We chatted with Peter Sohn, director of The Good Dinosaur, about how the film has evolved during a special preview.
NewsWhenever one talks about dinosaurs, early mammals, or any other critters from the Mesozoic Era, evolution always plays a crucial role in the conversation. And so too does it have a major influence on Pixar’s second film of 2015, the upcoming The Good Dinosaur. As a “what if” scenario that imagines a world where an asteroid did not beckon the mass dinosaur extinction, the latest Pixar effort amusingly has its creatures evolved and interacting with at least one very human little boy.
However, The Good Dinosaur was also forced to evolve in an exceedingly publicly way over the last several years, beginning with the removal of Bob Peterson (Up) as its director, and then with the film’s delay from May 2015 to its current November 25, 2015 release. Additionally, part of that creative realignment included recasting the lead Apatosaurus dinosaur Arlo from an adult voice actor to the 13-year-old vocal talent of Raymond Ochoa.
Thus in many respects, director Peter Sohn was introducing an entirely new story and perception for The Good Dinosaur when he spoke to a room full of New York journalists this week—and so far, that story looks very appealing.
While the film retains a story credit by Peterson, as well as Enrico Casarosa, what Sohn presented was a very personal vision that included between five to 10 minutes of clips from the new Pixar film, which focused squarely on a now persuasively young Apatosaurus at a life-changing adolescent crossroads.
Quite subversively turning the “boy and his dog” narrative on its head, The Good Dinosaur is very much about a boy and his pet, but the boy is Ochoa’s quite youthful and hesitant Arlo, and the dog in this scenario is the feral caveboy he meets named Spot (Jack Bright). Presenting a scenario where the two go on a journey together, the new dynamic seems to open a refreshing wrinkle on a familiar Disney trope, as the adolescent character in this film—which is the Apatosaurus—must overcome the loss of a parent.
For Sohn, who has previously worked as an animator and storyboard artist on Pixar films as varied as Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and WALL-E, this narrative allows him to change up the archetypal conflict usually associated in these movies between its central characters. Traditionally, the movie would be about Arlo’s budding and confrontational relationship with Spot, but for the filmmaker, “Arlo is dealing with a lot of conflict about his father’s death while with Spot he has no conflict; Spot is here to fill that hole.”
Sohn, an avid lover of movies who enjoys spending his lunches debating classics like Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, admits that The Good Dinosaur is very much informed by classic American frontier narratives.
“Old Yeller is an influence,” Sohn says as he reaches back for his inspirations. “It’s a frontier story relying on character.”
Perhaps in that vein, Sohn’s directorial debut has the interesting aesthetic choice of the characters being in the traditional Pixar mold of quixotic and exaggerated features, but the environments they inhabit are startlingly rendered with a sense of realism and grandeur. Basing Arlo’s home of Clawed-Tooth Mountains on Wyoming’s own Grand Teatons, Sohn intentionally evokes the wilderness of John Ford films. According to Sohn, this unique blend of realism and Pixar animated scale is to create a sense of danger and vastness to the “Big Sky” aesthetic of the film.
It also informs why the animators are allowed to take liberties with how the dinosaurs in the picture have evolved. Indeed, Arlo appears to have more anthropomorphic qualities than his traditional Brontosaurus parents, such as Poppa (now voiced by Jeffrey Wright). Sohn credits this idea with considering how dinosaurs might have grown to take on advanced roles in a community.
“Through evolution they become more agrarian dinosaurs,” Sohn said. “These guys aren’t pushing tractors; they are the tractors.” Correspondingly, the other dinosaurs presumably show other advanced qualities. While we did not actually hear either Sam Elliot or Anna Paquin’s vocal performances as a pair of T. Rexes, we were glimpsed our first look at The Good Dinosaur’s Velociraptors. It is unknown if they’ll be as dangerous as their Jurassic World brethren currently cutting through movie theaters, but they certainly appear to have an antagonistic bent for Arlo in the future with their prominently featured feathers having evolved into forms of beatnik and hyper-alternative living.
When reflecting on all the changes and difficulties The Good Dinosaur has experienced, Sohn suggests that raising films, which he often compares to raising a child, can be complicated and that the process might become heavy. Yet, he hopes that he has crafted with the movie’s new central focus and story something very personal.
Indeed, the best clip of the several screened was one featuring Arlo and Spot being able to connect via non-verbal communication. While the dinosaurs intriguingly have the gift of speech, Spot is as feral and wild as Old Yeller himself. Yet, through pantomime and facial expressions, both are able to reach a moving understanding about familial loss and pain. It’s a touchingly sincere moment that Sohn, the American-raised son of Korean immigrants and a mother who barely speaks English, seems to connect deeply to. If the rest of his movie is like that moment, so will audiences.
