Pixars "The Good Dinosaur Toys".

[Takama]

Ok i was at my local target today and i found the first merchandise of the Good Dinosaur. and I was impressed. The figures they had were simple vinyl Figurines with movable parts. and they were a lot better then the crap Hasbro released for Jurassic World.

Arlo The Apatosaurus


Forrest Woodbush the Styracosaurus


Mary Alice the Triceratops


Will the Stegosaurus


Thunderclap The Nyctosaurus


Bubbha The Velociraptor


Ramsey the Tyrannosaurus


Butch The Tyrannosaurus


Vivian the Baby Ankylosaurus


Sam The Baby Triceratops


These photos were taken from Amazon.com and they all have names that i will edit in later.

[Viking Spawn]

How cute.  But what happened to Butch's face?

[Takama]

As far as i know he is the old wise Cowyboy  whose been through a lot in his life.

Those are battle scars.

[Silvanusaurus]

I like the t-rexes, but some of the stylization on the others I find genuinely unpleasant... that Stegosaurus is disturbing. I don't mind stylization when it's done with finesse, but some of these designs just look ugly.

[ITdactyl]

That bite on Butch's face looks "fresh"...

[alexeratops]

The stegosaurus' face reminds me of Crush:

[LophoLeeVT]

the hell.............looks af if styraco had only one eye....

[Gwangi]

I probably won't get any of them but if I did it would be Butch, his character design is really cool. And while I'm sure the movie will be good I don't like some of the designs for some of the other dinosaurs. Arlo still looks way too goofy to me and those brow horns coming off the frill of the Triceratops is really off putting.

[Tyrannosauron]

I really like 'em. If nothing else the figures look pretty accurate to the character designs we've seen so far. I'll probably have to be choosy--the office is running out of display space--but I figure that I'll be getting Arlo, the velociraptor, and one of the rexes at least.

As for the decision to stylize the dinosaurs: I understand the artistic choice that Pixar made (cartoonish dinosaurs juxtaposed against hyper-realistic background, underlining the "alternate universe" point that this is an imaginary version of our world), but I do kind of wish it had been otherwise. I remember when "The Lion King" came out how much I wished that there was a comparable movie about dinosaurs. Imagine if Pixar had turned out something like that!

[Kayakasaurus]

The stegosaurus' face reminds me of Crush:

Totally dude

His face is very similar, and the way he has his mouth open and his eyebrows, I wonder if he'll have the same chillax attitude, he looks pretty slow.

[Halichoeres]

I'm most charmed by the tiny accessory critters. The young Ankylosaurus reminds me of Princess Leia.

[Paleona]

It's cool to see how much these look like cartoons brought to life, but I agree with Silvanusaurus... most of these designs are just ugly to me.  Particularly that Stego and the very strange Triceratops.  I'm all for stylized dinosaurs, but I'm just not digging these. 

[tyrantqueen]

It's cool to see how much these look like cartoons brought to life, but I agree with Silvanusaurus... most of these designs are just ugly to me.  Particularly that Stego and the very strange Triceratops.  I'm all for stylized dinosaurs, but I'm just not digging these. 

Maybe some of them are supposed to be ugly? Not every animal in real life is beautiful looking.

[Gwangi]

I just realized that the little mammal in the Velociraptor mouth has it's tail sticking out like a grass stem. That coupled with a name like Bubbha and the patchy hair growth and I think we can draw some conclusions on what this character is supposed to be.

[Takama]

Here some more Vinyl Figures

Apatosaurus Babys.(One of them is Arlo)


Young Arlo


Spot VS a Lizard


Spot VS a Beetle

[Silvanusaurus]

It's cool to see how much these look like cartoons brought to life, but I agree with Silvanusaurus... most of these designs are just ugly to me.  Particularly that Stego and the very strange Triceratops.  I'm all for stylized dinosaurs, but I'm just not digging these. 

Maybe some of them are supposed to be ugly? Not every animal in real life is beautiful looking.

Its the stylization that is ugly; they have been unnecessarily deformed to the point that they appear as an affront to the human perception of biological reality. See something like the Lion King, in which the animals are stylized cartoons, but still resemble actual animals; i.e. there are no lions with foreheads as tall as their legs, or elephants with trunks coming from their chins and pies for feet. The stegosaurus' head doesnt even resemble that of an animal any more, it looks like someone sculpted a human-eyed frog and then stretched out the clay so that it has a mouth for a chin and a bizarre formless edifice where the rest of face had been. And the 'cute' ones look the worst, as though they've been designed by a blind person whose only knowledge of aesthetics is a vague description of low-budget, early european imitation pixar/dreamworks films.
I know there are many many cartoons with similar deformed designs, but coming from pixar it's a disappointment. And yes this is all just my personal opinion, and no, I'm not actually taking it as seriously as this makes it sound, I'm just an artist who likes to see art-work with more thought behind it than this.
Also, I don't think I've ever seen a real animal that couldnt be described as beautiful, but thats just my perspective. 

[tyrantqueen]

It's cool to see how much these look like cartoons brought to life, but I agree with Silvanusaurus... most of these designs are just ugly to me.  Particularly that Stego and the very strange Triceratops.  I'm all for stylized dinosaurs, but I'm just not digging these. 

