Jurassic World discussion (spoilers)

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Seeing Dodgson again would be great, though given recent events (google 'Jurassic Park Dodgson actor if you're curious) he would have to be recast...

Personally I think something with poaching or rival companies would be a great way to go - the Masrani website mentions the former and the latter are pretty much the last part of the novels that haven't been really explored by the films.

Totally. Though he'd be older now anyway so it could be done.

I don't think we're really finished til we see every scene in the books.

[DinoToyForum]

I also took certain parts of the movie as self apologies. I think they are aware that the movie is silly and cliched, and want to let us know it. But pointing out tropes and winking at the camera is an empty gesture, devoid of meaning, if you go ahead with the cliches and tropes anyway. For example, the funny kiss scene is an apology for the cliche kiss scene that comes before it. Another example is the scene where the movie is criticising corporate sponsorship while featuring product placement.

The movie wants to have its cake and eat it, but this makes it feel as if it doesn't know what it wants to be. It doesn't have a heart.

They're us, watching the movie thinking "this movie isn't going to work, I should have stayed home and watched the original".

In my case they were right!

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I had to actually think where the kissing scenes took place..lol I guess it depends on what you focus on as well. heh

I think it's also how you look at it. The movie isn't so much criticizing corporate sponsorship as a character within the movie is. When viewed as a whole it's a realistic environment with not every happy with how things are going. My surprise was that Claire didn't fire Lowery.

[laticauda]

The word 'fun' is being used a lot to describe this film. As if this has some redemptive quality. As in, and I'm paraphrasing here, "this film was awful in almost every way but it was fun, so I liked it".

This is subjective, of course, but I didn't find it fun. I'm perfectly capable or having fun, mind you, but this movie didn't deliver. I get the feeling that the parts some people found fun, instead caused me to roll my eyes. The end scene, when all the monsters attack each other, was boring and looked terrible. There was no artistry, no tension, and too much bad cgi. I had no interest or investment in which monster won, or how, and I predicted the involvement of the rex and Mosasaurus anyway, so the scene held little surprise either. For me it was the worst part of the film, just at the point when it most needed a life line. Just my opinion, I'm not saying this to wind anyone up. I don't begrudge or judge anyone who liked it, but it just wasn't for me.

Everybody has different tastes, and in film there is no exception.  So the "fun" factor is all about what you want to see in a film. Not saying you are incapable of having fun ,  and I totally understand what you are saying. It is all about perception and your own particular taste.   I remember once at work, a co-worker ran into work saying he just saw the best movie ever, and that movie was Zombieland.  How many people would agree with that? 

Usually I would hate the style in which Jurassic World was made.  I had to really concentrate during the movie to not think of all the flaws and how I would have made it better. So I guess I switched off my brain a bit. (Of course some would argue my brain is never on)  There are many films that I wont watch or hate because of how they were made.   For me this movie was fun and here's why.  First, I went into the movie with the notion it was going to be silly.  I guess its hard to be disappointed when you set the bar low.  Second, my friends were all blown away with JW and talked about it for hours after the film, and for once I could discuss dinosaurs with them.  Third, it was fun to watch my kid watch it, and he was totally entertained by the dinosaurs.  He jumped, smiled, laughed, and cringed in fear. (Every time I-Rex was looking and you just heard its breath my son would grab on to my arm and get anxious.) In fact he hasn't stopped talking about it.

I'm not saying this because you wound me up. In fact, I almost feel silly saying I really liked the movie because to some degree I agree with the criticism.  For me, the movie was one gymnastic scene away from me throwing my hands up and saying, "ok, now they've gone too far", but they pulled it back just enough for me to remain interested.  As silly as the movie got, it never crossed my threshold.  Even the Walking with Dinosaurs Mosasaurus style attack at the end, which I also saw coming, stayed  inside my threshold (barely).  In the end, I was entertained. 

