It may be the most overlooked of all the Pixar movies and has the embarrassing distinction of being the company's very first box-office failure, we still have to acknowledge The Good Dinosaur as a movie from said studio. Hey guys, I'm Isaac from Wickedbinge and in this video, we are going to talk about The Good Dinosaur characters: Good to Evil. In this list, we will be looking at the dinos from this often forgotten Pixar flick and how they rank in morality. Which of these reptilians are kind souls who you can't help but love and which more than deserve getting hit by the meteorite. the missed Earth by the beginning of the feature.
As usual, we will be starting with the most good characters and working our way down to the evil. The characters are The Good.
-Earning the gold medal of good is Butch. Most animated dinosaur flicks feature the Tyrannosaurus Rex as the bad guy, but for Butch, he's anything but a bad dinosaur. When he first appears in the movie, he doesn't really make a friendly impression as he acts cold to Arlo and seems fairly apathetic to Arlo's want to get home, being more focused on finding his herd of longhorns. However, once Arlo and Spot end up helping Butch and his kids get their herd back from Bubbha and his goons, Butch gratefully decides to return the favor and sees to it that Arlo gets back to Clawtooth Mountain. But what really makes him qualified for the gold medal is that he is the one who delivers the movie's aesop as during a campfire scene. He gives Arlo advice about the pros and cons of fear and how it is a natural part of life and that we have to know when and where to apply it or to get through it. This also shows that despite his guff nature, Butch is surprisingly wise and insightful and is proud to pass that on to a younger generation.
-Up next, we're giving our silver medal of good to the Cave Family. Although they only appear near the very end of the movie, these guys nonetheless show how much of a kindly bunvh they are. When they run ino Arlo and Spot just as the duo have made it home to Clawtooth Mountain, they seem to be interested in adopting Spot into their family. While this is a little presumptuous of them, since Arlo and Spot have been together for a few days and have gotten to know each other, we do have to take into account how they did not try to force Spot to come with them and let him choose to do so on his own terms. Giving how loving they seem to be and how adapt to surviving in a wild environment they also appear to be doing, it sort of makes sense why Spot chose to be with them. We would give them gold if, again, they didn't appear until the very last minute of the movie, but they showed how kind they are throughout their appearance.
-Finally, getting the bronze medal of good is Arlo's mother, Momma Ida. When we first see her, Ida is shown to be an exceptionally kind and loving mother to her children as well as a devoted wife to Henry. Whenever Arlo gets frightened, she steps up to show him comfort. This behavior also applies to Arlo feeling sad about Henry's death early on in the movie as she shows empathy to Arlo since he was the closest to Henry. Not just that, but she also shows patience to Arlo whenever his fear acts up and interferes with his farm duties. These acts alone makes her a perfect fit to be on the Good Tier. If we had to mention anything negative, it's that she naively thought her daughter Libby watered the field when it was really Buck who did that and tells Buck in a rather angry tone to return to his chores, but this is just a minor nitpick since it only happened in one scene. The only reason we're giving her the silver medal is because like a majority of characters, she isn't in the movie too long to make a lasting impact, but we see enough of her good qualities to put her this high on the list.
-Just outside the good podium is Arlo's human pet, Spot. When we first see Spot, like Butch, he doesn't make the best first impression. He is seen trying to steal food from Arlo's family's silo and after Henry's death, he follows Arlo around after he gets lost rather than leaving him alone. However, we should understand that he does make an effort to befriend Arlo buy offering him food and protecting him from any sort danger that follows them, despite how for a majority since their introduction to each other, Arlo wanted nothing to do with him and tried to either kill him or shoo him away. This shows that Spot is a very kind-hearted soul who bears no grudge to anyone who attempts to hurt him. He also has an empathetic side as when Arlo begins tgo miss his family, Spot reveals that he also has a family he is missing. At the end, when he decides to be part of a tribe of human cavemen, he bids Arlo a kindly goodbye. With all these good qualities, why is it that he only gets the bronze medal? Well, as I stated before, he tried to steal food from Arlo and his family alongside following Arlo against the latter's wishes. We also have to question his decision to bite off part of Thunderclap's wing near the end of the movie and basically crippling his flying ability. While it was out of self-defense, that seemed like a bit much. Still though, we have to acknowledge Spot's good qualities because they more than outweigh his bad ones.
