I always wonder about the people behind such big cultural institutions as Pixar and how they feel about the product they put out, specifically in regards to what risks they’d like to take with their films. Watching this new trailer for The Good Dinosaur, I can’t help but wonder if Pixar could have used their immense clout to make a feature-length film that was dialogue-free.

If not for the on-the-nose interstitial text bits and a single spoken word, this is a trailer that could have sold me based on images and music alone. I’m fairly numb to the technical beauty Pixar movies continue to display and develop, but the idea of portraying “a boy and his dog” story with nothing but expressions and minimal vocalizations (growling, howling etc.) is extremely neat. However, I know this won’t be the case and I’m kind of bummed by it.

I’m the kind of idiot that thinks that those who hold the most sway over our pop culture need to be the ones taking the biggest creative risks. There’s ways to do that while still producing a project that garners mass appraisal and approval. Inside Out was a stranger concept than anything Pixar had done before, and it resulted in what may end up being their best film to date.

I’m sure The Good Dinosaur will live up to the Pixar name (out of fifteen films, their only clunkers have been the Cars movies), and thanks to the ravenous success of Jurassic World, I’m betting the movie does great business as well. I just hope that Pixar learns from these recent successes and starts experimenting with their films more. Oh wait, we’re getting four more sequels from them? Never mind.


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