Doraemon: Nobita and the Knights on Dinosaurs (1987) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Suneo gets frightened while exploring the underground cave and runs blindly into a tunnel, where he loses his way. He is eventually captured by a knight riding a dinosaur. This capture leads the group to discover that Suneo has been taken to the capital city Enriru, which sets up the rescue mission and the subsequent revelations about the underground civilization.

Foreshadowing: Earlier, Suneo's first dinosaur sighting at the river already marked him as someone deeply connected to the mystery of the underground world.

• suneo capture
• knight
• underground world
• dinosaur riders
• enriru

Anyone who visits the underground world and returns to the surface has their memories erased as a rule imposed by the underworld's inhabitants. The Knights explain that visitors are not allowed to retain knowledge of the underground realm. However, at the end of the movie, Doraemon and his friends are allowed to return with their memories intact, making them unique exceptions to this rule.

Foreshadowing: Banhou warns them about memory erasure early in their journey, creating tension about whether they will remember their adventure.

• memory erasure
• amnesia
• underground world
• knights
• enriru
• surface world

While riding a dinosaur, Nobita is swept away to a forbidden building where he discovers a large ship and overhears plans by the underground dinosaur people to reclaim Earth's surface from mammals. This revelation reveals the central conflict: the descendants of dinosaurs blame mammals for their ancestors' extinction and want to take back the surface world.

Foreshadowing: The underground museum earlier showed that the inhabitants wrongly believed extraterrestrials caused the dinosaurs' extinction, setting up this confrontation.

• forbidden building
• ship
• dinosaur knights
• reclaim earth
• mammals
• surface world

The ship is revealed to be a time machine that escapes the knights' attack by traveling to the Cretaceous period. This is significant because it allows the characters to witness firsthand the asteroid impact that caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs. The time travel serves as both an escape mechanism and a way to understand the true cause of dinosaur extinction.

Foreshadowing: The underground museum's revelation about the dinosaurs' extinction was a setup for this actual historical event.

• time machine
• cretaceous era
• asteroid
• dinosaur extinction
• time travel
• ship

In the movie, the group travels to the Cretaceous era and witnesses an asteroid strike that triggers a massive tsunami. Doraemon explains that the asteroid wiped out plants and plankton, causing herbivores and dependent species to die, while mammals survived by hibernating underground. The underworld inhabitants originally blamed extraterrestrials for the extinction, but Doraemon helps them understand the scientific reality.

Foreshadowing: The museum earlier showed the underworld people believed something mysterious caused the extinction, not knowing it was a natural cosmic event.

• dinosaur extinction
• asteroid
• cretaceous
• mass extinction
• mammals
• underground survival

The dinosaur knights and underground civilization believe they are the rightful inheritors of Earth, blaming mammals for the dinosaurs' extinction millions of years ago. Their plan to reclaim the surface from mammals stems from this historical grievance. Nobita overhears this plan in the forbidden building, which creates the urgent need for the group to escape back to their own time.

Foreshadowing: The museum revealed that the underground humans evolved from dinosaurs and hold onto this historical identity.

• dinosaur knights
• reclaim surface
• mammals
• underground civilization
• earth
• conflict

The Anywhere Hole, Doraemon's gadget that creates a portal to any location, gets destroyed when a truck runs over it in an empty lot. This event cuts off the children's easy access to the underground world and forces them to find alternative routes, such as following the river to discover new entrances. The destruction also angers their mothers, who had discovered the children were lying about their whereabouts.

Foreshadowing: The Anywhere Hole had been their primary tool for entering the underground world throughout their early explorations.

• anywhere hole
• gadget
• destroyed
• truck
• underground entrance
• doraemon tools

The underground world contains a vast, perfectly rectangular area that appears unnatural compared to the rest of the terrain. This area is later recreated on the surface during the asteroid/tsunami crisis when Doraemon uses a tunnel to create a shelter, effectively mirroring that rectangular space. The size is compared to Hokkaido, making it an enormous protective cavern.

Foreshadowing: This rectangular area in the underworld was mysterious from the start, and its purpose becomes clear when the group needs shelter from the tsunami.

• rectangular area
• underground world
• hokkaido
• shelter
• tunnel
• tsunami

At the beginning of the movie, Doraemon uses a gadget to check whether any dinosaurs are still alive 'on' Earth, and the result shows they are extinct. This initially convinces Nobita to abandon his belief that dinosaurs might still exist. However, the discovery of the underground world reveals that dinosaurs do survive in a hidden realm beneath the surface, making the gadget's reading technically correct about surface Earth but incomplete.

Foreshadowing: The gadget's answer sets up the mystery that drives the entire adventure, the question of whether dinosaurs truly vanished.

• doraemon gadget
• dinosaurs extinct
• earth
• surface
• underground world
• search

Suneo carries a camera during one of their underground trips that records his airplane still flying in the underground world even though it crashed in the surface river. This footage proves to Nobita and Doraemon that the underground world is real and that Suneo's stories are not hallucinations. The recording becomes crucial evidence that motivates them to mount a rescue mission.

Foreshadowing: Earlier, Suneo was mocked for his dinosaur sightings, but the camera provides tangible proof of the underground realm.

• suneo camera
• airplane
• footage
• underground world
• proof
• rescue mission

Banhou is a knight riding a dinosaur who rescues the group when they are captured by kappas. He reveals that Suneo is being held in the capital Enriru and explains the rules of the underground world, including the memory erasure requirement. While his sister Roo guides the main group after Banhou is called away for duties, he later returns with his ship to rescue them from the knights' attack and the asteroid catastrophe.

Foreshadowing: Banhou appears at a critical moment when the group is about to face danger from the kappas.

• banhou
• knight
• kapu rescue
• enriru
• ship
• time machine
• sister roo

At the end of the movie, the underground civilization allows Nobita and his friends to return to the surface with their memories intact. This is unusual because the normal rule is that all visitors must have their memories erased. They are celebrated as heroes for saving many dinosaurs by creating an underground refuge during the asteroid impact, which earns them this special exception.

Foreshadowing: The memory erasure rule was established early, making the heroes' unique treatment a significant plot resolution.

• memories kept
• heroes
• surface return
• dinosaur rescue
• celebration
• exception