DINOTOPIA: Hallmark's Weird Talking Dinosaur Movie | Billiam

yeah this is billiam let's talk about dinosaurs you know these dudes they lived on the planet like 65 million years ago they're all dead unfortunately but you know i think we've all collectively thought what if somehow dinosaurs survived wouldn't that be kind of neat from works like the lost world by arthur conan doyle and the super mario brothers movie plenty of popular fiction has pondered the question what if dinosaurs somehow survived a few weeks ago while blindly browsing the word dinosaur on amazon.com as i do every wednesday morning and every other morning i came across this dinotopia it's a three episode series about an island of dinosaurs and people living together in harmony and it's produced by hallmark if you want to win you're gonna have to learn how to smash well i will learn how to smash dinotopia the miniseries is based on dinotopia the books a series written and illustrated by paleo and archaeological artist james gurney the core books are presented as research notes of an explorer arthur dennison who washes ashore the mysterious island of dinotopia with his son will in dynotopia intelligent dinosaurs live alongside humans who have descended from those who've shipwrecked on the island with an imaginative world with its own language culture and traditions complemented by the gorgeous art dinotopia is pretty cool in 2002 disney picked up the rights to dinotopia and produced an 88 million dollar three hour and a half episode miniseries which aired on abc but was produced by hallmark abc and hallmark entertainment proudly present i mean yeah this doesn't look great now but it's definitely impressive for tv at the time the dinosaurs all look really cool they were actually worked on by jim henson's creature shop and the same team who created the dinosaurs for walking with dinosaurs hallmark is known for their typical christian coated cheesy rom-coms and let me tell you they really didn't learn to make anything else for dinotopia i mean there are dinosaurs unlike most hallmark movies unfortunately but there's also this weird sexual tension in the air always and with everyone i creamed you oh look i don't mind but if i could just for a moment i would like to thank today's sponsor skillshare thank you skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people including topics like illustration video freelancing and more if you're wanting to jump into youtube video creation this year or sometime soon skillshare has a great class by caleb babcock and niles gray all about iphone filmmaking which can help you get great quality footage out of equipment you may already own a lot of times when people are starting out they tend to focus a lot on what equipment they're using but you can get great quality stuff out of stuff you may already have access to and that's the way you're supposed to start and that's the best way to start with skillshare premium you get access to skillshare's entire library which has thousands of inspiring classes and with an annual subscription it's less than ten dollars a month and the first thousand of you to click the link in the description will get a free trial membership of skillshare premium which gives you access to their entire library so you can explore your creativity so go check it out and thank you again to skillshare for sponsoring this video so the mini-series is based on the first two books but the main characters aren't the denisons instead they're these two david and carl the denisons were explorers and intellects this is you know some dudes stepbrothers even david and carl are going on vacation with their dad via their private plane dang y'all can afford a private plane but dave is wearing a fit that dry well he's gonna be wet now because their plane just crashed their father is presumed dead but damn even with all that ocean david's drip is as dry as a piece of chalk they meet a local merchant cyrus crab who they trust not because he's going around blowing things up with dynamite but because they're so dumb to see the immediate threat in front of them you're the first archaeologist i've met who uses dynamite he brings them to this local village where this ankylosaurus running a muck it can't be it's a dinosaur david and carl take the whole living dinosaur thing pretty okay this was died off millions of years ago if only my boy if only enter princess marion well actually she's the mayor's daughter but she has some powers or something she puts her hand on the dinosaur's head and it's like oh i'm so sorry my tooth hurts she rips it out damn she's a mare's daughter and a dino dentist you were pretty impressive yesterday dealing with that whatever it was ankylosaurus weren't you scared i'm training to be a leader wanting to get home they follow marion back to waterfall city the capital of dinotopia in hope of getting help they run into some t-rexes but get rescued by the skybacks a group of cool guys writing their cool pterodons follow the rules they say so they're not as cool as no rules pterodactyl from no rules pterodactyl island they get taken to waterfall city where they meet zippo a troodon who speaks english dang this looks familiar and that's no accident one of the early attempts to adapt dinotopia was in the mid 90s and george lucas was involved they even got to a level of visual development which had some people raising eyebrows when naboo's design and the phantom menace looked so similar to waterfall city in dinotopia but james gurney sees it as a homage rather than george lucas stealing but i don't most dinosaurs speak dinosaur but never bother learning any human languages but zippo is a nerd so he speaks english no no no no it's perfectly all right it was completely my fault this dinosaur could talk zippo lets the boys stay in his home they meet the mayor everyone is so welcoming and so kind but that doesn't stop carl from being a huge jerk carl's like i wanna go home and they're like you literally can't the island's surrounded by like a bunch of huge rocks i don't care what your science says no like you will die why is everyone so mean to me the boys are told they need help assimilating into dinotopia culture and they have to go to dino school which is weird yeah i have to go to the bathroom do i need a pass no but tonight's