After years of development and a late-breaking release date shift in 2013, Disney-Pixar has released the first teaser trailer for The Good Dinosaur.  Directed by Peter Sohn (Partly Cloudy), the buddy comedy takes place in a world in which the asteroid didn't smash into Earth millions of years ago, leaving the dinosaurs intact. The story revolves around a dinosaur named Arlo who, after a traumatic event unsettles his family, sets out on a journey with an unlikely companion—a human boy. 

If the title of this film sounds familiar, it's because the project has had a long and somewhat tumultuous history (which is not entirely out of the ordinary for Pixar). It was to be Up co-director Bob Peterson's solo directorial debut, but in 2014 Peterson was removed from the film and some of his ideas (including modeling the dinosaurs off of Amish farmers) were jettisoned in favor of a new iteration of the story. His co-director, Sohn, subsequently stepped in, leaving us with the finished film we have now.

This teaser trailer is solid, but it's impossible to judge just yet whether this will be a case like Toy Story 2, in which last-minute changes result in a fantastic movie, or something more like Brave, which was an adequate if disappointing entry in Pixar's oeuvre following similar production troubles. I do like the central idea, and the animation that we briefly glimpse here takes a more cartoonish approach to the dinosaurs rather than anatomically accurate, so here's hoping destination was worth the rocky journey.

Watch the trailer below, via Disney-Pixar.  The film will finally arrive in theaters on November 25th, marking the first time Pixar has released two films in one year (the other being the critically acclaimed Inside Out this month) and features a voice cast that includes Lucas Neff, Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, John Lithgow, Frances McDormand, and Judy Greer.


Here's the official synopsis for The Good Dinosaur:

"The Good Dinosaur" asks the question: What if the asteroid that forever changed life on Earth missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? Pixar Animation Studios takes you on an epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend. While traveling through a harsh and mysterious landscape, Arlo learns the power of confronting his fears and discovers what he is truly capable of.

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