[Yutyrannus]

Even the Walking with Dinosaurs Mosasaurus style attack at the end, which I also saw coming, stayed  inside my threshold (barely).

How was that scene "Walking with Dinosaurs style" ?

[Balaur]

Even the Walking with Dinosaurs Mosasaurus style attack at the end, which I also saw coming, stayed  inside my threshold (barely).

How was that scene "Walking with Dinosaurs style" ?

Remember? The Liopleurodon plucked the Eustreptospondylus from the coral outcrop and rolled back into the water.

[Yutyrannus]

Even the Walking with Dinosaurs Mosasaurus style attack at the end, which I also saw coming, stayed  inside my threshold (barely).

How was that scene "Walking with Dinosaurs style" ?

Remember? The Liopleurodon plucked the Eustreptospondylus from the coral outcrop and rolled back into the water.

Oh, yeah I forgot about that scene. I was thinking that maybe Laticauda was referring to the scene with the Koolasuchus.

[laticauda]

Even the Walking with Dinosaurs Mosasaurus style attack at the end, which I also saw coming, stayed  inside my threshold (barely).

How was that scene "Walking with Dinosaurs style" ?

In the documentary at the beginning of the cruel sea episode a Eustreptospondylus is snatched from the shore by a Liopleurodon.  It has a similar feel, though less spectacular, to the attack in Jurassic World. 

[Yutyrannus]

Even the Walking with Dinosaurs Mosasaurus style attack at the end, which I also saw coming, stayed  inside my threshold (barely).

How was that scene "Walking with Dinosaurs style" ?

In the documentary at the beginning of the cruel sea episode a Eustreptospondylus is snatched from the shore by a Liopleurodon.  It has a similar feel, though less spectacular, to the attack in Jurassic World.

Yeah, Balaur just reminded me, it does somewhat resemble that scene, although I must say I like the scene in WWD better (although I can't stop myself from thinking about how much smaller the Liopleurodon should be). .

[DinoToyForum]

The word 'fun' is being used a lot to describe this film. As if this has some redemptive quality. As in, and I'm paraphrasing here, "this film was awful in almost every way but it was fun, so I liked it".

This is subjective, of course, but I didn't find it fun. I'm perfectly capable or having fun, mind you, but this movie didn't deliver. I get the feeling that the parts some people found fun, instead caused me to roll my eyes. The end scene, when all the monsters attack each other, was boring and looked terrible. There was no artistry, no tension, and too much bad cgi. I had no interest or investment in which monster won, or how, and I predicted the involvement of the rex and Mosasaurus anyway, so the scene held little surprise either. For me it was the worst part of the film, just at the point when it most needed a life line. Just my opinion, I'm not saying this to wind anyone up. I don't begrudge or judge anyone who liked it, but it just wasn't for me.

Everybody has different tastes, and in film there is no exception.  So the "fun" factor is all about what you want to see in a film. Not saying you are incapable of having fun ,  and I totally understand what you are saying. It is all about perception and your own particular taste.   I remember once at work, a co-worker ran into work saying he just saw the best movie ever, and that movie was Zombieland.  How many people would agree with that? 

Usually I would hate the style in which Jurassic World was made.  I had to really concentrate during the movie to not think of all the flaws and how I would have made it better. So I guess I switched off my brain a bit. (Of course some would argue my brain is never on)  There are many films that I wont watch or hate because of how they were made.   For me this movie was fun and here's why.  First, I went into the movie with the notion it was going to be silly.  I guess its hard to be disappointed when you set the bar low.  Second, my friends were all blown away with JW and talked about it for hours after the film, and for once I could discuss dinosaurs with them.  Third, it was fun to watch my kid watch it, and he was totally entertained by the dinosaurs.  He jumped, smiled, laughed, and cringed in fear. (Every time I-Rex was looking and you just heard its breath my son would grab on to my arm and get anxious.) In fact he hasn't stopped talking about it.

