The Good Dinosaur: A Movie Review (SPOILERS)

Today I saw The Good Dinosaur, knowing that the animation would be stunning. It was a beautiful journey through detailed landscapes that looked real. Only the characters seemed to be animated. 

Now, before I talk about The Good Dinosaur, I have to talk about what is probably my favorite Pixar Short: Sanjay's Super Team! 

This short was amazing, and now that I know about Hindu Mythology, I loved the way they portrayed the three deities. This short was a great tribute to the merge of two generations, and the power of the imagination. It's the best short I've seen this year!

Anyway, on the the main topic: The Good Dinosaur

It's difficult to review this movie without spoilers, because the story is fantastic, but the way they conveyed the story was a little strange for the story they were trying to tell. 

SPOILERS: 

The main theme of this movie was facing your fear, and the journey helps you conquer it, and achieve what you didn't believe you could.

Here's one of my favorite scenes: 

This was what I liked about the story of the movie. They did a great job focusing on what it is like to live in fear, and how that can hinder your perspective. 

That said, I don't recommend this movie to any children under 12 or 10 years old. It's quite scary, and intentionally so. That's one of the things they did really well through Arlo's point of view. You live through his fear, and you follow his journey as he slowly reaches the conclusion he needs to confront it. 

Spot's character is basically an endearing puppy, and a great way for Arlo to gain a different perspective of the world around him. 

Now, the story itself is a great story, with many good messages. The problem with the film is that they try to tell this western themed, coming of age, boy loves his dog story with Dinosaurs and cave men. It was a bit strange to understand the plausability of the world, but if it was an actual western story (without dinosaurs) I think it would reach the audience in a more effective way. 

I would give it four out of five marks, because the story is well written- just badly planned and strangely conveyed. The animation is beautiful, and once you move past the plausiablity of the film, you can see the heart and the message that it's trying to convey. 

And it's a beautiful message.

Ender's Game: A movie review

Novel adaptions into movies are often a hit or miss. Some novels are paced differently than the average film, and Hollywood has budgets, time constraints and script writing to work out. In this case, Ender's Game was a good movie that captured most of the ideals, events and lessons of the novel. 

In terms of the scenes that were brushed over, I didn't mind, mostly because I didn't enjoy reading them, but there were a few things that I didn't think should have been brushed over. 

Ender's choices are very important, and as the story draws to a close, many truths are revealed to him that affect him as a person. Not all of these truths were revealed in the film, and it's possible that if they were, it may have changed the rating. 

In terms of the film itself, I reccomend it to everyone, especially fans of the novel. Like I said earlier, the movie does the novel justice, and in terms of it's rating, I believe it stayed true to the premise of the original story. Even if you're a hard core fan of the book, this movie is worth seeing in my opinion. Some of the best scenes in the film are the battle room scenes, which are amazing and make you wonder how they created them. 

In my personal opinion, I had hoped they would explain more of the psychology that Colonel Graff used on Ender, because it really defined an aspect of his character, and showed the internal conflict  he constantly faced with difficult decisions. 

I can't say more without spoiling the movie for people who haven't read the book. So, I will simply recommend it, along with the novel, if you haven't read it. 

There's a reason why Ender's Game is one of the best SciFi novels of our time.