Pixar's The Good Dinosaur

[esteban²]

Artwork - D23 - August 2013

Arlo, a 70-foot-tall teenage Apatosaurus, befriends a young human boy named Spot in Disney•Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur”

In theatres May 30, 2014 ,- Walt Disney Studios (Facebook)

The voice cast for Bob Peterson’s (director of 'UP') film was also announced. The main characters are a family of farming dinosaurs and Lucas Neff will voice the main character - Arlo, John Lithgow will voice the father, Frances McDormand as the mother, Judy Greer as the sister and Neil Patrick Harris and Bill Hader will each voice a brother to Arlo.

The following tweets (AICN) describe give an early impression of the footage the lucky ones saw at D23 today:

- The Good Dinosaur began with a What if? What if the asteroid missed the earth 65 million years ago?

- The Good Dinosaur looks great. It's a buddy story between a young dinosaur and a young human. Made the audience go "awwww" at least 12 times.

Earlier artwork:

[Ernest Rister]

Looking good! So does Inside Out.

Here's a link to other upcoming DFA and Pixar works...

http://pinterest.com/dmrofficial/d23...n-presentatio/

[esteban²]

Ow ... And there will be a Monsters University short feature in front of "The Good Dinosaur", titled Party Central. It is directed by Kelsey Mann. The short film includes the slug voiced by Bill Hader. The actor was on stage to introduce the clip during the D23 presentation.

More details about the Dinosaur-footage:

In footage shared at the event, the dinosaurs have become agrarian farmers. Clips showed them plowing fields and tending to their crops. In another clip, Arlo meets a caveman (a young boy) for the first time. It is the first human that a dinosaur has ever seen.

Sounds as strange as it sounds like fun.

[Mandalorian]

I hope I can watch this without the Dinosaur Train theme playing constantly in the back of my head.

[esteban²]

More ... (EW/Animatieblog)

[R3P0]

Excellent so far almost anything Pixar is worth watching

[Blu Titan]

I like it . Original movies from Pixar are most welcomed.

[EnigmaticWarrior]

Bob Peterson has been Removed from Pixar's 'The Good Dinosaur'

It was rumored just last week that Pixar had removed director Bob Peterson from The Good Dinosaur, which would have been his first solo-directing gig after serving as co-director on Up. Today the Los Angeles Times confirms the news, quoting the studio's president, Ed Catmull:

"All directors get really deep in their films... Sometimes you just need a different perspective to get the idea out. Sometimes directors ... are so deeply embedded in their ideas it actually takes someone else to finish it up. I would go so far as to argue that a lot of live-action films would be better off with that same process."

This is the fourth time in eight movies as I mentioned with my last post the changes to recent Pixar films Brave and Cars 2 as well as John Lasseter taking over direction from Ash Brannon on Toy Story 2 and the removal of Jan Pinkava who shepherded Ratatouille for four years before being replaced by Brad Bird.

The Times' Rebecca Keegan notes that until a replacement is found for The Good Dinosaur, "Pixar is relying on a team of people to shepherd various sections of the movie," which is due in theaters on May 30, 2014. The group includes Lasseter, Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3), Mark Andrews (Brave) and the film's original co-director Peter Sohn.

Should we be worried about this?

[chris_sc77]

That quote in the above is pretty asinine.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by EnigmaticWarrior

Bob Peterson has been Removed from Pixar's 'The Good Dinosaur'



Should we be worried about this?

I'm worried about, the last couple of times this has happened to a Pixar film is with Brave and Cars 2. Depending on which side of the coin you fall on with Brave, I think we can all agree that it seems Brave wasn't one of their strongest and Cars 2 was flat out bad.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Foggy

I'm worried about, the last couple of times this has happened to a Pixar film is with Brave and Cars 2. Depending on which side of the coin you fall on with Brave, I think we can all agree that it seems Brave wasn't one of their strongest and Cars 2 was flat out bad.

While losing Pinkava and gaining Bird on Ratatouille turned out to be their best second-draft.

(And at least they TRIED to insert actual subplots back into Brave after booting out Sister Chapman.
You can pick out the artificial story-department elements added at the last minute, which, to be fair, you can also see with Ratatouille.)

[assydingo]

In an alternate universe Brenda Chapman's Brave exists and was one of the best movies of that year.

[jamesdevil]

I'm putting unfair expectations on it maybe but I really hope this is the return to form for Pixar.

[Rudeboy2025]

Well that sucks. Hopefully, this turns out like Ratatouille and not Cars 2 (which was decent, but absolutely the weakest entry by Pixar)

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by assydingo

In an alternate universe Brenda Chapman's Brave exists and was one of the best movies of that year.

That would be Earth-427, where Chapman remembered she directed a better film once, forgot her freakin' daughter, and made a good film with a sympathetic heroine and enough plot to fill 90 minutes.

