Dinosaur is the 39th entry in the Disney Animated Canon, released on May 19th, 2000. It is directed by Ralph Zondag (director of fellow animated dinosaur film We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story) and Eric Leighton, and written by John Harrison, Robert Nelson Jacobs, and Walon Green.

The hero is Aladar (voiced by D.B. Sweeney), an Iguanodon. His egg was separated from his family through a very convoluted turn of events, and made its way to an island. There, he was found by a family of lemurs (Alfre Woodard, Max Casella, and Hayden Panettiere), who adopt him when he is born - although the patriarch lemur Yar (Ossie Davis) opposes initially. Time passes offscreen and afterwards we see the adult Aladar living care-free with the primates in the island.

Sadly, a meteor strike destroys the island and Aladar and his adoptive family are forced to escape to the mainland. Once there, the main plot kicks in and they join a herd of similarly displaced animals who are migrating through the vast, trackless desert with treacherous terrain and desperate, starving predators. They are seeking literally greener pastures, a valley known as the Nesting Grounds, which is apparently the only fertile land left untouched by the meteor. The herd is led by Kron (Samuel E. Wright), an old, hard-assed Iguanodon — the first member of his own species Aladar has ever met — who insists that everyone follow his orders even if it kills them all. He and his lieutenant Bruton (Peter Siraguisa) refuse to make concessions for the oldest and youngest members of the herd, an issue that he and Aladar especially lock horns thumbspikes over, though Aladar catches the eye of Kron's more empathetic sister Neera (Julianna Margulies). Falling in with the eldest members of the herd - Baylene (Joan Plowright), a Brachiosaurus, Eema (Della Reese), a Styracosaurus, and Url (Frank Welker), an Ankylosaurus - Aladar's compassionate ways begin to transform the lives of those around him, and he may be what the herd needs to reach the Nesting Grounds and a better future.

Dinosaur is an extremely unique case for the Disney Animated Canon, particularly for the time period it was released in, as it is a hybrid of live-action photography for its settings, and CGI animation for its characters, special effects, and whatnot. The Secret Lab, a company formed from the merger of Dream Quest Images and Disney Feature Animation's Computer Graphics division, was the primary production studio who worked on the film. Notably, Dinosaur was also the first movie from the studio to have an original screenplay rather than being an adaptation or featuring pre-existing characters. The film's score was composed by James Newton Howard, who would go on to provide several other scores for Disney. Additionally, the film received several video game adaptations, and the Countdown to Extinction ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom would be renamed after the film and would be altered to feature Aladar.

Twenty-three years after the film's release, Aladar and his lemur family made a cameo in Disney's centennial celebration short Once Upon a Studio, and Aladar also appeared to represent the film in the credits of Wish later that year.

Not to be confused with Dinosaurs, a sitcom from Disney also frequently known as "Disney's Dinosaurs" or with the similarly-titled documentary Dinosaur!.

This film provides examples of:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Several of these occur after the main plot kicks in, but the most meaningful is in the cave between Plio and the wounded Bruton.
• Alternate Animal Affection: Aladar and Neera crossing their necks.
• Anachronism Stew: And among the main characters, Iguanodon was from the Early Cretaceous, Brachiosaurus was from the Late Jurassic, Styracosaurus was from the Late Cretaceous, and lemurs did not evolve until the Paleogene (and the characters' designs are based on modern lemurs).
  • That said, it’s worth noting that a large majority of the animals featured in the film (Styracosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Carnotaurus, Struthiomimus, Pachyrhinosaurus, Velociraptor, Oviraptor, Pteranodon, etc.) stem from the Late Cretaceous, circa 80 to 66 mya. However, this is still a timespan that is many times longer than the entirety of human history; for instance, both Styracosaurus and Ankylosaurus may be from the Late Cretaceous, they still lived about six million years apart.
  • The lizard the baby Parasaurolophus chases in the prologue is based on Longisquama, which predates every other animal in the film by nearly a hundred million years, living in the Mid Triassic.
  • Eric Leighton, one of the directors, basically admitted to this. He spoke about his team "want[ing] to learn as much about dinosaurs as possible", he also admitted that they would "cheat like hell" because they were not creating a documentary. A Disney press kit revealed that the film "intentionally veers from scientific fact in certain aspects".
