The Leviathan from Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) bears an uncanny resemblance to the Air Scorpion from Dinotopia: First Flight (1999)... another time studios took inspiration from Gurney?

[u/wandering_soles]

Same general design, scary enforcer role, etc. It's been discussed at length how much Naboo in The Phantom Menace draws from Waterfall City and dinotopia in general for asthetics, but it never occurred to me just how close this example is.

[u/vorropohaiah]

think i had read somewhere that naboo was directly inspired by sauropolis

[u/wandering_soles → u/vorropohaiah]

Definitely the archway painting from Sauropolis and the final parade scene! The rest was mainly Waterfall City based with the architecture, sandstone, and waterfalls over cliffs. Would have been very interesting to see what Lucas would have done with a Dinotopia movie had he moved forward with that project. 

[u/mcfaillon → u/vorropohaiah]

I think waterfall city was too, Lucas had a script written to create a Dinotopia movie. I’ve tried looking for it but I’ve never found it. Apparently it was decided not to make the film because of the cost so he went to the prequel series. Personally I think I’d trust Lucas with Dinotopia over Disney that also looked at making it but made Dinosaur instead. So the creative teams definitely had exposure to it.

Ideally I’d love to see either a live action version led by Lucas (without the Disney influence) or an animated series that took the original books and overlayed them with the Age of Heros as the Denison’s become more dinotopian. Digging up its past along the way, likely Lee crab awakening an ancient evil like the strutter army or Ogthar himself being awoken from a deep slumber. Something like that.

[u/mcfaillon]

Poseidos was 100% the inspiration for Atlantis’ design in the film

[u/vizslavoid]

So its funny bc James Gurney’s designs influenced a lot of projects. Yeah Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Naboo from the Star Wars Prequels were both certainly inspired by Gurney’s designs. I think the star wars one is confirmed in some behind the scenes or production detail. And then Disney’s cgi movie Dinosaur was supposed to be a Dinotopia film but ultimately they just did their own thing.

[u/wandering_soles → u/vizslavoid]

SW was definitely confirmed, Columbia approached Lucasfilm about it in the 90s and Gurney even did some spec art for the producers of Waterfall City replacing the red tile roofs with copper green domes as seen on Naboo. I think Lucas felt a bit bad about it, because he even called Gurney up the day after The Phantom Menace was released to chat with him. Gurney's been insanely gracious about it and I think he got a kick out of seeing it come to life on screen in its own way - he even said he almost dropped his popcorn watching TPM for the first time because he was so amazed. 

[u/Old_Dependent_2147]

Whole Atlantis movie is 30/40 percent rip off of Nadia secret of blue water anime