Dinotopia in Audiobooks and Music

 

 

Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time took the world by storm in 1992.  At least that is what it seemed like to me. Like many 80s and 90s kids, I loved dinosaurs when I was young. One thing I did not love was the way media would often show humans living at the same time as the dinosaurs as if that actually happened in the past. Dinotopia, like The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, tries to come up with a plausible explanation for how humans and dinosaurs might live side by side. Then it brings that world to life with some truly beautiful artwork.

I would think the chapter books and novels from the series would be the ones to get an audio adaptation, but oddly, it is the first two illustrated books that do.

Dinotopia Audio Adventure: A Land Apart from Time

 

Title: Dinotopia Audio Adventure: A Land Apart from Time 
Company: Turner Audio and ZBS 
Original Story: James Gurney 
Adapted By: Thomas Lobez 
Music and Sound Effects: Time Clark 
Release: 1993 
Format: Audio Cassette, CD, Digital 
Type: Dramatization 

This audio program covers the first Dinotopia book. The story is about Arthur Denison and Will Denison, a father and son, who get shipwrecked on a mysterious island in 1862. This island turns out to be inhabited by intelligent dinosaurs who have befriended previous shipwrecked humans and have created a peaceful society together on the island. 

 

 

The book has a heavy emphasis on James Gurney’s fantastic and detailed illustrations over plot, so an audio version might seem like it wouldn’t work very well. There are many illustrations of physical objects like timepieces and buildings that make more sense if the reader can see them. In this way, Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (1992) is very similar to books like Wil Huygen’s Gnomes (1976) or Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons (2002) by Dugald Steer, in that it gives detailed descriptions of something imaginary as if it were real. The original audio release came with a booklet that included some of the illustrations, but for the most part, the audio version makes up for its lack of visuals through depth of sound.

What do I mean by that? This is a full dramatization, so there is music, sound effects, and different voice actors for each character. I believe the marketing claimed that there are 12 voice actors in all. The voice actors for Arthur and Will are spot on. They sound exactly as I imagined they would. The production value and audio mixing are of professional quality, making the world and characters of Dinotopia feel vibrant and alive.   

One exception to this for me was some of the dinosaurs sounding a bit fake, such as Bix near the beginning of the story. However, most dinosaurs have realistic roars, calls, and chatter. A good example of how this audio production brings the book to life is the conversation around the breakfast table, not long after Arthur and Will arrive at the hatchery. While Arthur is finally getting the chance to talk to someone who knows English, the other characters around the table are chiming in with comments in their own language. They joke and laugh and give the impression of being actively present. This is also an example of how some material was added that was not in the book. 

The production company ZBS even goes so far as to produce the sound of the dinosaur pipe organ and a piece of music that is played on it. Later on, the book has horn-like instruments designed to make similar sounds to Hadrosaurs, and you get to hear what these sound like. Once Bix joins Arthur and Will as a guide, her voice becomes less annoying. Each environment the characters visit has its own music and sounds. Most machines from the book are accompanied by the sound of their movements.

I won’t go into too much detail about the rest of the program, but the high production value is present throughout. Arthur and Will eventually split up, with Will learning to fly as a Skybax Rider and Arthur journeying down into ancient caves. The narrative primarily follows Will until he reunites with his father at the end of the story. We don’t get to hear about what Arthur was up to until the next book.

Dinotopia Audio Adventure: The World Beneath 

  

Dinotopia Audio Adventure: The World Beneath 
Company: ZBS 
Original Story By: James Gurney 
Adapted By: Thomas Lopez? 
Music and Effects By: Tim Clark 
Release: 1996 
Format Audio Cassette, CD, Digital 
Type: Dramatization  

Both the book version and the audio drama pick up where the previous one left off. Arthur tells about some of what he and Bix found in the caves. He wants to go back to open a door he found there, but needs to find the second half of a key. Oriana Nascava, whose last name means “born from a cave,” has the other half and convinces Arthur to take her with him. They hire Lee Crabb, the sketchy character from the first book, to be their guide. The other half of the story follows Will as he helps a convoy cross the Rainy Basin and avoid tyrannosaurs.

This production is just as elaborate as the first, with a full voice cast, sound effects, and background music. The scenes involving many people are once again lively. When Crabb takes Arthur and Oriana to The Blackfish Tavern to win his submersible back in a game of chance, the scene is full of the sounds of people at the tavern talking and eating. The tavern is in a swamp, and Crabb and the other patrons have pirate-like accents. The music that plays is reminiscent of Cajun and/or zydeco (I’m not skilled enough to know the difference between the two). 

