Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7992 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-08-18
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 3
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 546 minutes

DVD Description
4 discs containing the following 13 episodes:

• Marooned
  
• Making Good
  
• Handful of Dust
  
• LeSage
  
• Car Wars
  
• The Matriarch
  
• Night of the Wartosa
  
• Big Fight
  
• Contact
  
• Lost and Found
  
• The Cure Part 1
  
• The Cure Part 2
  
• Crossroads

Special Features
DVD Technical Information:

• x 4 DVD digipack
  
• Disc Format: x 1 DVD-9, x 3 DVD-5
  
• Sound Format: 2.0 Dolby Digital
  
• Total Running time: 9 hours 6 minutes

Synopsis
Karl, his brother David and their father Frank are all stranded in Dintopia after a plane accident. It's here that dinosaurs and humans live in perfect harmony but beneath the surface dangers brew...

Customer Reviews

the worst kind of Americanised Dross
I had very high hopes for this series after watching the min-series upon which it is supposedly based, but these proved to be entirely on the wrong side of the map. The actors were completely unsuited to the roles, the stories were ridiculous, cliched, and embarrassing to watch, and the decision to use the same characters as the mini-series with a new cast had disasterous and distracting effects.
The 'fairy-tale' feel of the mini-series was not present at all. The dinotopians spoke with american accents and used modern slang and language; instead of 'certainly' or 'yes sir', everyone said 'sure'. Most people seemed to use words like 'babe' on a regular basis. The ideals presented in the miniseries, along with facts of life and about the island, were ignored and misrepresented. The series sees the introduction of a Xena, warrior princess-style villainess, who lives in a castle with her american crossbow wielding henchmen. In only the third episode a man invents an elixir of life and magically turns into a child. The whole thing is utterly, mind bogglingly ridiculous.
To summarize: The scripts were obviously written by unskilled, poorly paid authors, the starring actors were not very good, the magic was gone, the extras couldn't act for toffee, and the storylines were ridiculous and not at all in keeping with either the mini-series or with the books. It isn't even good for a laugh. It may entertain sex-obsessed cheap-thrill loving americans, but it doesn't entertain me.

Initially very dissapointed with the change of actors - but otherwise pretty good
My son (now 10) and our family fell in love with the original Emmy award winning Dinotopia mini-series with it's 'all star' cast. That's also available as another two DVD set edited into a superb four hour film with interesting extras. Initially my son couldn't tolerate this spin off 'Dinotopia: The Series' as they changed all of the actors, and has only just started watching it a year or two after we bought it on DVD. He really likes the series now (as he admits he has forgotten what the orginal cast were like).

This Dinotopia series has a more jocular mood with the old charactor's presented in a more likeable way than the original moody and angry or pious (bordering on pompous in the Mayor's case) tone of the original. However I preferred the darker original style, and missed classy Brit's Katie Carr and Jim Carter as the Dinotopians and American's Wentworth Miller and David Thewlis as the believable in-fighting step-brother's coping with their sudden change of lifestyle and recent loss of their father. I also really missed Lee Evans as dinosaur Zippo's voice, Terry Jone's as the messenger's birds voice and Tyron Leitso as hustler Cyrus Crabb. However I do like the fact that this 'Dinotopia: The Series' DVD set has all the episodes listed seperately so that the cliffhanger, end music and titles remain, greatly helping to set the pace. I felt the merging of the original mini-series into a single very long film on DVD was less succesful than keeping the episodes seperate as screened - which also allows an episode before bed-time for the kids.

The 'unknown' new cast of this spin-off series make a good go of it though, but I do find the change of mood and cast very annoying. I wish they had just bought in completely new character's with this new cast and ignored the previous mini-series. But of course any Dinotopia is better than nothing. Other than the whinges above, this is a very fun series, less serious and Dino-preaching than the original and with more of the Pirate's of the Caribbean feel (as it now has pirates). It is therefore probably well suited to older pre-teens and young teenagers (probably boys mainly). Once we get going, I'm sure we'll all enjoy the series, as on TV we kept missing vital episodes. This 3 DVD set has all 13 episodes listed separately plus a few 'featurettes' on making Dinotopia etc... So overall, highly recommended for the kids, particularly as no more promised Dinotopia seems to have materialised. We got it very cheap via Amazon Region 1 resellers.

Very much liked it!
I saw this advertising in my Sky magazine, and it looked so good I regretted not watching the mini series. Which I rented before seeing this series, and now I own both on dvd. So if you don't own the mini series, or have never seen it, I reccomend you watch/rent/buy it. I have to admit, I laughed so much watching this series, and I taped the whole series onto vhs, but due to soem people not being able to reas, they got taped over. But now I have the dvd set, it doesn't matter.

So what are you waiting for? Eith click buy, or go see the mini series!