The Good Dinosaur

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by Dacey » November 8th, 2015, 6:58 pm

Is it weird that this is only a few weeks away, and I literally only just found out on Friday when I saw The Peanuts Movie in theaters that the lead dino is actually a kid?

For whatever reason, I just assumed he was going to be a small adult with a Patton Oswalt-style voice.
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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by Ben » November 8th, 2015, 7:39 pm

No...you just haven't been paying attention! ;)

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by Bill1978 » November 9th, 2015, 2:58 am

Even though it's not out in Australia until December 26 with a host of a million over movies, the books are in store already out here. Naturally I couldn't resist. It was interesting that a plot point I thought was thrown out is actually still in the movie
Arlo's family are farmers
. The story reminded me a bit like
Benji The Hunted

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by Ben » November 9th, 2015, 4:25 am

Yes, interesting.

For me, at the moment, it looks like an alternate title might have been Finding Dino.

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by EricJ » November 9th, 2015, 11:37 am

In the original drafts, Arlo was just going to be a poor shlub dino who lives with his parents, and hasn't been brave enough to go out into the world yet, with many of the dropped characters being in the nice civilized Dinotopia he lives in. Turning him into a kid separated and just finding his identity, like Nemo in the fishtank, was one of the reasons for the overhaul.

(Interesting that while other studios which shall remain nameless flock to the idea of "Lovable shlub losers" as their main characters, Pixar may often start with the idea and then throw it out, because it's not strong enough a quest or the audience won't find him sympathetic enough...Go figure!
Sully in Monsters Inc. also started out in early drafts as a poor dreamer, and it's to that movie's credit that he didn't end up that way in the final version.)

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by ShyViolet » November 13th, 2015, 9:37 pm

You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by EricJ » November 14th, 2015, 1:09 am

As in, "mostly".
This seems more like the Pixar equivalent of Bolt, where it's a stitch-together of a troubled/abandoned project with familiar plug-in default storylines to get it out on time, but still feels too familiar to be anything on its own.

Still, at long as the critics are aware of the stitches, and aren't "punishing" it for not being Inside Out, it's allowed to be feel-good enough to get by.

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by Ben » November 14th, 2015, 4:51 am

Similar to the Hollywood Reporter's take. Seems the visuals are what this is going to be highlighted for (then again, did Pixar *really* want to compete with itself against Inside Out?).

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by EricJ » November 14th, 2015, 12:56 pm

I'm guessing not, but there must have been the overriding studio-delay emphasis of "We said summer '15, we have to get it out!", rather than taking their sit-out, putting it for summer '16, and keeping Dory in the pipes for another year. Waste not, want not.
Which, again, does feel like Disney shoving Treasure Planet in to keep a Christmas '02 slot, and ending up being steamrollered by all the unexpected summer audience cult for Lilo & Stitch which hadn't died down yet.

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by Ben » November 14th, 2015, 7:23 pm

No, I just think they know that, in Good Dinosaur and Zootopia (or the crappier Zootropolis as Europe will get it...why?) they have perfectly entertaining films but won't pick up any Oscars. Best to put out the sub-stuff right away so that Inside Out can waltz away with the award (or get that Picture nom) and then they have a clear path to set Moana up by the year after...

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by James » November 25th, 2015, 8:21 pm


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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by EricJ » November 25th, 2015, 8:35 pm

The problem with the movie, if you can fairly call it that, is that it feels like it was made for children
That's the consensus of most of the reviews, but again, you could say the same thing about the Nemo half of Finding Nemo, if they'd played down the Albert Brooks/Ellen DeGeneres plot.

Of course, this overlooks the main problem and plus of the movie, namely that it wasn't "made" to be anything, it was patched together at the last minute out of somebody else's bad idea. Making Arlo a kid was a much better idea than making him a grownup loser, but that carries with it the idea of who the protagonist is going to appeal to, and who's going to absorb the message of what he learns.
Like the sequels, it sometimes helps to know a little of the behind-the-scenes news stories, to put the final product in proper context.

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by James » November 25th, 2015, 11:08 pm

Knowing the behind the scenes details can put things into context, but in the end the film has to stand on its own.

And as I say in that bit you quoted, a good movie made for children isn't necessarily a bad thing. But looking at the film as a whole, as a piece of art, you can't compare it favorably to the best movies out there (animated or live action) like you can many other Pixar films. And that's really what my overall score is meant to reflect. (That's also why I like to do a second score that looks at films as entertainment, not artistically.)

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by EricJ » November 26th, 2015, 12:10 pm

Although those don't know the backstory are in danger of turning into one of the knee-jerk fans who literally think Pixar sat around one afternoon and decided to make the "cheap sequels" of Monsters U or Finding Dory just to be lazy and annoy us.

Which can lead to all those torches-and-pitchforks years we suffered after Cars 2 and before Inside Out (which unfortunately resulted in Monsters U being branded a "bad" film by critics and fans trying to "prove" Pixar had sold them out, as it wouldn't have fit the model otherwise, and took both Planes movies with it as hostages), and when animation fans band together on a wrong notion, a riot is an ugly thing.
As we can see from one generic sample of the press grabbing the wrong end of the stick and beating about the bush with it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 49481.html

(Cars 2 was not a good film experience by any stretch, but you can watch it and dissect what it was trying to be in early story sessions...Brave, OTOH, was born bad to the bone.)

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Re: The Good Dinosaur

Post by Sid Philips » November 26th, 2015, 8:51 pm

I thought the film was a mild in general It seemed to work on only one level and is the first Pixar cartoon since Cars 2 to be aimed mostly at young children. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I expect more from Pixar.The film is really derivative - a remake of The Lion King by way of The Bear (including the hallucinogenic scene). I don’t mind when films use the same elements to tell a story well, but in this case, they really feel desperate. Most of the characters come and gone without much impact or follow through in a very episodic way. Sadly, this prevents the audience from experiencing change in the main characters in a meaningful way. They’re pawns in screenwriting committee’s cartoon making arsenal.The animation throughout is nice enough—although if I’d cared more about the characters and their plight, I might have enjoyed them more.The look of the film is jarring. The characters are really cartoony in a very appealing way. The backgrounds are ultra-realists in some ways (as though that’s a good thing), and very flat in others. In any case, the two styles do not mesh every. Looking at the Art Of Good Dinosaur book and reading some interviews by the makers, it’s clear the realistic backgrounds were a last minute cost saving measure. The films original crew had worked hard to mesh the characters with the backgrounds in a very interesting way. But when the story hit problems and they had to retool the production, a decision was apparently made to buy GPS map data and use that as the main basis of the sets. I suppose I can understand why they took this shortcut, but it was not a wise choice from an artistic point of view. The effects, as well, suffer from an inconsistency that varies from cartoonish to realistic. There is no singular vision to this film. Overall, it’s a fair diversion, but even on it’s own terms, this is a mild, lesser effort from pixar. The short cartoon before the film was cute. Far better than that Lava short, but not as memorable or well made as some of the older Pixar short films.

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