The Good Dinosaur (Film)

After the dazzlingly sublime Inside Out (still my favorite film of 2015), it's hard to believe that a film fraught with so much behind-the-scenes turmoil would top it. But hey, Toy Story 2's production brought Pixar down to its knees, and yet it turned out to be the best film in that peerless trilogy. The Good Dinosaur's original director, Bob Peterson (a Pixar stalwart, co-directing Up and lending his voice to the characters of Geri, Roz, Mr. Ray, and Dug), was replaced fairly late in production with Peter Sohn (another Pixar regular, director of the short Partly Cloudy, and the voice of Emile and Squishy Squibbles). The trailers for the film didn't inspire me--though most Pixar trailers don't--so I was feeling a little dubious. Did the film assuage my skepticism?

The "high-concept" premise the film propounds is, "What if dinosaurs weren't killed by that gigantic meteor?" (To which that ever-ruminative philosopher Willy Wonka would reply, "What if my beard were made of green spinach?") How would dinosaurs and humans interact with each other? I'm sure there would have been a whole lot of munching going on, but the film takes a gentler, more kid-friendly approach. Actually, one of the aspects of the film that surprised me was that humans play a diminished role in the film. The only real interaction we see between dinos and humans is between the two protagonists, Arlo (a plant-eater that looks like a Brachiosaurus) and Spot, a human boy. We don't see how human societies interact with the various dinosaur societies.

In fact, the film takes a "boy and his dog" approach (in which the Arlo is the boy and Spot is the dog) to the central relationship, which makes me question why the filmmakers had to use a dinosaur and a human at all. If you're going to make a film about animals, you should have a strong story and character reason for using those particular animals--otherwise, they're just eye candy. The Lion King is a good example of how to use animal archetypes to further the story and deepen the character relationships, even if it's not 100% accurate to real life. (We all know that Scar would actually have an American accent, just like the rest of his family.) Dinosaurs are cool (or at least we think so--who knows; maybe in real life they were pathetic), but the story could've been about a prehistoric boy and a wolf making their way through the wilderness. I do think it would be intriguing to see how humans would deal with Velociraptors, T-Rexes, or even herbivores as large as the Supersaurus, but alas, The Good Dinosaur does not treat the audience to such interactions.

Another odd choice is the contrast between the lush, breathtaking, realistic environments and the cartoony character designs of the dinosaurs. I'm not going to vilify this decision as half of the Internet is doing, and indeed, it does make some sense with the filmmakers' intent that nature be the antagonist. I do think that Finding Nemo found a better balance between the environment and character design--in fact, in that film, the filmmakers found they had to pull back on the realism and stylize the backgrounds when they found their initial tests too realistic. (Polar Express/Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, anyone?)

Speaking of Finding Nemo, The Good Dinosaur has a similar structure: two characters going on an episodic quest, meeting a variety of different characters and situations along the way. However, The Good Dinosaur's episodes feel more detached than Nemo's, and the situations less clever and humorous. One encounter features a trio of Tyrannosaurs; while they're somewhat reminiscent of the sharks in Nemo, there's no real motivation behind their behavior, much less one as amusing as "Fish are friends, not food."

The musical score, by brothers Mychael and Jeff Danna, does an adequate job punctuating the grandeur of the landscape and lends a decent amount of emotion to the more tender scenes. However, the themes didn't stick in my memory, and the Super Danna Brothers' work here doesn't come close to matching the admittedly lofty heights of Michael Giacchino's Pixar scores (save Cars 2), or even Thomas Newman's scores and Randy Newman's better efforts. There's not much quantitatively wrong with the score--I like the use of exotic instruments (especially percussion) for one--but it's still missing that intangible quality that makes a good score great.

So far, this has been a fairly negative review, but there's still plenty in The Good Dinosaur to recommend. The voice work is effective, with each actor embodying his or her character. Much of the film falls on Raymond Ochoa's performance as Arlo, and he acquits himself nicely. Sam Elliott, Steve Zahn, and Anna Paquin play the more colorful side characters with panache while not calling attention to themselves. But Jeffrey Wright and Frances McDormand as Arlo's parents prove the most impressive, their naturalistic, non-grandstanding performances making you truly believe in their characters as people instead of animated characters voiced by celebrities.

The Good Dinosaur's plot is pretty predictable, but the simple story allows the film to develop the emotional scenes that serve as its core. No, they're nowhere near as touching as the moving scenes in Inside Out, but they do feel earned. (One of The Good Dinosaur's writers, Meg LeFauve, also co-wrote Inside Out.) Some animated films today (mostly non-Disney and non-Pixar) try to shoehorn in tear-jerking scenes, but they feel manipulative and tacky. While The Good Dinosaur is not a top-quality film, especially by Pixar's standards, it still evinces the studio's adroit ability at telling stories in an emotionally meaningful manner.