Pixar Pint #16: The Good Dinosaur
It's bad!
Welcome back to Pixar Pints, our summer-long journey through all 26 Pixar films in release order.
Imagine if [The Land Before Time] was CGI and they released it now: an extremely literal coming-of-age dinosaur movie with dark atmosphere and beautiful backgrounds (but, frankly, ugly dinosaurs), with a very basic story which skews to a very young audience despite the dark tone and despite the fact that it comes from a studio which historically has made deeper stuff.
But wait! All of that stuff I just said did happen. It was called The Good Dinosaur and it got mediocre reviews and lost a lot of money.
Let’s get into it.
The Good Dinosaur quick facts
Release date: November 25, 2015 | Director: Peter Sohn | Music: Mychael and Jeff Danna
Starring: Raymond Ochoa (Arlo), Jack Bright (Spot), Sam Elliott (Butch), Anna Paquin (Ramsey), A. J. Buckley (Nash), Steve Zahn (Thunderclap), Jeffrey Wright (Poppa), Frances McDormand (Momma)
John Ratzenberger as: Earl the velociraptor
Budget: $175-200 million1 | Box office: $332.2 million
Academy Awards: lol
Eli
This is the first time I'd seen this movie.
Aesthetic: 9/10 | Boy, this is "Pretty Scenery: the Movie". Never have the sets in a Pixar movie looked so stunning, realistic, and true to life, and that's a really high bar at this point. I really like most of the dinosaur designs too; the Stormchasers, Rustlers, and T-Rexes clearly had a lot of thought put into them and their characters are better for it. The one downside: Arlo's family was designed a little too simply and, let's be honest, lazily for me to give this full points.
Animation: 9/10 | The animation here goes above and beyond, not just fitting in with the aesthetic, but heavily improving it. Every movie since Pixar switched to Presto has been just incredible in this category. I dock it one point for sometimes going out of its way to do things that don't really make any sense but instead just Look Cool™, mostly in action sequences, as Pixar often does.
Story: 1/10 | I hated this story so much. The first half hour+ is just Arlo getting tortured in various ways and it's so fucking brutal for no reason. The rest is Arlo repeatedly being an incompetent, useless protagonist and getting saved from death or serious injury by Spot. And that's honestly the entire movie. The only good scenes in this film were the ones with the T-Rexes; Butch was the first good mentor Arlo had ever had in his life, and being with him actually allowed Arlo to grow as a character. But then Arlo and Spot split from them and it's like Arlo got his memory erased because he goes back to being a selfish idiot in the very next scene and almost getting the two of them killed. The redemption scene of Arlo saving Spot feels completely forced and drags on for way too long. Then Arlo gets to make his mark on the silo at the end for...some reason? He didn't do anything for the family except almost get himself killed.
Characters: 2/10 | The two main characters in this movie are Arlo (idiot, see above) and Spot (precocious human child who is somehow a master of the wilderness at age 7). I spent the whole movie groaning at Arlo's stupidity and scratching my head at Spot's omnipotence; not a great combo. Arlo's dad Henry is an unbelievable asshole who honestly deserved to die (a scene they play twice for some reason), and the rest of the family enabling him isn't any better. The T-Rexes and Stormchasers save the characters from being completely irredeemable, but they're on screen so little that it barely matters.
Acting: 6/10 | Child actor Raymond Ochoa plays Arlo a little too stiffly for my liking but he's mostly fine. I could tell Thunderclap was played by a Minnesotan without looking it up, though it also sounds like he's trying and failing to do a California surfer dude accent? It's confusing. The rest of the cast is meh except for the great Sam Elliott as Butch, who rules.
Music: 5/10 | There are no elaborate musical ideas in this score. It goes up and down at the "right" times. The orchestral cues try to make you feel certain emotions in certain scenes. It's just so obvious and predictable. Which isn't necessarily to say that it's bad. I just...expect more from this studio.
Final score: 5/10 | Amazing-looking film completely ruined by literally everything else. I'm tired of writing about this movie.
