Talk:The Good Dinosaur/@comment-27557485-20150725225826/@comment-3275812-20151101090725

It was a deliberate design choice. Since they want nature to be the main antagonist, the filmmakers wanted nature to look very real and threatening in contrast to the Dinosaurs, especially the young and vulnerable main character Arlo. They want to show that he is out of his element.

Besides, Pixar has always had toony character designs in contrast to the more realistic looking environments. Examples of this are A Bug's Life and Finding Nemo.