The Gang of Five
Howdy, everyone!

The member joining awards for 2019, 2020, and 2021 have been posted. We admins would like to thank each and every one of you who have made the forum their home over these years. It is because of people like you that the forum is the welcoming place that it is. :)

The forum supporter awards for those who maintained the forum on Patreon in 2023 will also be up shortly. Again, thank you all for what you do to keep our little corner of the Internet online!

Animals Speaking English?

babidikrakenguard

  • Ducky
  • *
    • Posts: 1190
    • View Profile
No, this is not a name of a movie :nyah and im not exactly sure where in the great valley to put this so feel free to move if its in the wrong place :)


Okay, let me gather examples.

The Lion King
Happy Feet
Homeward Bound
Balto
Disney's Dinosaur

While browsing IMBD(It is safe to mention other sites, right? :() i decided to look at some of the stuff for Dinosaur and i noticed alot of people complaining about the dinosaurs speaking in the human tounge. Now i go over to look at what people say about the Lion King: No complaining there. Happy Feet, no complaining. Homeward Bound, no complaining. Balto, no complaining. Everyone is complaining about the dinosaurs speaking in Disney's Dinosaur.

Now unless this thread turns into a rant-thread or offencive please delete this thread.

Just kind of irks me that people are complaining about one movie where Dinosaurs are speaking yet some of the other movies listed above are all squeeky clean. Dont get me wrong i love the movies listed above, speaking or no speaking.

But like someone else said: What is the point of a movie if there is no talking? Even walking with Dinosaurs has someone talking!(Well, not the Dinosaurs)

Pan's Labirynth(Or however you spell it) has the characters all speaking in spanish, but atleast they have subtitles for those who dont know spanish can understand what the characters are saying.

in my opinion, what would sound like growls, yowls and other various animal sounds to us humans. In movies like The Lion King, those sounds the animals make are translated for us watchers to understand. Why watch a movie with Dinosaurs if you cannot understand what they are saying? It's not like Disney's Dinosaur is supposed to be like Walking with Dinosaur now is it?

Ah well. Like i said though: If this is just a rant-thread or seems offencive to others, please delete the thread.


DarkHououmon

  • Member+
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 7061
    • View Profile
    • http://bluedramon.deviantart.com
What about Fantasia? That had a lot of stories all put together and there was absolutely no talking from what I remember, yet the stories were still told, but through music. While it's likely difficult to pull off a story without dialogue, it is not impossible to do. There was even a book that had no talking in it at all, from what I heard, called Raptor Red.


Mumbling

  • Administrator
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 9022
    • View Profile
Don't worry about talking about other sites, that's perfectly fine.

But I must agree that is a bit odd. I don't remember much of the film dinosaur, but was it the case that only the dinosaurs talked and not the mammels or something? Maybe that's why people didn't like it(if that is correct :p )


DarkHououmon

  • Member+
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 7061
    • View Profile
    • http://bluedramon.deviantart.com
There were talking mammals in Disney's Dinosaur, the lemur family.


babidikrakenguard

  • Ducky
  • *
    • Posts: 1190
    • View Profile
Okay, missed Fantasia ^_^ Fantasia does have people speaking though, but not in the stories themselves. And DarkHououmon, you do kinda have a point about the story without dialogue.. :bang  :yes

But still, everyone is complaining about Disney's Dinosaur. I could be wrong, but some of them were saying "the Dinosaur's speaking is what made the movie suck big time" and yet all those other movies that have talking animals remain un-complained.

Another thing i forgot to mention is Land Before Time, which has Dinosaurs talking. It's just that one movie which seems like everyone hates because the dinosaurs are talking yet no one is complaining about Land before Time. (Of course, being a land before time forum you wont get much complaining about the characters talking here! :smile Not that im complaining about the characters talking, just an example :()


LBTFan13

  • Cera
  • *
    • Posts: 3343
    • View Profile
Well here's my theory to the complaints.

