The Lizy Reviews: The Good Dinosaur

I can’t fairly give you an analysis of the film without giving away some of the jucier secrets about this interesting world that Pixar has created. If you would still rather be blown away by the interesting quirks of this film, close this window and go watch it yourself.  

Arlo and Spot in "The Good Dinosaur"

The Good Dinosaur opens with the sequence we saw in the previews of the asteroid that should have killed the dinosaurs missing earth entirely.  By few million years later, the world is shared by humans, dinosaurs including some feathery raptors, birds in various stages of evolution, and various Ice Age mammals. The dinosaurs are sentient to the point that the family of our protagonist, Arlo, literally tills the soil and cultivates food for the winter. Other dinosaurs, like the T-rexes, herd bighorned bison. While Arlo on his journey home mostly struggles against the elements, he also faces antagonism in the form of weather-worshipping pterodactyls. The lead pterodactyl, “Thunderclap”, applauds Arlo’s quest to find his courage as a “relevation”, and I kind of wonder if that’s Pixar’s subtle way of communicating that courage and other values are relevant.  However, hearing it from the bad guy, I don’t think Arlo listened to him.

Aside from the cowboys and the farmers and the outlaws we don’t see very many other “sentient” characters, but there seems to be some kind of implication in Arlo’s mind that he can ask other dinosaurs for help.  

Via Screenrant

The humans we do see don’t have any kind of civilization to compete with the agricultural/pastoral dinosaurs.  In fact, it seems kind of derogatory of human nature that the main human character mostly acts like a dog and goes by the name “Spot.” However, Spot is a lot more “human” than the audience as well as Arlo realizes at first, but maybe Spot doesn’t know better.  And his animal-like loyalty to Arlo makes an impression from the start.

In the opening stages of the film, I kind of had my doubts about what kind of agenda this movie had.  Nearly all of the dinosaur characters have “hick” or “redneck” accents.  Arlo’s dad is determined to kill the “critter” breaking into their winter storage. It seems like a typical setup for a plot about not killing the innocent creature.  As the story progresses, however, it becomes less of an issue.  With Arlo on his own with only Spot for companionship and survival, he quickly renounces his intentions to kill the boy, without openly having to say so, and in the end Arlo’s devotion to Spot does not become an issue between him and his family.  

Via Deadline

Watching Arlo develop his courage is almost as fun as watching him bond with Spot.  Timid since hatching, Arlo is afraid of just about anything.  However, when Arlo finds a motivation to get something, he goes for it. However, The Good Dinosaur also makes extremely strong points about dealing with grief, and family--strong enough that I was literally in tears on more than one occasion.

The Good Dinosaur is rated PG  for thematic elements and rude humor and pretty much earned it. We actually hear Spot tinkling behind the rock, and also there’s a short disturbing sequence where Arlo and spot both get high on hallucinogenic fruit.

A really mean critic would say this is a thinly veiled western about a boy who adopts a coyote. But the twist about dinosaurs that cultivate their own food is interesting in its own right.  I would still call it a western, but in the sense that it brings out the best of the west. The music score isn’t the best I’ve ever heard but it’s still fun to listen to, and fits in perfectly with the homestead and cowboy themes and giving them a prehistoric twist. The film also showcases some of Pixar’s best animation to date.  While anything that moves is rendered in a cartoony style that isn’t visually that distinctive from stuff you see from other studios these days, the landscapes, plants, and water are rendered very realistically. The bison herding sequence does feature Monument Valley in the background, but while none of the other scenes are as explicit references to places I know of in the west the atmosphere feels very much like home to someone who’s spent a lot of time in Utah and Arizona (a geologist friend of mine pointed out the resemblance to Wyoming). The Good Dinosaur is definitely a movie worth watching.  There aren’t a lot of quotable lines but it’s one daaaaaang good adventure you certainly shouldn’t miss.