THE GOOD DINOSAUR: The Simplistic Movie

Is it selfish for adults to demand more from children’s entertainment? Adults have access to a wealth of different mediums of entertainment to enjoy, so should we crave animated films, mostly intended for a younger audience, to cater towards adult audiences? Indicators of these include dealing with deeper and darker themes, adult-only jokes/pop culture references and generally being an entertaining film that doesn’t go for the lowest common denominator. Maybe Pixar has just spoiled us and we expect too much of them now.

Their latest effort, The Good Dinosaur, feels exclusively for children. The film’s basic plot structure, simplistic character models and the general breezy tone feels lightweight for Pixar, the same studio that delivered the emotional adult-friendly Inside Out earlier this year. It feels like Pixar split up their core audiences and made a film for each of them: Inside Out for their more adult audiences and The Good Dinosaur for the kids.

The result makes The Good Dinosaur unsatisfying, as the repetitive themes and lack of memorable moments makes it quite forgettable, feeling like one of Pixar’s lesser efforts.

I Just Can’t Wait To Get On The Road Again

The Good Dinosaur is about an alternative timeline, where instead of an asteroid hitting Earth and wiping out all the dinosaurs, the asteroid narrowly avoided it and dinosaurs continued to roam the Earth. Whilst this is an interesting “What If” scenario to base a film on, the big problem out of the gate is that the film never capitalizes on it. The ongoing plot never has anything to do with dinosaurs living on the Earth for millions of extra years, it feels like a cheap set-up to explain talking dinosaurs or the appearance of cavemen. This could’ve all occurred without an explanation, it’s not a very hard concept to buy.

The story follows a family of Apatosaurus dinosaurs, led by Momma (Frances McDormand) and Poppa (Jeffrey Wright) who are raising their three children: farmhand Lilly (Maleah Padilla), headstrong Buck (Marcus Scribner) and fear-ridden Arlo (Raymond Ochoa). In an attempt to rid Arlo of his crippling fears, Poppa orders him to hunt down and kill whoever’s been taking their corn supply.

When Arlo finds out it is a caveman child (later named Spot), he can’t bring himself to do it, angering Poppa, who forces him to track down Spot. When the quest for Spot guides them into uncharted territory, Poppa is accidentally killed and Arlo and his family are shattered. Linking Spot to Poppa’s death, Arlo goes to try and take him dow, but gets himself separated from his family, where he must now team up with Spot to find his way home, meeting a cast of characters along his physical and spiritual journey.

As you can gather from the plot synopsis, the film is quite a predictable journey. Character with a major problem goes on journey that forces him to fix that problem, with the help of a goofy sidekick. It’s a story done countless numbers of times in cinema before and sadly Pixar does nothing new with the material. This is one film that will always be associated with its troubled production history, as the film had major plot and crew changes throughout the making of it, cited by Disney due to “not being able to crack the story”.

Whilst I feel like it’s slightly unfair to harp on the film’s shifting behind-the-scenes dilemmas, the results are quite evident on-screen. The film’s lack of thematic depth and basic story structure feel like the results of rushed filmmaking, taking regular story beats and just using them, rather than putting in the time to try and add an original element to them, fleshing out the overall plot and characters, which is work that was obviously put into Inside Out.

It’s Technically Good

The film is not terrible, it’s just disappointingly generic, feeling like something Dreamworks would produce to make Happy Meals toys, rather than a genuine story that Pixar wanted to produce. The goofy character design, the cartoonish dinosaurs, make the characters look like they were transported from the Ice Age franchise, and are lacking that Pixar charm.

On an visual level, The Good Dinosaur is gorgeous, with the child-friendly vivid colour palette able to keep you engaged when the story and characters cannot. The photo-realistic backgrounds are something to be marvelled at, but it feels like a tech demo due to the lack of interesting story elements to back up the visuals. The juxtaposition between the photo-realistic backgrounds and the simplistic characteristic dinosaurs is quite alarming at first, two different visual styles clashing together which don’t naturally fit.

On a visual storytelling level, I understand the decision to do it. Due to Arlo’s journey through the unknown land, his green vivid body is meant to stand out against the realistic backgrounds, adding to the feeling that Arlo is out of his element. Spot, the caveman dogboy, is given the best animation treatment in terms of character modelling, with his expressive face working extremely well to communicate his shifting emotions throughout the film.

Pixar have shown countless times that they can work wonders in creating character moments without dialogue, from the opening of Up, the majority of Wall-E and the infamous inferno scene from Toy Story 3. This ability is on show here, one of the only indicators in the film that reminds you that this film is still made by Pixar, with Arlo and Spot developing a tight friendship through their actions, rather than heavy-handed dialogue. That heavy-handed, on the nose dialogue is saved for the adult characters.

Even though it’s slightly shifted in recent years, one positive aspect that Pixar has held above their competitors (such as Dreamworks and Sony Pictures Animation) is their knack of using great voice actors, rather than using any celebrity purely to advertise a star-studded cast and be a recognisable name for the adults.

Jeffrey Wright works well as Arlo’s dad, Poppa, lending him an authoritative demeanour which really fits the character well. A sign of good voice acting is when, like any type of acting, the actor is divorced from themselves and successfully sells the character to an audience. Instead of thinking that’s Jeffrey Wright just voicing some character, it felt like he put in some genuine effort into making a memorable character, who sadly is written as a generic father figure character seen countless of times, feeling like a carbon copy of Mufasa from The Lion King.

Steve Zahn is an interesting choice for the pseudo-antagonist of the film, Thunderclap, a leader of a gang of pterodactyls who want to eat Spot. He gives an energetic performance that gives a frenetic energy to the character that gives him an unsettling nature that might frighten younger viewers. Other cast members, such as young Raymond Ochoa as Arlo and Frances McDormand as Momma also contribute well to the movie, even if the script constantly undercuts their acting.

The Verdict

At the end of the day, The Good Dinosaur is not a bad film, it’s just disappointing. Considering the films that have come before it, especially in the same year as Inside Out, shows a dramatic dip in quality from Pixar. It’s a simplistic picture, one that dazzles quickly with an attractable set of visual delights and entertaining voice-overs, but is severely undercut by the film’s seemingly rushed production, which removed any deep storytelling or character developments that the plot might’ve once had.

Whilst adults might be accustomed to expect universal entertainment from Pixar due to their previous catalogue of adult-alluring films that have preceded this, Good Dinosaur is too basic and cartoonish to make any real impact on anyone outside of children who are easily delighted. Whilst the film hits some of the regular Pixar touchstones – the overtly sentimental moment to make you cry, great use of emotions to build character and a handful of scenes which have the comedic Pixar touch, Good Dinosaur ends up feeling like a subpar Pixar film, seemingly rushed just to fill matinees, rather than delivering a finished, polished project.

With the current lineup of Pixar films being dominated by sequels, Pixar aren’t quite as bulletproof as they once were. One must never dismiss any upcoming films though, Finding Dory might be excellent. Let’s hope, shall we.

What do you think of Pixar’s upcoming line-up that also includes another Toy Story sequel?

The Good Dinosaur is currently out in both the UK and US. For the release dates in your country see here.