• Animals Not to Scale: Crossed with Rule of Scary. In real life, Carnotaurus was smaller than the average Iguanodon (the latter was probably at least twice as heavy). They're scaled up to the size of a T. rex (which Iguanodon was comparable in length to) in the film so as to appear more threatening. Averted nicely with the Velociraptors, though, which are appropriately small.
• Anyone Can Die: Almost the entire lemur clan, several generic herd members (including the entire species of Brachiosaurus, except Baylene), Bruton, Kron, and the carnotaurs.
• Apocalypse Wow: As scary as it is, the meteor impact looks spectacular. It starts with a rain of colorful fragments from the much larger object and hauntingly, scarily beautiful music as the main meteor comes into view, crescendoing as it hits the ocean so far in the distance that you can't even hear the impact. All the clouds that filled the sky before are instantly blown away as it creates a blinding flash of light and what could easily be mistaken for the result of a nuclear detonation. Everything goes quiet for a few seconds, and then finally they feel the shockwaves from the impact and all hell breaks loose.
• Artistic License – Geology: A meteor that size would have not only vaporized everything within 20 miles, but caused waves 100 meters high, set the entire world on fire, and would have started a winter that would have lasted a decade — not to mention flash-fried everything from that distance with 200-700 mph winds at 700 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Artistic License Palaeontology:
  • Broadly speaking, Anachronism Stew and Misplaced Wildlife abounds. Animals from the Mid Triassic all the way down to the present day, from Australia, South America, Asia, North America, Madagascar, and Europe are all shown living together in the same time and place.^note Although all the continents were conjoined at one point during the age of dinosaurs as Pangaea, the movie is presumably supposed to be set during the Late Cretaceous, very long after Pangaea had rifted apart.
  • The Iguanodon beaks were covered in fleshy lips in order to animate the animals' speech better, though they can still be seen underneath at times. No ornithopod dinosaur known to science had facial features like this. It's particularly ridiculous given that Eema, a Styracosaurus, clearly has an accurate lipless beak, but her speech and mouth-syncing to her dialogue, as well as her capacity to emote, is not hampered in any way.
  • In Real Life, Carnotaurus was smaller than Iguanodon, so the dramatically oversized ones in the movie - about the same size as Tyrannosaurus rex, which was originally considered to be the antagonist species - can be chalked up to a combination of Rule of Scary and Rule of Cool. They're also present in North America even though the genus is from South America; while this is at least lampshaded with the characters noting that they haven't come as far north before as they do in the movie, it's still a Voodoo Shark of sorts because the two continents were still separated by ocean until the Great American Interchange of the Pliocene, long after the non-avian dinosaurs became extinct.
  • Kron and Bruton are supposed to be Iguanodon, but possess prominent bony nasal crests that more closely resemble Muttaburrasaurus, Altirhinus, or even Gideon Mantell's inaccurate Iguanodon that placed the thumb spike as a rhino-like nose horn. It's not impossible that Iguanodon had some sort of non-bony growth that wouldn't normally preserve in the fossil record (as dinosaurs like Pelecanimimus and Edmontosaurus can attest), but it's purely speculative.
  • The Oviraptor are portrayed as egg-thieves, much like what their name implies. However, this in fact is a misnomer: the first Oviraptor fossil described was thought to be raiding a Protoceratops nest, and its beak was even believed to be designed for cracking eggshells. However, after it was discovered that the eggs actually contained Oviraptor embryos, it became evident that the Oviraptor was actually brooding its own nest, and that the beak was more suited for an omnivorous diet consisting of plants, hard-shelled invertebrates and small animals. Though it is possible they did eat eggs from time to time, it's very unlikely that it was a major food source. Additionally, the Oviraptor's design actually based on its close relative Citipati, having a large crest distinct to that species.
  • The lizard-like Longisquama is portrayed not just as a glider, but as an active flyer that flew by flapping its sails. The gliding hypothesis was discredited long since, with the tall spines now believed to be used for display and arranged in a single row, much like a Dimetrodon's sail instead of two "wings". It's also portrayed as chameleon-like, with a long tongue and independently pivoting eyes, which are both purely speculative features.
  • While the Iguanodon are correctly depicted as quadrupedal, they run on all fours rather than on their hindlimbs. Meanwhile, the adult Parasaurolophus are depicted as bipedal, which gets jarring in that the juveniles are correctly depicted as quadrupeds.
