A children’s Western that doesn’t quite reach the heights of Pixar’s best, about a journey through America with a sentient dinosaur and his semi-feral human companion.
What if the cataclysm that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago never happened? The reptiles would have gradually evolved into intelligent beings, like the family of herbivorous apatosaurs who built a farm in a mountain valley in North America. While the two older children of the family grow up strong and brave, the youngest apatosaurus, Arlo, is weak, timid, and clumsy from birth. He can’t even handle the simplest task: protecting the corn crop from a two-legged critter that’s taken to eating the ears. When the little dinosaur’s father tries to correct his son’s mistake, he dies in the waves of a flooded mountain stream. Soon after, Arlo and the critter, who turns out to be a primitive human, also fall into the water. When the dinosaur comes to on the shore, he discovers that the river has carried him far from home and that he will have to walk back. In this journey, he is helped by the “critter,” who is nicknamed Spot and becomes Arlo’s favorite—his little fearless dog.
The film is preceded in theaters by the short cartoon “Sanjay’s Super Team,” which tells the story of an Indian boy who imagines the characters of Hinduism as animated superheroes.
Every Hollywood filmmaker is a unique snowflake, but they all share one big dream: to revive the Western in all its genre diversity, from social dramas to children’s adventure stories. Pixar’s new film, “The Good Dinosaur,” formally belongs to the same category of “scaly” films as “Jurassic Park,” but it is actually primarily a children’s Western. It’s a story about a boy and his dog traveling through the American wilderness, meeting colorful cowboys, fighting off bandits, overcoming natural and weather obstacles, and returning home braver and more mature—the way his deceased father wanted him to be. Except, instead of a boy and a dog, the film features a dinosaur and a human child behaving like a dog; instead of cowboys, there are tyrannosaurs; and instead of bandits, there are pterodactyls and velociraptors. But the Western elements in “The Good Dinosaur” are unmistakable. This is partly because 80% of the effort put into creating the film went into recreating the breathtakingly beautiful landscapes of middle America, untouched or barely touched by civilization.
We’ve known for a long time how much Pixar loves to depict its native country—just remember the stunning landscapes of “Cars.” In “The Good Dinosaur,” however, this love has grown into absolute, transcendent adoration. American nature is depicted in the film with photorealistic detail, and every blade of grass is so picturesque that after leaving the theater, viewers’ feet carry them to a travel agency. It makes you want to find out if it’s really all like that! “The Good Dinosaur” belongs to that rare category of films that are worth seeing for the way the world around the characters is shown. Such beauty must be appreciated on the big screen.
Apatosaurs were chosen as the main characters of the film because they actually lived in the areas where the film takes place.
A Good, But Not Great, Pixar Film
Unfortunately, much in the film is not as successful—at least, not by the high standards of Pixar, the world’s leading studio of computer graphics. From its very first creations, Pixar was famous for creating films that were equally fascinating for adults and children. “The Good Dinosaur,” however, is an exception. It begins as a touching family story but quickly turns into a simple children’s adventure, focused on the lessons of courage that life gives the main character. Imagine “Finding Nemo” with the Marlin storyline completely absent, and you’ll see how limited the plot of the new Pixar film is compared to the studio’s past masterpieces.
A Fun Children’s Western
We have no complaints about “The Good Dinosaur” as a children’s Western—it’s a great mix of funny, dramatic, and tender situations that push the main character in the right emotional direction, and we can only applaud scenes like “tyrannosaurus sitting by a night campfire and playing the harmonica.” Adults also have something to admire in the film—but not the comparatively predictable and fundamentally childish storyline. The humor of the film also does not stand out for its adult wit, and, frankly, the jokes from the trailer for the upcoming Disney cartoon “Zootopia” that preceded the screening are the most memorable part of the whole viewing. So, although by the standards of most of Pixar’s competitors, the studio has created an unattainable masterpiece, one could have expected more from the film than children’s adventures against the backdrop of pristine nature.