When they take the submersible into the underwater caves, you can hear the water and the sounds the sub makes as it travels. During Will’s side of the story, an entire children’s puppet show is acted out, complete with silly voices and audience sounds. The characters traveling in The World Beneath are given echoes to their voices and footsteps. Both productions did a good job of reproducing the sound of open and closed spaces. Once again, I’ll leave what happens for people who are interested to discover, but it has to do with the ancient history of Dinotopia.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t understand why two of the picture books received an audio adaptation, but none of the chapter books or novelizations did. I know the 1990s had fewer audiobooks, especially unabridged ones, but it would not have been that difficult to make an audiobook for Dinotopia Lost. 

 

 

As an adult returning to these books, I can still see what fascinated me about them when I was a child. Now, however, I see more problems with the logistics of all these dinosaurs trying to coexist in a civilization together, as well as with some of the philosophical underpinnings of the culture. They remain a good read/listen, bursting with creativity. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that it is a place where I was introduced to the concept of time being represented as a spiral, which blew my mind back then.  

Dinotopia (Original Soundtrack Recording)

 

 

Title: Dinotopia(Original Soundtrack Recording) 
Film Company: Hallmark Entertainment 
Distributor: HEP Music and Contemporary Media Recordings 
Composed By: Trevor Jones 
Release: 2013/2014 
Format: CD, Digital 

This is the complete TV score by Trevor Jones, a South African composer who has worked on other high-concept films, such as Excalibur (1981), The Dark Crystal (1982), and Labyrinth (1986). My personal favorite of his scores is from The Last of the Mohicans (1992), which I used to listen to on repeat. I think the music from this soundtrack was used in both the Hallmark miniseries and TV series, but is primarily from the miniseries.  

The score starts with “Dinotopia Main Theme,” which has a grand and majestic sound while still somehow being soothing. A vibe that captures the sense of Dinotopia well. I usually don’t go into too much detail when covering instrumental music, but I will point out Track 7, “The World Beneath,” which starts generically tense and serious before going lighter, somewhat mysterious. Eventually, trumpets kick in, followed by a jaunty melody that continues on through several changes. 

 This constant shifting is somewhat of a problem with many of the tracks. An interesting bit of music will play, but before it can expand into something more substantial, the track will jump to a different bit of music. Now you might be saying, of course, this is a soundtrack and the music needs to represent different kinds of actions on screen. Yes, that is true; however, other soundtracks in the past have managed to do that while maintaining motifs long enough to get invested. In short, I think the music jumps around too much. It doesn’t convey a cohesive story. Track II, “The Skybax Dawn Flight,” does come close; it maintains tension throughout the finale and ends triumphantly.

The quality of the music is high throughout the score, although most of it wasn’t particularly memorable. I think the score is better than the miniseries it came from, which looked very nice at the time but suffered from some bad acting and pacing issues. This music could be nice to have on when looking at illustrations from the book.

“I’ll Take You There”

  

From: Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone 
Production Company: Hallmark 
Music and Lyrics By: Mark Waters, Kathy Wakefield, and Alan Steinberger
Performed By: Windy Wagner 

Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone is an animated film from 2005. When looking into Dinotopia soundtracks, I never thought this would be the one to have a '90s radio ballad. The film was straight to DVD, and I can’t find much about its production history. For a film released in the mid-2000s, it feels very 90s. In the movie, a modern-day orphan named Kex Bradley runs away and ends up getting washed up on Dinotopia. Kex is a skateboard-riding, wanna be cool kid full of modern sensibilities. Because of this and an emphasis on goofy comedy, the film feels very cheesy. Still, in some ways, it is more watchable than the mini-series, as it does’t drag on in pacing and has well-known voice actors. 

The song “I’ll Take You There,” sung by Windy Wagner, sounds a little too epic for a straight-to-DVD release. That, combined with the relatively good animation, makes it seem like this movie may have been destined for greater things at some point in its production.

The song itself isn’t too bad, if you like this sort of pop ballad. Thematically, the song is actually about Dinotopia as a wondrous storybook place, “further than once upon a time”. All you have to do is go along with the singer, and you’ll end up “where the stars shine beyond compare”. The only problem is that the song makes the place sound a little too fictitious, which makes sense out of universe to the audience, but in-universe, Dinotopia is supposed to be a real place.

So that is all of the major audio production I could find related to Dinotopia. Let me know if I missed anything interesting. There are also three video games: Dinotopia (1996) for MS-DOS, Dinotopia: The Timestone Pirates (2002) for Game Boy Advance, and Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey (2003) for GameCube and Xbox. Each one has its own soundtrack and you can find snippets of them online.  Hopefully, there will be more Dinotopia to talk about in the future.

 

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