  • The Pteranodon is shown fishing up Aladar's egg in a river despite pteranodontids being widely known as seagoing and piscivorous. Both the adult and its chicks are also depicted with large male crests; in such a sexually dimorphic animal, where the male is much larger than the female, the female is almost always the one that cares for the young while the chicks having big crests is as silly as a fawn being born with fully-formed antlers.
  • Aladar as a hatchling and his baby son at the end of the movie at the end both pee upon being picked up. Dinosaurs are reptiles and probably did not have liquid urine similar to modern birds and reptiles.
• Ascended Extra: The Pteranodon who's only present in the intro of the movie is part of the main cast in the PS1 game.
• Award-Bait Song: "Can Somebody Tell Me Who I Am" by Orange Blue. Although included on the soundtrack album in Germany, the film (unusually for Disney) has no songs.
• Awe-Inspiring Dinosaur Shot: The film begins with an Iguanodon overseeing her nesting grounds, followed by grand shots of other herbivores. The uplifting mood is ruined, however, when a Carnotaurus attacks a herd and indirectly tramples the Iguanodon's nest. Strangely, the trope plays out again when the one surviving egg is taken from one place to another, with an emphasis on scope and occasional peril as predators like Oviraptor and Pteranodon fight for said egg before it is dropped onto an island. Indeed, the egg would hatch to be the film's protagonist, Aladar.
• Babies Ever After: The film ends with the births of Aladar and Neera's offspring, as well as every other parent dinosaur who made it to the Nesting Grounds.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Overlaps with Obviously Evil. Kron and Bruton have huge nasal horns and cruddy thumb spikes, and it looks like they have been through a lot, but Aladar and Neera completely lack these features. It may be partially justified since the former are much older than the latter, as well as the idea that they've obviously been in more fights. This ends up being subverted as both Kron and Bruton are not evil, and the latter even fully repents when treated with decency by Aladar and his family.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Kron, who is stubbornly (though unwittingly) leading the herd to their deaths and the pair of carnotaurs tracking the herd throughout their journey.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • When the Carnotaurus stomps on the nest of eggs in the prologue, there's no smashed dino embryos, splattering fluids, or even yolks, despite the fact Aladar was only hours away from hatching at most, so all the other fetuses should have also been fully formed as well.
  • The fight between Kron and Aladar is remarkably bloodless (Aladar only gets open gash wounds on the left side of his face). Only Kron uses the thumb spikes Iguanodon possessed in the fight (believed to be used for defence and/or intraspecific combat), and only once, and even then it only barely cuts Aladar's chest without any bleeding. The rest of the fight is just them shoving each other.
• Bookends:
  • The beginning and end of the movie mirror each other in the arrangement of the nest, the view from inside the broken eggshell, and Yar's Urine Trouble problems with baby iguanodons.
  • The first and final Carnotaurus attacks both have the camera frames between the predator's legs to show it bearing down on its prey. But while the first succeeds in scattering the dinosaurs it is pursuing, the final Carnotaurus is forced to back off when Aladar unites the herd.
• Central Theme: Hope and teamwork, the key elements our protagonists uses to survive.
• Citywide Evacuation: There's a huge falling meteor strike the island home of Aladar and the lemurs, and they narrowly survive the impact blast wave, and swim the channel to the mainland.
• Clean, Pretty Childbirth: The film has the baby dinosaurs hatching clean. Nobody knows for sure about dinosaurs, but modern reptiles and birds are usually wet and have some residue from being in the egg, until they're able to dry off. A little bit of residue is seen oozing when Plio opens Aladar's egg at the beginning of the film.
• Colony Drop: A large asteroid crashes into the sea, turning the surrounding area into a wasteland and forcing Aladar and his family to find a new home.
• Crash-Into Hello: Aladar crashes into Love Interest Neera this way. Except it doesn't stop, and he continues to crash into the rest of the herd, one by one.
• Croc-Scaled Saurian: The pair of Carnotaurus have rows of crocodilian scutes and spikes covering their bodies. While this is in-keeping with theories of what Carnotaurus looked like at the time, a paper published in 2021 suggests they instead possessed an irregular distribution of scutes instead of discrete rows.