I'm not saying this because you wound me up. In fact, I almost feel silly saying I really liked the movie because to some degree I agree with the criticism.  For me, the movie was one gymnastic scene away from me throwing my hands up and saying, "ok, now they've gone too far", but they pulled it back just enough for me to remain interested.  As silly as the movie got, it never crossed my threshold.  Even the Walking with Dinosaurs Mosasaurus style attack at the end, which I also saw coming, stayed  inside my threshold (barely).  In the end, I was entertained.

Fair enough You shouldn't feel silly, by the way. what you say makes sense. You're certainly not alone.

I obviously had a very personal reaction to the film, but in a different direction. We are all different.

[alexeratops]

When did they say the dinosaurs were monsters? Owen said Indominus was a monster, not the other dinosaurs. Why did you call them monsters?

Wu said so, and justifiably. All of JP's dinosaurs are genetically engineered; if the I. rex is a monster for that reason, then so too must be the rest. The only difference between the I. rex and the T. rex (in this respect, at least) is that the latter very closely resembled our expectations of an extinct species.

OK, thanks... 

[Paleona]

The animatronic raptor head briefly seen in the video is lovely, but I don't remember seeing it in the film. In fact, the raptors all had a very different overall presence than they had in previous installments, and I can't yet pinpoint what exactly makes them seem so different. Did anyone else notice this? Perhaps it's something about the designs, or their movements?

It was probably the head used in the scenes where the raptors were in the restraints I would guess. I agree that they did look different, looked a bit more beefed up IMO or something.

Indeed, but which one? I think it's probably Delta, but she looked pretty CGI in most of that scene. I wonder if there was some CGI added over the animatronic's performance? The animatronic looks like the older raptors, and I do think the CGI models are bulkier.

I think the raptor head we see in the video is Charlie- she has the most green-like coloring and stripes.  I'm pretty sure for that scene with the restraints they were the animatronic heads, but it was augmented with CGI for their eyes. 

Also, I'm wondering: can anyone confirm if Delta actually had round pupils in the film?  I know the promotional material, toys and the Lego game state that she does, due to having more avian DNA than the others.  I still need to go see the movie a second time, but I don't remember if they actually had her pupils be round in it. 

[Patrx]

My mistake, I thought Charlie was the one with round pupils! I guess I got them mixed up.

[Paleona]

No worries!  I found it kind of hard to distinguish between them when actually watching the movie (aside from Blue)- the scenes with the raptors didn't like to focus on one for very long, or the shot was at night.  I'll probably have fun pausing the movie when the Blu-ray is released just to check out the dino models. 

[Appalachiosaurus]

Also, I'm wondering: can anyone confirm if Delta actually had round pupils in the film?  I know the promotional material, toys and the Lego game state that she does, due to having more avian DNA than the others.  I still need to go see the movie a second time, but I don't remember if they actually had her pupils be round in it.

No, she has slit eyes in the movie.

[suspsy]

Finally got a chance to catch Jurassic World today. And indeed, every single criticism against it that I've seen and shared (except for that weird complaint about "Pachy" being a racist term) really is justified.

I'll give credit where credit is due. If this film had come out instead of The Lost World (which had Julianne Moore playing a vastly superior character to the disgraceful Claire), or instead of the irredeemable JP3, I probably would have loved it. But it's not 1997 or 2001. It's 2015. Putting aside the glaring scientific inaccuracies, what the spotted heck was with the so-so visual effects? How is it that the JP dinosaurs have become progressively *less* convincing over the past 30+ years? Avatar, The Hobbit, the new Planet of the Apes films, Walking With Dinosaurs 3D and quite a few other recent films boasted CGI that puts JW's to utter shame.

What was the deal with the parents-getting-divorced pseudo-subplot? How did that advance the characters or the story any?

