Disney Dinosaur Movie

[NANNOTYRAN@aol.com]

  I must say I'm a little upset at the attitudes displayed in the "dinosaurs
in the media" arguments I've recently read here.  This effects me profoundly
because it is something that I struggle with every day I go to work .  All my
life I wanted to be a paleontologist or an animator.  Now my dream has come
true and I can be both.  When Disney's computer generated dinosaur movie
comes out in '99, I'll be the one you all hate.
  Everyday myself and three other dino-nuts working on this project go toe to
toe with the powers that be to ensure some form of accuracy is in the final
product.  We've spent our lifetimes enjoying and absorbing all of YOUR work
in hopes that one day we could use the info in our work.  My dream is to one
day do what has never been done, to show an accurate account of a day in the
life of a Judith River dinosaur.  Although the Disney movie is a far cry from
that dream, it is a dream project nonetheless.  We four try very hard to make
sure that your science is not in vain, but at the same time we must cooperate
to make sure that we see what we've always wanted to, the closest thing to a
living dinosaur up on the screen.  Now it's not like my friends and I drive
around in expensive sports cars, snorting coke with hollywood starlets on our
lap and laughing about the money we'll make from our fire breathing
Edmontosaurus, but I do make some comprimises, and I am well aware of my
crime to science.  Believe me, it could be ALOT worse, I mean Land Before
Time worse.
    For me, thae Zallinger mural and King Kong were two biggest reasons to
find out more about dinosaurs.  As inaccurate as they were, they made
something in my head spin.  This something is called an Imagination.  It's
what makes kids think and ask questions.  I did not simply accept the fact
that T-Rex was fat and blue and that stegosaurus was 60 feet long.  All it
took was my father reading from a book to get the straight answers.  If
anyone knows the inaccuracies of dinosaurs in movies it's kids.
   The adult public who accepts that Dilophosaurus had a neck frill and spits
goo is no threat at all.  The little girl who questions it and looks up the
information, will proudly tell every one she knows that she knows that the
creature was nothing like that.  To me, that girl is more powerful than
millions of morons who don't care.  The dinosaurs portrayed sparked her
imagination, and let's face it, we were ALL looking at inaccurate pictures of
dinosaurs before we learned to read, and did that stop us from searching fo
the truth.  Now imagine all those kids who saw Jurrasic Park, (and boy there
were a lot of them) in 15 years time they may be your students and colleques
and working with you to find real evidence.  Paleontology will continue to be
popular, it is not a phase.  It's popularity will ensure funding and  your
discovery rate will climb.  All of this because an animal beyond our dreams
was portrayed.
  In closing, it is obvious I'm awaiting the enornous guilt I will have when
this movie comes out.  By simply writing this I'm losing the respect of many
of you I call my heroes.  If you can only agree with one thing I say, let it
be that our imaginations crave to see dinosaurs.  In 10-15 years time there
will be many more people who were turned onto dinosaurs by the mass media of
the 90's.  Maybe they will be working on a movie, and their many voices will
inform the producers with your information.  I don't see how you think it can
get worse, at least our dinosaurs won't be singing...            Fire away.
   respectfully, David Krentz