With some sneak peeks of The Good Dinosaur at Annecy, we have gotten many interesting details about the film! These include some details on clips that were shown and some details about the production of the film.
Before I get started, check out this beautiful European Poster for the film that was released!
That looks absolutely stunning! Anyways, on to the film details!
First, we're going to take a look at this very interesting article I read on The Telegraph that delves deep into the production of the film.
Here is one very interesting quote in this article that really caught my attention:
"But since Sohn’s promotion, the story seems to have evolved from an Old Yeller- or Big Red-like sun-bathed prairie escapade to a more plaintive lost child’s odyssey, in the style of the great, heart-wrenching Forties Disney animations Dumbo and Bambi. Now, Arlo would meet Spot after being swept down-river, far from his family and the grassy lowlands of their home. And so, Sohn and his team swept away many the film’s secondary characters, in order to refocus on its central human-dinosaur relationship – the communication in which, incidentally, had to be mostly non-verbal, as the humans in the world of The Good Dinosaur had yet to achieve the power of speech."
I am really happy to see that this film is going to be similar in style to the Walt Disney classics, Dumbo and Bambi. I previously said that the character designs remind me a lot of those films, but apparently that's not the only thing similar about this film! This is very exciting! I love how Pixar takes so much inspiration from Walt Disney's masterpieces!
But that's not the only interesting thing about this! The film is actually going to be mostly silent! Again, this would strike similarities to Dumbo and Bambi but that's also very similar to how WALL-E didn't have much dialogue. I love when films tell their stories with character, body language, and setting, rather than having too much dialogue.
Here's another interesting quote from Pete Sohn that talks about some of the production problems the film was going through:
“The issue was that some of the foundational elements of the story were creating problems that just could not be fixed,” he says. “So you have to break them, and in breaking them there are a lot of sacrifices that you have to make. We had got to the point where The Good Dinosaur wanted to be two or three different kinds of films in one, and so we had to try to hone back in on the heart of it.”
Of course, the key part of this paragraph is when he says how the films was trying to be two or three different kinds of films. This happens a lot during the production of animated films, with them having to get reworked and fixed. It's not surprising that they changed the director if the film was becoming a messy, unfocused movie. I think that was a good move on their part.
The article also talks in detail about a scene they saw from the film:
"That heart was very much in evidence in a two-minute sequence that Sohn screened from the middle of the film, in which Arlo and Spot, sitting on the bank of a mighty river one night, draw symbols in the sand to describe how each one misses their families in this enormous, edgeless world. The scene has a piercing emotional directness that’s all the more acute for its essential wordlessness. Even though Arlo talks, and Spot growls and snuffles, the meaning of what they’re saying is carried entirely by their gestures and looks, and the warm lights of the fireflies that blink in the darkness."
How amazing does that sound?! To me, it sounds like that Pixar heart that you come to expect whenever you watch one of their films. It just sounds so beautiful. So simple, yet so deep.
Pete Sohn also spoke about how the film was also inspired by Pete's relationship with his mother. Here is what it says in the article:
"Sohn reminisced about going with his mother to the Chase Manhattan Bank as a child to deposit the weekly earnings from the family’s shop: she would hold back enough for two cinema tickets, and afterwards, on the way home, they would see a film together. Because his mother spoke only limited English, often Sohn had to whisper his own interpretation of the dialogue and plot points in her ear, in Korean. But during some films – and they were normally animations – he remembers both of them laughing, and occasionally shedding a tear, in unison, with no translation required.
That type of nonverbal storytelling is classic Disney, and exactly what Sohn wanted to bring to The Good Dinosaur after being handed the film’s reins: “that idea that two people who don’t speak the same language can still connect ended up driving the entire, rewritten movie,” he says."
This is a very heartwarming story that shows how much this film means to Pete Sohn. It's very interesting how a film that he was not even the director of, but rather the co-director until the director change, can still be such a personal film to him.
Here's one paragraph of the article that certainly has me wondering a few things:
"But Sohn was also able to weave in some obscurer nods towards Disney’s earlier work, not least of all a pack of preening velociraptors – complete with paleontologically accurate feathers, coiffed like the hairstyles of Premier League footballers – which instantly bring to mind the quartet of mop-topped, Liverpudlian vultures in The Jungle Book."
So, not only is there an awesome nod to The Jungle Book in this film, but the velociraptors have paleontologically accurate feathers? Could this possibly mean that this film will actually be accurate? I mean, we haven't seen much yet, and even though the dinosaurs are clearly more stylized than how they really look, maybe it could still be accurate? Maybe it's similar to how they brought in real deer to capture their movements properly for Bambi even though they too still look stylized? I remember John Lasseter saying that they weren't making accuracy a priority for this film, but, if I recall correctly, that was before the director change, so who knows? Maybe they decided accuracy would be good for this film? After all, one thing Pixar is known for is doing a ton of research to make sure their films are accurate. I guess we'll have to wait until we get more production details.
The article also goes on to talk about the setting in which the film takes place and how the environment is the villain:
"Finding grandeur and threat in the world of The Good Dinosaur was essential for Sohn, particularly as, from what we know about the film so far, it doesn’t seem to have a conventional villain. Sohn talked about making research trips to the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming – Apatosaurus’s old stomping ground – and seeing canyons carved out by centuries of rock-falls and rushing water. “There was a great beauty to the landscape, but also a great danger,” he says. “And I wanted to capture that majesty in the film, because that’s what we go to the cinema for.”"
This alone has me very excited. I love the idea of the environment being the villain in the film. Environment can be very dangerous and unexpected. You never really know whats about to come your way. That's what makes environment such a powerful villain. Again, this is very similar to Bambi.
That's pretty much everything in the article that is worth noting. Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is a second scene that was shown at Annecy.
This scene showed a crucial part of the story, in which Arlo accidentally falls into a dangerous river. He screams out for his and eventually hits his head on a rock, knocking him out. This is the scene that causes Arlo to get lost from his family. This, I assume, is when his epic adventure begins.
All of these details just sound fantastic and have me even more excited for the film! Also, we'll be getting even more info about this film and all the other upcoming Pixar films at D23 in August. I absolutely cannot wait!
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