We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, the first Thanksgiving dino film
November 24, 2015 7:49 PM   Subscribe

Pixar's new film, The Good Dinosaur, is the second animated dinosaur film to come out in time for Thanksgiving. The previous one came out 22 years ago, with executive producer credits for Steven Spielberg and a whole host of stars lending their voices to the film, telling the story of dinosaurs coming to New York City. And it bombed. Let's go back in time and look at We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story.

The story was based on a book of the same title by Hudson Talbott, but "Steven Spielberg and his collaborators go FAR beyond the wholesome, fun adventures Hugh Talbott wrote about in his book" (brief video book review and comparison to the movie). According to a currently uncited interview with John Malkovich (who was set to be a voice actor but backed out), he said "It was completely bureaucratized. They took something that had art in it and put it in the laps of people that only cared about the bottom line, and look what happened."

Yes, let's look. If you see the screencaps alone, you might be able to appreciate the artwork of the film, but once you get to the reviews, it's hard to miss the mess. Likely inspired by The Land Before Time movies that first came out in 1988 and did well in their time (with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as executive producers), it might be hard to separate Spielberg's name and the idea of dinosaurs in 1993 from Jurassic Park, and the cameo of a Spielberg look-alike and a Jurassic Park marquee in We're Back wouldn't help you imagine it wasn't an attempt to make a more family-friendly dinosaur film.

Except it's not exactly a happy little story with a moment or two of conflict to make things lively. Roger Ebert's scathing review from 1993 ("The movie has one blessing. It's very short. The official running time is 72 minutes. I think that's stretching it. It was about eight minutes shorter by my watch, although that wasn't shorter enough.") doesn't touch on the darkness of Professor Screweyes and his demise (Nostalgia Critic's review on YouTube that gives you a pretty good overview of the movie in 20 minutes, plus there's a transcript).

So back to Malkovich, who was originally set to voice the role of Professor Screweyes, but backed out due to artistic differences (though he was still falsely credited (Google books preview) for the movie from time to time), you can possibly hear him in this slightly restored deleted scene that provides a (dark) reason for his screw eye.

The movie didn't do well in theaters, but ranked decently in rentals the following year (Google books preview), and there were the expected selection of game tie-ins: We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story for SNES where you're Rex, A Dinosaur's Tale for Megadrive where you're Louie, and We're Back! for Game Boy where you're ... Rex? Mini rex? Mix it up with some different sprite and artwork, and Bam! You get Bamse! Or get aggro with Agro Saur!

Rex The Dinosaur showed up as a longest balloon in Macy's Parade of 1993 but it was hard to navigate the large balloon in 20-mph winds, ending in disaster. Still, Rex came back until 2007, when it was finally retired.
posted by filthy light thief (22 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you've seen this, or have vague recollections of it, as far as I can tell there's no such thing as a Thanksgiving Hat. Or at least, that's not a Thanksgiving Hat.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:55 PM on November 24, 2015


I had the book, way way back, and it was glorious. "Wholesome, fun adventures" is not totally off, but I remember a deep current of sadness as well. The dinosaurs are permanently wrenched from the world they knew. There's a Flowers for Algernon thing going on as well (that's the one about a mouse called Algernon).
posted by grobstein at 8:01 PM on November 24, 2015


The trailer proudly announced two of the big name voices were Julia Child and Walter Cronkite. You don't get more Special Guest Star than that.
And whatever the Malkovich issues were, I'm sure Kenneth Mars did a fully adequate job with a totally unsympathetic character (I followed his widely varied career back to the Nazi-sympathizing playwright in Mel Brooks' "The Producers").
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:29 PM on November 24, 2015


Ah yes, Walter Cronkite and Julia Child, the young people's favorites.

Seriously, this is so weird, and displays a fundamental and uncharitable misunderstanding of horror fans and other "alternative" subcultures.
posted by Small Dollar at 8:55 PM on November 24, 2015


You know for some reason we had this on VHS but no one else had seen it and for years I thought I hallucinated an animated dinosaur movie with Julia Child?
posted by The Whelk at 8:55 PM on November 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


I LOVED this movie as a dino-obsessed kid. I pretty much had two movies - We're Back and The Land Before Time on rotation until The Lion King was released on VHS. Just last week, I had Roll Back the Rock (To the Dawn of Time) stuck in my head for a solid two days, I can't work out why, although I credit that scene for making me want to see the Macy's parade IRL (did so in 2009).

I'm scared to watch it again as an adult, because I can remember only enjoyment from it - there were scary and sad parts, but as a 6 year old, they were pretty well balanced by the joy.
posted by cholly at 9:03 PM on November 24, 2015


I just realized this movie is probably why I occasionally refer to it as the *musseeeum* of NAT-URAL Hiss-tory
posted by The Whelk at 10:20 PM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Seriously, this is so weird, and displays a fundamental and uncharitable misunderstanding of horror fans and other "alternative" subcultures.

