JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

[Cretaceous Crab]

I had understood most reptiles (or perhaps birds) that are capable of spitting venom seem to have special teeth at the edge of their jaw to facilitate that action....I would assume that the fossil record for the dinosaur provides no such specialization or people would more readily accept the movie spitting version. As far as I know the dinosaur was not known for that type of special teeth? That for me would seem to rule out "spitting" as the animal is shown to do. The frill and size are both more speculative or at minimium much harder to state for certain, however.
   

With snakes, the venom is delivered through their hollow fangs, which is basically a hypodermic needle in design. In most venomous snakes, the hole is near the tip. But with the spitting species (mostly some cobras in Africa), the hole is in the front halfway down the fang, allowing the venom to be ejected forward & outward. They are surprisingly accurate.

With some snakes and a handful of lizards, the venom is secreted through grooved teeth, not hollow teeth. Instead of injecting their victim via fangs, the animal has to hold on and "chew" on the bite point, essentially working the venom into the wound.

Interestingly enough, while Dilophosaurus is not known for grooved or hollow fangs, another dinosaur is speculated to have had a venomous bite: Sinornithosaurus. So it is possible....maybe the JP Dilo represents another species other than D. wetherii.

[Dilopho]

I remember reading books from the 90s that speculate Dilophosaurus having venom due to the notches on it's jaw. They thought a venom sac might go there.

[John]

I have Callovosaurus too, and mine is a first edition printed november 1990. Maybe later, more recent pressings have some mistakes, it happens often when a book has been in print for decades and millions of copies are circulating. I don't think there's Camarasaurus mentioned anywhere on my copy either.

Mine is the same edition as yours is,and Camarasaurus isn't mentioned in mine either.

[Reptilia]

Compies are venomous too in the JP universe, just saying.

[Flaffy]

This pretty much sums up how I felt about the second act of Fallen Kingdom.

[Appalachiosaurus]

I had understood most reptiles (or perhaps birds) that are capable of spitting venom seem to have special teeth at the edge of their jaw to facilitate that action....I would assume that the fossil record for the dinosaur provides no such specialization or people would more readily accept the movie spitting version. As far as I know the dinosaur was not known for that type of special teeth? That for me would seem to rule out "spitting" as the animal is shown to do. The frill and size are both more speculative or at minimium much harder to state for certain, however.
   

With snakes, the venom is delivered through their hollow fangs, which is basically a hypodermic needle in design. In most venomous snakes, the hole is near the tip. But with the spitting species (mostly some cobras in Africa), the hole is in the front halfway down the fang, allowing the venom to be ejected forward & outward. They are surprisingly accurate.

With some snakes and a handful of lizards, the venom is secreted through grooved teeth, not hollow teeth. Instead of injecting their victim via fangs, the animal has to hold on and "chew" on the bite point, essentially working the venom into the wound.

Interestingly enough, while Dilophosaurus is not known for grooved or hollow fangs, another dinosaur is speculated to have had a venomous bite: Sinornithosaurus. So it is possible....maybe the JP Dilo represents another species other than D. wetherii.

No, Sinornithosaurus wasn't venomous. Interestingly the JP Dilo seems to spit venom straight from the throat, so maybe it's a case of Defensive Vomiting turned aggressive?

[DinoToyForum]

I had understood most reptiles (or perhaps birds) that are capable of spitting venom seem to have special teeth at the edge of their jaw to facilitate that action....I would assume that the fossil record for the dinosaur provides no such specialization or people would more readily accept the movie spitting version. As far as I know the dinosaur was not known for that type of special teeth? That for me would seem to rule out "spitting" as the animal is shown to do. The frill and size are both more speculative or at minimium much harder to state for certain, however.
   

With snakes, the venom is delivered through their hollow fangs, which is basically a hypodermic needle in design. In most venomous snakes, the hole is near the tip. But with the spitting species (mostly some cobras in Africa), the hole is in the front halfway down the fang, allowing the venom to be ejected forward & outward. They are surprisingly accurate.

With some snakes and a handful of lizards, the venom is secreted through grooved teeth, not hollow teeth. Instead of injecting their victim via fangs, the animal has to hold on and "chew" on the bite point, essentially working the venom into the wound.

Interestingly enough, while Dilophosaurus is not known for grooved or hollow fangs, another dinosaur is speculated to have had a venomous bite: Sinornithosaurus. So it is possible....maybe the JP Dilo represents another species other than D. wetherii.

