httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daFnEiLEx70
In June, I began a feature on “Inside Out” thusly: “Everything we need to know, we learned from Pixar.” That movie, one of the year’s best, taught us that humans cannot understand joy if they don’t also experience occasional sadness.
Fast-forward six months: For the first time since the studio began making features in 1995, Pixar boasts two releases in the same year.
Following up the beloved “Inside Out” isn’t easy, but it’s even more unfortunate that the movie to carry that burden is “The Good Dinosaur,” which doesn’t feel like a Pixar product at all.
Even for a studio that has defined itself so singularly over the course of two decades, not everything can be “Toy Story” or “Finding Nemo” – and, for that matter, it’s unfair to say Pixar can’t do something “Different.” But “The Good Dinosaur,” which relies on the characters’ doe-eyed expressions for humor, betrays the dynamic “Wow, imagine that!” essence of the studio’s fare.
As John Lasseter and other studio honchos stepped in to make revisions, the movie was delayed again to November 2015, resulting in company layoffs and making 2014 Pixar’s first year without a new release.
Would “The Good Dinosaur” have lived up to its Pixar imprint had the development process been more seamless? It’s hard to tell, especially because the bones of the story as they now exist mirror the way Lasseter described the film in 2012.
Even the shallow, noisy “Cars 2,” the studio’s categorical worst movie to date, at least feels at home in the Pixar canon.
“The Good Dinosaur” is entertaining enough, but its surprising lack of wit and limited perspectives make it feel like a stranger in the familiar land that is Pixar.
“The Good Dinosaur” is by no means bad. Far more middling animated features open every year, and as The Atlantic’s Christopher Orr suggests, perhaps it’s just Pixar’s first movie meant exclusively for kids.