We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story is an animated science fantasy film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Amblimation (a studio owned by Steven Spielberg at the time).
Plot[]
Production[]
The film is based on a children's book written by Hudson Talbott in the year 1987. Production of this animated adaptation began at Universal Studios in Universal City near Los Angeles, California and Amblimation in London, United Kingdom in May 1989, which is at the time An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991) was also in production. As in a five-year production schedule, it takes four years for the film to be made. In January 1990, after the film's voice actors recorded their voices for the characters, animating and filming began through storyboards, pencil tests (rough and clean-up) and ink and paint (the final version of the film) to bring the characters to life, using cameras and recorded audio. James Horner composed music for the film, including the only song "Roll Back the Rock (to the Dawn of Time)" performed by John Goodman. After four years in the making, the film was completely wrapped in the fall of 1993 (the time before the movie's theatrical release on November 24, that year).
Voice Cast[]
Actor John Malkovich was originally set to voice the role of Professor Screweyes but dropped out because of disagreements with the animators' vision of the film. Upon the movie's release, Malkovich was a vocal critic of the project, arguing that the scope of the script was not fully realized and that the final product was "sub par, to say the least." To this day, Malkovich generally refuses to talk about the film. In a rare 2003 interview, Malkovich made a brief allusion to the movie, saying, "Good ideas go to die in Hollywood. I worked on an animated movie about dinosaurs in New York once. It was completely bureaucratized. They took something that had art in it and put it in the laps of people that only cared about the bottom line, and look what happened." In a later portion of the interview, Malkovich went on to say, "Yeah, projects like We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story—they just make you sick. That's why I left this town. It's all about the money, the bottom line. It's disgusting."
- John Goodman as Rex
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