Trailer for Pixar's 'Good Dinosaur' is short, but good?

Posted Tuesday, June 2, 2015 at 4:09 PM Central
Last updated Tuesday, June 2, 2015 at 4:24 PM Central

by John Couture

Allow me to travel to the future for you. It's Thanksgiving 2015 and in between all of the Star Wars fans camping out at megaplexes across the country, families dash out with their kids for one last family film of the year in The Good Dinosaur. That any 95% of all reviews of the film call the film "Good.

There are few things as automatic as punny headlines on movie reviews, but a Pixar film being great is right up there. So, trailers, and teaser trailers particularly, don't have to sell people on the film. The Pixar logo does all the work for them.

And yet, we really don't know much about The Good Dinosaur and the chance to finally see some footage from this year's second Pixar film is intriguing. After not releasing a film in 2014, Pixar is back with two films this year including this Summer's Inside Out.

We know plenty about Inside Out, but nary a thing about The Good Dinosaur. We know that there will be dinosaurs in it and it will take place in a world where the big asteroid that wiped them all out missed the Earth and they lived on.

That information takes up about 75% of the teaser trailer released today, but it's the last part that has us intrigued. In the quick montage of shots that end the trailer, there's a quick shot of a dinosaur and a baby primitive human (aka cave man). That would jive with the vague synopsis also released today.

"The Good Dinosaur" asks the question: What if the asteroid that forever changed life on Earth missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? Pixar Animation Studios takes you on an epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend. While traveling through a harsh and mysterious landscape, Arlo learns the power of confronting his fears and discovers what he is truly capable of.

Before you get your hopes up of a film that resembles The Flintstones, it seems that the script will be flipped and the Dinosaurs will be the dominant species with humans seen as their pets. While the film still looks like a comedy and it would be a shock for Pixar to stray too far from their tried and true formula, how cool would it be to see The Good Dinosaur as a Planet of the Apes story in which humans and dinosaurs battle for supremacy. Hmm...perhaps the sequel will go this route?

The Good Dinosaur debuts in theaters on November 25.