The Good Dinosaur

[droosan]

ummm .. I just saw it, and it's

a western, with dinosaurs.

.. how in the heck does a studio make a movie that is

a western, with dinosaurs

, yet allow the marketing campaign to essentially hide the fact that it's

a western, with dinosaurs

..? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure more people would've had their interest piqued, had it been sold in those words.

I will never understand Disney marketing.

----------------------------

I rather enjoyed it; though, I will agree it's a GOOD movie, as opposed to a GREAT one. But there's nothing wrong with that!

I will admit to knowing next-to-nothing about the movie's 'behind-the-scenes' issues .. but The Good Dinosaur as it exists doesn't seem to bear the scars of such tinkering as noticeably as, say, Brave seemed to (IMO).

I'd found the hyper-realistic backdrops 'jarring' in the trailers .. but within the first few minutes of the movie itself, I was sucked-in to Arlo's story enough that I wasn't bothered by it. Time will tell if that extends to repeat viewings, though.

[EricJ]

ummm .. I just saw it, and it's

a western, with dinosaurs.

I saw it with the free DMR ticket I was duped into buying to use my points, and, yeah, I don't think I'd have paid for it otherwise.

how in the heck does a studio make a movie that is

a western, with dinosaurs,

yet allow the marketing campaign to essentially hide the fact that it's

a western, with dinosaurs

..? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure more people would've had their interest piqued, had it been sold in those words.

They probably would have, until they found out it's NOT

a western, with dinosaurs,

since the T-Rexas Rangers and their no-good rustlin' varmints only show up for about ten minutes out of the entire movie. (That, and "Animated CGI western with reptilian critters" has a bit of a strike against it as audience box-office draw, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. )
I'd sort of assumed Arlo would ride with them for a while, it would turn into a stylized Western, and his grizzled mentors would teach him a bit more about independence, like the other damaged fish in the tank went out of their way to help Nemo, but, err.....nope, they just went their way after their bit, and we were back to the two characters in the scary landscape again. We see little more of the T-rexes in the movie than we see in the clips and trailer.

Which is too bad, since they were the only likable characters in the movie besides Spot--Arlo's not Nemo, since Nemo wanted to be independent but his dad was the timid one telling him about the scary world with teeth and holding him back. Here, everyone including his dad is trying to get Arlo out of his shell (literally), and for the first half, he's too much of a wimp to do it. We can understand his fear of Lion King-like storms, being scared of bugs and chickens is another.
Apart from that, there doesn't seem to be much argument against him that the World Is a Scary Place, especially since most of it either turns on him, swarms over him, or, like the Triceratops and the Pteros, turns out to be full of disturbing nutcases. He's just lucky he isn't in the prehistoric landscape that kept attacking the Croods every other scene, but not by much.

For all the talk of Cars 2 being the "worst" Pixar, I think I actually had more fun sitting through that one--Yes, Mater is an idiot, but at least the world of Finn McMissile is one you actually wouldn't mind going back to.

[droosan]

There's much more to the genre-analogy than just the T-Rex sequence:

<> Apatosaurs = The 'salt of the earth' farming family
<> Forrest = kooky shaman
<> Pterodactyls = 'end-times' religious zealots
<> and sure, the T-Rexes = ranchers, and Raptors = rustlers
--------------
<> All of the characters have archetypal 'old west' accents, as befits their role in the story.
<> The setting (the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone region) is the OLD 'old west'
<> The soundtrack score often does its best to channel the spirit of Elmer Bernstein

So, perhaps not a standard "round 'em up, shoot 'em out"-type Western .. but definitely a "sprawling journey"-type Western, in the vein of The Searchers (or -- as posited by others earlier in the thread -- akin to related 'lost in the western wilderness' movies like The Bear or Benji: the Hunted).

The thing is, that's not the vibe I'd gotten from the trailers .. at all.

I don't tend to place much trust in Disney's trailers, as it is .. but situations like this pretty much give me reason not to.

[Ben]

To be fair, I think Pixar do a great job of making outside-the-box, hard-to-sell films that are not always able to be sampled in two minutes, although from the sounds of things they didn't even get the tone right here.

However, my understanding was that Pixar produced all their own marketing, posters, trailers, etc, in-house (referred to by Lasseter and Catmull in the past, the unit is also credited on their films), so it's not all just Disney's responsibility.

Then again, there's the debate of what a trailer sets out to do. Show you what the film is like in two minutes and get you interested? Or show you a bunch of scenes designed just to appeal in whatever way they can to get you into a theater...

[EricJ]

And sooner or later, all grownup Pixar reviews and discussions turn to fixated discussions of One Scene--
With TS2, it was Jessie's song, with TS3, it was the furnace or the ending, with Up, it was Carl & Ellie, and now even Inside Out (which we'd thought was appreciated for its own total self) has now turned into spoiler-heavy discussions about BingBong.