• Crossing the Desert: A scene in the middle of the film has Kron leading the herd on a lengthy trek across the desert to a lake. The going is pretty tough, with several members of the herd succumbing to exhaustion, heat, and dehydration. Even the young, fit Aladar has a hard time, especially since he has to keep the elderly, weak Eema and Baylene moving. The only ones who show no sign of exhaustion are Kron and Bruton themselves.
• Darker and Edgier: Than a lot of Disney fare. You could imagine how surprised Disney fans felt when a movie such as this was produced by the very animation studio that was primarily known for their whimsical animated musicals at the time. The film features several Family Unfriendly Deaths, themes of starvation, dehydration, hopelessness, numerous off-screen deaths (like the entire Lemur island population and Brachiosaurus herd, for a couple) and is pretty much a Disney post-apocalyptic story. The antagonists are very realistic villains too: the Carnotaurs and the raptors are just predators desperate for food who only attack the stragglers/fallen members of the herd; while Kron genuinely wants to save the herd and his little sister even if he's doing it the wrong way, making him multi-dimensional. There's also a scene where Eema goes into the lake bed and looks fully prepared to die, unable to carry on.
• Death of a Child: There are initially countless baby dinosaurs seen in the herd, but by the end of the film, there's only a handful left after the long journey. This also applies to every young lemur who didn't survive the meteor strike.
• Doomed Home Island: Lemur Island is destroyed by the end of the first act, forcing Aladar and his family to flee to the mainland.
• Dumb Dinos: The herbivores are sapient, but none of the carnivores show the ability to talk and seem more instinct-driven. Even the herbivores suffer from a self-destructive social Darwinism that only Aladar, raised by the lemurs, lacks (at first).
• Dwindling Party: The size of the herd thins out over the course of the migration, as members of the group gradually die from exhaustion. We see this happen to a Struthiomimus and a Stygimoloch.
• Empathic Environment: The storm during the whole cave scene.
• Everything Makes a Mushroom: The meteor strike in the first act of the film goes off like a nuclear blast, even accompanied by a blinding flash. There is a notable lack of tsunami waves, with a fiery blastwave incinerating the island instead as if the meteor detonated above the ocean even though it does crash into the waters. However, volcano-like activity still springs forth from ground zero despite lack of said waves.
• Family-Unfriendly Death:
  • Several members of the herd die of exhaustion, dehydration, heat, or a combination of the three. Eema almost suffers this fate as well before Aladar and Baylene find some water.
  • The lemur population of Lemur Island (besides Aladar and his family) are completely wiped out when the shockwaves from the meteor strike destroy the island and reduce it to a charred rock. Off-screen, countless dinosaurs of course die in the meteor strike, including every Brachiosaurus who's not Baylene.
  • A Carnotaurus, after destroying the nest Aladar's egg is located in, actually mauls a Pachyrhinosaurus to death.
  • One of the Struthiomimus that dies on the migration is eaten by Velociraptor until all that remains is a skeleton with scraps of meat and organs hanging off of it (a Deleted Scene shows it was originally worse; it would've be shot from inside the body's chest cavity as the Velociraptor tore at its fleshy insides. Later, a Stygimoloch collapses of exhaustion (as seen in a deleted scene), and is devoured by a Carnotaurus.
  • The unnamed scout that accompanied Bruton in his search for water gets killed by one of the Carnotaurus, and it gets worse when we clearly see it rip a chunk of meat off his body.
• Flaming Meteor: Both the smaller meteors and the single big one seem to be entirely on fire, rather than causing the atmosphere to ignite.
• Foreboding Fleeing Flock: As Aladar and the lemurs watch the meteor shower, Plio notices a flock of birds flying away from the island in panic moments before the asteroid appears in the sky.
• Furry Confusion: The carnivorous dinosaurs are depicted as being entirely vicious, instinct-driven monsters which can only screech and roar. Whether they can talk and simply choose not to isn't made clear, but they savagely attack any herbivore in sight either way. Url the Ankylosaurus also acts like a dog, in spite of all the other herbivorous dinosaurs being sapient; he's the only Ankylosaurus
• Gilligan Cut: "Look at that sweet little face! Does that look like a monster to you?" Smash cut to terrified shrieking and a demonic bellow as lemurs flee in terror through the jungle pursued by a roaring behemoth. It turns out to just be a game, however.
