If you missed my first two entries in this series, Meet & Greet is where I shed light on Disney characters from various attractions. The first two entries were about beloved characters from EPCOT that were big in the '80s as I looked at Figment and Dreamfinder in the initial entry for this segment and in the second entry, Pretty Boy and I took on the King of Pop as we looked at Captain EO. However, today we finally move out of the '80s and leave EPCOT behind as we head to Animal Kingdom to look at a character from the ride, Dinosaur. Formerly known as Countdown to Extinction. (which is a better name btw). Now, I'll freely admit that unlike the last couple of characters, there isn't much to this character as he mostly only appears in the pre-show but there is still a bit to him to make him work. Now, again as I said there won't be as much to this character as the other entries but I think it can still work. Now in this entry, we will be looking at Actor, Attraction, Personality Pre-Show Appearance, Ride Appearance, and finally Is Dr. Seeker A Good Character? You'll notice that I'm skipping two categories song and Appearances Outside The Park. Well with Seeker, I think song is obvious as he doesn't look like the type that has a song and instead I've brought in two new categories Pre-Show Appearance, which will serve the same function as looking at Seeker's First Appearance and Ride Appearance, to see what role, Seeker exactly plays on the ride. With that out of the way, let's begin.
Actor
Wallace Langham
Dr. Seeker is played by Wallace Langham, an actor that has roles on notable shows such as West Wing and CSI. Granted, this is a rather small role and there is not much meat to the character but for what he is given to work with, he does a reasonable job.
Pre-Show Appearance
We first see Seeker in the Pre-show video as he hijacks the video from the director of the Dino Institute (the setting for the ride), Dr. Marsh.
And yes, that is Phylicia Rashad aka Claire Huxtable as the director of The Dino Institute. He hijacks the feed and we go to his lab and this is the first appearance that we see of Seeker.
This is our first introduction to Seeker. I've got a bad feeling about this. You see, Seeker is kinda ambitious as The Dino Institute has built a Time Rover and Marsh wants to send the guests back to the early Cretaceous Period to learn more about dinosaurs and see that the future lies in the past but Seeker wants to send them to towards the end of the Cretaceous Period to bring back an iguanodon, so that they can study it and see if it can help them to better understand life on the current timeline. Yeah, I don't see any problems with this at all. At this, Marsh comes in and says that they cannot send the guests to that period as it's too close to when the meteor hit and that the Time Rovers have a locked coordinate.
After Marsh leaves, he says that those coordinates aren't locked and that they will be going to the latter part of the Cretaceous Period.
Attraction
Dinosaur
The ride, Dinosaur is a sated in Seeker's Pre-Show Appearance is a time travel ride that is a dark ride/old mill type. It is rather intense and there are a lot of frights as various dinosaurs pop out while you travel back in time. The setting of the ride as stated is The Dino Institute.
The Dino Institute's mission is to study dinosaurs and learn from the past about how to make a better future. Now originally, the ride was titled Countdown For Extinction.
And it was a more intense ride but around May of 2000, the ride's name was changed to Dinosaur to tie in with the film of the same name and the dinosaur that Seeker wanted to go and bring back was changed to the star of Dinosaur, Aladar.
But that's about where the tie-in to the film ends. The vehicle as mentioned above is the Time Rover.
I enjoy the scientific look of it as it does really look like something that scientists cobbled together and hey look, you can buy a toy of it for the kids.
The Time Rover is an enhanced motion vehicle, which uses the motion to move the vehicle around and the best comparsion would be Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of The Forbidden Eye.
I will say that after going on both Forbidden Eye and Dinosaur, I prefer how Indy handles the Enhanced Motion Vehicle as it is more intense and puts you more in the action but again that goes back to changes that were made to tie it into Dinosaur as to get more kids on the ride, they lowered the intensity.
Personality
Seeker is a bit ambitious as we stated uptop and while we may not get to know much about this paleontologist throughout the ride, he's not a bad person. He just made a mistake putting civilians in risk of being hurt. In many ways, I thought of Jurassic Park with his character (I know, I know but hear me out). I was originally going to compare him to Dennis Nedry
But while he is putting himself in a situation that would better himself , he's doing a bad thing but for for what he thought were the right reasons. Though I think this quote is more fit for Seeker.
Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
But again, he is doing for a self-fulfilling reason but there are no malicious intents on the part of Seeker. And as you'll notice as you go on the ride, Seeker stays with the guests throughout the experience. Granted, he does this as he is the only one that knows what the dinosaur looks like and he put a tracker on it during an unauthorized field trip with the Time Rover.
Ride Appearance
You hear Seeker throughout the ride via audio and I think that he stays in his lab as he interacts with the computer to try and find the iguanodon and we do see him tell the computer to get away from other dinosaurs especially as a certain dino is about to attack.
Say hello to the Carnotaurus. Sure, up close, he may not look that scary bu on the ride, he is actually quite frightening. The ride ends with the guests coming back to the present with the iguanodon in tow and now Seeker says that he has to hide him from security.
Is Dr. Seeker A Good Character?
All in all, he's not a bad character. Again as I stated, there's not a whole lot to him. On the surface, when the guests are first introduced to him, he seems like a silly character that isn't all there. I mean, this is our introduction to Seeker.
Though the more I think about him, the more that I think he's shady but not inherently evil but his intentions lies squarely in the morally questionable category. I was originally hoping for this to be the first ever Theme Parks Villains Profile but unlike say The Supreme Leader from Captain EO, I can't truly view as truly evil.
I think overall, he is a person that just happened to get in over his head. I may perhaps be overthinking this character but I really think with a character that on the surface doesn't have much to him, there is quite a bit that you could look into. Join me next time as we head to Disney World and Disneyland to take a look at Dinos In The Parks.
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