With Good Dinosaur, however...take a wild guess which scene keeps getting mentioned most frequently in the reviews. And not necessarily by the grownups.

[Bill1978]

A fart gag?

[Ben]

Not having seen it yet I can't guess, but the "western with dinosaurs" analogy has been evoked in at least two or three reviews I've seen printed over here.

As to James' review on the front page, I would say that the film very much looks like a younger child's movie. The teasers were more simplistic than Pixar's usual (the meteor passing was done as a big joke rather than a dramatic near miss), the cast is made up of funny, rubber looking kid-like depictions of dinosaurs, and one of the leads is a kid. From day one, for me at least, this looked like a kids movie through and through, so that's exactly what I'm expecting. The (for me) still fairly odd title also adds a childlike innocence to what the film could be.

As for plot, well I already picked up from the following trailers that it wasn't going to be "original" in that original Pixar way, and though my initial thought that it could have been called Finding Dino might not be spot on for those who have seen it, it also doesn't actually sound that far off for those of us still waiting for it. The visuals seem to be the area in which they have pushed things forward: as much as the characters are stylised, it does seem a conciliatory decision to make the photorealism pop so as to give the adults and geeks something to rave about.

But I don't think there's anything *wrong* with Pixar putting out a film more directly aimed at kids than usual. I know James isn't saying that in his review (only that he'd wished he knew that was the case, though I would argue it was fairly clear), but many of the Lamp's pictures have had a massive kid component in them and maybe this time it just tipped the balance to outweigh the more sophisticated aspects.

After all, they only just put out such a sophisticated animated film for adults with their manual on how parents can better understand their teenage kids!

[EricJ]

And sooner or later, all grownup Pixar reviews and discussions turn to fixated discussions of One Scene--
With Good Dinosaur, however...take a wild guess which scene keeps getting mentioned most frequently in the reviews. And not necessarily by the grownups.

Not having seen it yet I can't guess

Let's just say it's what Sid referred to as "the Bear homage".
(And homaging The Bear's woodsy nature-road-trip does seem to be the intent, as I can't think of any other reason why that scene was in the movie...)

As for the problem of two Pixars (one rather weak) in one year, a Forbes columnist does rather agree with me on:

As I jokingly said the other day, if I were a conspiracy theorist, I might presume that Walt Disney and Pixar moved The Good Dinosaur to this weekend, eighteen months after its planned May 2014 debut, specifically so it could come out after Inside Out. The Good Dinosaur is a darn good movie, and it may have legs and/or the usual overseas strength. But had it come out in 2014, in the middle of the somewhat farcical “Pixar slump” talk, it surely would have been viewed as another piece of evidence that Pixar is doomed… Doomed… DOOMED! But now, coming off of the fantastic and fantastically successful Inside Out ($851 million worldwide), the comparatively small-scale results (barring crazy December legs) for The Good Dinosaur can just be glorified trivia in between Inside Out and next summer’s Finding Dory.

(Well, we differ in that it's not a "darn good movie", IMO, and while November isn't summer, he blames a mediocre opening on the Thanksgiving slot that was once considered overshadowed by the first-week November slot for family animated films--No, I don't think it was the Peanuts Movie that hurt TGD's box office.)

[Vernadyn]

As for plot, well I already picked up from the following trailers that it wasn't going to be "original" in that original Pixar way, and though my initial thought that it could have been called Finding Dino might not be spot on for those who have seen it, it also doesn't actually sound that far off for those of us still waiting for it.

Actually, it did kind of remind me of Finding Nemo in that it's a rather episodic quest story, the two main characters coming across a variety of quirky characters and predicaments. (The somewhat disjointed nature of Finding Nemo is why I don't count it as one of my absolute favorite Pixar films, despite its strengths.) However, the personalities and situations in Nemo are wittier and more engaging. One could draw a very loose parallel between the T-Rexes in The Good Dinosaur and the sharks in Finding Nemo. But while we get the marvelously droll "Fish are friends, not food" as motivation for the sharks, for an explanation of why the T-Rexes act as they do, we get, well, nothing really.

I was also a little disappointed that the film didn't really play with the "dinosaurs living alongside humans" conceit--all we really get on that score is Arlo and Spot. Indeed, the filmmakers did say it was a "boy and his dog" story, but why couldn't it have just been a boy and his dog? Or an herbivore and some smaller animal? In other words, was there really any reason to make them dinosaurs other than the fact that dinosaurs look cool?

That said, I do think that this film, like the best Pixar and Disney films, excels in making its emotional scenes feel earned and genuine. (Though nothing in The Good Dinosaur comes close to rivaling Inside Out, Toy Story 2, or Monsters, Inc.) When many animated films from most other mainstream studios try to go this route, they feel manipulative and mawkish.

