The Good Dinosaur (2015) Review

”The storm provides”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Evolution comes in all shapes and sizes. When we go through change, we have to make our own path as well in order to enjoy the journey that comes with it.


PLOT


The Good Dinosaur takes place in a dystopia where the asteroid never struck earth in the Cretaceous-Paleogone era. Because of this, dinosaurs have evolved to the point of speaking and have learned to farm for themselves. The story evolves around Arlo, an apatosaurus that is the smallest between his siblings Libby & Buck (Maleah Padilla & Marcus Scribner), in which they all live with their parents Henry & Ida (Jeffrey Wright & Frances McDormand). As they grow up to be teens, they hope to make a mark of their own via mud prints on the family’s corn silo. The children must earn this by successfully completing hard tasks. Arlo struggles due to being timid in comparison to his siblings. When Henry tasks him to trap a feral caveboy to steal from their silo, it doesn’t go as planned as he can’t bring himself to kill him. This does frustrate his dad to the point of forcing him to follow him into a ravine to track the boy down, but they do turn back when he sees he’s pushing him too far to make him brave & strong. Just when they decide to turn back, Henry is swept by a debris of a flash flood as a result of a severe thunderstorm. Arlo would then pick up the slack left behind with his dad gone, but runs away from home due to chasing the same boy robbing the silo, who he blames for what happened. He’d chase him down a river and would get himself washed downstream so far away from home. He tries chasing him again until he warms up to him and tries getting food for them both. He further respects him when he saves him from a giant snake like creature. When traveling through the woods hoping to get back home, Arlo encounters an eccentric styracosaurus credited as Forrest Woodbush who has a bunch of animals perched on his horns. When he sees the caveboy, they end up competing for him by deciding over what name he’ll respond to. Arlo wins with the name ‘Spot’. When the two continue to follow back the riverbank that should take Arlo back home, he shares time to lament on the family he misses and Spot shares being separated from his own too. When a storm strikes again, the apatosaurus panics and flees back into the woods where he would lose track of the riverbank. By the next morning, he and Spot would encounter carnivorous pterodactyls led by Thunderclap, who wants to eat the boy. They run away from them long enough until being protected by a Tyrannosaurus Rex family. The family includes a leading patriarch Butch and his two children Nash & Ramsey (AJ Buckley & Anna Paquin). Arlo offers to help them regain their cattle of longhorns with the use of Spot’s tracking skills in exchange of tagging along until he finds Clawtooth Mountain where his home would be near. They pull it off as they fend off rustling velociraptors. After parting ways with the Rexes, Spot notices another caveman nearby but Arlo insists to keep going. When another storm approaches, Thunderclap reappears with his flock and tries again at capturing Spot. Arlo tries intervening until one of the pterodactyls push him off a cliff and gets himself entangled in vines. When unconscious, he has a vision of Henry who tells him he’s grown to be braver than before. Once he wakes up, he frees himself from the vines and fights off the pterodactyls to the point of sending them to float down a river. Spot gets knocked into the river in the midst of the conflict, but he and Arlo end up getting washed over a waterfall, resting to the nearest shore before continuing on. When the two get closer to home, the caveman follows them with his family and offers Spot a place with him. Arlo encourages him to go and the two say goodbye. The film ends with the apatosaurus reuniting with his family and make his mark as a result of his newfound bravery.


