We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (film)

We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story
Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan
Directed by	Dick Zondag Ralph Zondag Phil Nibbelink Simon Wells
Produced by	Steve Hickner
Screenplay by	John Patrick Shanley
Based on	We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story by Hudson Talbott
Starring	John Goodman Blaze Berdahl Rhea Perlman Jay Leno René LeVant Felicity Kendal Charles Fleischer Walter Cronkite Joey Shea Julia Child Kenneth Mars Yeardley Smith Martin Short
Music by	James Horner
Edited by	Nick Fletcher Sim Evan-Jones
Production company	Amblimation
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	November 24, 1993 (1993-11-24)
Running time	72 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$9.3 million (US)

We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story is a 1993 American animated children's science fiction adventure comedy film, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, distributed by Universal Pictures, and originally released to theaters on November 24, 1993 for the United States. Starring the voice talents of John Goodman, Jay Leno, Walter Cronkite, Julia Child, and Martin Short.

It was based on the 1987 Hudson Talbott children's book of the same name, which was narrated from the perspective of the main character, a Tyrannosaurus rex named Rex.

Plot

The film opens with a trio of young bluebirds harassing their youngest sibling, Buster (Blaze Berdahl). As Buster leaves his family, he meets an intelligent orange T. rex named Rex (John Goodman) playing golf. He explains to Buster that he was once a ravaging dinosaur, and proceeds to tell the story of how he came to become what he is today.

65 million years in the past in the Cretaceous Montana, Rex was a savage and frightening creature who terrorized smaller dinosaurs. As he is seen chasing a Thescelosaurus, his rampage is interrupted when a futuristic aircraft arrives, and he is then greeted by a small green alien-like creature named Vorb (Jay Leno) who lures him into the craft and force feeds him "Brain Grain", a cereal that increases a creature's intelligence. Rex is given his name and introduced to other dinosaurs that have been fed Brain Grain: Dweeb the green Parasaurolophus (Charles Fleischer), Woog the blue Triceratops (Rene LeVant) and Elsa the purple Pteranodon (Felicity Kendal), who develops an immediate crush on Rex. Later, they meet Captain Neweyes (Walter Cronkite), the inventor of the cereal and pilot of the aircraft, who then reveals his goal of allowing the children of the present time to see real dinosaurs, fulfilling their biggest wishes. He informs them that there are two people to watch for: Dr. Julia Bleeb (Julia Child), a scientist from the Museum of Natural History who will aid the dinosaurs, and Professor Screweyes, Neweyes' insane brother. He instructs them to find Bleeb and avoid Screweyes.

Neweyes drops the dinosaurs off at the East River in 1993, where they meet a young boy named Louie (Joey Shea), who plans on running away to join the circus. Upon reaching New York City, Louie realizes that the citizens would panic if they saw live dinosaurs and, with the help of Elsa, flies over the city in search of a good hiding place. During the flight, Louie comes across a girl named Cecilia (Yeardley Smith), who was crying; she explains that her parents are hardly around (saying that her father is into business, and her mother is more of a socialite). Louie convinces Cecilia to abandon her home and introduces her to the dinosaurs (Louie and Cecilia then quickly develop an infatuation for each other).

When the dinosaurs explain their goal of getting to the Museum of Natural History, Louie decides to disguise them as floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. During the parade, Rex hears all the children wishing to see real dinosaurs, so he starts to sing "Roll Back the Rock (To the Dawn of Time)" (the movie's theme song). When he sees the Apatosaurus balloon coming out in the parade however, Rex mistakes it for being real and hand shakes it too tight with his claws, causing its air sealer to pop open. The balloon runs out of air and falls on the dinosaurs, who are otherwise unharmed. When the audience realizes that live dinosaurs are among them, they fly into a panic. The local authorities are called in to stop the dinosaurs, resulting in a slapstick-filled chase scene.

As the dinosaurs lose the police, Louie and Cecilia venture to Central Park, where Professor Screweyes (Kenneth Mars) is running his "Eccentric Circus". They meet Professor Screweyes and cite their desire to join his circus. As they sign a contract, the dinosaurs arrive and try to save them. Screweyes, upon meeting the dinosaurs, explains that he delights in scaring people and believes that the dinosaurs would make a great addition to his circus. He then reveals his very own "Brain Drain", pills that are the polar opposite of his brother's Brain Grain. He demonstrates the Brain Drain on the two children, devolving them into chimpanzees; however, he makes the dinosaurs a deal: if the dinosaurs consume the pills and join his circus, he'd destroy the contract and release Louie and Cecilia; reluctantly and sadly, the dinosaurs accept the offer.

