History WesternAnimation / TheGoodDinosaur

* FriendToAllLivingThings: Forrest Woodbrush aka the Pet Collector.
* FurryConfusion: In particular is that birds seem to be non-anthropomorphic despite being dinosaurs, as well as the fact mammals can't talk so there are no qualms about hunting and eating them. And then there's also the fact pterosaurs are able to speak despite not being dinosaurs.
** And then there are the "chickens", which have clawed hands and long tails and look quite rather like an Oviraptor, but are portrayed as non-intelligent.

** Poppa Henry, Arlo's father, is a better example.

* BaitTheDog: Thunderclap and the pterosaurs come off as rather goofy, as does their ramblings about “the storm”, but caring, and seem to be trying to help dinosaurs and critters injured in the storm. Then Thunderclap devours an adorable critter alive and they fight over it’s remains, and it becomes clear that they are very dangerous.

* ToughArmoredDinosaur: Although none are seen, Nash mentions an encounter with a gang of outlaw ''Stegosaurus'' where one of them hits Nash in the leg with his spiky tail. Nash is no unable to feel anything in his toes.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: The film features ''Ludodactylus'', ''Caulkicephalus'', ''Guidraco'', and ''Bison latifrons''. Thunderclap resembles a ''Nyctosaurus'', and there's a four-legged snake similar to ''Tetrapodophis''.[[note]]Interestingly, the genus was described two days after the US trailer's release.[[/note]]

* AlternateHistory: The movie is set in a world where [[WhatIf non-avian dinosaurs never became extinct]] and Jurassic dinosaurs like ''Apatosaurus'' and ''Stegosaurus'' coexist with Cretaceous dinosaurs like ''Triceratops'' and ''Parasaurolophus'' and even prehistoric mammals like the giant bison ''Bison latifrons'' that existed in the ice ages.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The very existence of humans and bison in a scenario where dinosaurs never became extinct. In fact the very reason why mammals evolved into larger and more diverse forms was to fill the empty niches left by the dinosaurs' extinction, though in the case of the bison it was probably to add non-sapient livestock to deal with the CarnivoreConfusion of civilized Tyrannosaurs eating civilized herbivore dinos.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Apatosaurus went extinct ''before'' the meteor hit. Even with the AlternateHistory, Arlo should not exist. That said, other sauropods, namely the titanosaurs, did live all the way to the mass extinction, so with his generic CartoonCreature design Arlo can be Hand Waved as some kind of titanosaur.
** That, however, doesn't explain the T. rex family's encounter with "outlaw stegos", as Stegosaurus lived in the Jurassic: a ''full 80 million years before T. rex''.

* FauxAffablyEvil: The pterodactyls, especially Thunderclap.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Apatosaurus went extinct ''before'' the meteor hit. Even with the AlternateHistory, Arlo should not exist.

* HappilyAdopted: [[spoiler:Spot becomes adopted by a family of traveling cavemen, who quickly bond with him as he does with them, even teaching him how to walk on two legs.]]

* SharkFinOfDoom: Inverted, literally. The second time the pterosaurs appear, it's with their mouths sticking out of the clouds just like this trope, except upside down.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy:
** No asteroid belt has asteroids anywhere near that densely packed. They're rarely if ever close enough to be seen from each other.
** We see the asteroid heat up and start to burn as it enters the Earth's atmosphere, but in the next shot, the wide one, it's suddenly far away from Earth again. Of course, RuleOfFunny.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: On a realistic trajectory, the asteroid would have flown by in a hyperbolic/parabolic trajectory, due to Earth's gravity altering the trajectory of the asteroid.
* AxCrazy: Thunderclap.

* FaceOfAThug: Since TyrannosaurusRex are known for looking and being vicious, carnivorous creatures, Arlo was terrified when he ran into them. Luckily for him, they turn out to be {{Gentle Giant}}s.

* StockDinosaurs: What ordinarily would be a case of ArtisticLicensePaleontology is subverted by the premise of the film: [[WhatIf set in an alternate universe]], where the cataclysmic asteroid that forever changed life on Earth actually missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct. All named dinosaur characters belong to the well-known genera: Arlo and his family are ''Apatosaurus'', Forrest Woodbrush is a ''Styracosaurus'', the cattle rustlers are ''Velociraptor'', and the cattle rancher family are ''TyrannosaurusRex''. ''Parasaurolophus'' make cameo appearances in the opening, and the tie-in toy line features ''Stegosaurus'', ''Triceratops'', and ''Ankylosaurus'' (which were planned to appear in the movie, but were cut out during the revision). The pterosaurs on the other hand avert this, being based on obscure genera such as ''Guidraco'' and ''Caulkicephalus''. Deleted scenes also include the temporally misplaced Non-Dinosaur ''Dimetrodon'', but one possessing mammalian traits like fur and visible ears and serving as the setting's analog to wolves or coyotes.

* TyrannosaurusRex: Butch and his two children, Nash and Ramsey.

* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: The ending theme for the Japanese release is [[http://i.xiami.com/song/1775969114 "Best Friend (Mother Earth version)"]] by Kiroro, a rerecorded version of one of their earlier songs.

* YouExclamation: Arlo says this twice to Spot when he is meeting him again until they befriend each other.

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: What Arlo ultimately learns in the course of his adventure.

* KnightOfCerebus: Thunderclap and the pterodactyls significantly darken the film’s mood whenever they show up.

** Earth doesn't rotate or move through space.

* KnightOfCerberus: Thunderclap and the pterodactyls significantly darken the film’s mood whenever they show up.

** And then there are the "chickens", which have clawed hands and long tails and look qite rather like an Oviraptor, but are portrayed as non-intelligent.

* PredatorsAreMean: Subverted by the ''T. rex'' family. Played straight, however, with Thunderclap's pterosaur flock and Bubbha's ''Velociraptor'' pack.