Why do all the pterosaurs immediately fly out of the relatively small hole in the aviary, travel all the way across the island, and mercilessly attack every living thing they see? Yeah, I get that they were spooked by Frankensteinosaurus, but why didn't they simply hide in the surrounding trees or the mountains? Was no one ever feeding them? Was that Hoskins guy secretly training them for the military as well? If so, he did a much better job than he did with the raptors.

Why was Frankensteinosaurus' paddock so overgrown with vegetation that makes it incredibly easy for it to hide? And how exactly was it able to make all those claw marks on the wall without anyone ever noticing? There were security cameras all over the place. No one thought to check the footage?

Oh, I did like the T. rex smashing the Spinosaurus skeleton. Would've been better if she'd crushed the skull underfoot while she was at it. And the Mosasaurus making that Hail Mary pass at the end could be seen coming if you were blindfolded and facing the opposite direction. Too bad they didn't show Frankensteinosaurus getting ripped to pieces underwater. That also would been nice.

Oh, and that poor assistant woman was totally refrigerated. That was just plain disgusting.

I could go on, but really, there's no point. I think Darren Naish summed it up best when he described JW as a missed opportunity. It's already made mountains of cash, so much so that it managed to kick the crap out of Pixar AND Seth MacFarlane, and it probably will inspire a new generation of kids to read up on dinosaurs. But the fact of the matter is that it could have achieved those exact same results with improved, up-to-date, realistic dinosaurs and it wouldn't have hurt anyone. Perhaps it would have done even better.

As it stands, this movie is a "meh" at best.

[Gwangi]

I'll give credit where credit is due. If this film had come out instead of The Lost World (which had Julianne Moore playing a vastly superior character to the disgraceful Claire), or instead of the irredeemable JP3, I probably would have loved it.

Gonna have to take you to task on that one. Are you sure you're not looking at "The Lost World" through the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia? Julianna Moore's character was atrocious! I much preferred Claire, at least she was consistent. Sarah Harding was supposed to be an expert in her field, having spent time with African predators, sleeping downwind and all that. Yet moments after man-handling a baby Stegosaurus, stressing out the entire herd and nearly getting her self killed she snaps at Nick Van Owen for lighting a cigarette and proceeds to lecture everyone about "observation without interference" and "if we so much as bend a blade of grass". Later on she lectures the group about the T. rexes superior sense of smell, only to then hang her bloody jacket in the tent she sleeps in along with a bunch of candy bar wrappers. Even the most novice campers know not to keep your food in their tent unless they want to meet a bear up close and personal. And lets not forget all the stupid decisions of the so called heros of the film. Bringing a baby T. rex into a trailer which leads to the death of Eddie Carr? Sabotaging the InGen camp which leads to nearly that entire group getting killed? Say what you want about the InGen crew, they didn't deserve to die for catching dinosaurs. "The Lost World" was a pretty awful movie. I like it, but mostly due to nostalgia I think.

But it's not 1997 or 2001. It's 2015. Putting aside the glaring scientific inaccuracies, what the spotted heck was with the so-so visual effects? How is it that the JP dinosaurs have become progressively *less* convincing over the past 30+ years? Avatar, The Hobbit, the new Planet of the Apes films, Walking With Dinosaurs 3D and quite a few other recent films boasted CGI that puts JW's to utter shame.

I agree that the SFX of JP and TLW were better, but JW far surpasses JP3. I thought the SFX were passable.

Why do all the pterosaurs immediately fly out of the relatively small hole in the aviary, travel all the way across the island, and mercilessly attack every living thing they see? Yeah, I get that they were spooked by Frankensteinosaurus, but why didn't they simply hide in the surrounding trees or the mountains? Was no one ever feeding them? Was that Hoskins guy secretly training them for the military as well? If so, he did a much better job than he did with the raptors.

I don't want to see that movie, where the pterosaurs just hide? That sounds boring. The sequence was one of the best in the movie. If anything, the movie needed more tourists getting killed by dinosaurs.