homework will be on the codes homework forget it the assimilation into the culture is a little sudden and extreme and david is very chill about the care and teaching of humans you don't find that sick but their disagreements which fuel a lot of the drama in the plot just kind of play out like this i mean what are we doing here well carl i'm trying to study for graduation graduation what are you talking about graduation we don't belong here we're not dinotopians you're getting brainwashed can't you see that look i don't have time to argue with you okay are you insane i will now read to you all the codes of dinotopia he's resistant to just like anything they say i love this two survival of all or none four give more take less he's just like goddamn socialist propaganda but then later in the series carl is shocked that marion's mom won't feed him unless he does work you intend to eat our food well yeah i guess and you'll help us make it it's amazing how mr private jets entitlement works here carl's perspective is just overshadowed by his awfulness everyone is so patient with him and his little temper tantrums he's like i don't want to go to school perhaps there's something else you'd like to do nothing come on there must be something you'd like to do i mean it's not like they don't give him other options carl sets up this makeshift ping pong table in the library and plays ping pong with zippo nothing zippo was really excited about it because zippo is the coolest but carl is just relentlessly beating him i can't read his attitude i think he's getting some weird sense of superiority here don't worry zippo you'll get there so do you have um a human partner zippo tells the boys about dino human spiritual bonding like dinosaurs and humans find their special partner on dinotopia one's a human one's a dinosaur so david thinks that's nice but carl just keeps fixating on dinosaur human relations does that seem a little creepy i mean we're talking about lizards here he's getting ideas there's no way i'm gonna ever be walking around a lizard girlfriend gross man why would i be interested in those little arms big mouth or sexy tail spico i mean there definitely was or is definitely some kind of dinosaur relations going on here at some point in dinotopia's history legend says he was half man half dinosaur that means at some point somebody has curiously and dare i say bravely cross the thresholds of extinction to clap some dinosaur cheeks i wouldn't put too much thought into it but carl certainly does carl that is unnecessary destruction of public property and that is not how stegosauruses reproduce i love how she's like he's still pretty hot though meanwhile carl's trying to figure out if he's a triceratop or a tricera bottom then david does the unthinkable he's like mary and what if we i i don't know what if we as like two humans got together and she's like david that's disgusting we're both mammals david tries his shot and she kind of shuts him down but she sort of drags both of them along even though she definitely likes carl moore she's like carl you're pretty cute but one wrong move one little dino toe out of line and i'm gonna [ __ ] your brother i'm not kidding i'll [ __ ] them i'll do it just test me david there's many things you can learn from a brachiosaurus oh yeah like what like humility [Music] what does that even mean i just love this scene humility i love his reaction absolutely no idea what that's supposed to mean but he knows it wasn't good humility oh brachiosaurus that's a wonderful painting oh it's not that great cyrus says he needs a book from the library to help carl and get him off the island despite the fact that cyrus has been trying to get off the island his whole life as well unsuccessfully why don't you call on me at the shop sometime whenever you get tired of the scale is trying to change it oh great cyrus taught carl a dino slur carl decides to trust cyrus and steal the book from the library instead of borrowing it like a library would allow and hey zippo works there why would you betray zippo and trust cyrus look zippo books get stolen from libraries all the time not in dinotopia it's inconceivable to steal knowledge that should be for all carl decides to trust cyrus not because he taught him a slur that his good friend zippo finds offensive scalies or because cyrus has access to explosives but because cyrus is british and carl thinks that gives him the right to other people's cultural artifacts the tension between david and carl amounts to a fight which leads them tumbling over the waterfall where they discover an ancient temple which holds many of the secrets of dinotopian civilization they explore the temple which they think may hold sunstones but it's remained undiscovered due to it being the sacred territory of the carnivores the carnivores are these prehistoric gators they let zippo fall in the water cause they're really bad friends but then carl goes in to save him because i guess he decides he likes zippo all right i guess we gotta you know we gotta give carl credit here he won't he won't shut up about it unless we acknowledge what he did good good job carl i guess you still have time for a character redemption arc here they come back to this dock area like literally once per episode i guess you have to reuse the sets so they go back to waterfall city and the two write their final reports before graduation and carl gets the top prize because he wrote a poem or is it a fantasy caught in a landslide no escape from reality open your eyes look up to the skies and see after graduation they go to the village where marion's mom leads matriarch and what's that mean well in your world well i suppose it means she's in charge he does not like the answer i can never read anyone there's no urgency in anyone's performance except for maybe zippos but zippo is animated you're under arrest you'll be escorted by guard face trial of waterfall city i can't believe this i mean carl is mean but david and marion are just so stiff david can be snide sometimes carl has a little problem with authority he's been kicked out of 11 schools david i wasn't speaking to you yeah tell him carl makes his move he breaks into the girl's dormitory and he and marion go swimming at night but then later marion and david get some time alone in a pterodon nest