The backgrounds in the movie are actually superimposed photos of exotic tropical locations such as Canaima National Park in Venezuela, while some others are from Tahiti and Hawaii.
The plot hole pointed out by some as to why the herd went to have their babies in the Nesting Grounds, but didn't remain there (hence the desert exodus) was explained in the "Essential Guide" of this movie: the land in the Nesting Grounds becomes too cold and infertile in the winter, driving the herd to leave it and return when they begin to breed.
In order to separate this from the similar movie Le petit dinosaure et la vallée des merveilles (1988), this movie was intended not to have any dialogue at all, but Michael Eisner, head of Disney, insisted they include it.
Initially, Directors Eric Leighton and Ralph Zondag were to use the popular Tyrannosaurus rex as this movie's antagonistic predator, but at around the time of production, Le Monde perdu : Jurassic Park (1997) was released, which depicted a somewhat softer, motherly side to the classic dinosaur. Thus, a Carnotaurus was used. However, they changed the Carnotaurus' size to be even larger than Tyrannosaurus rex, close to 17-18 m long, when real Carnotaurus were only 8-9 m in length, about the same size or even smaller then the film's hero Aladar.
The original planned opening shot, showing the meteor moving through space, was cut when an identical opening shot was used in Armageddon (1998).