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‘The Good Dinosaur’: Three Ways Pixar’s Look At Prehistoric Times Could Be Fabulous

By Alanna Vopni
Published on: 11:46 PST, Jul 22, 2015

The Good Dinosaur‘s newest trailer dropped yesterday — the visuals are stunning and the relationship between the dinosaur and the little boy is obviously deep, loving, and supportive, but the real question is, what can we expect from Pixar’s latest?

With the overwhelming success of Inside Out, there’s a lot of pressure for the little dinosaur to live up to. Though Pixar has arguably never failed to step up, and here are three ways The Good Dinosaur could be great.

Production Problems And Delays

The Good Dinosaur was originally due to be released in theaters in 2014 but was pulled due to the loss of director Bob Peterson (Up) and Pixar feeling the script needed to be better. Peter Sohn (Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo) came on board in 2013, the story was re-worked and all-new voice talent was hired.

Pixar has a history of taking their time and allowing their stories to go through multiple rewrites until they really come together. The release of The Good Dinosaur on November 25, 2015 marks the first year Pixar will have released two movies in one year.

The film was off the schedule, and since they’ve never released two movies in one year, they didn’t need to release it this year. But they are.

All signs point to The Good Dinosaur bringing all the usual elements that make a Pixar movie so spectacularly entertaining — fantastical adventure, high stakes and raw emotion.

Pixar’s “What If” Angle

Science tells us that dinosaurs and man never occupied the same space but Pixar asks, what if the events that lead to a meteor colliding with earth didn’t happened and the dinosaurs hadn’t died out? Then The Good Dinosaur puts a lost, young, orphan Apatosaurus, named Arlo, with Spot, a child living rough by himself, and make the boy a kind of pet to the lonely dino.

Thus, Arlo sets out with his new pet friend to try and make his way home across a hostile and unknown land where they’ll meet all kinds of different beasts.

It’s an adventure for a boy and his dog – with a Pixar twist. And it’s those twists that add a kind of fun for both child and adult alike that makes their films imminently watchable.

A Single Moment Changes Everything

It’s the moments that make up a life and the choices we make in those moments that make up the person we become.

Moments like: the asteroid passing earth by instead of crashing into it, Arlo becoming an orphan, Arlo being stranded in a strange place far away from home, Spot deciding to help a stranger by getting berries down off a tree so Arlo can eat.

As the song in the trailer “Crystals” by Of Monsters And Men says, “In spite of all my fears, I can see it all so clear.” And looking past the fear is what makes all the difference in those moments.

Pixar has once again hit upon a universal truth and that’s always what makes the best stories.

Get a good look at The Good Dinosaur trailer below.

The Good Dinosaur opens on Thanksgiving and features the voices of Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Frances McDormand, Steve Zahn, Jeffrey Wright, Anna Paquin, and Sam Elliot.

[Image courtesy Disney Pixar via Design & Trend]

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