No, Sinornithosaurus wasn't venomous. Interestingly the JP Dilo seems to spit venom straight from the throat, so maybe it's a case of Defensive Vomiting turned aggressive?

Like a venomous llama.

[Primeval12]

Just getting into Steely Dan and found this gem. The chorus kind of describes Wu too lol.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5aRj6TIRELABhgVasaff5g?si=3T0IOLXaTO-FGKJ6zt6CXA

[MLMjp]

A little bit late maybe but I think is time to give a more in-depth opinion about this film.

I maintain what I have already said. It was an INTENSE movie, I had a lot of fun watching it, got a geek-org*sm when the Tyrannosaurus took down the Carnotaurus and roared and I had goosebumps during the third act. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this movie.

BUT like I said, once I was out of the theater and my overdose of adrenaline was over I started to think about the movie and having some doubts, and after reading reviews and other opinions, I can totally understand why people would dislike or hate this movie.

I think the pacing on the movie was too fast, like, it started ok, but then when they get to Nublar, things start to speed up, then they left Nublar and things slow a bit, but then when the Indoraptor gets showcased things get fast again, and before you even realize it, you are already in the climax of the movie. Like I said weeks ago, I felt like the movie was really short despite being the second longest in the series.

The movie also was supposedly going for a horror movie theme to it, that´s what the trailer showcased. I even though I was going to be scared for the first time (well, maybe second) watching a Jurassic Park movie. But, while there were some creepy moments, I did not feel "scared" in any moment. There were tense moments? Yes, but nothing that will give me nightmares.

Spoiler

The starting sequence was great, although now that I think of it... Why they need more DNA from the Indominus? Dr. Wu did not have a backup of the original genetic material or something? I mean if I was him, I will definitely have some extra samples just in case the creature dies. I don't know, maybe they could not replicate it the way they wanted, and they had to do that, but anyway, great scene.

I definitely see the complaints about the characters, Owen and Claire if you think about it, were not as good as in the first one, although Claire has evolved and now is more "active". I feel that both characters may have lost a tiny bit of their charisma, but not all, because I still enjoy them.

About the new characters, I liked Zia, but Frankling could have perfectly been removed from the film with some clever writing, also I feel it would have improved the Baryonyx scene, with Claire been trapped alone. That would have been cool.

People have said that the villains were cartoon characters, while I don't think they were great, I don't think they were that bad, just standard. And honestly, I have to agree with something that Klayton fiority (A Jurassic Park youtuber), Dennis Nedry was also somewhat cartoonish, and he also had the same motivation, MONEY, so honestly, I don't think that´s a big issue.

Let´s talk about the Indoraptor, I did enjoy it, and he has a great theme, I was hoping that Maise had imprinted on him and that was the explanation as to why he was always chasing her in the trailers, and that he did not want to harm her, just wanted to get close to her. We did not get that, but I´m happy with what we get. However, I do think the way the bad guys "controled" him, with the laser gun, was impractical, because technically this thing is a weapon. UNLESS it was a temporal solution until they find a way to properly train him just like Owen did with Blue, because then you would not need the laser gun.

Another thing to talk about is the "smile", some people say that it was not a smile, that it was something that dogs do...It does not matter. That was intended to be a smile and while I kinda like it, it may be something that goes too far, to the point that people are saying that this is the new Kelly gymnastics scene or the new Allan! Raptor dream sequence. Maybe they should have not made him smile, just opening the eye would have been enough and more "realistic".

The Brachiosaurus scene....my god. Almost cry. Both my mind and body felt devasted with the scene, and it took me quite some time until I stopped thinking about what I just saw and focusing in the movie again. When it reared just like in the first movie...that was it, it destroyed me. And now we have official confirmation that it was that same Brachiosaurus.... This is going to affect the re-watchability of this film A LOT.

About Maisie. When it was revealed that she was a clone I was like: They actually did it, the genetic power has gone too far. And honestly, I thought that it was a GREAT idea to do this. It could have been done better though, the way the discovered it was somewhat forced, It would have been much better if they found out the secret through other ways and them Mills confirms that afterwards. I do hope they use this plotline in JW3, otherwise it will be a complete waste.

