At the D23 Expo today, several new scenes were debuted from the upcoming Pixar movie The Good Dinosaur. Behind the scenes, there was some turbulence on The Good Dinosaur, with a change in filmmakers and a delay in the film’s original release date – but anyone who knows Pixar’s history is aware this is not a new scenario for the company, with films like Toy Story 2, Ratatouille and Brave all underdoing pretty dramatic overhauls, only to find success when finished. And based on what was shown today, it seems The Good Dinosaur will be another hit for the company.

We learned a bit more about the plot, involving a young dinosaur (specifically an Apatosaurus) named Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) and how the story will take him from being “a timid and scared kid into a strong and confident one.”


Early on in the story, Arlo’s father (voiced by Jeffrey Wright) dies and Arlo then becomes separated from his mother (Francis McDormand) and siblings. We were shown the sequence in which Arlo gets caught in a raging river, and keeps being pulled underwater, as he gasps for breath. What really stood out here was how photorealistic the nature settings were – the water and foliage around it all looked absolutely real, with only the purposely cartoony Arlo not looking like something we might see in our everyday world. It was also a pretty intense sequence, ending with Arlo’s head smashing into a rock, knocking him out.

Arlo then meets Spot, a young caveman (caveboy?), in a world where dinosaurs never went extinct, allowing them to co-exist with Neanderthal man. In the sequence, we see Arlo (who speaks like a human would) being followed by Spot, who is an animalistic, growling little kid, who speaks in grunts. When they come across fireflies, Arlo gets them to fly everywhere, fascinating Spot (who humorously tries to grab them, nearly barking the whole time) who finally catches one. Arlo blows on it in Spot’s hand, making it light up even brighter and Spot lets it go and the two of them watch it fly away above them.

Suddenly Arlo goings from smiling to looking dejected, sighing, “I miss my family.” As Spot looks at him with a puzzled expression, Spot tries to explain, using sticks (which he picks up and moves with his mouth) standing up in the ground to represent his family, including his mother, father, siblings and himself. He uses his snout to make a circle round the sticks to represent the family unit.

Spot understands and mimics what Arlo did, but with three sticks - two larger ones for his parents and a smaller one in the middle for himself. Finished, he lays on the ground and sadly looks at the sticks next to him, before knocking over the two larger ones and burying them beneath the dirt. Arlo understands and knocks over the stick representing his own father and buries it. Spot puts his hand on the circle for his family and then puts his head back and howls at the sky… And then Arlo mimics him and does the same.

And by this point, most of the audience was battling back tears. Suffice to say, this was a highly emotional, highly impactful scene.


On the lighter side, it was revealed that Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin and A.J. Buckley will voice three tyrannosaurus rexes in the film and we were shown a clip after Arlo and Spot meet them. It turns out Sam Elliott is being called on to play exactly the sort of role the veteran actor is known for, hilariously playing his T-Rex, Butch, as a cowboy character, who says things like, “If you’re pulling my leg, I’m gonna eat yours” and runs in a gallop, like a horse. The funny sequence had Butch demand Arlo act as a distraction, going into the middle of a herd of buffalo and yelling for help. When Arlo makes a pathetic little squeak instead of yelling, Spot bites him hard on the leg, getting him to really scream. Suddenly, there is movement in the grass and fast-moving creatures racing past the buffalo, towards Arlo and Spot – one of which reveals itself to be another, threatening dinosaur, who pops up in Arlo’s face and says, with a smirk, “Howdy.”

The Good Dinosaur opens November 25th, 2015.