THE GOOD DINOSAUR is an underdog story and also finding your place in the world story.  Disney does many of those stories that fit into those two types of stories.  THE GOOD DINOSAUR starts with a what if the asteroid didn’t hit the earth 65 million years ago and the dinosaurs evolved into farmers and ranchers while the humans are kind of like feral rodents.   Arlo is the smallest brother of his family and he can’t just make his mark while his brothers have, but his father is determined to make sure Arlo makes his mark.  A flood takes away his father while an accidental fall into the river separates Arlo from his family.  He must make a long journey home with a feral human boy called Spot.  Arlo and Spot must learn to survive together in this journey where they encounter danger and a few characters along the way including a family of T-Rex cattle herders.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

TRUE LIES ABOUT DINOSAURS- how the filmmakers changed the facts for the story

THE FILMMAKERS’ JOURNEY- a look at the making of THE GOOD DINOSAUR including how the director has a saying “punch me in the face” when someone has a better idea than him

RECYCLOSAURUS- a contest to create a dinosaur out of parts from the free table and duct tape

EVERY PART OF A DINOSAUR-  the animation challenges of the movie

FOLLOWING THE T-REX TRAIL- the filmmakers travel to the McKay family ranch which inspire the T-Rex family in the movie

Three deleted scenes (with intros) showing early explorations of the characters and story

 

Audio commentary with director Peter Sohn, story supervisor Kelsey Mann, supervising animator Mike Venturini, director of photography/ lighting Sharon Calahan, and supervising technical director Sanjay Bakshi

 

HIDE AND SEEK promo reel which has various fun bits

Three theatrical trailers (North American, Russian, German)

 

SANJAY’S SUPER TEAM short film is fun to watch and shows some parallels and vaguely based on a true story of the director’s childhood

 

The movie in standard definition on DVD

A code to stream and download a digital HD copy of THE GOOD DINOSAUR

 

A digital only exclusive (I wish Disney would stop doing this and keep all of the extras on the blu-ray) is the JUST LISTEN featurette on the sound design and music of THE GOOD DINOSAUR

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:  THE GOOD DINOSAUR is enjoyable enough for a Pixar movie even though it isn’t one of the best of Pixar, but I liked the extras more than the movie.

 

This review is ©2-29-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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