Why was Frankensteinosaurus' paddock so overgrown with vegetation that makes it incredibly easy for it to hide? And how exactly was it able to make all those claw marks on the wall without anyone ever noticing? There were security cameras all over the place. No one thought to check the footage?

To hide the animal from the audience? To build tension? To give the animal a comfortable place to live? I have lots of pet reptiles, they all have hiding places. No, I don't see some of them very often but they're comfortable. That's what matters.

Oh, and that poor assistant woman was totally refrigerated. That was just plain disgusting.

Movie needed more scenes like that. It was a shame Hoskin's death was not as elaborate.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I just finished reading The Lost World again. It really should have followed the book a lot more closely. In the end it barely followed it loosely.

Sarah Harding in the film was a mix of two characters, Richard Levine and the novel Sarah Harding it looks like..the weird part is those two characters are nothing alike.   Eddie was supposed to be a younger guy who makes the mistake of taking the baby back to the trailers after everyone else tells him not to. Nick Van Owen wasn't even in the book. The last part becomes the Ian and Sarah show...it's just kinda messy... but has John Hammond in it and practical fx so I'll forgive it.

[DinoToyForum]

Why do all the pterosaurs immediately fly out of the relatively small hole in the aviary, travel all the way across the island, and mercilessly attack every living thing they see? Yeah, I get that they were spooked by Frankensteinosaurus, but why didn't they simply hide in the surrounding trees or the mountains? Was no one ever feeding them? Was that Hoskins guy secretly training them for the military as well? If so, he did a much better job than he did with the raptors.

I don't want to see that movie, where the pterosaurs just hide? That sounds boring. The sequence was one of the best in the movie. If anything, the movie needed more tourists getting killed by dinosaurs.

Of course we all want to see tourists getting attacked, but sometimes action works better when it is punctuated. Inactivity doesn't have to be "boring" - I like my "boring" bits, darn it!

Let's compare to another film where prehistoric animals escape from their enclosures - I don't know, let's say, Jurassic Park . When the raptors escape they head straight for the trees. They then hunt Muldoon slowly, methodically. It adds to their character, ties in with preceding setup scenes, and raises tension and menace. Maybe audiences today might advise that this is "boring". Maybe the studio would listen. Then we'd have a very different series of raptor scenes on our hands. Another example from JP is the Dilophosaurus scene. It takes its time, the animal slowly reveals itself, curiously approaches Nedry to see if he's a meal and if it's worth the effort. And then the attack comes. Audiences today might advise that this is "boring". Maybe the studio would listen.

In both of these examples the creatures feel like real animals, and that goes a long way to making the events believable. That's exactly what Speilberg was going for in 1993, and it is part of what made it a success. It doesn't always have to be this way, but sometimes "boring" is better.

Jurassic World also damages itself in this very respect, in another example of the film trying 'to have its cake and eat it'. Owen makes a big thing of the Indominus "killing for sport" and puts forth an explanation. However, all meaning is stripped of this revelation and the explanation is undone when it transpires that all of the carnivorous creatures in the park kill for sport (with no explanation). The pterosaurs certainly aren't stopping to eat their kills, nor are the raptors, I don't think the rex is fighting Indominus to eat it. The mosasaur is essentially just a mouth so who knows if it only kills when it is hungry.

Why was Frankensteinosaurus' paddock so overgrown with vegetation that makes it incredibly easy for it to hide? And how exactly was it able to make all those claw marks on the wall without anyone ever noticing? There were security cameras all over the place. No one thought to check the footage?

To hide the animal from the audience? To build tension? To give the animal a comfortable place to live? I have lots of pet reptiles, they all have hiding places. No, I don't see some of them very often but they're comfortable. That's what matters.

Similar story-telling and practical considerations could have been applied to the pterosaurs when they escape.

[triceratops83]

Anyone else wonder why the aviary was a glass dome instead of a metal cage? That thing was one tropical storm away from releasing those angry Pterosaurs.