After the success of the animated film "Inside Out," Pixar has released another movie that focuses on friendship and lasting bonds.
"The Good Dinosaur" is a story about a what-if scenario on the dinosaurs. The premise was quite simple. What will happen if the asteroid did not hit earth millions of years ago and the dinosaur survived extinction?
According to the Guardian, the film had a lot of problems to begin with. They were already issues from the original writing and the original director Bob Peterson was replaced. He initial casts Bill Hader and John Lithgow were replaced as well.
Though Pixar has certainly delivered on the special effects, the entirety of the story was missing.
Also, a supposedly evolved Apatosaurus joins a human boy, Spot, on his journey to find home. Though there were some fun lines on the film, there had been a lack of connection between history and authentic story line.
As stated in the Rogerebert review, the film has a great initial idea but the filmmakers failed to follow through. The site added that the production was "unsure of how to pursue it."
"The result is a film that has some promising elements and which often seems as if it is on the verge of evolving into something wonderful but never quite manages to turn that particular corner," wrote Peter Sobczynski of Rogerebert.
Forbes also noted that the film was "beautiful but disappointing." They were able to speculate on the possibilities of dinosaur evolution but has not grasped the full impact of mammals' reign.
In the promotional video of the film, they had cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson saying, "Had they gotten much bigger, you become a much bigger meal for the carnivorous dinosaurs that were ruling the Earth. So what you really have to do is remove the dinosaurs from the ecosystem."
However, the coexistence of man and dinosaurs is not plausible, as Forbes noted.
It has been supported by historical evolution that strong species could not co-exist. At the same time, the idea of dinosaurs not undergoing drastic evolution in the span of 65 million years is impossible.
This idea has been supported by palaeontologists Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould back in 1972 in their theory called "punctuated equilibrium." The theory stated that once a new species appear, they will be unchanged "throughout their geological history." However, the timeframe cannot expand to 65 million years.
In general, the film lacks the basics of biology and the structure of good story-telling. Different review sites have rated them 3 out of 5 while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 78 percent rating.