I actually like that Maise was the one who free the dinosaurs, I mean, considering the situation, it was the "best way" to solve the issue because if Claire had pushed that button it would have made the character awful and really dumb. So even if it is still questionable and dumb what Maise did, I´m still glad that she was the one who did it, because it was the less dumb and somewhat understandable way.

[close]

Will say more things later, but for now these are some of my thoughs.

In conclusion, if you asked me if I liked the film, I will say yes, but if you ask me if the movie was good or bad....I don't know what to tell you....

[WarrenJB]

I maintain what I have already said. It was an INTENSE movie, I had a lot of fun watching it, got a geek-org*sm when the Tyrannosaurus took down the Carnotaurus and roared and I had goosebumps during the third act. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this movie.

BUT like I said, once I was out of the theater and my overdose of adrenaline was over I started to think about the movie and having some doubts, and after reading reviews and other opinions, I can totally understand why people would dislike or hate this movie.

Earlier in this thread Loon made fun of people criticising The Last Jedi. The thing that's forgotten is, the filmmakers feel  they can get away with the kind of ridiculous writing that led to the situation, because they know people will rush to 'geek-orgasm' over it anyway, waving plastic lightsabres and twi'lek tentacles made from old stockings all the while.

Sorry MLMjp. Don't mean to single you out for that. In fact I'd like to express appreciation for the bulk of your post. In general, and to all and sundry: fridge logic is your friend. Turning your brain off is self-hobbling and possibly a startling medical condition, not a handy super-power. Being able to spot plot-holes and shoddy storytelling does not make you a hater. And realise that no-one will ever, ever fulfil your dream of a quality, big-budget dinosaur film in the future, when a billion dollars drops on a bad one because 'it's just a dinosaur movie' and 'I was entertained, I suppose'.

[Faelrin]

That post read kind of derogatory if I'm being honest.

[MLMjp]

W @WarrenJB Excuse me, but can you please be a bit more clear about your statement? The fact is that I did not understand everything that you are trying to say. Although I am pretty good at it, English is not my native language.

One feeling I have about Fallen kingdom is the fact that is probably the most exaggerated and over-the-top film of the Jurassic franchise when it comes to certain things. I can't give the exact reason why, but it is just the way I feel about it, maybe is the execution of certain things.

Talking about the execution, I think that´s is the main problem with the movie, the ideas and concepts are interesting, but the execution is a hit or miss, and the misses have quite a negative impact on the film.

The screenplay and the writing are one of the flaws people most point up, and they blame Colin Trevorrow for it, which I think is probably true. I do find interesting this situation however. How is that when he directs and writes a Jurassic movie, things go right but when a better director comes and Trevorrow is only a screen writer, thing don't go that well. The more control he has, the more good things come, but when he has less control, things don't go as good. I kinda find it ironic specially when people blame him for all the bad things in Fallen Kingdom.

Maybe this means that now, since he is both director and screenwriter again things will go better? I don't know, I just find it ironic

About the soundtrack, did I say that I think the Indoraptor theme is EPIC, in fact I am listening to it while I am tiping these words Back to the soundtrack, while I think it is a pretty good soundtrack, I can't help but feeling that some tracks so not feel "Jurassic Park", it so different to why we used to. The Indoraptor theme is the perfect example of this, its an epic theme, but when has a Jurassic movie used so much choirs?

Spoiler

Let's talk about the call-backs to the past movies, I think some of them worked but others did not quite work, for example, at the end, after Rexy eats Mills, she does the exact same victory pose as in the first movie, and honestly, I felt that it was too much "IN YOUR FACE" and somewhat out of place. Just change the pose so it does not look like a copy please. Other like the indoraptor tapping were fine for me.

Now lets talk about the ending and the future of the franchise, so we now have dinosaurs on the mainland. I have no idea how they are going to do this. Will they try to hunt the dinosaurs and eliminate them? Will they try to capture them and bring them to another island or to the Lockwood "santuary"? Will the dinosaurs stay on the mainland forever? Will the dinosaurs go back to extinction? What the hell are they going to do?!

[close]

Whatever they do, there is one thing clear, if Jurassic World 3 does not left good feelings on me like with the first JW film and instead it gives me mixed feeling like this one or worse....I think we will have to pretend that there was only one Jurassic World movie and that is where the franchise ended. It just happens that we got some dinosaur designs and merchandise after it. Because the new dinosaurs and the toys are something that must not be ignored.

In conclusion, my final opinion on this movie will depend on what the sequel does for me.

