Countdown to Extinction: Inside the Evolution of Animal Kingdom’s Time-Traveling DINOSAUR Dark Ride

DINOSAUR

Way back in 1988, special effects artist Phil Tippett had drafted ideas for a dinosaur-themed film from Walt Disney Studios. His earliest incarnation of the idea – then called Dinosaurs – centered on a Styracosaurus named Woot and his struggles against a Tyrannosaurus rex named Gronzi.

Concepted as a stop-motion animation film, Dinosaurs would’ve been gritty and tense, filmed in the style of a nature documentary. In fact, the original script called for underdog Woot to outwit Gronzi, only for both to perish in the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event! As the story goes, Jeffrey Katzenberg (then head of Walt Disney Feature Animation) saw the film’s $45 million estimated budget and countered at $25 million, assessing that there just wasn’t enough audience to justify the cost of a dinosaur flick.

Ultimately, Dinosaurs was sidelined by another project in the pipeline – The Little Mermaid. After Ariel’s 1989 debut, the Disney Renaissance was underway. Multiple directors, producers, and writers came and went from the prospective prehistoric film, each with their own vision. Thomas Smith – who was briefly assigned the director role after Tippett’s departure – recalled, “The thing that ultimately killed it is that Disney knew that Jurassic Park was coming along pretty well, and they knew it was being done digitally. They figured, ‘Well, maybe, we should wait until we can do it digitally.'”

After the success of incorporating computer-generated imagery (CGI) into Fantasia 2000, it was determined that the time was right to press forward with a dinosaur film using CGI rather than stop motion. As the story goes, Michael Eisner was so smitten with the concept of CGI dinosaur characters composited atop real environmental footage filmed across the world that he greenlit the revived project in 1996 even though filmmakers admitted that they couldn’t even estimate how much it would cost or how long production would take.

A new creative team was brought in to develop a less bleak story and setting for the film. That’s when the Iguanodon and the Carnotaurus became the main actors, making the 1998 ride and the 2000 film natural and intentional complements.

Eisner was right about one thing: Dinosaur was unlike anything seen before. The film melded live-action backgrounds and location shots (mostly filmed in Venezuela) with CGI animated dinosaurs to develop a “photo-realistic” look. (Yes, believe it or not, in 2000, this was genuinely, bafflingly real.) Brilliantly, the film’s unprecedented style was expressed to the public by way of a teaser trailer that literally just showed the first three minutes of the film to awe-struck audiences.

What it didn’t reveal was the movie’s plot. Dinosaur follows the migration of a young iguanodon named Aladar who’s orphaned by a devastating meteor shower as he and his adoptive family of lemurs move across the primeval world in search of the Nesting Grounds. Along their epic journey, they’re relentlessly pursued by a carnotaurus.

Another thing the trailer didn’t reveal? Eisner famously insisted that the dinosaurs speak in order to make the film more “commercially viable.” Perhaps famous film critic Roger Ebert put it best when he commented, “An enormous effort had been spent on making these dinosaurs seem real, and then an even greater effort was spent on undermining the illusion.” (There’s definitely an “uncanny valley” situation going on with the iguanodons’ beaked mouths being replaced with more articulate, human-like lips.)

From our lofty hindsight perch at the dawn of the 2020s, we know that Dinosaur failed to make much of an impression. The most expensive film released in the year 2000 (and certainly, the most expensive animated film to that time), Dinosaur earned $300 million at the box office – but when you account for its marketing and production costs, the film likely failed to break even and would’ve been a write-off for Disney.

Even more painfully, the film left practically no footprint in pop culture. Children born after 1998 are unlikely to have ever heard of Dinosaur, much less seen it. And frankly, the CGI that looked awe-inspiring in 2000 looks somewhat laughable today – unfortunately, without the warmth and nostalgia that allows Toy Story to be re-watchable.

And yet, just before the film’s release, Countdown to Extinction re-opened from a refurbishment with a new name and a few changes…

Rewriting history

On May 1, 2000 – just two weeks before the debut of Disney’s much-anticipated film – DINOSAUR opened at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in the spot once occupied by Countdown to Extinction. Was it just a rename, or a true re-design? It depends what you liked about the original ride… Here are some of the most significant-but-subtle changes…

1. Connections to the film

Of course, Animal Kingdom’s dino-themed dark ride had always been centered around an iguanodon and a carnotaurus (albeit, neither speaking, and observably not Aladar and his carnotaurus pursuer), but the synergy wasn’t a coincidence. Joe Rohde himself confirmed:

Dinosaur is one of our few IP-based attractions [at Animal Kingdom]. At the time, the film had groundbreaking CGI effects. Originally there was a Styracosaurus out front for no better reason than it’s my favorite dinosaur…and the attraction was called Countdown to Extinction. We renamed it when the film came out, but the link to the film was already there. It may not be obvious, but such decisions have to be made years in advance. You don’t get a figure that looks like a character in a movie unless you start way before you open.”

