How Accurate Will The Good Dinosaur Be?

It isn’t often that Hollywood portrays dinosaurs and man living together. But a new Pixar movie coming out this November does just that (as does the new Jurassic World movie, but in that film the dinosaurs have been brought back to life after 65 million years). The description of The Good Dinosaur under the trailer describes the movie this way: “‘The Good Dinosaur’ asks the question: What if the asteroid that forever changed life on Earth missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct? Pixar Animation Studios takes you on an epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend. While traveling through a harsh and mysterious landscape, Arlo learns the power of confronting his fears and discovers what he is truly capable of.” You can watch the trailer here:

Though the brief trailer doesn’t show much of what the movie will be about, the evolutionary presuppositions behind this film are very clear. The idea that an asteroid impacted Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago is an idea that flows from an evolutionary way of thinking and that uses an evolutionary timeline. Although the trailer was brief, it seems likely that the final cut of the movie will contain evolutionary content. And, unfortunately, this new film will be watched by many children and will only reinforce evolutionary ideas about the history of Earth. Even though it’s a fiction, nonetheless it will buttress the false beliefs about dinosaurs that children are taught through much of the media and education system.

How Do Dinosaurs “Fit” into the Bible?

Now, there is plenty of evidence that dinosaurs and mankind once lived together. For example, all around the world there are legends and stories of dragons (just as there are many legends about a flood because there was a real global Flood in Noah’s day). These creatures appear to sound quite a lot like creatures familiar to us from the fossil record—dinosaurs or flying or swimming reptiles. How did people in places as diverse as China, England, Australia, and North Africa all come up with legends and stories of creatures with features similar to some dinosaurs if humans never saw dinosaurs?

There is also art found all over the world that features dinosaur-like creatures. This art is found in places like Peru, Utah, England, and ancient Babylon and predates the discovery and description of dinosaur fossils. Now, what inspired people all around the world to design art that featured dinosaur-like creatures? Well, obviously, people had to have lived with dinosaurs at some point!

While the idea that dinosaurs and man lived together in the past is ridiculous to those who hold to an evolutionary timeline, the Bible provides the perfect framework through which to interpret this evidence. According to Scripture, all land creatures were created on Day Six of Creation Week. Since dinosaurs are land animals, they would’ve been created on Day Six as well. This is the same day that God created Adam and Eve. So dinosaurs and man had to live together on the same day because they were created on the same day! And this wasn’t millions of years ago. According to Scripture, creation was just around 6,000 years ago—and it is clear from Scripture that the word for day in the text means a 24-hour day—so, dinosaurs lived recently. And we actually find evidence of this. Some dinosaur bones have been found with soft tissue still inside the bones! There’s no way this soft tissue could last millions of years, and yet it’s there. This supports the biblical—not the evolutionary—timeline for dinosaurs.

How Did Dinosaurs Go Extinct?

So what really happened to the dinosaurs? Well, Genesis tells us about the catastrophic global Flood of Noah’s day. A global Flood would’ve buried billions of creatures catastrophically, including many of the dinosaurs. But, Genesis also tells us that two of every kind of land-dwelling, air-breathing animal was saved aboard the Ark. This certainly would’ve included dinosaurs—of which there were around 50 kinds (as there are about 50 families of dinosaurs). Now, many people object, saying that you can’t fit dinosaurs onto Noah’s Ark. But it’s important to remember that the average dinosaur was probably only the size of a large sheep or bison. Most of them weren’t huge, and all dinosaurs—even the big ones—start out small. God probably sent Noah young adults for each kind anyway since younger pairs could repopulate the Earth after the Flood much better than older pairs. Fitting the dinosaurs onto the massive Ark isn’t a problem. After the Flood, the dinosaurs would’ve eventually died out for the same reason that thousands of other species have also gone extinct (and still continue to go extinct today)—environmental changes, human hunting, predation, and so on. But the memory of these creatures lives on in legends and art from cultures all over the world.

Use the Movie to Point People to God’s Word

Now, despite the evolutionary presuppositions behind The Good Dinosaur (and the evolutionary content that will likely be part of the film), this movie can also be used as a touch point with the culture to start gospel-centered conversations. Just like in Acts 17 when the Apostle Paul took a pagan altar and used it as a way to proclaim Christ, so can we take a movie like The Good Dinosaur and use it to point to God’s Word and the gospel. Perhaps you can talk with your friends and family about how dinosaurs and man really did live together in the past or about how dinosaurs really went extinct. And then show them that if the history in God’s Word can be trusted, then the gospel message also found in God’s Word can also be trusted. Bring them to our Creation Museum, where we have many dinosaur-related exhibits (including a million-dollar Allosaur skeleton), in 2015 during our 2 Buy 2 promotion. Buy two tickets and get two tickets of equal or lesser value free. Find out more details on our website.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.