The dinosaurs existed long before humans correct? Now some would argue the cavemen and such, but we all know that no humans were around during the time of the dinosaurs. All these other movies with animals (Lion King, Balto, etc...) existed in a time period when humans did in fact exist. Now some of these movies don't even feature humans, but humor me on this. Maybe some people imagined Dinosaur should not have english speaking characters in it because none of them were exposed to any humans before, whereas nowadays movies with talking animals could in fact have previous exposure to humans not shown in the movie. I know this is a stretch but it's my idea.

Let's not forget that originally LBT was NOT going to have any talking at all aside from a narration. It was intended to be like Fantasia, but the characters were given dialogue for a reason I do not know.

Hope this helps you a bit.


DarkHououmon

  • Member+
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 7061
    • View Profile
    • http://bluedramon.deviantart.com
A thought I had as to why there is complaining could be on how realistic the dinosaurs were. In Homeward Bound, yeah, we had realism (it was all live action) but the animals didn't move their mouths; it felt more like telepathy. So that may be why people didn't complain. For Happy Feet, it could be due to how humanoid penguins look (standing upright, coloration similar to a black and white suit, flippers at their sides). Not sure if this makes sense or not, but it might explain why there wasn't any, or as much, complaining there, despite the realism look of the characters. Then again, that doesn't explain the other talking animals of that movie, like the leopard seal.

But the realistic look of the dinosaurs combined with the ability to speak might have thrown some people off that were expecting something else (perhaps not everyone saw the trailers, a friend of mine sometimes sees movies without watching a trailer first). I admit, it does seem rather..strange to me to see these realistic dinosaurs talking full english. If the movie was more cartoony in appearance, like Finding Nemo, maybe there wouldn't be as many complaints.

Then again, the quote "the talking is what made the movie sucks" makes me wonder if they were not complaining of the dinosaurs talking specifically, but how bad the dialogue was. Could be that they hated the dialogue, perhaps thought it was cheesy or something, and said "the talking is what made the movie sucks" as a result. Perhaps they were simply complaining of the script used for the movie rather than just the fact the dinosaurs talk.


pokeplayer984

  • Member+
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 6991
    • View Profile
Ah yes, that complaint is one of the many complaints I have listed that fall under a certain category.  I have come to believe that when some people hate something, but they don't know why, they make up a reason to hate it.  Such complaints end up being stupid, idiotic and annoying.  The worst part is that you can argue against it in many ways, but they won't give in to the fact that their complaint is stupid and pointless, and still give that as a legitimate reason to hate the movie.

If it's bothering you that much, contact the mods there and see if they can be removed.  Seriously, such a complaint is pointless and stupid.


Mumbling

  • Administrator
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 9022
    • View Profile
Quote from: DarkHououmon,Sep 12 2009 on  07:41 AM
There were talking mammals in Disney's Dinosaur, the lemur family.
Alright, in that case I was mistaken ;)

I don't know why people say those things, but I don't really care either. If they find the need to say something like that, well go ahead and do so... I won't stop them but won't cheer at them either.


Alex

  • Petrie
  • *
    • Posts: 895
    • View Profile
As LBTFan said, Lucas and Speilburg (spelling?) weren't going to give the dinos dialogue, then they changed it to appeal to a younger audience.  :add


Petrie.

  • Hatchling
  • *
    • Posts: 0
  • It's good to be the king!
    • View Profile
Quote
But the realistic look of the dinosaurs combined with the ability to speak might have thrown some people off that were expecting something else (perhaps not everyone saw the trailers, a friend of mine sometimes sees movies without watching a trailer first). I admit, it does seem rather..strange to me to see these realistic dinosaurs talking full english. If the movie was more cartoony in appearance, like Finding Nemo, maybe there wouldn't be as many complaints.

My thoughts exactly on the whole thing.  Disney's Dinosaur presented dinosaurs, well as very compelling realistic dinosaurs.  LBT is clearly a cartoon design as is Lion King and any other 2-D animated film.  The other realistic dinosaur film that had been around before that time was Jurassic Park, and dinos grunted, growled, roared, etc.  That's the only reason I can think of that people would be disappointed.