The Good Dinosaur himself, Arlo, is up next. Arlo starts out as your typical cowardly kid character, always being frightened of nearly every little thing and trying to escape potential danger. He's also not higher on the list due to repeatedly trying to harm Spot for the first-third of the film as he holds him responsible for his father's death, even though Spot had nothing to do with it, though this could have just been his grief talking. This makes him a coward and a little short-tempered for sure, but since he is the main character, we do see him grow beyond these flaws. His experiences in the outer region, from fighting off Thunderclap, to befriending the T-Rexes, to saving Spot's life from danger, to finally getting over his grief after having a vision of Henry, alive and well, giving him the wisdom he needs to push through his fears. Arlo is by no means the most strongest Pixar protagonist since his story arc of learning to be courageous isn't anything new, but he has shown to be a good enough character to qualify for this spot on our ranking.
-Ramsey is next on our list. When she first appears, Ramsey is shown to be protective or Arlo from Thunderclap and his goons, despite not knowing him. She also takes a liking to Spot when he shows affection to her. She is aslo shown to be protective of her family's cattle when Bubbha and his fellow raptors attack it. That sort of starts her off as a good character. If there are any flaws we should point out, it's that like most siblings, she often gets into fights with her brother and also teases him, even though she is supposed to be the more mature out of the T-Rex siblings, though we can't really say that his is anything bad because who here hasn't gone through life without butting heads with their sibling? We can't put her any higher or lower since, again, we don't see her for much of the movie.
-Ranking just below Ramsey is her little brother and the last T-Rex character on our list, Nash. Nash is shown to be your typical annoying brother stereotype. He invades his sister's personal space, starts fights with her and is also shown to be the least responsible of the T-Rex siblings as he ended up losing track of their family's herd when they wandered off. However, these less-than-ideal traits don't necessarily make him bad, as he also shows his good qualities, like being concerned for Arlo after he was attacked by Thunderclap and his gang and even fighting off the Velociraptors to take back the herd. To sum it up, Nash isn't the most mature or responsible dinosaur, but he has enough redeeming aspects to make up for it.
-Arlo's older sister, Libby, is next. Libby's main job around her family's farm is to water the fields so that their food can grow. When we first meet Libby, she is shown to be a schemer as she tricks Buck into watering the field for her and even takes credit for it. As we said with the T-Rex siblings a few minutes ago, you can chalk this up to typical sibling rivalry. However, deceiving your family is usually a sign of a toxic personality. Thankfully though, once she gets older, this trait seems to have mellowed out. She also shows no problem teasing Arlo for his cowardice, though unlike Buck, seems to know when to avoid taking it too far. Her love for her little brother is also shown in the end where she joins the group hug when Arlo comes back home. However, we can't rank her any higher because of the small amount of screen time she gets.
-Reaching the end of our Good Tier is Arlo's Poppa Henry. At first glance, Henry is everything you'd want in a father, he's devoted to hsi family, comforting to his children and is an all-around great guy to boot. However, beneath all that virtue lies a individual who's perception is a lot flawed then you'd think. He encourages his children, Arlo especially, to get through their fears and have courage. This was mostly because he wanted them to have a strong will to do their chores at the farm, which is understandable for the most part since you kind of need to have a backbone in order to maintain a farm. However, he ends up pushing things too far by forcing Arlo to come with him to catch Spot when Arlo fails to kill him as per Henry's orders, which results in them getting caught in a very dangerous thunderstorm. To his credit, Henry does seem to realize his mistake and immediately decides to take Arlo back home, but not before losing his life during a flash flood. Overall, Henry did mean well and only wanted what was best for his son and by extension, his family, but he went about it in a completely misguided way that left Arlo with severe emotional baggage as seen throughout the movie. He also have to award Henry the Darwin Medal because him going into a disastrous thunderstorm just to kill a creature is heavily ill-advised. Henry also receives the Pride Medal because it's his pride in trying to make Arlto a more courageous dinosaur that instigated the movie's events.