[Buscemi]

At this point, Disney is more interested in ready-made franchises (why else are they developing an animated Marvel project?). I'm thinking the real reason why Peterson was fired was that Disney wants this to be a series of films and Peterson (who's been at Pixar since before the Disney shake-ups) didn't want that.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Buscemi

At this point, Disney is more interested in ready-made franchises (why else are they developing an animated Marvel project?).

I'm thinking, to silence all those rumors from wishful blue-sky Incredibles-sequel naggers for "Will Brad Bird direct Avengers 2? " that had been popping up since the sale--
And exploring the idea with a safely and almost completely isolated side-story title independent from the existing franchises, that had its own stylistic design/story-world concept, Marvel or not (Japanese pop parody, obviously with its own Lasseter appeal).
If Disney didn't own Marvel, they probably would've done this one anyway, but the fact that they did pushed the idea through faster.

I'm thinking the real reason why Peterson was fired was that Disney wants this to be a series of films and Peterson (who's been at Pixar since before the Disney shake-ups) didn't want that.

In nearly every case, it was because the director was taking the movie in the wrong direction from where Lasseter, the studio, and the story department wanted it to go--
Jan Pinkava wanted Ratatouille to be more jazz "stylized" and have Chef Skinner as the main villain (no critic), Cars 2 didn't have enough plot with just the world-rally story (and Lasseter had a personal interest for exploring it himself when production was falling behind), and Brave....well, you can just pick out and see what the story department tried to artificially add at the last minute to try and make it look like a "real" film for boys, too.
Pixar can make very involving stories on very simple concepts, but it's a tricky balancing act, and if the first director gets it TOO simple on the first try, they usually announce a do-over. To wit:

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

quoting the studio's president, Ed Catmull:
"All directors get really deep in their films... Sometimes you just need a different perspective to get the idea out. Sometimes directors ... are so deeply embedded in their ideas it actually takes someone else to finish it up. I would go so far as to argue that a lot of live-action films would be better off with that same process."
That quote in the above is pretty asinine.

Actually, it's not--
It's very, very tactful-ese for saying that a director can often get too close to his own material and make "his" movie, which, at Pixar, is a BAD thing. Brenda Chapman wanted to make "her" movie with Brave, 'nuff said.

Pixar movies benefit from a more group effort, and while a director brings his or her own vision and style to the story, if it becomes too idiosyncratic, it becomes unmarketable, it's going to be opened up to the wider story departments to fit the style of the studio (more subplots, more fleshed-out supporting characters), and the director should be ready and open for that. Some aren't, but in this case, we can't know for sure.

[Josh]

Doesn't sound good to me. Cars 2 is a horrible movie (I've watched it at least 30 times - my son loves the series - and it gets worse with each viewing) and Brave was definitely missing that "Pixar feeling". I think they are too focused on hiting a release date rather than making a great film. That's too bad.

[assydingo]

Originally Posted by EricJ

That would be Earth-427, where Chapman remembered she directed a better film once, forgot her freakin' daughter, and made a good film with a sympathetic heroine and enough plot to fill 90 minutes.

Character exploration doesn't need a thousand events to occur. Lot of movies are too focused on quick pacing, jumping to one setting after another, plot point after plot point. Instead of developing any scene to full purpose. I'm convinced her original vision, mother and daughter theme intact, would have been superb.

[Buddy Ackerman]

The Good Dinosaur pushed back to 2015, No Pixar film for 2014

The Walt Disney Co. is pushing back "The Good Dinosaur," the Pixar movie that had been set for release in 2014, making next year the animation studio's first without a feature film since 2005.

"The Good Dinosaur," which was to have hit theaters May 30, 2014, will now arrive Nov. 25, 2015, on the date "Finding Dory" was set to open. That movie, Andrew Stanton's "Finding Nemo" sequel, will now arrive in the summer of 2016.

"Nobody ever remembers the fact that you slipped a film, but they will remember a bad film," said Pixar's president, Ed Catmull. "Our conclusion was that we were going to give the [dinosaur] film some more time."

Pixar removed director Bob Peterson from "The Good Dinosaur" over the summer, as the movie's release date approached and several creative decisions had not been made. The movie is based on the premise that an asteroid never hit Earth, and dinosaurs and humans coexist.

After Peterson left "The Good Dinosaur," a team of people including Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter, "Toy Story 3" director Lee Unkrich, "Brave" director Mark Andrews and the film's original co-director, Peter Sohn, began overseeing various sections of the movie. A replacement director has not yet been named.

Pixar, which typically releases one movie a year, has been moving toward its first year of releasing two movies. Pixar now plans to release two movies in 2015.

Before "The Good Dinosaur," the studio's next movie will be Pete Docter's "Inside Out," a risky project set inside the brain of a young girl. "Inside Out" is due June 19, 2015.

With budgets over $200 million and crews in the hundreds, that ramp-up in production puts a strain on the resources of the studio, according to Stanton.

"We can’t have the amount of labor it takes to do these movies at the same time because it becomes unsustainable economically," he said in an interview in June. "But it means if one director has a problem, everybody’s connected to the same bed sheet. You pull one end and it makes wrinkles in the other one. It’s a new problem."