The Rundown: In a world where evolution took a strange right turn, machines that are also dinosaurs rule the Earth… with friendship. or something
I recently got the opportunity to get an advanced look at Dreamworks’ new series DinoTrux so that I might share my thoughts on it. While watching it I had to keep in mind that at heart, this is a show for children, and to be super critical of acting, writing, or general plot might be a wrong move. The thing is, I grew up with a variety of children’s television myself, and much of it managed to be good as media apart from its status as “child” media. So, here are my thoughts.
In the world of Dinotrux, dinosaur trux stay in their herds and keep their heads down, always looking for their next meal of delicious Ore. This is the first thought in Ty the T.Trux head as he wakes up in the morning, until his morning is interrupted by the eruption of a nearby volcano. The eruption destroys his home and leaves him damaged, forcing him to trudge across the wastes looking for a new place to settle down. When he comes across a new valley with plenty of Ore, he thinks he’s found a home, until he’s told that this is another Tyrannosaurus Trux’s territory and that he should clear out. Ty is discouraged until he realizes that by working together he and other DinoTrux have nothing to fear from a huge bully. With his friends, Ty takes a stand, and convinces the dinotrux that by working together they can accomplish anything.
Overall I got pretty much what I expected from Dinotrux. It seems rare that you find a children’s show that doesn’t talk down to its audience anymore, and while I held out hope that perhaps this would be different, it’s really not. In an age where kids are getting smarter and smarter, it seems strange to me that we’re still producing children’s television that treats them like they can’t string two words together. I grew up in the age of Batman: The Animated Series, not to mention the Cartoon Network Saturday Morning lineup, that managed to be relatable to kids, without speaking down to them. The episodes showed the morals they were trying to teach, as opposed to DinoTrux that likes to repeat key words often and loudly. I swear in just the 30 min episode I watched the words ‘sharing’ and ‘we’ve gotta work together!’ were said plainly, loudly, and as cheesily as possible multiple times.
The framework for these kinds of shows seems to be to find things that kids gravitate towards, in this case the obsession I’ve seen in my small cousins with trucks and construction equipment, as well as dinosaurs, because, well, DINOSAURS, and then insert some kind of message by just slapping it on top. Not to mention the complete lack of anything even resembling humor, instead of spending time on cute visual gags (such as the little rep-tool’s tongue being a tape-measure) they spend time trying to do world building in a world that can’t possibly make any sense. Even when just jamming two concepts together they tried to overthink it to the point where they tried to give the species distinct patterns of behavior. Why not just embrace your weird and do some cool stuff? I think this show could really benefit from Adventure Time’s world building, which is generally just… ‘why not?’ Give me more unique interactions, bad machine puns, and silly gags, and we’ll see where that gets you. Instead I got a dry after school special featuring some gorgeously animated dinosaur trucks.
Overall, DinoTrux is par for the course for today’s children’s animated TV. It’d be nice to see it go somewhere intelligent and interesting, but that may be too much to hope for. Still, the animation is nice, and if you want to teach your kids some stuff through repetition, and feel sneaky because it’s a show about dinosaurs, this may be exactly what you’re looking for.
For me, I’m going to go back and rewatch Samurai Jack.
Dreamworks’ DinoTrux debuts on Netflix Friday, August 14