Believing that his friendship with Louie and Cecilia would be lost, Rex, reverting them back to their human selves (and thus wearing off the effects of the Brain Drain), tells the two to remember him.

As the kids awake the next morning, they are greeted by a circus clown named Stubbs (Martin Short). Upon seeing the dinosaurs returned to their natural vicious states, Louie and Cecilia, with the help of Stubbs, plan to sneak into the night's show and save the dinosaurs. Professor Screweyes claims he can control the now-wild Rex, which he succeeds in doing by hypnotizing him. Everyone watching the show gets frightened during the performance, and many run away. However, a crow accidentally activates flare lights, breaking Rex out of the trance and causing the hypnotic effect to end. The savage Rex realizes he has been tricked, becomes enraged and tries to attack Screweyes. However, Louie steps in and desperately tells Rex that killing Screweyes will not be worth it; these impassioned pleas serve to return the dinosaurs to their friendly natures. Just then, Captain Neweyes arrives in his aircraft and congratulates Louie and Cecilia, who proceed to kiss in front of a whole crowd of people; simultaneously, Elsa tells Rex her true feelings towards him, possibly sparking a relationship between the two. After Stubbs arrives to resign from Professor Screweyes's employ (which includes him giving him back most of his belongings with comedic results), Neweyes, Louie, Cecilia and the dinosaurs board the aircraft, leaving Screweyes to be swarmed upon by the crows. When the crows take off, all that is left of Screweyes is his fake eye.

The dinosaurs spend the rest of their days in the Museum of Natural History, allowing children to see live dinosaurs, fulfilling their wishes. Meanwhile, Louie and Cecilia reconcile with their respective parents, and the two become a couple.

Rex returns Buster to his family before returning to the Museum of National History, humming the movie's theme song to himself.

Voice cast

• John Goodman as Rex The Tyrannosaurus Rex the protagonist.
• Blaze Berdahl as Buster, The Bird
• Rhea Perlman as Buster's Mother
• Jay Leno as Vorb
• René LeVant as Woog The Triceratops
• Felicity Kendal as Elsa The Pteranodon
• Charles Fleischer as Dweeb The Parasaurolophus
• Walter Cronkite as Captain Neweyes
• Joey Shea as Louie
• Julia Child as Dr. Juliet Bleeb
• Kenneth Mars as Professor Screweyes the ringmaster of the eccentric circus and the main antagonist of the film.
• Yeardley Smith as Cecilia Nuthatch
• Martin Short as Stubbs The Clown

Production

Production and development on We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story began at Universal Studios in Universal City near Los Angeles, California and Amblimation in London, United Kingdom in May 1989, which is at the time An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991) was also in production. As in a five-year production schedule, it takes four years for the film to be made. In January 1990, after the film's voice actors recorded their voices for the characters, animating and filming began through storyboards, pencil tests (rough and clean-up) and ink and paint (the final version of the film) to bring the characters to life, using cameras and recorded audio. James Horner composed music for the film, including the only song "Roll Back the Rock (to the Dawn of Time)" performed by John Goodman. After four years in the making, the film was completely wrapped in the fall of 1993 (the time before the movie's theatrical release on November 24, that year).

Actor John Malkovich was originally set to voice the role of Professor Screweyes but dropped out because of disagreements with the animators' vision of the film. Upon the movie's release, Malkovich was a vocal critic of the project, arguing that the scope of the script was not fully realized and that the final product was "sub par, to say the least." To this day, Malkovich generally refuses to talk about the film. In a rare 2003 interview, Malkovich made a brief allusion to the movie, saying, "Good ideas go to die in Hollywood. I worked on an animated movie about dinosaurs in New York once. It was completely bureaucratized. They took something that had art in it and put it in the laps of people that only cared about the bottom line, and look what happened." In a later portion of the interview, Malkovich went on to say, "Yeah, projects like We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story—they just make you sick. That's why I left this town. It's all about the money, the bottom line. It's disgusting."