Maybe some of them are supposed to be ugly? Not every animal in real life is beautiful looking.

Its the stylization that is ugly; they have been unnecessarily deformed to the point that they appear as an affront to the human perception of biological reality. See something like the Lion King, in which the animals are stylized cartoons, but still resemble actual animals; i.e. there are no lions with foreheads as tall as their legs, or elephants with trunks coming from their chins and pies for feet. The stegosaurus' head doesnt even resemble that of an animal any more, it looks like someone sculpted a human-eyed frog and then stretched out the clay so that it has a mouth for a chin and a bizarre formless edifice where the rest of face had been. And the 'cute' ones look the worst, as though they've been designed by a blind person whose only knowledge of aesthetics is a vague description of low-budget, early european imitation pixar/dreamworks films.
I know there are many many cartoons with similar deformed designs, but coming from pixar it's a disappointment. And yes this is all just my personal opinion, and no, I'm not actually taking it as seriously as this makes it sound, I'm just an artist who likes to see art-work with more thought behind it than this.
Also, I don't think I've ever seen a real animal that couldnt be described as beautiful, but thats just my perspective.

Really? They don't bother me.

I just think they're heavily stylised. I love the Lion King but it's a different style of animation. Neither one is "wrong", like all art it's subjective. I would argue there's actually of lot of thought behind the designs. They seem to be going for the caricature look. Take Arlo for example. His large eyes are obviously meant to be appealing and his oversized legs make him look awkward and endearing. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but it's still a valid form of stylisation. I think the squinty eyed Tyrannosaurus is hilarious. I love what they're doing with him.

Also, Pixar has done heavily deformed/stylised animation before, have you seen the dog from Up? It seems to be a style of animation they're moving towards now.



Btw, there's more to art than just visuals. There is also the story telling and the acting, which we have yet to witness.

I think there's plenty of "ugly" or not visually appealing animals. But I don't care- for me beauty is not necessarily an indicator of worthiness.

But, like I said before, art is subjective, I'm happy to agree to disagree If you don't like the art style it's cool with me.

[Takama]

I originally had a problem with the Looks of the animals, but then i thoght of A Bugs life with its unrealistic ants.

The only gripe i have with the whole movie is the Front feet on the Apatosaurus. Would it have been to much trouble to make them look like the real thing?  Everything else is fine with me.


These models are fairly cheap too.   Some of them are $12.99, while the Tyrannosaurs are $19.99.    There is even a four pack at Target with Arlo, Ramsey, and Babbha, and Spot that costs $40.

I liked these figures the moment i saw them, and i plan on getting some to review for the blog.

[Gwangi]

While I don't doubt that the movie will be good I think my biggest gripe with the film so far is the evident lack of research. These dinosaurs survived the Cretaceous extinction, but many of these dinosaurs were already extinct millions of years before that event. Pixar just went with some well-known dinosaurs that have already been done to death and made generic caricatures of them. That's fine I guess but even though Pixar typically stylizes their characters it's at least evidence that they did some homework first. Take "Finding Nemo" for example, Pixar did a terrific job of bringing the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding waters of Australia to life, with many diverse species that behaved realistically and looked like the animals they were meant to represent. Why couldn't Pixar do the same here? Maybe exchange Apatosaurus with a late Cretaceous sauropod? Maybe throw some Therizinosaurs in there for a change instead of old Stegosaurus who should have died out back in the Jurassic? All well, it just shows that dinosaurs are never taken seriously. Like I said, I still have hopes the movie is good and I'm excited to see it.

[Tyrannosauron]

While I don't doubt that the movie will be good I think my biggest gripe with the film so far is the evident lack of research. These dinosaurs survived the Cretaceous extinction, but many of these dinosaurs were already extinct millions of years before that event. Pixar just went with some well-known dinosaurs that have already been done to death and made generic caricatures of them. That's fine I guess but even though Pixar typically stylizes their characters it's at least evidence that they did some homework first. Take "Finding Nemo" for example, Pixar did a terrific job of bringing the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding waters of Australia to life, with many diverse species that behaved realistically and looked like the animals they were meant to represent. Why couldn't Pixar do the same here? Maybe exchange Apatosaurus with a late Cretaceous sauropod? Maybe throw some Therizinosaurs in there for a change instead of old Stegosaurus who should have died out back in the Jurassic? All well, it just shows that dinosaurs are never taken seriously. Like I said, I still have hopes the movie is good and I'm excited to see it.

I won't deny their apparent lack of research, but paleontology being what it is they can always fall back on the idea that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. If the goal is accuracy then I'd think the bigger problem would be explaining away how dinosaurs with enough intelligence to engage in agriculture are nevertheless anatomically identical to their less-intelligent forebears. If you're willing to suspend disbelief enough to accept that a sauropod could have a functional larynx then it shouldn't take too much more to accept some of the other (clearly more economically-driven) choices.

In any event, I agree that it's worth getting excited over the movie's release. Hopefully this is more of an "Wall-E"-type Pixar movie and less of a "Cars 2"-type Pixar movie.