Oh, Hallmark Channel shows, how I love to hate thee most of the time. Out of all the Hallmark’s scifi and/or fantasy series (which is only a few), Dinotopia is the only one I actually enjoyed.
Dinotopia is based off a series of books by author and illustrator James Gurney. It’s an isolated land where dinosaurs are sentient and coexist with humans in a peaceful society. It looks sort of like Ancient Rome, but with dinosaurs everywhere. But even that doesn’t describe it well enough. It’s quite an imaginative and well fleshed out world shown in this short series of illustrated books. The Hallmark TV series is the same basic concept, and follows two brothers, David and Karl, whose plane crashes into the sea in a thunderstorm and they swim ashore to the island. It becomes clear that it’s impossible to leave the island, so they reluctantly decide to try and form a new life for themselves. They befriend a future matriarch named Marion, a Troodon named Zipeau, and a suspicious man named Cyrus Crabb, and struggle to adjust to their new lives in this land out of time.
This miniseries lasted 3 very long episodes that totaled in at 4 hours and 10 minutes, taking up two whole DVD’s to tell the story. To be honest, so much happens in the plot that it would take way too long to describe. But the basics are as I described, with two brothers trying to make a new life for themselves on a dinosaur society. But the larger problem is that the society’s main source of power, the magical Sun Stones, are burning out. This is causing the predators of the land to be more aggressive than usual, and they start hunting outside of their normal territories. All sorts of havoc and trouble are caused, and the brothers are right in the middle of it.
The characters are only decently written. The dynamic between the brothers David and Karl and how they deal with their new life in Dinotopia is a bit cliche’d at times. David sometimes seems almost too willing to accept the way life is in the land. Although, if I found out that I was on a dinosaur island and had no possible way of leaving, I think I’d try to adapt the best I could as well. Karl, on the other hand, is a lot of times too resistant to learning the ways of Dinotopia, and the character’s motives for acting how he did weren’t ever clearly given. He was downright mean at certain points, and it just didn’t seem like he was written well enough for his actions to make sense. But as the series goes on, he starts getting more likable. The closest friend to the brothers, Marion, is a bit more interesting. She’s got more responsibility on her shoulders and constantly tries to prove herself to be a capable leader. The dinosaur companion of the group, Zipeau, is basically… a dinosaur version of C-3PO, if he was more obsessive over books and studying mammals. He was always my favorite part, even if he may have been kind of annoying at times.
Aside from a few minor character nitpicks I may have, the story that the characters go through is actually very good. The story is unlike a lot of other fantasy shows I’ve seen. It’s so unique and interesting that it’s hard not to keep watching just to see what happens next. On top of that, the world it’s set in is awesome! The idea of a place where dinosaurs and humans live together has been done before, and has been done many times since, but never has it been quite as engrossing as Dinotopia. It’s executed well enough to stand out among the more childish attempts. This is due mostly to the special effects.
Being a television series from 2002 (made by Hallmark, no less), you probably wouldn’t expect the special effects to be very good at all. Obviously it’s not going to be as good as TV’s standards in 2016… but I have seen some unbearably awful CGI on the Syfy Channel these days. Heck, on other channels for other shows, the effects are so vomit-inducing that you’d think the strings and puppets from 60’s scifi movies were more convincing. But with Dinotopia, the CGI is actually pretty darn good! Considering when it was made, I’m surprised that the effects are as good as they are. Sure, nowadays the dinosaurs don’t look real at all, but they look a whole lot better than made for TV movies like Sharknado or Mega Shark VS Giant Octopus. In Dinotopia, the movements are much more smooth and natural, the textures… could honestly use a little work, but they aren’t bad. The wide shots of places like Waterfall City or Canyon City from a distance look great, and the scenes inside the cities are very impressive. There’s so much going on in the backgrounds, especially in Waterfall City. Much considerable effort went into fleshing out the world of Dinotopia, and it made the series that much more entertaining to watch.
This miniseries holds a special place in my heart because I used to rent it from the video store (when they still existed) all the time as a young child. The only problem was that the store I was renting it from could only provide the first DVD. Disc 2 was cracked, and they couldn’t replace it for some reason. So for years I could only watch the first 87 million hours of this 120 million hour show (did I mention it is quite a long show?). Even when I bought my own copy with both discs all the way back in 2006 when it was on sale at the Chicago Field Museum, I never put in disc 2. For what reason I didn’t, I don’t know. But finally, just a couple days before posting this review, I had enough time in my life to finally see the conclusion to this epic story. It was… somewhat fulfilling. Yet sort of anticlimactic. It wasn’t a bad final half, but it wasn’t what I was expecting, either. Oh well.
In conclusion, Dinotopia is a very impressive miniseries, full of imagination, (relatively) great effects, a memorable musical score, and is all around fun to watch. It’s on Netflix at the time of posting this review, so if you’re interested in giving it a try, you don’t have to search for the DVD online. I recommend it for sure!
FINAL RATING: 3.5 / 5
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