Outside of the Dino Institute, the styracosaurus fountain was replaced with an iguanodon (though this one may be Aladar given its lips?) and footage of the film was inserted into the pre-show as if it were Seeker’s footage of the Iguanodon to more closely connect the ride. Inside, the cat-and-mouse game of the carnotaur’s pursuit was re-emphasized as the leading narrative, and as such, the hurtling meteor finale was replaced with a final attack of the carnotaur to close that story.

(For better or worse, that finale comes in the form of a somewhat uneven effect: a static, blacklight, cartoon-proportioned carnotaurus head that slides toward guests on a rolling rig as the Time Rover dives beneath it. It’s effective enough, and certainly a surprise on your first ride through… but on repeat rides, the frozen head-on-a-track reads as hokey and laughable; the kind of thing you’d expect from a blacklight dark ride at a carnival, not a Disney E-Ticket. Of course, as the closing act of an admittedly-uneven ride, it’s probably a good representation of DINOSAUR as a whole. Watch for it on the video later on this page.)

2. New narration

Frankly, Imagineers had been tweaking the ride’s audio from the start. Think about it – neither Countdown to Extinction nor DINOSAUR feature any on-ride music. Instead, Dr. Seeker and the voice of the Time Rover’s on-board computer narrate the journey. Since DINOSAUR is – by design – a bleak, dark, chaotic ride, the presence of Dr. Seeker has more than one role: it performs narrative exposition to tell us what we’re seeing (or not seeing) and what the vehicle is doing, it sets up the emotional cues music usually would, and it establishes whether we should be screaming, crying, or laughing.

That can be tricky! One need only look at another Lost Legend: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter to know just how important tone can be, and how easy it is for “comic relief” to sap the atmosphere and pull guests out of the moment.

Even before the ride’s official opening, careful and fairly continuous edits were made to the narration and audio to the extent that, today, practically no dialogue remains from the ride’s original, pre-opening script. One-by-one, each line was re-recorded to be funny, but not distracting; expository, but not annoying; present and helpful, but well-timed between screams and roars. In short, the audio you’ll hear today is meant to…

• … explain what’s happening in the chaotic darkness (“Computer, what’s happening?!” Chirp chirp. ‘Loss of traction.’ | “Computer, now what?” Chirp chirp ‘Meteor shower in range‘ ;
• … remind riders of – and refocus on – the mission (“We’ve got to get in, get that iguanodon, and get out before the asteroid hits!” | “Setting Autopilot on homing signal… now!” | “Tracking a big dino on the scope; it could be ours!” | “Still not our dino…”)
• … and add tension rather than humor (“Forget it! Get them out now!” | “You’re not going to make it!”)

But the changes didn’t stop there.

3. Family friendliness

Remember, Disney expected the movie Dinosaur to become a new family classic like Toy Story or A Bug’s Life, so the new connection to the film would mean that the DINOSAUR ride would attract families with younger children – those fascinated with dinosaurs and who would doubtlessly fall in love with the new film. As such, the newly re-christened DINOSAUR ride would need a few edits to welcome younger, merchandise-hungry guests.

For one thing, the EMV’s motion was relaxed to create a less jarring ride. Sure, DINOSAUR’s EMVs would still buck, rumble, roll, and shudder, but reduced motion meant that DINOSAUR’s height requirement could be lowered to 40 inches (versus Indiana Jones Adventure’s 46 inches!) to cater to the new family audience that would descend on the ride.

To go along with the new family audience, Disney set out to make subtle changes in audio, lighting, and more that would remove at least a little of the terror from the ride.

One famous example is the scene wherein the carnotaur takes off in a pounding sprint after the Time Rover. Originally, the EMV’s audio would take over from the Animatronic, simulating his approach in the darkness as his pounding footsteps and snarling grew closer and closer as if closing in. (One need only ride Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsleds to know how disquieting and genuinely chilling audio in the dark can be.) After the switch to DINOSAUR, the audio of the carnotaurus’ chase was changed to slowly fade out, giving the impression that the predator was falling behind…

Stop here and watch this point-of-view video of DINOSAUR as it evolved into the 2020s. As you watch, consider: with a 40″ height requirement, an average five-year-old could ride DINOSAUR… but would they want to? Or would your five-year-old get off of DINOSAUR and be done with Disney’s Animal Kingdom?