Leah
Aesthetic: 8/10 | The setting in this movie is visually stunning. There are some great shots, like the scene in the clouds or the scene when Arlo and Spot are running through the birds. The backgrounds look so realistic; it's impressive. It makes the cartoony dinosaurs stand out though. I thought a lot of the dino designs were creative, but Arlo and his family seemed out of place.
Animation: 10/10 | I thought the animation was also impressive. Lots of fluid movements and creativity with how the different dinosaurs moved.
Story: 6/10 | The story was very cookie cutter. The general idea of a scared dinosaur learning how to face his fears with the help of a cute little human friend is fine, but the execution didn't do anything original. The plot wasn't very engaging. I liked the family scene with Spot at the end; I thought that was pretty touching. (Though, when scrutinized, a lot about it doesn't make sense; like, how did Spot understand Arlo?)
Characters: 4/10 | The dad wasn't a very good parent. The rest of Arlo's family members were one-note characters. Spot was cute, but I didn't really get the whole “acting like a dog” thing. The western t-rexes and the cult pterodactyls were fun side characters. Arlo was underwhelming as a protagonist. I think he learned the lesson of the movie over and over again and it didn't fully sink in until the end. It's a pretty simple character arc. I don't necessarily think that's bad, but it didn't help make this particular film engaging.
Acting: 8/10 | Lots of fun western bits in here.
Music: 6/10 | The score was fine. It more or less did what I'd expect it to do. It didn't super stand out to me, but I didn't think it was bad, just typical.
Final score: 6/10 | This movie didn't offend me like Cars 2 or A Bug’s Life, but compared to most other Pixar movies, this one is pretty boring. The visuals are the most interesting part of the movie. This one is a resounding “meh” for me.
Maddy
Aesthetic/Animation: 10/10 | Just gonna put these two together since they really work in tandem in the movie. It's so pretty. It's a visual showcase the entire run time. Mwah!
Story: 1/10 | Cars 2 has structure. The Good Dinosaur has sticks with marshmallows on the end trying their best to stay upright in a leaning tower. Everything is either boring or frustrating. It has like two total minutes of good content. Ugh.
Characters: 2/10 | The main two are just whatever. I have nothing. I was bored. This movie isn't good. None of the characters are good or memorable.
Acting: 5/10 | I would like to congratulate everyone in this movie for talking into a mic and trying their best.
Music: 6/10 | I would like to thank the composers for trying as well because this movie would be even worse without music.
Final score: 34/60 or 6/10 | It is only ranked higher than A Bug’s Life and Cars 2 because I liked looking at the movie. This is undoubtedly Pixar’s worst flick, but Cars 2 is also really bad and A Bug’s Life was…a movie? So good job, The Good Dinosaur…I guess.
David
Aesthetic: It's one of the few bright spots in this movie, and I think the first time I saw it I didn't really perceive it the same way I did in my most recent watch.
Animation: Gorgeously animated.
Story: Where do I even start? It's nonsensical. None of the plotlines follow through in any substantive manner, and the ones that somehow manage to bumble their way into the second act are unwound by the stupidity of various characters throughout the film. By the end, you feel completely unsatisfied.
Characters: I do not like any of these characters at all. The world did not need them.
Acting: I mean. It's what it is. It's not a bad job, but much like other bottom-tier movies, this is a case where2
Music: Unmemorable, which isn't necessarily a bad thing (see: Inside Out) - but in this case, I felt like there were more than a couple cues wherein something could have been fired off and really added some sorely-needed depth to the film.
Final score: 1/10 | More like The Bad Dinosaur. Gottem.
Final notes
I was ill when I watched this movie and the 97 minutes I wasted with this gracing my screen were worse than the two hours I spent tossing and turning in bed that night because my sinuses were so clogged that I couldn’t sleep.
Next up: Finding Dory
I think they’re just scared to admit they blew $200 million on this garbage.
Editor’s note: Not a copy error; David’s original review just ends there, mid-thought. Can you blame him?