Disney & Pixar's The Good Dinosaur (Nov 25th 2015). 67 million years in the making

[Hero of Legend]

 

Yep, the film that was originally scheduled for November 2013 is now finally coming out after numerous (at least 2?) revisions.

 

Key changes include a redone cast (only one from the original is still on board) and Thomas Newman (Finding Nemo, WALL-E) is replaced as composer by Mychael Danna (Life of Pi).

 

Really loving the look of the film, films about nature and animals are some of my all-time favs (like The Lion King and Tarzan).

 

Who else has been following this film's development for years?

[Brad]

Inside Out makes me optimistic about this despite the overall negative reaction I'm getting from people.

 

Its been littered with production problems but I'm just hoping that's because it didn't live up to Pixar's internal standards of quality.

[Nepenthe]

The story is that the third act was basically broken as all hell, stemming from the fact that there were multiple plot threads that were deemed impossible to reconcile in a satisfactory way. They got on the new director then, the dude who made Partly Cloudy (my favorite Pixar short thus far), and he found the "heart" of the film after revisiting an experience with his mother: that being that the emotions of people transcend language barriers. With a new focus attained, they've started cutting up the film and reworking it towards upholding that theme. I'm personally more confident in it now and excited to see how it's going to come out.

[Endy]

Oh wow, the dinosaur designs are really awful. The dinosaurs look like plastic and they are completely out of place. The backgrounds look really nice but why couldn't they have put more realism into the dinosaurs? That silhouette shot looked so good too...

 

And judging by Pixar's other recent movies I doubt its going to have much substance in terms of plot either. Then again, this is going to be Pixar's last original movie for a long time so I guess it will be at least worth checking out once.

[Nepenthe]

Aside from Brave, there isn't really a Pixar film that didn't have overtly cartoony characters in environments meant to be photorealistic. Hell, that's half the fun of Monster's U.

[Endy]

Aside from Brave, there isn't really a Pixar film that didn't have overtly cartoony characters in environments meant to be photorealistic. Hell, that's half the fun of Monster's U.

[Failinhearts]

But at least the characters in the other movies still look like they fit somewhat. This time there is just too much of a contrast.

[Tornado]

The Good Dinosaur. Not to be confused with The Hopelessly Mediocre Dinosaur made by Disney 15 years ago.

[Applejack1973]

I had been waiting in ages for that movie.

[pppp]

Oh wow, the dinosaur designs are really awful. The dinosaurs look like plastic and they are completely out of place. The backgrounds look really nice but why couldn't they have put more realism into the dinosaurs? That silhouette shot looked so good too...

 

So you want Pixar to rip off Disney's Dinosaur?

 

 

And judging by Pixar's other recent movies I doubt its going to have much substance in terms of plot either.

 

Someone hasn't seen Inside Out.

[Komodin]

So you want Pixar to rip off Disney's Dinosaur?

 

I presume that she don't want anything that extreme (and strawmannish), so much as that she would've preferred a styling for the dinosaurs that was more... cohesive to the real-ish setting that they are in. I can agree with her on that front--from what I've seen so far, the dinosaurs do stick out like a sore thumb here to me. That does not necessitate that I want outright photorealism a la Dinosaur.

[Disonoid 3000]

Maybe instead of making more realistic dinosaurs they could have gone for a more cartoonish environment. Maybe.  

 

 

 

Whatever, this is going to be their last original movie for years, it could look like total garbage and I'd probably still go see it anyway. 

[Mega]

I wish they'd give more dinosaurs feathers. It saddens me that so many movies are still holding into the scaly lizard look.

Granted, I know they have plans for the raptors, just.

I like featherdinos.

[Emperor Robrainiac]

I wish they'd give more dinosaurs feathers. It saddens me that so many movies are still holding into the scaly lizard look.

Granted, I know they have plans for the raptors, just.

I like featherdinos.

 

Most of the people I've talked to and seen still hate the idea of dinosaurs having feathers, some going as far as to say that it takes away any intimidation dinosaurs have, making them look like giant chickens.  I'm rather indifferent to the whole thing, but the majority of people seem to not be too keen on it.

 

Maybe in due time, but right now, it seems a lot of people would rather deny dinosaurs have feathers.

 

Anyways, I'm kinda liking the concept of the movie so far. I've heard of the problems it was going through during development, but I'm hoping that it'll all turn out well in the end.

[Nepenthe]

People went to see Jurassic World to be put on edge by bloodthirsty monsters, and birds are never going to have the monstrous factor of lizards no matter how much pro-feather people (and I kinda dislike this term, because it implies that people who don't find feathered recreations as threatening as non-feathered ones are anti-science) remind the rest of us that cassowaries and ostriches are totes magotes dangerous too. Too much cultural and potentially evolutionary baggage and indoctrination attached to them for that to happen. It's like trying to convince people not to be wary of spiders over dogs solely on the grounds that dogs have killed more people throughout history. It's true, but at the same time you're never going to be able rationalize away visceral reactions. 

 

So to me, for feathered dinosaurs to become more palatable and widespread in movies, we're going to have to stop trying to shoehorn the notion onto people that Godzilla-sized chickens are literally just as psychologically scary as Godzilla himself. That means instead of treating dinosaurs as Godzilla-esque monsters we imagine them as amoral, mostly human-avoiding animals with more relatable muscular structures and protrusions, the same as the carnivorous animals we have today. The way we visualize dinosaurs now is still woefully inaccurate- nothing but stretched skin over a bare skeleton. It just naturally makes them freaky and scary-looking, and sticking colorful-ass feathers on top of it creates a dissonance that's unappealing. Instead, until we can actually know with more accuracy what dinosaurs looked like, I'm all for film-makers- particularly animators- completely going balls-out and redefining what a dinosaur can look like, similar to how DreamWorks bucked the trend some on how dragons can look.

[Mega]

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love dragons, so it's not like I hate the featherless look, but it'd be cool to see some variety in dinosaur representation. ...and more positive representation of reptiles in media, too, since there seems to be this unwritten rule that lizards/snakes/etc are evil. And carnivores.

It's why I'm grateful that the T-rexes aren't the villains in this film, even if I'm not totally fond of the Flintstones aesthetic. I'm sure I'll just have to warm up to it, though. The trailer is so brief, whereas the movie will give viewers time to take in the aesthetic choices and see the actual character of the dinosaur world.

As for whether or not feathery dinos can be scary... I think it depends on how they're designed.



This is a good way of making a feathered raptor still look threatening. The feathers just need to be incorporated in a way that blends with the dino rather than feeling glued on.

[Nepenthe]

To me, that still looks like someone glued feathers onto a dinosaur (which in turn is rendered in a way where the muscles and organs are lacking.) They don't particularly hide the body or musculature in an interesting or convincing way, so it looks plain ol' goofy to me, like someone had a good monster design but wasn't confident with it so they threw feathers on it. To better visualize what I mean when I want more unique, animal-esque dinos, take this. This looks terrifying if you were to draw it as a generic dinosaur. Sleek head, large eyes, long neck, long legs that seem like it'd make it good for running. It's practically a raptor:

 

 

But when you actually put the squishy and fluffy stuff on top of it, all you get is this: