Dinotopia

Dinotopia is a three-part miniseries/TV movie based on the book series written and illustrated by James Gurney. The plot follows teenage brothers who are stranded in the land of Dinotopia after a plane crash.

While most of the dinosaurs were computer animated effects produced by others, Jim Henson's Creature Shop supplied animatronic dinos, notably the baby dinosaur named 26 and the water-based mosasaurs.

Cast

 * David Thewlis as Cyrus Crabb
 * Katie Carr as Marion
 * Jim Carter as Mayor Waldo
 * Alice Krige as Rosemary
 * Tyron Leitso as Karl
 * Wentworth Miller as David
 * Colin Salmon as Oonu
 * Hannah Yelland as Romana Denison
 * Stuart Wilson as Frank
 * Anna Maguire as Samantha
 * Geraldine Chaplin as Oriana
 * Patrick Monckton as a senator
 * Lee Evans as the voice of Zippo
 * Terry Jones as the voice of the messenger bird

Additional Credits

 * Animatronics & Creature Scanning Maquettes: Jim Henson's Creature Shop
 * Creative supervisor: Verner Gresty
 * Producer: Piers Hampton
 * Art dept. co-ordinator: Sharon Smith
 * Animatronic sculpt supervisor: Barry Sutton
 * Sculptors: Brendan Lonergan, Carol de Jong, Chrissie Overs, Sam Broadbent, Steve Jolley
 * Maquette sculptors: Chris Fitzgerald, Emma Jackson, Gary Pollard, Kevin O'Boyle, Paul Catling, Roland Stevenson
 * Mould shop supervisor: Kenny Wilson
 * Mould shop labourer: Dave Kelly
 * Mould shop assistants: Steve Bettles, Chris Howes, Chris Coxon, Dave Dunsterville
 * Senior mechanical designer: Richard Darwin
 * Animatronic engineers: Andy Bowman, Dan Burnett, Guy Stevens, Jamie Lawrence, Karen Purvis, Mark Hunter, Mike Scanlan, Simon Hewitt, Stuart Robinson
 * Art finish: Emily Phillips, Graham High, Martha Fein, Tacy Kneale, Waldo Mason
 * Electronics department supervisor: Julian Manning
 * Control systems engineer: Pete Bell
 * Stunt players included David Forman

Muppet Mentions

 * The 2007 book Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara includes Jim Henson's Creature Shop in the acknowledgements. As reference for illustrating his character Bix, James Gurney has used a maquette produced by the Creature Shop earlier in the development of the Dinotopia adaptation. The character did not appear in the final film. The maquette also appeared and was briefly described in Gurney's 2009 book Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist.