{"id":2353,"date":"2015-12-03T20:30:40","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T04:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=2353"},"modified":"2015-12-03T20:30:40","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T04:30:40","slug":"the-good-dinosaur-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/the-good-dinosaur-review\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Good Dinosaur\u201d review"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Declan Hertel\r\nEntertainment Editor<\/pre>\n
Pixar\u2019s latest film, \u201cThe Good Dinosaur,\u201d is a curious little piece. It\u2019s quite a good little piece, but it is definitely curious.<\/p>\n
It holds the distinction of being the second Pixar film this year; \u201cInside Out,\u201d which was released in June, was great, but this is a first for Pixar, who has never released more than one film in a single year.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clearly a \u201ckids\u2019 movie,\u201d as opposed to a \u201cgreat kid-friendly movie,\u201d like the rest of Pixar\u2019s repertoire. It\u2019s an intriguing step for Pixar, especially as we look ahead to their faster release schedule for the coming years.<\/p>\n
Firstly, let me say that \u201cThe Good Dinosaur\u201d is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The vibrant landscapes, the fluidity of movement, the detail on the characters, it\u2019s all stunning.<\/p>\n
I mentioned two weeks ago that \u201cToy Story\u201d still looks really good 20 years later, and it does, but it looks like a B-grade student project next to \u201cThe Good Dinosaur.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s hardly a frame in this movie that couldn\u2019t stand on its own merit, visually speaking.<\/p>\n
But this leads us to one of the curiosities: sometimes the movie comes off as experimental in animations that were strung together to create a movie.<\/p>\n
This is reinforced by the episodic structure of the movie; it\u2019s more of a series of islands than an A-to-B progression, highlighting that this might not have been a grand-concept picture from the get-go like \u201cFinding Nemo\u201d or \u201cThe Incredibles.\u201d<\/p>\n
This method of storytelling is not inherently a bad thing at all, and actually makes for an interesting feel for \u201cThe Good Dinosaur,\u201d which is to say that it is is a \u201cboy and his dog\u201d story in the American South, but with dinosaurs.<\/p>\n
This is weird, but ultimately really cool, and allows southern baritone Sam Elliott (the narrator in \u201cThe Big Lebowski\u201d) to voice a giant T. Rex, which is just tops.<\/p>\n
Elliot\u2019s character, Butch, brings up another strange part of \u201cThe Good Dinosaur:\u201d it couldn\u2019t decide how grown-up it wanted to be.<\/p>\n
It had all the goofy antics one would expect from a movie like this, but also features, among other moments, Butch telling a story about how he drowned a crocodile in its own blood.<\/p>\n
There were several moments that could be genuinely unsettling to a small child, and several were unsettling to me (though the child two rows behind me seemed to thoroughly enjoy the movie).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost unfortunate that Pixar has such a great overall track record: we expect greatness from them now, so a film like \u201cThe Good Dinosaur\u201d that is just \u201csolid\u201d will likely get overlooked. It\u2019s definitely worth a watch, but it is especially worth your time if you\u2019re a diehard Pixar fan like your faithful author.<\/p>\n
It keeps that innovative spirit that Pixar is known for, yet features many \u201ckid flick\u201d clich\u00e9s. It feels familiar, yet is a fundamentally different movie than they have ever released before. It\u2019s greater than the sum of its parts, but in an odd way.<\/p>\n
All I know for sure is that it\u2019s immensely interesting. Watch it, and if you see me around, let\u2019s talk about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pixar\u2019s latest film, \u201cThe Good Dinosaur,\u201d is a curious little piece. It\u2019s quite a good little piece, but it is definitely curious. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}