• Gut Punch: The Carnotaurus attack in the beginning can be this.
• A Handful for an Eye: During the climax battle between Kron and Aladar.
• Herbivores Are Friendly: The main characters are all herbivores, and the mean herbivore rivals are only trying to accomplish the greater good.
• High-Dive Escape: Aladar and his lemur family are forced to dive off a cliff and into the ocean in order to escape the destruction of their island home, and then make their way through the rough waters to the mainland beach, Aladar by swimming and the lemurs by clinging to floating debris.
• Inverse Law of Sharpness and Accuracy: None of the Iguanodons opt to use their actual thumb spikes. Kron slightly uses his in his fight with Aladar, and only nicks him (with a slash no less). When he does go in for the kill, Neera tackles him. Trying to fight a Carnotaurus is done via tail whipping and tackling rather than stabbing it in the neck. Justified in that in order to get close enough to stab the carnotaurs in the neck, they would have to have their heads right in the range of the carnotaur's hungry jaws. Also, an Iguanodon's thumb spike is not nearly long enough to actually kill a theropod the size of the film's carnotaurs. A tail-smack is far less risky and may actually be able to knock a carnotaur over long enough to escape.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • Aladar and the lemurs shortly before the meteor strike is about to destroy Lemur Island.
  • The herd when they reach the lake they've been migrating to and it's all dried up.
  • Also the herd's reaction when the surviving Carnotaur, starving and berserk with rage, appears, blocking off their only avenue of escape.
• Meek Mesozoic Mammal: The lemur tribe (which live on a tiny isolated island) is extremely fearful of dinosaurs before adopting Aladar, and evidently dinosaurs do not think much of them either. When Baylene and Eema first notice the lemurs riding on Aladar's back, the two equate them to skin parasites.
• Meteorite of Doom: An asteroid crashes down near Lemur Island, the shockwaves and flying debris destroying it and most of the lemurs there. Only Aladar and his family manage to escape. Throughout the rest of the movie, they find effects of the impact impeding their way.
• The Migration: The primary focus of the film, best seen at the midpoint during the desert crossing.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Carnotaurus was only found in South America, yet somehow shows up to hunt a bunch of Northern Hemisphere dinosaurs. However, this is arguably at least lampshaded, as Kron is surprised to hear carnotaurs attacked Bruton, as "they never come this far north" — although that doesn't explain how they've managed to cross the sea that separated the two continents at the time. The Koolasuchus (Australia) and Oviraptor, Talarurus and Velociraptor (Mongolia) seem more out of place on North America.
• Mood Whiplash: The upbeat and romantic courtship scene is followed by a meteor strike that kills off nearly all of the island's inhabitants, including all the lemurs that just been courting.
• Moses in the Bulrushes: Aladar, though his separation from his birth family was accidental.
• Most Writers Are Primates:
  • The reason given as to why there are modern-day lemurs in the movie is because Disney thought people needed something cute and human-like to relate to in a movie about dinosaurs.
  • The Iguanodon are given fleshy lips and front-facing eyes to make them visibly emote more obviously to human eyes. In reality, Iguanodon had a horny beak and eyes on the sides of its head.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!:
  • Narrowly averted. When Aladar and Bruton order a retreat deeper into the cave, they wake up the others as quietly as they can. When Url is woken, the first thing he sees is the two Carnotaurus on their doorstep and he lets out a loud yelp of fear. The predators look up... but eventually resume their sniffing, believing they were hearing things.
  • Kron already thought little of the elders at the back of the herd, but when Aladar goes to ask him to slow down after they complained about the pace, they get a place on his shitlist.
  • When the group is retreating into the cave, Baylene accidentally pushes the ceiling up, loosening a small boulder that falls and rolls all the way to the mouth of the cave, which proves to be a major tipping point that lures the Carnotaurus in after them.
• Non-Malicious Monster: The Carnotaurus and Velociraptor are only villainous due to being predatory dinosaurs and the protagonists being herbivores, and there being no other source of meat for many, many miles after the meteor strike.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: The word "dinosaur" is never said by the characters, since the term would only be coined by humans millions of years later. Strangely, Carnotaurs are still referred to by species even though no other dinosaur is.
