Please contact us
with corrections
or breaking news
Pixar’s Latest: Good Dinosaur by Karl Cohen
Scene from Pixar’s just opened, 'A Good Dinosaur', about an intelligent dinosaur who has a pet kid. photo: courtesy Pixar
"A GOOD DINOSAUR', PIXAR'S NEW
release, which opened on November 25, includes two sequences screened on the Castro’s giant screen in November at an event honoring “Toy Story”'s turning 20. One was a charming scene of a boy and the small dinosaur chasing fireflies at night. It was full of glowing colors set against a dark blue sky.
That was followed by a sentimental moment with both the boy and dinosaur remembering their lost parents. The dinosaur looks like it was designed as a plush toy, so I suspect copies will be available in stores just in time for Christmas.
At the Mar del Plata film festival earlier this year, Peter Sohn, who had directed “Partly Cloudy with Chance of Meatballs” talked about being hired to take over directing Pixar's new film from Bob Peterson. The film began with Peterson who left the project for unstated reasons.
"Taking that responsibility was intimidating,” Shon said. Pixar has also terminated directors on “Toy Story 2”, “Ratatouille”, and “Brave”. I recently found out that they also trimmed their overall staff by 10% about a year ago.
The script has an interesting twist or two. It asks what would have happened in dinosaurs hadn’t become extinct when humans were first evolving. It is a boy-and-dog concept, but the dinosaur is intelligent and can talk perfect English while the boy crawls on all fours and can only make animal like sounds (grunts, etc.).
Sohn calls it a survival movie and that it has intense scenes about the boy trying to survive in the wilderness. The script is unusual for Pixar films as in previous films the hero is older and more mature.
Karl Cohen is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached .