History YMMV / TheGoodDinosaur

* {{Narm}}: The sheer amount of physical punishment Arlo goes through can get hard to take seriously after a while.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Many of the characters in the film's meager cast only appear for a minute or two at the most (such as the raptor rustlers, Arlo's siblings, and Forrest Woodbrush), and don't get much development outside of their basic traits.

* Arlo’s MightyRoar in the climax. It comes up rather abruptly and [[VocalDissonance feels jarring coming out of a small teenage dinosaur.]] Thunderclap’s dumbfounded expression afterwards only adds to it.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The CGI on the environments is so realistic it's confused a number of people into thinking the backgrounds were live action with animated characters pasted on it, like ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}''. No matter the opinions regarding the story and the characters, everyone pretty much agrees the visuals are beautiful.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The CGI on the environments is so realistic it's confused a number of people into thinking the backgrounds were live action with animated characters pasted on it, like ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}''.

* AudienceAlienatingEra: This film left fans wondering if Pixar was still in one and if the massive success of ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'' was a fluke.

* BrokenBase:
** Arlo and the other dinosaurs' design. It either hits a sweet spot of making them stand out without going overboard and making them seem out of place, or is very jarring and too "cartoony" for a movie with such realistic environments.
** The movie itself. Even professional critics couldn't agree on whether it was a weak spot in Pixar's comeback phase or a confused, clichéd embarrassment to the studio and proof that ''Inside Out'' was a fluke. ''There is no in-between''.

%%** Forrest Woodbrush.

* SoOkayItsAverage: The ''closest'' viewers can come to a middle ground (see BrokenBase above). Few would call this an awful movie, and it definitely has Pixar's trademark charm and visuals along with some great characters like Butch and the T. rex ranchers (thanks to Sam Elliot) and Thunderclap (thanks to Steve Zahn's chilling performance), but it also has a very simplistic and familiar "coming of age on our own" plot and a disjointed story resulting from its infamous TroubledProduction.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The concept of the dinosaurs never going extinct was treated as a big "What if" question and a selling point in the trailers, but the movie proper does very little with the concept. It ties in a few familiar human concepts with the movie like farming and ranching, but the only humans in the movie act like dogs and are clearly cavemen in their level of intelligence, and as a result it doesn't feel especially dissimilar to most other animated dinosaur movies.

* AudienceAlienatingEra: This film left fans wondering if Pixar was still in one and if the massive success of ''Inside Out'' was a fluke.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Pixar is known for taking wacky, unconventional plots and making great stories out of them, but many found ''The Good Dinosaur'' to be too much of a ClicheStorm despite its interesting premise. Little to nothing is done with the concept of dinosaurs never going extinct, and removing the opening scene where the asteroid misses and setting it before the extinction or changing the characters to other, non-extinct animals would barely affect the story.

** Spot reveals himself as this when he shows he's an orphan.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The CGI on the environments is so realistic it's confused a number of people into thinking the backgrounds were live action with animated characters pasted on it, like WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}.

* DorkAge: This film left fans wondering if Pixar was still in one and if the massive success of ''Inside Out'' was a fluke.

* WinBackTheCrowd: Pixar attempted to do this by taking a year off to overhaul all of the story's problems in an effort to end their DorkAge once and for all, and while it was a smart move, the still-unpolished end result got caught in the undertow of a handful of other movies, including Pixar's hugely successful ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut''.

* HilariousInHindsight: The US trailer featured a four-legged snake. 2 days later after its release, ''[[http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontology/2015/07/four-legged-snake-fossil-stuns-scientists-and-ignites-controversy Tetrapodophis]]'' was discovered.

* NeverLiveItDown: Has the unfortunate distinction of being Pixar's first true financial flop, a distinction not even the critically-lambasted ''Cars 2'' had gained.

* SoOkayItsAverage: The ''closest'' viewers can come to a middle ground (see BrokenBase above). Few would call this an awful movie, and it definitely has Pixar's trademark charm and visuals, but it also has a very simplistic and familiar "coming of age on our own" plot and a disjointed story resulting from its infamous TroubledProduction.

* ToughActToFollow: Due to its release being pushed to 2015, the film had to follow the massively successful and popular ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'' a mere five months later. To make matters worse, ''The Good Dinosaur'' had a rather simple and familiar story while ''Inside Out'' was praised for its distinctive plot and characters. Needless to say, it [[BoxOfficeBomb didn't stand a chance]]. In addition to ''Inside Out'', ''The Good Dinosaur'''s concept meant it had to also live up to both ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' and ''Disney/{{Dinosaur}}''.
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The CGI on the environments is so realistic it's confused a number of people into thinking the backgrounds were live action with animated characters pasted on it, like Disney/{{Dinosaur}}.

* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** The ''Tyrannosaurus'' ranchers. Especially Butch, with the concept of a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot cowboy]] ''[[NinjaPirateZombieRobot T. rex]]'' alone and the perfect casting of Sam Elliott, with some reviews have suggested he get his own spin-off. It helps that they are portrayed as heroes, a stark contrast to most animated dinosaur films putting ''T. rex'' or other large carnivores as the BigBad.

* HeartwarmingInHindsight: "[[ArcWords You are me and more]]." This applies to every Pixar character with parents who have been expected to take after them or didn't want to be related.