The Good Dinosaur is a curious but fun Pixar beast

What’s great about Pixar is they have built such a dependable brand over the years audiences will give them enough latitude to tell a good story without the pressure to cram in a joke a minute or pander to pint-sized audience members.

If you thought dinosaurs were just giant, terrifying creatures, then you need to meet Arlo and his prehistoric friends in Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur. These may be themes explored many times before, but Pixar continues to make such charming, unique, emotional movies and I continue to enjoy them. Following a family tragedy of his making, Arlo finds himself miles away from home. He finds the going rough, especially with his older brother Buck who tricks him for fun.

Citing another reason of why humans and dinos couldn’t survive at same time he said dinos were at the top of the food chain and the co-existing mammals evolved to be very small, so they were less attractive sources of nutrition for the dinosaurs. Where did Arlo wash up from the river? The seemingly disparate art styles of the characters and their environment end up dovetailing in graceful, unexpected ways: Arlo and Spot have all the charm and emotion that comes from stylized animation, but they’re also grounded by the detailed, organic world around them.

That wrap-up may be a little misleading because despite the conventionality of the plot the film is full of fresh and surprising touches and engenders a few good, deep laughs as well.

Ochoa says filming sad moments were the toughest part of the gig. The Good Dinosaur, which opens on US Thanksgiving, stands alone as a solid film that’s flawless for a family movie date.

The characters deliberately have a very stylized cartoon’ish look to them. It’s impossible to not be drawn in by the beauty of it all.

But even in those seemingly innocent endeavors such as Toy Story, The Incredibles and Ratatouille, among others, the filmmakers and animators always included choice morsels for the adults to chew on. Sam Elliott is Butch, the menacing-but-fair head T-rex cowboy, who accomplishes what Arlo’s father could not – getting the boy to face his fear and understand that it can be conquered without being eliminated. But it’s that kind of laziness that infects the entire film.

The Good Dinosaur has been rated PG for peril, action and thematic elements. And “Dumbo”. Nonetheless, when “Inside Out” was released this year, it was remarkable to see a visual representation of feelings, and now the writer at the helm of that movie, Primetime Emmy nominated Meg LeFauve, returns with the screenplay for the “The Good Dinosaur”; which is equal measures hilarious and tempestuous. After all the delays and changes, though, that feels like a bit of a letdown. The film runs with the idea that dinosaurs were never extinct and now have to live with other species.