
When Fantasia was released in 1940, the dominant scientific theory about dinosaur extinction was that climate change, particularly drought and environmental shifts, led to their demise. The asteroid impact hypothesis, now widely accepted, was not proposed until 1980 by Luis and Walter Alvarez. At the time Fantasia was made, scientists believed dinosaurs died out gradually due to a changing environment, food shortages, and worsening conditions, rather than a sudden catastrophic event. Disney’s animators followed this understanding, depicting the dinosaurs struggling in a harsh, dry landscape, ultimately succumbing to exhaustion and starvation.
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