'The Good Dinosaur' Has Been "Dismantled and Re-imagined"

The Good Dinosaur has gone through a series of ups and downs in its production. It was originally directed by Bob Peterson (Co-directer of Up), and last year he was replaced by members of the Pixar BrainTrust: John Lasseter (Pixar's Chief Creative Officer), Lee Unkrich (Director of Toy Story 3), and Mark Andrews (Director of Brave). Peter Sohn has always been the co-director for The Good Dinosaur, and he is still working on the movie. Bob Peterson remained positive about him leaving the film and announced that he is on to future projects.

Less than a month later, The Good Dinosaur was pushed back from its original release date. It was going to come out last May, and now it will arrive in theaters on November 25th, 2015. Pixar's President Ed Catmull had this to say about the release date change: "Nobody ever remembers the fact that you slipped a film, but they will remember a bad film. Our conclusion was that we were going to give the film some more time."

The official logo for The Good Dinosaur

Collider recently interviewed John Lithgow and threw in a couple questions about The Good Dinosaur. (John voices one of the characters in the film). Here's what he said:

“I recorded the entire role in Good Dinosaur.  They have now dismantled it and completely re-imagined it, and it is a fantastic new story.  So I’m gonna record again on it within the next month.  Don’t worry.  It’s coming and it’s gonna be better than I ever imagined.”

How much has the movie been re-imagined? One wonders if it will be drastically different from the original question that drove the story of the film: What if the cataclysmic asteroid that forever changed life on Earth actually missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? The Good Dinosaur's original synopsis pronounced that The Good Dinosaur was about an 70-foot-tall teenage Apatosaurus named Arlo. After a traumatic event rattles Arlo’s tranquil community, he sets out on a quest to restore peace, gaining an unlikely companion along the way—a young human boy named Spot.

The Good Dinosaur concept art featuring Arlo and Spot

John Lithgow went on to say that he was still the voice of Poppa Dinosaur (Arlo's father) and that Frannie McDormand as sill playing Momma Dinosaur. Does this mean that some of the other voice actors have been replaced or changed? At D23 2013 it was announced that Lucas Neff would be the voice of Arlo, and his siblings are going to be played by Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, and Judy Greer.

The Good Dinosaur presentation at D23 last year

This is not the first time there have been director changes or production troubles at Pixar; all this is part of the creative process of the film until it arrives on the big screen. An example of this is when A Bug's Life was completed in the Fall of 1998, and Toy Story 2 was examined by John Lasseter and other directors. It was decided that it needed to be completely re-written. Pixar turned the production of Toy Story 2 upside-down and got the film done in less than a year. This story illustrates one of the great traits of Pixar, the artists there will always choose to do what's best for the story of the film, even if that means completely re-doing, delaying, or working overtime on the movie.

The Good Dinosaur will arrive in theaters next year on November 25th. This is the first time Pixar will have released two movies in the same year, the first one being Inside Out (June 19th, 2015).