[Dacey]

I haven't read all the comments here in full, but I am going to say that this didn't feel like a "kid's movie" to me. At least not in the way James was saying.

In fact, in many ways, I think it was far and away Pixar's most intense movie to date. Maybe it was because the two leads were children or because of the exceptional direction, but the scary moments actually felt scary here.

And, yet, that's one of the reasons I thought it was a wonderful film. And I must admit I'm baffled by the lukewarm response to some extent, since this was easily better than Monster University and probably even Brave, both of which seemed to get more "enthusiastic" responses from some critics (and do I even need to mention Cars 2?). Was living under Inside Out's shadow unavoidable? Perhaps, but it's also probably unfair. I felt every emotion that I was supposed to feel during this movie, and the "simpler" story allowed for some of the more oddball characters and scenes (unless I'm mistaken, this is the first Pixar film to have a drug hallucination sequence) to come into play. Besides, this was a movie where Sam Elliot voiced a cowboy T-Rex. That makes it worth watching by default in my book.

All in all, if it weren't for Inside Out, I'd say this might be a surefire win for Best Animated Feature this year. And even if the story and "stranger" aspects (which I loved) don't do it for you, the animation (the water and clouds look completely photo-realistic) definitely should.

[EricJ]

In fact, in many ways, I think it was far and away Pixar's most intense movie to date. Maybe it was because the two leads were children or because of the exceptional direction, but the scary moments actually felt scary here.

There's been a lot of press articles lately about parents finding the movie Not Safe For Kids 7 and Under, and I would concur.
I'm not against a good Pixar villain, if it's Syndrome, Hopper or Stinky Pete, but when we go from the crazy Pteros to the butt-ugly and crazy Raptors, it's one of the few times in the usually villain-avoiding Pixar movies that we've had too many villains.
And not even scary in a good way, but just creepy. Even the "lovable" pet collector is there as disturbing aversion therapy to show Arlo how terrible the longterm consequences of fear can be, and cause him to back away nervously and try to protect Spot from the bad crazy man. (No, seriously, I know the director has to have fun voicing a character, but were we supposed to like him?? )

And this was one of the articles that tried to defend the movie!:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-goo ... nts-scary/
(Although they hit exactly the thought that occurred to me during the movie: One more young dino's scream of panic, or fall off of a crumbling cliff, and we WOULD officially be in child-terrorizing Don Bluth territory.)

[Dacey]

Even the "lovable" pet collector is there as disturbing aversion therapy to show Arlo how terrible the longterm consequences of fear can be, and cause him to back away nervously and try to protect Spot from the bad crazy man.

Actually, my hunch is he was just there for laughs.

"And this is Debbie..."

[EricJ]

All in all, if it weren't for Inside Out, I'd say this might be a surefire win for Best Animated Feature this year. And even if the story and "stranger" aspects (which I loved) don't do it for you, the animation (the water and clouds look completely photo-realistic) definitely should.

Actually, given most of the all-out "PLEASE, let's not have another King's Speech/Beautiful Mind happen this year where everyone suddenly goes nuts over Spotlight at the very last second!" grooming of Inside Out for a Best Picture lock, it's pretty likely that Disney will split their competitors and let TGD settle for the "mere" Best Animated. (Which most of the fans have now felt for the last seven years is an insult to Pixar, and feel sorry for the other nominees.)
In which case it might win on technical merit, like you said, but only because the competition's pretty weak--TGD's not a "winner" like Wall-E, but the Peanuts Movie, as good as it is, isn't going to be a surprise upset. And, of course, the Ralph vs. Brave factor where everybody votes for Pixar over the movies they didn't bother to see.

[Dacey]

It seems virtually impossible to imagine Inside Out not winning BFA. The only real "threat" could come from Anomalisa, which is apparently getting very strong awards hype.

[EricJ]

It seems virtually impossible to imagine Inside Out not winning BFA. The only real "threat" could come from Anomalisa, which is apparently getting very strong awards hype.

It's possible if you imagine IO NOT EVEN BEING NOMINATED for BFA, what with Disney not playing it for competition out of generous fairness to their other movies.
(It's not the main ambition Disney has in mind for IO, they know it, they know the Academy knows it, and the general air right now toward BFA is like Boston fans in 2004 worrying whether the Red Sox will win the league division finals: "Who cares about the minor crap we once had to settle for; this is our year to go for the Big Schlozzola, and it's really happening!")
We already have a conspicuous absence on Disney's FYC ads for the movie.

Of course, some of us were expecting the windmill-tilting NBOR Best of Year list to fire the first bold pre-Oscar broadside of naming IO Best Picture of the Year, but they had other Oscar-tweaking fish to fry--Ironically, they were trying to shake things up by naming Mad Max best movie of the year, and IO was "exiled" to Best Animated.
But we shall see how the other critics' lists shape up.