That’s the big question, and the answer is that DINOSAUR was still terrifying! Some fans say that, with the shift to DINOSAUR, Disney created the same quagmire it found itself in when Alien Encounter became the Declassified Disaster: Stitch’s Great Escape. Their attempts to decrease the ride’s thrills only served to disappoint thrillseekers, but the ride is still way too scary for kids, meaning the experience isn’t really any “better” for any demographic… Which only adds to the complex feelings fans hold around DINOSAUR…

Layers of dust

Being honest, the change between 1998’s “Countdown to Extinction” and 2000’s “DINOSAUR” are probably best understood as “a distinction without a difference.” Despite the “original” ride being venerated by fans as the clearly-superior version that was more intense, more rough, and more frightening, the truth is that if the “CTX” ride profile and effects were restored today, 99.999% of riders wouldn’t consciously notice a difference.

Instead, what fans really remember and / or revere about the 1998 ride is probably just that it was brand new and everything worked as it was designed to… Aside from changing narration or the subtle shifts that came with the “DINOSAUR” name, Animal Kingdom’s EMV ride was somewhat infamous for how little Disney seemed to care about it.

In some ways, you can imagine why. Despite being positioned as one of two E-Ticket anchors for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, DINOSAUR certainly never matched the appeal or draw of the park’s only other Opening Day ride, Kilimanjaro Safaris. And naturally, as Expedition Everest and Pandora: The World of Avatar came online, DINOSAUR fell even further in the park’s rankings as a one-and-done, and far too-scary-for-families.

That left DINOSAUR with a toxic combination of features: the showstopping technology, extraordinary scale, and expensive effects and animatronics of a genuine Modern Marvel, but without the enthusiastic fandom, built-in audience, memorable characters & score, or re-rideability that make them last for generations. (Perhaps the only other ride to firmly fit in that category would be Mission: SPACE?) So is it really any surprise that Dinosaur felt largely relegated to a D-List of Disney dark rides?

Famously, the ride’s eleven Audio Animatronics – theoretically better off than those of Jurassic Park: The Ride given that they existed in climate-controlled comfort – seemingly never received a genuine tune-up, losing range of motion and realism year after year.

Sometime in the ride’s quarter-century life, the “swooping” pteranodon ceased to function (allegedly because of its proximity to the ride vehicle), and was bolted in place, lit lazily by a blacklight as guests passed under the frozen figure. Soon after, the compsognathus that cleverly “jumped” over the ride path via articulating arms were locked into place, hovering in mid-air. (For better or worse, a 2016 refurbishment removed them entirely, replacing them with projections on a new archway over the ride track.)

And so it went with other effects that flickered out of existence over the years. In the Time Tunnel, the impressive laser portal effect was decommissioned just after the New Millennium (unfortunately, long before low light video could capture it on film). As part of the 2016 refurbishment, a simpler laser tunnel projection took its place – but without the blinding strobe meant to transition guests to the past, the effect was obvious and hokey: a green laser projected not-so-subtly from a tree you weren’t yet supposed to see.

Show elements fell out of sync, leaving the “Time Tunnel” visible from the final (hokey) confrontation with the caricatured carnotaurus. Likewise, the precision effect of the Time Tunnel surrounding riders in the dark and its recognizable coils reappearing with a shuddering bass boom never fell back into the correct timing.

While DINOSAUR always relied on darkness as its delivery method, most observers note that the ride has grown increasingly dark over the years, concealing missing and aging sets, and Audio Animatronics with reduced mobility. Pessimistic? Maybe. But as a look at the ride with work lights on shows, between its Animatronic encounters, DINOSAUR is mostly black walls, sound curtains, camouflage netting, and dusty potted plants.

Okay, okay, that may be harsh. After all, DINOSAUR did have a fan base – some who loved it authentically as a downright scary, intense, and (for modern, practical purposes) IP-free off-roading adventure that modern Disney would never touch, and some for its “so bad it’s good” qualities, uneven antics, blacklight nonsense, and hokey effects included! The results are the same though: that DINOSAUR was a cult classic that couldn’t quite be graded against the same rubric used on other Disney dark rides.

Even now, it’s hard for me to qualify whether or not the story of this ride fits best in Park Lore’s collection of “Lost Legends,” “Modern Marvels,” “Declassified Disasters” – or all three! But if there’s one thing nearly every Disney fan can agree on, it’s that DINOSAUR can never be fully, objectively graded on any scale that also includes Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure.

Yep, for better or worse, the “Imagineering Fun Fact™” that Dinosaur and Indiana Jones Adventure share (nearly) identical ride layouts set the former up for a lifetime of comparison against which Dinosaur could never win. After all, for reasons only truly understood by those who’ve ridden it, but largely agreed upon even by those who haven’t, Indiana Jones Adventure is still considered among the greatest rides ever created.

So it’s no surprise than for more than two decades, Disney discussion boards have been filled with fans who stumble upon the two rides’ relationship and declare as if for the first time: “Hey, they should just turn Dinoland into South America, and make Dinosaur into Indiana Jones Adventure!” Of course, such is the nature of forum fodder and fan fantasies. There was precisely zero chance that Disney would reverse-engineer Dinosaur into an Indiana Jones Adventure! … Right?