I don’t know what fossil records contributed to the making of the series of CG-animated vignettes that make up Dinotasia, but it seems directors Erik Nelson and David Krentz found some evidence of a dead triceratops stabbing, an arm-ripping incident and other various dinosaur-on-dinosaur violence courtesy of today’s palaeontologists.
After that they teamed up with Werner Herzog to narrate the whole thing, which will open in London on May 4, which must be why The Avengers is opening on April 26 across the pond rather than its stateside May 4 debut. No sense in competing with this.
The animation in this feature was originally created for the Discovery Channel series “Dinosaur Revolution” which aired last September, but not as it was originally intended.
The trivia section at IMDb offers some interesting information on the production:
[“Dinosaur Revolution” was originally] intended to be a comedic but more adult-oriented and silent animated show with no narration, until the Discovery Channel changed the format to a television documentary in the final stage of development. Hence the drastic shifts in tone, from scientific and serious to over-the-top sensational and goofy, as well as the tacked-on narration and the talking heads.
Twelve hour-long episodes were planned at the beginning of production. The finished series cut this down to a mere four, thus many planned and storyboarded stories had to be deleted. According to the creators, only those stories “survived” that had been already close to being completed.
After the televised version of the show had met with mixed viewer reactions, the Discovery Channel decided to postpone releasing the DVD and Blu-ray, and began working on a drastic re-cut, to present the series as it was originally conceived.
I can only assume Dinotasia is that drastic re-cut, but that being said, I’m still not sure why use “From the creators of Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Grizzly Man” considering they appear to be tonally different.
Oh well, if you like hearing Werner Herzog talk and enjoy watching dinosaurs maul one another (and whatever is going on around the 1:26 mark) then have at it. Word is it will open in the US later this year.
[via Criterion Cast]
