‘The Good Dinosaur’ and Pixar’s Extinction

Pixar are renowned for having churned out hit after hit since their 1995 feature film debut, Toy Story. Sadly, their winning streak ended after the release of Toy Story 3 in 2010, whose perfect conclusion also acts as a delineation of the end of an era. The travesty that is Cars 2 (2011) then ushered in a new era of mediocrity – a realm as of then untouched and alien to the Pixar universe. Even their weakest of their original batch of films, Cars (2006), maintained an interesting, complex and engaging storyline. Suspiciously, the company’s downfall seems to have occurred ever since Disney’s acquisition of the company around this time, with Ratatouille (2007), Wall-E (2008) and Up (2009) representing the very peak of the company’s innovation and masterful storytelling. This year, despite the promise of a welcome return to form with the (perhaps somewhat overly convoluted) Inside Out (2015), their subsequent release, Peter Sohn’s The Good Dinosaur (2015), looks set to become Pixar’s first ever box office flop.

There’s scepticism over precisely why this is. Some publications currently appear to argue that the blame might lie with the feature’s problematic direction, since the original director Bob Peterson was forced to step down, unable to amend story problems in the third act. Others question whether the film’s delayed release date played a part in its failure to gain significant attention. Really, however, there’s no explanation other than the sad reality that audiences are wising up to the fact that the average Pixar film is no longer as great as it used to be.

It seems Peterson’s The Good Dinosaur was a somewhat different beast. For one thing, his original concept saw the coming together of a number of dinosaur species, forming something akin to an Amish agrarian lifestyle. This still sounds a peculiar idea, but it would nonetheless have made for a film more visually appealing. After all, Pixar films are usually littered with well-developed, interesting and funny side characters, and such an ensemble appears to be lacking in their latest release, which maintains a rather isolated and lonely concentration on its protagonist, Arlo. Peterson’s version, too, sounds more focussed – cave-boy Spot was initially given his name based on his dressing as a bug and adorning his forehead with decorative spots. The way Spot was given his name in the finished product (by merely responding to the name ‘Spot’ out of the blue) is, by comparison, rather lazy and illogical. Yet even if these changes had not occurred, I can’t imagine The Good Dinosaur having fared much better at the box office.

The reason for this is that it is the story that prevents The Good Dinosaur from being a Pixar classic. It’s essentially a poor man’s The Lion King (1994), channelling an unsettlingly similar ‘journey home’ narrative, minus the attribution of guilt that repels the main character from his return. Like Brave (2012), the story is weak and predictable, and, though not quite as feeble, it certainly ranks as one of Pixar’s most vapid. It’s mildly entertaining, yes, but that’s about it. Conceptually, it falls at the first hurdle, as its opening scenes require the audience to suspend their collective disbelief beyond its usual parameters; forcing your audience to conceive dinosaurs as rustic, agrarian folk is as awkward as it is ludicrous. Ultimately, it seems underworked and it shows, even in trailers, movie posters and previews. Consequently, due to its lack of appeal, The Good Dinosaur went extinct long before its release.

Read my review of The Good Dinosaur here

Sources:

Digital Spy: http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a776642/could-the-good-dinosaur-be-pixars-first-flop-by-pixar-standards-at-any-rate/

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-hill/by-thinning-the-good-dino_b_8738842.html

The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/7/9868122/the-good-dinosaur-pixar-box-office-failure

Image Sources:

YouTube: The Good Dinosaur Official US Trailer 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daFnEiLEx70. Accessed 09/12/2015.

Finding an Audience: The Problem with Pixar

By the early noughties, Pixar had made a name for themselves for having usurped the throne of Disney as the king of animated storytellers. Ever since the ground-breaking Toy Story in 1995, Pixar’s success was inevitable; their plots were more sophisticated, and their characters bore more depth than the average, schmaltzy Disney princess, serving to broaden the target audience for the standard feature-length animation. Indeed, this affirmed their role as a key player in the maturity of the animated film – a development that had both progressive and regressive effects on the company’s output.

Up (2009)

From the look of things, many are still in denial about Pixar’s decline. Since the success of Wall-E (2008) and Up (2009), Pixar seem to have focussed more on appealing to its adult fan-base than ever before. Up is an example of an animated film done right. It balances the light and breezy, and heavy catharsis with irrefutable aplomb. It’s a fun, visual delight for the kids, and an emotional rollercoaster for adults – perfectly fitting for a general audience. By comparison, their following film, Toy Story 3 (2010), is quite possibly the darkest film they have ever released. It’s permeated with tense, scary imagery and maintains a rather gloomy and lugubrious tone throughout. This is, however, justified by its appeal to a mature audience who grew up with the franchise. Subsequent efforts don’t have this appeal, which is why they fall flat.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Take Brave (2012), for example: a film whose cold opening was indicative of so much promise that sadly never came to fruition. Many of the character designs are (intentionally) ugly, and the film is littered with slapstick and occasional crude humour that is far from the norm in a Pixar film. And let’s not forget Mordu – one of the most visually terrifying creations ever to come out of Pixar. It’s clear they were attempting to reach out to a more mature audience, but its plot lacked the complexity and, indeed, the maturity that had come to be associated with Pixar, rendering it little more than your standard Disney princess tack. In fact, story-wise, the film is a shambles, but that aside, the film’s marketability is uncertain at best. The Good Dinosaur (2015), too, suffers from a similar problem, with cutesy, cartoonish designs and some surprisingly violent scenes, including a fairly intense death scene. Just what kind of audience were they hoping to reel in?

Toy Story 3 (2010)

I’m sorry to say that even Inside Out (2015) falls into this uncertain category. By all accounts, it’s a tremendously clever film, but at the same time one might argue that it’s too clever for its own good. Not only is it too sophisticated for a young mind to comprehend, it’s also profoundly depressing. That doesn’t make it a bad film by any means, but its colourful cast of characters and contrastingly upbeat teaser trailers render it a disturbingly misleading experience. Conceptually, Inside Out is a standout masterpiece in Pixar’s canon, which, given their generally high standards, is a remarkable feat. But its target audience remains something of a mystery.

The Good Dinosaur (2015)

Aside from Inside Out, Pixar’s latest output has lacked thoroughness. In terms of story, there are significant problems, and with films such as Brave and The Good Dinosaur, even the titles are obscure. There’s nothing remotely ‘brave’ about Merida, and there’s nothing overly ‘good’ about Arlo (he is, however, repeatedly called up on his lack of bravery, funnily enough). And the absence of a definite target audience is a problem of equal magnitude. In these films, the plots are not engaging enough to be considered ‘adult’ or ‘mature’. Alternatively, they run the risk of simply being labelled depressing and inappropriate. I’ve made my stance on broadening the appeal of the animated film clear in previous posts; I’m a strong advocate of adult animation and I’ve never considered animation to be strictly for younger audiences. But some of Pixar’s recent efforts are, at best, obscure, both thematically and in terms of content. My concern is that they’re more likely to alienate their current audience than attain a new, more mature one. In that sense, Pixar hasn’t grown. Rather, it’s true what they say: what goes Up must come down.

Read my review for Inside Out (2015) here: 'Inside Out' (2015) Review

Read my review for The Good Dinosaur (2015) here: 'The Good Dinosaur' (2015) Review

Image Sources:

Toy Story 3. (2010) [DVD] Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Burbank, California.

Up. (2009) [DVD] Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Burbank, California.

YouTube: The Good Dinosaur Official US Trailer 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daFnEiLEx70. Accessed 04/12/2015.