Difference between revisions of "The Good Dinosaur"

Revision as of 14:59, 16 January 2021

The Good Dinosaur

An egg that hatched both too early and too late.

Genre:	Animation Comedy Drama Adventure
Directed By:	Peter Sohn
Produced By:	Denise Ream
Written By:	Meg LeFauve Bob Peterson (original idea)
Starring:	Raymond Ochoa Jack Bright Sam Elliott Anna Paquin A.J. Buckley Steve Zahn Jeffrey Wright Frances McDormand
Photography:	Color
Cinematography:	Sharon Calahan (camera) Mahyar Abousaeedi (lighting)
Distributed By:	Walt Disney Pictures
Release Date:	November 10, 2015 (Paris) November 25, 2015 (United States)
Runtime:	94 minutes
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Budget:	$175 million
Box Office:	$332.2 million

The Good Dinosaur is a 2015 American computer-animated comedy adventure drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Peter Sohn in his directorial debut and written by Meg LeFauve from an original idea by Bob Peterson. The film premiered on November 10, 2015 in Paris, and was released in the United States on November 25, 2015.

Plot

Luckily for young Arlo, his parents and his two siblings, the mighty dinosaurs were not wiped out 65 million years ago. When a rainstorm washes poor Arlo downriver, he ends up bruised, battered and miles away from home. Good fortune shines on the frightened dino when he meets Spot, a Neanderthal boy who offers his help and friendship. Together, the unlikely duo embark on an epic adventure to reunite Arlo with his beloved family.

Bad Qualities

Arlo, for the most part, is an unlikable and annoying protagonist. His screams can be irritating and forced to many viewers.
The film does nothing with the simple concept of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs missing; said element is completely irrelevant to the plot, especially considering that no dinosaurs feared that the asteroid would hit the Earth itself.
The tone of the film is too juvenile, especially since many Pixar films usually had their dark moments.
The film itself is also unoriginal, up to the point of leaving many critics, and audiences wondering if Pixar was still in a dark age.
- Particularly, Arlo's father dies in a very similar way to Mufasa in The Lion King.
  - The raptors are overly similar to the hyenas in said film as well.
- There are also some clichés in the film that have already been used before.
A confusing plot with an initially slow pace, the latter of which ends when Arlo and Spot start to bond. It feels more like a bunch of random adventures strung together instead of an actual plot, with the only thing being accomplished is Spot getting back to his family and Arlo getting back home.
Many of the characters in the small cast were wasted as they get no development time and get shoehorned only for around one scene.
While good, the character designs could have been more realistic to blend with the environment, or the other way around (the environment could have been simplified to match the style of the character designs). Because of this the character designs look out of place in the environment.
The bizarre hallucination scene can be disturbing for younger audiences; add that with the fact that the scene is just filler that accomplishes nothing.
Anachronism: Apparently Arlo and his family live during the same time as the pack of Tyrannosaurus Rexes but in reality Apatosaurs lived in the Jurassic period millions of years before the Tyrannosaurus Rex appeared. Plus other dinosaurs of the Crotectus period can be seen, meaning Arlo and his family should not have existed.

Good Qualities

The animation is a big improvement over Pixar films past, complete with lens flares.
The voice acting's good, as expected with other Pixar films.
Great musical score from Mychael and Jeff Danna.
The premise, despite its simplicity, was actually a good idea and could've been used better. The idea of a human and a dinosaur getting along is an excellent idea as well.
- Likewise, the film could've been better if the crew had some more time working on it and pushed the film's release date back.
Nice character designs despite clashing with the photorealistic environments.
The scene where Arlo and Spot part ways is rather touching.
Arlo goes through some decent character development.
Despite the movie trailer, the song "Crystal Eyes" is catchy.
Arlo's design is very cute.

Reception

While The Good Dinosaur received generally positive reviews from critics and some fans alike, many people considered this Pixar's weakest film since Cars 2, though not beating that film. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 76%, based on 202 reviews, with a rating average of 6.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Good Dinosaur delivers thrillingly beautiful animation in service of a worthy story that, even if it doesn't quite live up to the lofty standards set by Pixar, still adds up to charming, family-friendly entertainment.", while audience score has 65%. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on reviews from 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." and 6.8/10 user score. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. On IMDb and Letterboxd, the film has 6.7/10 and 3.0 score, respectively.

Critics on the film were left divided over whether the film is a weak spot in Pixar's comeback phase that either happens to have a rather simple story or a confused/cliched embarrassment to the studio and proof that Inside Out was a fluke while Pixar was still in a dark age, with none in-between.

It became the first original Pixar film not to have an nomination at the Academy Awards.

Box office

The Good Dinosaur made a domestic gross of only $123.1 million and worldwide gross of $332.2 million out of a $175 million budget, marketing costs lost the company $85 million, making the film Pixar's first box-office bomb. However, it proved to be much more financially successful in home video sales.

External links

The Good Dinosaur at the Internet Movie Database
The Good Dinosaur on Rotten Tomatoes
The Good Dinosaur on Metacritic
The Good Dinosaur on Letterboxd

Comments

Enable comment auto-refresher

TomDoggyDaly

24 months ago

Score 1

Uhhh...how is this an awful film?

@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 #Arlo goes through some decent character development.
 #Despite the movie trailer, the song "Crystal Eyes" is catchy.
+#Arlo's design is very cute.
 ==Reception==