The "darkness of Professor Screweyes and his demise" link mentions this as well. Can you elaborate a little bit?
posted by brundlefly at 11:00 PM on November 24, 2015


I adored this movie as a kid, and even though I regularly watch other beloved childhood movies for nostalgia's sake, this is one I'm never going to watch again.

It will live in my mind as an awesome dinosaur movie, and I won't let The Truth That It's Probably Awful get in the way of my happy memories.
posted by Gordafarin at 2:30 AM on November 25, 2015


I LOVED this movie as a kid. I can't recall much about it other than being horrified at certain parts, though I can't recall which parts. I will require a rewatch this weekend it seems.
posted by Twain Device at 2:35 AM on November 25, 2015


I don't remember a THING about this movie other than watching it on a huge bed surrounded by cousins and puppies during a big family get together. So I have fond, if vague, recollections. It surprises me to realise all these years later that it was actually considered a bad movie. Who knew?! Thanks for the links - I love 90s animation, forgotten or not.
posted by Ziggy500 at 3:02 AM on November 25, 2015


I remember this movie, mostly the music. They played that hard on children's radio growing up. Now I have Roll Back the Rock stuck in my head too.
posted by chainsofreedom at 3:35 AM on November 25, 2015


The book was wonderful. The movie was awful.

I may never forgive Speilberg for his role in the endless string of Land Before Time turds. Just because children have no inherent powers of discrimination, that's no excuse for inflicting that kind of exploitive abuse on them and their parents.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:39 AM on November 25, 2015


Is it just me or does the John Goodmansaur looks very much like Rex from Toy Story?
posted by fordiebianco at 5:08 AM on November 25, 2015


I had forgotten this existed, and then the trailer triggered all these thoughts and memories around this movie. And I realized I think about scenes in the movie on a regular basis, without realizing it was from this movie.

I feel like this was one of those movies that I watched 100s of times as a kid... but really I think I only ever saw it once and somehow it still stuck in my head like those other movies did.

This is weird. I feel weird. This movie is frightening.
posted by mayonnaises at 6:24 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I loved this movie as a kid. Had no idea that it was so bad.
posted by all about eevee at 8:36 AM on November 25, 2015


I remember one part where they reverted from being friendly, talking dinosaurs into "normal" dinosaurs, and that was somehow my favorite part? I don't know, I think I need therapy.
posted by all about eevee at 8:41 AM on November 25, 2015


OK, this movie isn't that bad. It's a kid's movie, and it's not wholly logical, but it has a basic plot that you can follow. The book-end bits with the bluebirds is a bit odd, and there are other unnecessary parts (I'm looking at you, "Thanksgiving Hat"), but there are plenty of other similar offenders. There are plenty of cute things, and giant dinosaurs in New York City, so I can see kids liking this.


The Whelk: I just realized this movie is probably why I occasionally refer to it as the *musseeeum* of NAT-URAL Hiss-tory

And then you wink, right?


Small Dollar: Seriously, this is so weird, and displays a fundamental and uncharitable misunderstanding of horror fans and other "alternative" subcultures.

brundlefly: The "darkness of Professor Screweyes and his demise" link mentions this as well. Can you elaborate a little bit?

The three punks are the first types of degenerate lovers of horror we see, but then they're just as scared as the regular stiffs who also came for a fright. Also, Screweyes says something about some people who like to be frightened that comes across as a bit off in terms of describing horror fans, I'll look for that part later.


If you want to dissect the movie further, here's the TV Tropes page for We're Back!
posted by filthy light thief at 9:25 AM on November 25, 2015


OK, this movie isn't that bad.

As someone who read the book to my child repeatedly over a couple of years, and who had the video given by a relative, I disagree. The film IS that bad. Direct experience with both forms of the story creates a very unfavorable comparison.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:12 AM on November 25, 2015


I loved this movie as a kid but I wouldn't want to rewatch it now because I think it would ruin it. And now Roll Back the Rock is stuck in my head too...
posted by kassila at 7:47 PM on November 25, 2015


I've never seen the movie, nor the book. Does Gertie make a cameo?
posted by brujita at 10:06 PM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Gertie?

And I didn't cover "Roll Back the Rock" in the OP - I'm not sure how I feel about the in-movie version sung in character by John Goodman, or the version by Little Richard that plays in the credits. You can blame Thomas Dolby for the lyrics in both versions. Roger Ebert was not impressed:
There is, after a long time, a song-and-dance number called "Roll Back the Rock," which is the first song I've heard in a long time that I am sure I personally could have written, and performed, better.
Damn, that's harsh.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:04 PM on November 27, 2015


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