The Good Dinosaur is a huge step forward technologically for Pixar, a company famous for such breakthroughs, but cannot compare to the powerful storytelling of its best films, such as Inside Out, Toy Story 3 or WALL-E.
Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is set in a world where the meteor which is popularly believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs narrowly misses planet Earth. “Millions of years later,” as the title card informs us, dinosaurs and not humans have evolved into the dominant species, as cowboy T. Rexes, farmer apatosaurs and unbalanced pterodactyls co-exist uneasily in a dino version of the frontier Old West.
Meanwhile, homo sapiens have been relegated to a wolf-like pack existence, eking out their survival on the fringes of this society. The Good Dinosaur, directed by Peter Sohn and with a screenplay by Meg LeFauve (although four other people hold story credits), focuses on the relationship between one such human child and our hero Arlo, a knobby-kneed adolescent dinosaur who is forced on a quest to find his way home with “Spot” - a little wolf-boy he catches eating his family’s whole winter store of corn - as his only companion.
Unlike the animated features from other studios - DreamWorks, Fox Animation, even Disney - Pixar releases are invariably compared to their predecessors. In this light, The Good Dinosaur suffers, as it arrives in the wake of the enchanting and emotionally complex (for an animated movie aimed nominally at kids) Inside Out, which is destined to be remembered as one of the studio’s greatest releases. In comparison, The Good Dinosaur is far more straightforward and simplistic in its storytelling. As a showcase for a startling technical achievement in 3D animation, however, the film sets a new bar for the medium.
The Good Dinosaur follows Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa), the smallest sire of his Poppa (Jeffrey Wright) and Momma (Frances McDormand), perpetually in the shadow of his siblings. Clever Libby (Maleah Padilla) and stout, strong Buck (Marcus Scribner) have carved out helpful niches on the family farm and have made their “mark” - a muddy footprint on the stone silo next their parents’ - but Arlo is constantly terrified. When his loving but exasperated father has him follow the tracks of the “critter” raiding their stores out into the wilderness, tragedy strikes. Stranded and lost, Arlo must survive on his wits and with the help of the feral boy Spot, and their bond grows during their adventure.
It’s all pretty simple and features entertaining (if ultimately underwhelming) celebrity voice cameos by Sam Elliot as a helpful T. Rex and Steve Zahn as an antagonistic pterodactyl. The production upheavals which delayed The Good Dinosaur’s release by 18 months (such as the removal of original director Bob Peterson) echo in the overall hollow nature of the narrative, traditionally one of Pixar’s strengths since Toy Story.
The central relationship - a dinosaur and his boy - probably seemed charming on the page and even in storyboard form, but as 3D-animated characters, Arlo lacks in charisma and Spot is just strange. There’s something borderline offensive about the dog-like little boy, rendering him unbelievable. This from a studio which gave us a lost clownfish, cowboy and spaceman toys, a love-struck robot, and a pair of goofy monsters, all of whom are now considered iconic.
The lesser Pixar releases - the Cars franchise, Brave, and now The Good Dinosaur - share the same overall traits: a thin premise and story, but with endearing characters that prove popular when translated into merchandise. Arlo and Spot rank at the lower end of this scale, even when compared to the anthropomorphized automobiles of Cars and Cars 2.
Still, The Good Dinosaur’s visuals are marvelous. The photorealistic CG backgrounds and environments - modeled on the famous Western movie backdrops of Monument Valley - become the main character, providing a unique sense of place that is immersive but cannot overcome the bland characters and muddled narrative.
C+
