Critique: Dinotopia Night Three (Channel 4)

This episode has David and Karl work to get sunstones to save Dinotopia. Crabbe uses Marion’s sunstone to power the submarine so they can reach the World Beneath. They find their father Frank alive. Meanwhile, because the sunstones are failing, Waterfall City is attacked by carnivores.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

 

Positive

 

Some things were clever.

David says, “Did you hear that?” and Karl snaps, “Would you stop doing that?” As this is the first time we hear David say this, Karl’s reaction gives the audience information about their journey without actually showing it. Very clever.

At dinner, Marion rebukes Mayor Waldo with one of the Dinotopian Codes: ‘Eat to live, don’t live to eat.’ The Mayor is unreasonably putting his anger on the boys, blaming them for Marion’s bad behaviour. No father would want to accept her daughter going against his wishes as her decision. Plus being the leader at such a horrible point in history would be stressful. So whilst his decisions aren’t logical, it’s logical that he would be illogical in this situation.

In the caves they find the bottom of the tablet that has the Codes of Dinotopia. Seeing the last letters of the last code, it reads, ‘Find the Light.’ Like what Marion’s grandmother said. Grandma got the sunstone she gave Marion from the exploring partner of Crabbe’s dad. So Grandma knows the last Code from this.

 

Other things were humorous.

Karl says that Dinotopia, “makes a deal about listening, but no one here listens.” Burn.

The chute they travel in out of the city is like a roller coaster. Zipeau says, “I think that’s it, now.” Then a steeper roller coaster slide starts.

 

 

Unanswered Questions

 

The Footprint language is shaped, unsurprisingly, like feet. Where the toes point determines the letter.

However, the feet they look like are like Zipeau’s. Yet the vast majority of Dinosaurs the humans interact with have elephant-like feet. One would expect the most common thing to be used.

However, being circular in shape, a different orientation wouldn’t render a different letter. Also, the dinosaurs with elephant-like feet don’t have hands, so they wouldn’t be able to write or unroll scroll/flip page. So their foot shape doesn’t make sense.

As dinosaurs like Zipeau can write and move paper documents with their hands, it makes sense that they developed the written language. Of course they’d be inclined to base the shape on their own feet.

 

There are two other things I wonder about.

The entrance to the sunstone cave is shining far into the ocean. Yet when they enter the breathable-portion of the cave, it’s gloomy. Maybe the sunstones were only at the entrance of the cave, meaning not much light could travel up.

The caves are the World Beneath. Here, dinosaurs survived in the past; recently, David and Karl’s father survived, too. Clearly we aren’t shown the entirety of the caverns but it’s hard to believe that there was enough food for one human adult, let alone a whole population of gigantic dinosaurs. Although maybe the sunstones helped to grow their food?

 

 

Problems

 

A lot of these mistakes would have been avoided if people just thought a little harder about them.

Guards are outside Zipeau’s house, keeping the boys under house arrest. They knock the guards out so they can get a map and sneak out. However, being the librarian, Zipeau could have gotten the map then come back without raising suspicion. Then when the guards were knocked out, the boys would have had more time to sneak away without being noticed.

When the boys and their father jump into the water (that leads to the world above), someone hold a sunstone in their left hand. Yet in the water, the sunstone is in their right. Being in watery is would have been slippery so switching sunstone hands isn’t a very sensible move. Most likely it’s a continuity error.

A Pteranodon is attacking a human and an ankylosaurus. A change of perspective show the ankylosaurus club the Pteranodon way. From this angle, we should have been able to see the human’s torso above the ankylosaurus, which we didn’t. There wasn’t enough time or space for the human to have changed location from one shot to another. It’s a continuity error. The human would have been in the way of the ankylosaurus’ tail strike, so no doubt the human was removed for the perfect shot.

 

Karl and Frank bring a wagon full of sunstones to Waterfall City.

They the morning right after the carnivores’ night attack on Waterfall City. Even if Karl and Frank had dived in an out the World Beneath multiple times, there’s no way they would have had a wagon-full of sunstones.

Where did the wagon come from? Marion, Zipeau and David were busy in Waterfall City so it’s not like any of them could have gotten a wagon to Karl and Frank at the Temple. Marion and Zipeau couldn’t have put a wagon by the Temple’s pool in preparation because with all refugees streaming into Waterfall City, it is unlikely they could have gotten something as large as a wagon through a desperate crowd.

Also, Marion and Zipeau didn’t even know the boys would exit via the Temple’s pool (for two reasons), so why would they have put a wagon there in preparation? One: the boys were travelling via submarine. Two: they didn’t know for sure the Temple’s pool led to the World Beneath, let alone that the boys would find the pool in the World Beneath.

Considering Frank’s afraid of water, him diving in and out the pool would have been cruel. He managed to do it once so leave him be! Maybe he didn’t dive back in, but considering how that amount of sunstones would be impossible for two people to get, it would be doubly impossible for one person to get.

It was clear that Karl and Frank arrived during the immediate aftermath of the attack. That last scene could have been animated in many different ways to show it wasn’t the immediate aftermath. If that were done, all these problems would have gone away.

 

 

Overall, this is a very enjoyable mini-series.  I first watched this at my grandparents’ house when I was quite young. Then they got the dvds for me, even though it wasn’t my birthday or Christmas. So having this as a surprise gift has always stuck with me. Between that and the nostalgia, watching this miniseries is comforting.