The Good Dinosaur preview: Disney/ Pixar’s big winter 2015 movie is release in November, and this week, we got a chance to catch some exclusive early footage from the highly anticipated movie.
The Good Dinosaur preview
The Good Dinosaur preview: Yesterday (Monday 15th) morning THN got up extra early to attend a very special preview footage screening of The Good Dinosaur. The film is one of the latest Disney/Pixar collaborations and is being directed by first-time director Peter Sohn.
Sohn took to the stage to talk through his feature debut whilst at the same time giving us a wonderful insight into the inner workings of everyone’s favourite animation house (sorry DreamWorks) Pixar. The talk kicked off with a ‘what it’s like to work at Pixar‘ video which quite frankly had me ready to sign on the dotted line afterwards. Sohn then talked through his career progression from animator for Warner’s The Iron Giant to director by way of story animator. His first job at Pixar was designing the aquarium in Finding Nemo.
The son of South Korean immigrants, Sohn told of his humble New York upbringing. His parents ran a grocery store, a business which became the backdrop for childhood re-enactments of his favourite films. He shared a touching story about his cinema visits with his mother as a child. His mother often struggled to understand what was happening on screen as she didn’t speak a word of English, which led to frustration. This changed when the pair went to a screening of Dumbo wherein he saw a film finally bridge the language barrier and reduced his mother to tears.
This moment stuck with Sohn and he hopes that he might be able to do the same with The Good Dinosaur. We were treated to one full scene, and if the rest of the film is half as good as that one, he’s onto a winner. We won’t spoil anything, but the sequence in question featured our hero Alco and his friend Spot, and was so emotionally powerful we almost shed a tear. Granted, the fact it was early and a Monday might have had something to do with it, as might the fact that we’d just watched that horrible Game of Thrones finale. Either way, the fact that seeing one short scene completely out of context could have that effect must mean that, in context, we’ll be a gibbering wreck.
Pixar always make films filled with heart and from what we saw The Good Dinosaur is no exception. Sohn shared that the Pixar hierarchy of importance is story, character, world, with the world being of particular importance for this film. The Good Dinosaur is set completely in exterior location so it was important that the world look right. We saw some earlier visuals for the world and the jaws of the entire theatre dropped when Sohn told us that it was all animation. It looks so real you’ll think you’re looking at a photograph or out of the window. The team are also trying to create a different tone and music to what has been seen before and have Mychael Danna on-board as composer, with Craig Berkey on sound design.
But what about the story? Sohn said that the idea for all Pixar movies comes from a what if? question. What if toys come alive when we leave the room? What if monsters are real? The what if for The Good Dinosaur is simply, what if that meteor never hit? At the heart though is a story of a boy and his dog, though it’s been flipped for some extra spice.
The dinosaurs of the story have evolved to be able to talk and there is an interesting vocal cast attached. Our hero, young Apatosaur Arlo is voiced by youngster Raymond Ochoa; his parents Henry and Ida are being brought to life by Jeffrey Wright and Frances McDormand respectively. Arlo’s companion Spot, a human orphan, is being voiced by Jack Bright.
Other dinosaur’s within the film include vulture-like pterodactyl’s, one of which is voiced by Steve Zahn, feathered Velociraptors, and a family of T-Rex’s whose voices include Anna Paquin, A J Buckley and Sam Elliott.
The story follows Arlo as he tries to find his way home after he is separated with his family and although still under development we’re very excited to see the full film. To get you in the mood make sure you take a look at these awesome Dinosaur games.
The Good Dinosaur will arrive in UK cinemas on 27th November.