THOUGHTS


If you lived through 2015, you might’ve missed Pixar had a second movie come out the same year as Inside Out. It’s kinda crazy it’s not talked enough to the same regard because it’s actually worthwhile like the rest of the studio’s catalog. Would I call it better than Inside Out as a whole? Definitely not, but that would not make me ignore as it has its own strengths. Predictably, the animation is insanely great because while the dinosaurs are well made, the landscape is photorealistic like crazy to the point it can rival Disney’s 2000 film Dinosaur. From the mountains to the lake water and the storms, it’s unbelievable how detailed a fictional world was and I can’t help applauding this technique each time. You’re definitely gonna have your fair share of laughs because you know how’d insane it sound to see an apatosaurus and a T. rex family have farm like lifestyles, whereas humans are treated like pets which is the opposite you expect from The Flinstones. And it’s kinda crazy this one got away with seeing Spot & Arlo get high on berries from the woods. That’s straight up the 21st century’s equivalent to Dumbo getting drunk on champagne. Putting aside the laughs, this movie is still grounded in its own way because Peter Sohn, who voiced the eccentric Forrest Woodbush, has a strong directorial debut for teaching new viewers the importance of overcoming your fears as that becomes an essential step to adulthood. If you don’t take action with it sooner, you’ll be severely lost that you wouldn’t handle on your own. This is the case of a protagonist who was able to adapt unconventionally. Raymond Ochoa does a great job voicing Arlo as what a lot of kids would feel in their youth, so timid and cautious of everything because they don’t understand what level of danger he could be in. His siblings never had the same problem as him because they just got it and never put a second thought to whatever they had to do. He couldn’t kill Spot because he saw himself in him which was all the fear he was coping with. Had he overcame it sooner, it’s a given to say his dad would still be alive. And he blames Spot for it because that’s how he feels deep down that he’s at fault. Ironically, it took being away from home for him to be what he was supposed to be that is brave. A part of the irony is that he learned how from one he mistook to be an enemy and ended up becoming his first true friend. Jack Bright doesn’t straight up have any speaking lines as Spot, yet gave so much humanity in him with each vocal that displayed his tenacity he had to use to survive on his own. He had Arlo’s back out of respect for him sparing him first and that would make an untouchable bond. It made sense for him to go with another human family because it likely would’ve not worked to ration food with Arlo and there’s a good chance Ida could’ve blamed him too for losing her husband. In the end, he was safer with a people that’ll do better than Arlo had to deal with. Moving on, the other characters that sparked the apatosaurus’ bravery are individuals he never thought he would ever run into. Sam Elliot made a genuine badass as Butch because he is able to give the appropriate amount of wisdom to understand fear is a natural part of life and can be used to spark bravery, which is how it worked for him and his children learn from him. On the other hand, Steve Zahn was the wild card as Thunderclap because like the raptors, he grew to be deranged after living through so many storms and believe trauma is what erases fear. Arlo did go through his trauma when losing his dad, but seeing how the pterodactyl acts proves that you don’t have to let it define you. Because of seeing what could’ve been a reflection, he took that realization with stride and overcame his demon to save his friend & make his mark. If you ask me, all the choices he made were worth it because he still got to live when the journey was over. Having said all that I’ve said, there were some things that confused me upon rewatching. For instance, how does an apatosaurus build a seeding without hands? They walk on four feet, so it’s hard to imagine if other dinosaurs would help them with such construction and their only valuable resources are the tails they use like axes. And no matter how funny it looks, I don’t see why they have a chicken if they’ve only eaten corn. Also, would Arlo’s siblings chase Spot away if it was them putting away the corn stock? I mean they had to know why Henry went out to the woods anyway before that storm swept him. Arlo’s even lucky he doesn’t have any scratches or bruises after the second & third storm he survived. Having dirt on him is not enough of an emphasis that he’s having it rough. There’s also no point for the raptors to talk to Arlo if their goal is keep eating longhorns for themselves. They should’ve not hesitated in eating him no matter how much of a chance was needed for Butch to get his cattle back. Lastly, there’s no point for Arlo to delay Spot from going with the other humans before Thunderclap attacked. He knew where to go back home at that point and was too optimistic into thinking it would work out living with him when it didn’t work with him eating all the corn stock without permission. Ignore this, then you’ll still enjoy what this movie is going for. In short, The Good Dinosaur is one of Pixar’s best films for being relentless in its intent for sharing a story that resonates much differently from previous things. If you’re a Pixar fan, it’s a no brainer when I say even this is worthwhile.