Pixar's The Good Dinosaur hit theaters last Wednesday, in time for Thanksgiving, with gorgeous animation and a simple story; the mixed reviews surrounding the film are attributing The Good Dinosaur's lackluster showing to that simple story, but Pixar has never worked with particularly complex stories. I think the main issue with The Good Dinosaur isn't the simple story but the incredibly simple characters.
In many ways, The Good Dinosaur has a small cast. The audience follows Arlo and Spot for most of the film, though we meet other characters along the way - Arlo's family, including his father Henry; Forrest Woodbush, a Styracoaurus who collects animal friends; and a family of T-Rex cowboys, to name a few - and all of those characters serve to create the character of Arlo. The characters of Arlo and Spot are not the complex Pixar characters we are used to seeing dominate the screen; instead, they are both underdeveloped children.
Arlo, from his interaction with the world around him, shows us a deep anxiety (which comes from overthinking something frightening, but to be fair those chickens are terrifying), an urge to prove something, and an unwillingness toward unnecessary violence. Spot, though, is clever, quick, and understanding; they may not speak the same language, but Spot understands that Arlo didn't kill him and he tries to pay him back in several small ways. The problem is that all those little pieces don't have anything to stick to, leaving an audience with oversimplicity. Pixar is famous for their storytelling ability, but part of their talent comes from balancing a simple story with complex characters. Here, that doesn't exist.
Arlo is a young Apatosaurus working to conquer his fear when his father dies in a flood from a thunderstorm. He initially elects Spot the scapegoat for his father's death and his family's resulting struggles, to the point where he finds himself washed downriver after chasing the critter. The story is simple: Arlo has to get home, to help his family and, to a lesser extent, earn his mark. However, the film - in an effort to make time, perhaps, or solidify characters - often follows tangents that don't quite add up in the end.
For example, the whole idea of 'earning your mark' is a skewed grading system. All Buck or Libby had to do was a particularly difficult chore, after which the audience watched Arlo run away from some chicken or other. It seemed to me that Arlo was doing the best he could, but the expectations were considerably higher - and the disappointment considerably harsher. The film went out of its way to make Arlo the odd one out, and continued to add random other scenes in, presumably to some end.
Cast-off secondary characters became easy tools for these odd scenes; Forrest Woodbush is a Styracosaurus, related to Triceratops, who makes a short appearance as a hoarder of pets - a sort of prehistoric male cat lady. The only purpose the ensuing comedic scene serves is to name the "critter" that protects Arlo. He may be a humorous character but the scene felt very out of place and unnecessary for the story, like some other scenes. One scene in particular stands out to me: the fermented peaches. When peaches or grapes, etc, fall from their branches, they don't just rot on the ground - they ferment, which loosely means their alcoholic content rises. However, what Pixar shows isn't really two kids getting drunk; it's more like two kids on a sudden acid trip for a minute and a half, and then coming down badly afterward. Was there a point in there? "Don't do drugs," maybe, but I have yet to find another purpose for the scene. That's what happens when you have a simple story riding on simple characters: you run out of enough relevant material to make a full film.
This movie could easily have been a short - and that might have been better for its story and characters - but Pixar chose to make this a feature film. The animation is breathtaking, a feast for the eyes that only proves Pixar animation is top quality. But The Good Dinosaur won't be breaking my Top Five in the Pixar pantheon - it's a simple story held up by underdeveloped main characters and cast-off supporting characters. This isn't the Pixar storytelling we saw at the beginning of the year with Inside Out. The Good Dinosaur is a beautiful film - more beautiful than Inside Out in so many ways - but if all I'm watching it for is the aesthetic appeal, then something went tremendously wrong. I laughed, I cried... Ultimately, I was disappointed.
The Good Dinosaur didn't rate high with me, but the opening short, Sanjay's Super Team makes up for some of film's pitfalls with complex characters operating a simple story. Stay tuned for some animated Christmas cheer, a new Film of the Week series, and more. Be sure to vote for your favorite Peanuts character before the poll closes at 11:59PST tonight!
What did you think of The Good Dinosaur? Where does it rank in the Pixar pantheon?
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