• Outrun the Fireball: Aladar and the lemurs are forced to do this to escape the nuke-like meteor explosion.
• The Outside World: While still in the egg, the Iguanodon Aladar gets abducted to the remote island of the lemurs, where he hatches and is adopted. However, a horrific meteor shower obliterates the island, compelling Aladar and his lemur "family" to explore the mainland, just in time for the seasonal dinosaur migration.
• Parental Bonus: At the end of the film, Zini has found a group of lemurs native to the Nesting Grounds, and many, many young female bachelors who are surrounding him. Zini asks if any of them are up for a game of monkey in the middle, and he gets a huge, enthusiastic response.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Both the Velociraptor and the Carnotaurus are major antagonists, but they're ultimately just obstacles on the herd's migration and don't have motives beyond hunting the protagonists for food.
• Prehistoria: Critters from Triassic to Recent Period show up, but at least we don't have the stock volcano-filled, hellish landscape for the entire film (it briefly shows up immediately following the meteor impact).
• Prehistoric Monster: Subverted with the carnotaurs and raptors. All the other animals either have human-like intelligence or are portrayed in a realistic, docu-like way (albeit Kron's and Bruton's look was modified to make them more menacing). The predators weren't just mean, they were starving to death and desperate. Normally Velociraptors wouldn't attack something Aladar's size, but they were hungry enough to risk getting flattened if it meant they could eat. The carnotaurs weren't just monsters, either; they were smart enough to only attack dinosaurs that had lagged behind the herd. The one Carnotaurus that turns into the Big Bad appears to have been Driven to Madness when its mate is crushed to death and attacks the entire herd.
• The Promised Land: The Nesting Grounds goes with this as well.
• Real Is Brown: Played straight with most dinosaurs, which are generally grey-coloured; averted only with the heroes Aladar and Neera, both have pastel-coloured skins. Baylene has some purple hues to her, while Kron is largely purple and light red. Zini, being the principle kid-appeal character, has bright orange fur.
• Red Shirt: When Bruton is ordered to patrol the lake bed for signs of water, he takes a scout Iguanodon with him. The scout doesn't return. He is the only non-main dinosaur character to have dialogue, which contrasts with the rest of the dinosaurs in the herd who do not speak.
• Restricted Rescue Operation: Early in the movie there's a meteor strike and Aladar gets the lemurs he can to safety while outrunning the fire. Most of their family is lost. He spends the rest of the movie speaking out in defiance against this trope when Kron wants to leave the slower dinosaurs behind to slow down predators.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • When Bruton and the Iguanodon scout search for signs of water at the dried up lake, they're attacked by the carnotaurs. The viewer is meant to watch Bruton escape, but in the background, a Carnotaurus can be seen eating the extra Iguanodon, with a chunk of flesh hanging from its jaws.
  • It's very hard to see due to the darkness of the cave, but if you look at the rocks close enough, you can see the corpse of the Carnotaurus that Bruton took with him to the afterlife.
• Sacrificial Lamb:
  • The entire population of Lemur Island besides Aladar and his family to mark the end of their peaceful time at home, and unbeknownst to them, the rest of the world is currently enduring much of the same thing with dinosaurs dying en masse to the meteor's devastation.
  • A dead Struthiomimus during the desert trek is only on screen for a few minutes at best, but it holds a lot of impact for the characters as Aladar regards it. One, it's a sign of how the herd under Kron's leadership doesn't help each other out when they're down; two, it's proof that Kron is a hard herd driver who has no mercy for his subjects; three, a long look at the panting Baylene and Eema is a clear sign that they could be next; and four, the sight of approaching raptors in the distance is a grim sign of what will happen to Aladar's family if they fall during the journey.
  • The Iguanodon scout that was paired up with Bruton was as Red Shirt as they come when the Carnotaurus attacked them during the search for water.
• Save the Villain: The true villains might be the carnotaurs, but Kron still qualifies; after being an antagonist to Aladar much of the film, and even after Neera attacks him to stop him from killing Aladar, the moment she sees he's in trouble he doubles back. Aladar follows, though not without frustration.
• Scenery Porn:
  • They start with the jaw-dropping prologue (famously used as a teaser trailer) and they never look back.
  • The shots during the Across the Desert scene are also pretty memorable.
