dinosaur comes right out and says it: "Dinosaur is a fantasy, it is not a science documentary."

It is intended to tell a story. For that reason many changes were made to what paleontologists know about the real history of dinosaurs and also to how the dinosaurs look and behave.

The most obvious difference is that these dinosaurs talk! There's not much evidence that real dinosaurs did that. For one thing, they had very small brains. For another, they may not have had lips the way the human beings do, and lastly they probably did not have sophisticated vocal chords. Modern parrots may sound like they are talking, but they are imitating human speech, and there were no human beings around in the Cretaceous for dinosaurs to mimic.

"The film is basically set in the Late Cretaceous and we did a lot of research," Pam Marsden says, "but the real animals that existed then didn't always lend themselves to storytelling." The lemurs that existed  were "not very photogenic." So the lemurs in the movie are based upon modern Shipaka lemurs from Madagascar.

The Iguanadons were chosen because there were "too many frills to illustrate" on other animals. Iguanadons are "much like horses," they were easier to animate. (see our article on Mark Hallett for more details)

That also explains why the mouths of the iguanadons were changed. "Obviously," Marsden says, "dinosaurs didn't smooch. No paleontologist would say that.  We needed faces that animators could relate to and faces that could act."  For that reason the beaklike mouth of a real iguanadon was changed. Iguanadons have back teeth, but the iguanadons in the movie have reduced beaks that appear like front teeth underneath a lip. The "lips" give the Iguanadons the ability to easily express their emotions in a way that an audience can understand quickly and easily.

There are other animals included that did not exist in the Late Cretaceous, but they looked kewl so they became part of the cast.  Unfortunately, the "kewl look" could not be extended to every animal. There is so much evidence that many dinosaurs had feathers, but the budget of the film prevented the filmmakers from putting feathers on the "raptors." The computing time and power was just too long and expensive!

In some of the early versions of the script, the dinosaurs did not talk at all. Narration was experimented with. There was even an test made where the audience would have heard the dinosaurs "think" with voice overs the way the animals did in Homeward Bound, the remake of The Incredible Journey. But the filmmakers did not feel that this engaged the audience very well, not the way dialogue did. In the end, Dinosaur is about telling a story and dialogue is a wonderful way to do that!

No one knows what colors real dinosaurs were. So far, paleontologists have not found any evidence of pigment, so it is all guess work. The Disney animators picked color schemes that were interesting, dramatic, and that helped the audience tell the characters apart.

Of course, none of the real locations exist any more. The world has just changed too much in 65 million years! Because the film uses real backgrounds for these dinosaurs, they could only film existing places and countries: Australia, Samoa, Hawaii and other locations. One of the biggest differences between Now and the Late Cretacous is grass. There was no grass in the Late Cretaceous. Pam Marsden and the animation team felt that it was "lush and beautiful."

It all comes together: research, fact, fantasy and storytelling. It is a two edged sword. On one hand, the dinosaurs are not exactly like real dinosaurs, on the other hand, in the process of animating the "fantasy dinosaurs" many discoveries were made about how the dinosaurs may a have really moved that are not considered in two-dimensional paintings or drawings. The final result is that Pam Marsden and her team told a  great story, and members of the audience are inspired to look at dinosaurs in a new way and hopefuly to learn more about the "real thing."
 

Now that YOU have seen the film please write and tell us what other differences you've found  between the characters in the movies and real, paleontologically correct dinosaurs or animals or events in history. Do you think these are bloopers or what?

We'll publish your "factoid" and your name (if you'd like).

E-mail us at: Dinogazette@Juno.Com by clicking on the address.

There's lots of space available! Start writing!

The current answers on on the next page....