Deleted Scenes

A scene in which Screweyes cages and chains the dinosaurs, explains how he lost his eye and blasts Brain Drain down their throats with actual cannons causing them to transform back to their monstrous states was fully animated, but ultimately cut from the movie on the grounds that it was too intense. Shots of it can still be seen in the original trailer.^[1]

Promotion

To promote the film's release, a giant helium balloon of Rex the T. Rex was included in the real-life 1993 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. Unfortunately, as the parade moved through Columbus Circle, high winds caught the Rex balloon and caused it to lift over the nearby sidewalk. The head of the Rex balloon struck a protruding street light and popped, but the rest of the dinosaur's body remained inflated until the end of the parade.^[2]

There were also video game adaptations of the movie released for the SNES, Sega Genesis and Game Boy.^[3] The Game Boy version was altered in other regions to feature a different IP instead. In Sweden the game featured instead the cartoon character Bamse. In Australia, the game was called Agro Saur and featured the puppet Agro. In Europe, the game featured an original character called Baby T-Rex. A fifth version featuring Edd the Duck was to be released in the UK but was later cancelled^[4] (the film was never released to UK cinemas, going directly to video in 1994).

Pizza Hut carried a series of toys. Dakin and Just Toys made stuffed animals and other things like bendies.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 38% approval rating, based on 16 reviews (6 "fresh" and 10 "rotten").^[5][6] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 1 star out of 4 stars and wrote, "It's shallow and kind of dumb, and the animation is routine, and the story isn't much, and the stakes are a lot higher these days in the featurelength animation game". Variety's Daniel M. Kimmel gave the film a positive review and wrote, "In spite of narrative problems... the film's chief appeal is its central conceit -- that giant monsters... can be transformed into creatures who like to play with children".

Box office

The film grossed a total of $3,707,770 on its opening weekend and a total domestic gross of $9,315,576 in the United States, resulting in a box office bomb.^[7]

Home video release history

• March 15, 1994 (VHS)
• May 26, 2009 (DVD)^[8]
• November 17, 2015 (Blu-ray)^[9]

Aspect ratio

The laserdisc release was presented in its original widescreen aspect ratio. When the film was released on DVD in some other countries, it was presented in the pan and scan format. However, the widescreen version of the film was once available at Hulu, but was removed. When the film was finally released on DVD in the United States and Canada on May 26, 2009, it was presented in its original theatrical ratio in anamorphic widescreen, being Universal/Amblin's first animated film to be presented in widescreen on a Region 1 DVD (although international DVD releases of An American Tail (which eventually got a widescreen Blu-ray release in the United States and Canada in 2014), An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, and Balto were presented in widescreen), the next would be The Land Before Time (which eventually got both new widescreen DVD and Blu-ray releases in the United States and Canada in 2015), and also Universal's second animated film from the 1990s to be presented in widescreen on a Region 1 DVD (the first being Jetsons: The Movie).

Soundtrack

This soundtrack included the songs "Roll Back the Rock (to the Dawn of Time)" and "Roll Back the Rock (to the Dawn of Time) (Finale Version) by James Horner, Little Richard and Thomas Dolby.

Soundtrack album track listing

1. Main Title / Primeval Times – 4:14
2. Flying Forward in Time – 5:48
3. Welcome to New York – 2:26
4. First Wish, First Flight – 3:48
5. A Hint of Trouble / The 'Contract' – 1:49
6. Roll Back the Rock (to the Dawn of Time): performed by John Goodman – 2:55
7. Grand Slam Demons – 2:05
8. Hot Pursuit – 3:18
9. Central Park – 1:21
10. Screweyes' Circus / Opening Act – 1:12
11. Circus – 2:29
12. Fright Radio / Rex's Sacrifice – 6:19
13. Grand Demon Parade – 7:39
14. The Kids Wake Up / A New Day – 2:57
15. The Transformation – 5:30
16. Special Visitors to the Museum of Natural History – 2:12
17. Roll Back the Rock (to the Dawn of Time): performed by Little Richard – 2:56

Other media

A novelization of the film entitled "We're Back! Dinosaur's Story: The Novelization" was later released.

See also

• The Land Before Time
• Jurassic Park
• Dinosaur
• The Good Dinosaur

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (film)

• We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story at the Internet Movie Database
• We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story at The Big Cartoon DataBase