• Shown Their Work: Although there are many more inaccuracies to name, especially with more modern paleontology, at the time this was one of the more accurate film depictions of the Late Cretaceous.
  • The overall depiction of Iguanodon being caring parents is accurate to what paleontologists knew about hadrosaurids at the time from the discovery of Maiasaura.
  • Although oversized, the carnotaurs having bumpy skin with large osteoderms is fairly accurate to how they actually looked.
  • The Velociraptors, though misplaced, are accurately sized, slender, and have accurate skull shapes. Although they lack feathers, this was not a particularly popular idea during the film's production.
  • The Pteranodon in the opening scene uses its beak to pick up and carry Aladar's egg, which is accurate because pterosaurs could not grasp anything with their feet.
  • Dinosaur herds repeatedly going to one area to breed is something that modern paleontology has more or less confirmed to be realistic.
• Social Ornithopod: The Iguanodons and Parasaurolophuses are shown to be social dinosaurs that are always moving in groups with each other.
• Spanner in the Works: The young Parasaurolophus early in the film. It's implied the flock of birds Aladar's mother observes are fleeing the carnotaur as it sneaks towards the forest edge. Based on its behavior it intended to observe quietly until a viable target came close enough to ambush (as a real predator might); but the Para's approach forced it to break cover early. Subverted ultimately, though: Because the dinosaurs fail to coalesce in defense as they do under Aladar later the carnotaur is able to single out a slower target and make a kill anyway.
• Species Title: Played with. Although named in the singular, the movie is about dinosaurs in the plural.
• Square-Cube Law: While an animal Baylene's size shouldn't be able to jump like she did into the lake at the Nesting Grounds, it's arguable if she 'jumped' or just reared up to dramatically lengthen a single stride so she could send up a wave at Zini.
• Tail Slap: How the Iguanodons fight. The last Carnotaurus picks up on this in its final fight with Aladar and Neera and uses it back on Aladar.
• Team Spirit: "Stand together!" Awesomely Truth in Television, as this is actually how most large predators react to facing a large group of prey animals, or even just one, that holds its ground and faces them instead of running; big cats, especially, don't attack from the front. So not only is it awesome, it's actually realistic.
• Thirsty Desert: All the dinosaurs are forced to move across a large desert to reach a watering hole, and by extension, the Nesting Grounds. For the next few days, they have to walk across the sandy terrain for hours in the sweltering heat. This walk takes such a toll on their wellness, Neera directly acknowledges most of the herd would die without drinking water to replenish their thirst.
• This Is Gonna Suck: In the opening when a baby Parasaurolophus comes running out of the forest, screaming bloody murder, the herd looks up at the sound. A Pachyrhinosaurus is seen groaning and slightly recoiling that just screams this.
• Unusual Animal Alliance: A prehistoric version as Kron's herd consists of many different species despite him and his sister and lieutenant being Iguanodon. The Essential Guide goes into detail that the non-Iguanodon dinosaurs are simply joining up with Kron's herd to get to the Nesting Grounds since it's the last place they can go, though Eema's familiarity with the place suggests that other species did use it for the same purpose.
• The Voiceless: Besides the main cast ^note Aladar, Neera, Kron, Bruton, Eema, Baylene, Plio, Yar, Zini, and Suri and a scout, the rest of the dinosaurs in the film, including the carnivorous ones, do not speak.
• Whateversaurus: When Zini simulates an approach to Neera from Aladar by howling, she snarkily says to the young Iguanodons nearby "That, children, is what is known as Jerkosaurus!" Much later, when Neera approaches Aladar again, he responds to her "I'm Aladar: the... Jerkosaurus", and Neera shows sorrow for having qualified it in that way.
• White-and-Grey Morality: Aladar and the lemurs are clearly good, but the dinosaurs forming Kron's herd are rather grey, since they follow the merciless rules of Social Darwinism but are also capable of altruistic acts and (except perhaps Kron) none of them seem irredeemable (see Bruton, Neera...). The non-talking predators are not black since they do what they do only for mere hunger.
• You Can't Go Home Again: With Lemur Island destroyed by the meteor strike, Aladar and the surviving lemurs decide to search for a new place to live.

None of us really know what changes big or small lie ahead. But one thing is certain: our journey's not over. We can only hope that, in some small way, our time here will be remembered.