With that, it's time we leave the Good Tier and go to the Grey Area. These are character that aren't as bad as the ones on the Evil Tier, but aren't as good as the ones on the Good Tier either. And we will only be talking about two characters in the Grey Area,
-For a character that was featured in a majority of the film's advertising, Forrest Woodbrush still makes it just outside the good list. Much like a few characters we've discussed, the main reason why we ranked Forrest this low is because of the lack of extensive screen time he receives. From what we can gather when he first appears, he just seems like a hermit who's sanity has long-since left him as his interactions with Arlo left the young long-necked dino feeling uneasy. He also seems to be a rather obsessive pet collector due to the amount of wild creatures around his horns that he somehow thinks are his protectors and how he wanted to make Spot part of his collection, despite him being more attached to Arlo. The only real positive we can actually say about him is that he respected Spot's wish to be with Arlo when the latter gives him his name, even trying to stop one of his pets form claiming Spot once she goes after him. Apart from those aspects though, we can't think of anymore positive or negative qualities that could put him in a different location on our list.
-At the end of our Grey Area is Buck, Arlo's older brother. Buck fits your typical bullying brother cliche quite well as he will more often than naught go out of his way to torment and tease Arlo for his cowardly personality. That alone makes him lose some morality points. Outside of those novelties though, Buck seems to take his responsibilities on the farm seriously as he is shown cleaning up all of the logs laid around the farm without so much as a complaint. Buck is also shown to love and respect his family on more than a few occasions, like mourning Henry when he died or joining in the family embracement when Arlo comes home at the end of the movie. However, we only mostly see Buck as a total jerk to his little brother, so we can't really really rank him higher, but we also can't put him lower because of the previously mentioned positive attributes he exhibits, even if they don't outweigh his negative ones.
And with that, we finally make it to the Bad and Evil category. Don't worry though. Like the last list, this one doesn't have many character, but we do have to acknowledge said character as being the most morally abhorrent of the movie.
-Receiving the bronze medal of evil is The Giant Snake. Also know as the Tetrapodophis, this giant snake with human arms and legs first appeared to try and attack Arlo and Spot when the duo end up lost in the wilderness and after Arlo disturbs it after knocking it out of his tree. On a morality level, we can understand the frustrations of being woken up from a nap by a total stranger and needing to kill and eat to live, but given that it was an accident and that Arlo and Spot are just children, you'd think this long lizard would be a little more merciful. Thankfully, it doesn't appear too since it only attacks our main characters once and retreats after Spot kicks it's tail.
-For the silver medal of evil, we're giving it to Bubbha and the Raptors. They only appear in once scene of the movie, but boy do they make the most of that scene. Bubbha and his group of four, Pervis, Lurleane and Earl, are basically a dinosaur version of poachers as they stole the T-Rex's herd. What they planned to do with the heard is remained a mystery, but it's likely they wanted to eat them. They show no mercy to anyone who opposes them as shown when they assault Arlo, Spot and the T-Rexes when they came to retrieve the herd. The only good thing we can say about them is that they seem to know when to cut their losses as show that after Pervis and Lurleane are thrown away to the distance, Bubbha and Earl decide to call it a day and retreat. Since the Raptors are more-or-less an allegory of modern-day criminals, it's no wonder why they this low on the list, just not at the very end.
-And at last, our gold medal of evil is going to Thunderclap and the Pterodactyls. Unlike Bubbha and his criminal group, Thunderclap and his flock, consisting of Downpour, Windgust, Frostbite, and Coldfront are basically dinosaur versions of savages. Yes, we said that in our Pixar villains ranking that he is just a predator who needs to eat to live, but the more we thought about it, the more we realized that we were being way too generous to him. Because in the movie's context, a majority of the dinosaur's are given human-like mannerisms, so seeing a dinosaur reverting back to his toxic animal nature is rather disturbing. When he first meets Arlo, he acts nice around him, but when his flock find a raccoon, Thunderclap just eats it without hesitation or remorse. He states that due to being carried away by a storm when he was younger, Thunderclap pretty much lost all sense of fear and now hunts ruthlessly. Thunderclap is also shown to be rather cruel to his followers as he fights with them over the aforementioned raccoon and berates them to their faces for doing such. He hunts down Arlo and Spot relentlessly and very nearly eats Spot when the latter is trapped in a hollow tree, only to momentarily be scared when Arlo roars at him and Spot damages his wing and is defeated when Arlo throws a giant stick at him and he falls into the giant river below. We're awarding the the Gluttony Medal for their want to eat anything in sight and they also earn the Wrath Medal for their violent way of dealing with any opposition.