absolutely nothing happens but later carl asks marion what happened he's jealous she's like hey you're being kind of jerk maybe something did happen i don't know maybe something will happen try asking again i said [ __ ] around and find out meanwhile cyrus tells zippo he thinks he found an entrance to an underwater cave which may hold extra sunstones the main power supply and dinotopia but he needs some library documents zippo catches on that he's the one who stole the book so cyrus stuffs them in a bag and throws him into the river shippo gets rescued but holy heck this cyrus guy is pretty bad no way we should trust him anymore so carl david and marion get assigned dinotopian society rolls david trains to become a skybacks rider and carl gets assigned a parental-like guardianship role marion goes to research pterodons in the valley carl wants to leave dinotopia he's on the boat he's trying to get away but the baby dinosaur runs into the water after carl yeah the guy with the human superiority complex gave his dinosaur a number instead of a name we're human beings and that means we're at the top of the food chain but they're reuniting is well i didn't like seeing the dinosaur almost drown uh but you know i guess carl's done two good things now uh so if we keep this up maybe we'll be on track for a character redemption arc by the end of the series david gets over his fear of heights and rides a cool pterodon but marion finds out bad pterodons are around and the sunstone dinotopia's source of energy is dying so they find out the cave they found maybe the remnants of an underground world where the dinosaurs survived the meteor and it could have sunstones in it previously cyrus gave carl a flare gun which he took because he doesn't see why we shouldn't give this cyrus guy another chance what of the scale he's ever done for you eh i'll tell you nothing carl uses the flare which awakes the herd the no rules pterodons dang they're not cool at all the no rules pterodactyls they just want to vibe and hang out and talk about other times they vibe together but the pterodons they want to hurt people the sun stones are gone that's what keeps away the bad dinosaurs nobody believes the pterodons are a threat but after ignoring the warning signs of cyrus's violent tendencies and racist rhetoric and info that the pterodons wanna hurt dinotopia from marion the pterodons come to raid the capital of dinotopia cyrus wants to team up and take them to the underwater entrance of the underworld because he thinks there may be more sunstones there the gang decides to trust cyrus not because he grabbed zippo stuffed them in a bag and threw him in a river and hopes he would drown and die or because you know he has deceived and dare i say trick them multiple times already or because he just dropped the essler in front of darling old zippo here damn scale is oh no offense professor but because david marion and carl are all willing to overlook that fact for the sake of unity can one of you [ __ ] stick up for your very good friend zippo who would literally die for any of you not a single one of these characters deserves zippo what are you doing this is where he threw me in the canal stop me in a sack this is making me feel very anxious don't be such a baby carl what the actual heck is your problem like jesus christ you are too close to the end of the miniseries your character arc is almost over you cannot redeem yourself at this point cyrus takes them to the underworld via submarine and cyrus betrays them what after being given the opportunity to do the right thing over and over again and failing to do so and threatening to hurt and even harming the citizens of dinotopia without any repercussions he's decided to do it again oh i'm flabbergasted but then cyrus is ambushed by their dad who's been alive here in isolation for about two years he's back he's got a big beard and he's [ __ ] traumatized me us actually the needle can't come fast enough the needle has had more delays than cyberpunk 2077 i am just full of topical humor today cyrus escapes the underwater cave in the sub but gets eaten by a sea dinosaur meaning that that sea dinosaur is cool the boys and the dad have to swim up through the stream with the newfound sunstones and they cross the dock with all the prehistoric gators for the 17th time in the series then marion needs to go to the top of the tower to replace the old sunstone with the new one but she faints right before she does it because she sucks so much and then zippo comes in and gets the job done at the last second because he's the only one who knows what's up the pterodons explode i mean they leave they go away marion says this bullsh i love you buzz dad's starting to come back to us and zippo well zippo is just happy to be with his good friends david carl and marion who will always have his back scalies there was actually a sequel tv series for dinotopia and an animated movie so if you want to see me cover more dinotopia stuff do everything you have to do to appease the tube like this video comment share it all of it also you can follow me on social media down below i'm just going to dino plug that right now hallmark knows how to make one kind of movie sappy cheesy soft focused christian coated romance movies it's their bread and butter you can't fault them for that i like to watch stuff like that sometimes but it really doesn't work here in dinotopia i mean david carl and marion are all so unlikable and it always feels like the sexual tension is a car hanging off the edge of a cliff ready to fall off at any second which begs the question can dinosaurs be sexy well somebody at hallmark thought so so anyways i'm tired i'm stressed i'm gonna go get some sleep [Music] you

Channel: Billiam

Views: 388,436

Keywords: Dinotopia, Hallmark, ABC, James Gurney, Billiam, commentary, nostalgia, Disney, TV Movie, Dintopia: A Land A part from time

Id: 5hzhTtmnfLA

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/artuno]

I'm hoping if we get more people talking about this series, we can get more Dinotopia.

Also, I keep forgetting it was a Hallmark product...

[u/SpiritSongtress]

I just watched this weekend. It was good.

[u/Dinoraptor101]

Can it be made available for free? The whole thing?

[u/Dinoraptor101]

Talking dinosaurs aren't weird! They are cute!