[Jose S.M.]

The script for JW was controversial. At the end, apart from the writers of Fallen kingdom (trevorrow and Derek Connolly) , two other writers were credit for the screenplay and they were solely credited for the original story too. Maybe the involvement of more people in the story and screenplay have something to do with JW having better writing. The other writers credited in JW also wrote Rise of the planet of the apes and Dawn of the planet of the apes, both were mostly successful with audiences (I love that trilogy personally) and critics, and could have been disasters if the story was poorly handled.

[Digibasherx]

I just watched JWFK last night, and it was alright.  Not great, but not terrible. 

I found it silly that :

Spoiler

although Congress decided not to save the dinos, no news agencies were reporting on the second extinction of dinosaurs, or a huge volcano blowing up, and hence, how would no one see dinos being shipped off?  Then you would have to wonder, a huge ship arriving in the continental US with dinos didn't get stopped by the coast guard or entering any type of port didn't trigger attention.

And let's be honest, Owen totally died in that pyroclastic flow.

But as mentioned, why bother going for the Indominus DNA when Wu already created the new one.  And if he had the Indoraptor, he can just sample it without having to get the DNA.   And man, the moving of the Mosa pond to the ocean is terrible.  I had to double check the maps to see if that was the case.

Living dinos are worth less then some mansions, and the combined cost of all of the dinos sold were less than the budget of the movie .

Anyone else notice how that Apex predator can't detect the main characters a few feet away/below?  I guess it does have raptor dna, so...

[close]

[BlueKrono]

My reaction to the movie: damn, that Concavenator was cool! Favorite part.

[Digibasherx]

My reaction to the movie: damn, that Concavenator was cool! Favorite part.

Yeah, it looked awesome.  I'm wondering what Ceratopsian skull that was, looks too big for anynormal Ceratopsian.

[stargatedalek]

Off topic stuff in response to some of the comments about Star Wars.

Spoiler

I'm not going to directly respond to anyone else here, because it will undoubtedly becoming a shouting match, but I just want to say in regards to The Last Jedi that a lot of people underplay the effect that alt-right movements have on popular thought, and Star Wars has always hit a nerve with these kinds of people. There were people claiming back when A New Hope came out that it was "anti-male propaganda" about a woman, a bunch of kids, and some racially ambiguous aliens fighting against the evil white men. Now that Star Wars has a female protagonist, with a racially diverse supporting cast, these kinds of sentiments are inevitably going to grow stronger.

This video is a great analysis of the strong opinions surrounding The Last Jedi specifically, but it also addresses the origins of these in earlier Star Wars movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTJIk5PkTXg

But I digress, so please, don't take it from me, the video I link to does a better job than I possibly could.

[close]

I actually adored Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. It "fixed" most of my major complaints about Jurassic World, and I thought it had some rather clever commentary about the previous films.

I'm noticing a huge divide in peoples reactions to FK, a "general casual" audience enjoyed it because it was more action based, while a more "discerning casual" audience absolutely hated it because it "lacked depth" (in the traditional sense of "depth" in film I will agree here). I blame Trevorrow hyping up the movie as some "moral journey" for this. If he'd kept his grubby anti-cap mits out of the films promotion maybe people wouldn't have had such expectations.

And then among fans of the series it seems to have had the opposite polarization, where only people who are probably a little too invested in the franchise (myself included) would be in a position to pick up on a lot of the commentary, and everyone else is left feeling like it was missing something.

From a more objective perspective does this mean Fallen Kingdom was a bad movie? Hard for me to say, but I wouldn't disagree with that per-se, no matter how much I personally may have enjoyed it, since, for once, this movie was seemingly made with people like myself in mind.


My most major worries going into Fallen kingdom were how they would continue Claire's... "gender blind"* character arc, and that there might again be "to much Starlord and not enough Pratt". Fallen Kingdom does as best it can to retroactively repair the former and they definitely added a lot of that charm we expect from Pratt and toned down Owen's annoying prickly side.

*There are just things someone needs to take into account when making arcs for female characters vs male characters to avoid negative stereotypes that don't exist for male characters, and Trevorrow failed to do this.

Spoiler

Namely, the scene where they re-introduce Claire absolutely beautifully accomplishes everything Jurassic World failed to do in an entire movie. She's reconnected with her humanity and nature through the dinosaurs she feels responsible for, and *important* without sacrificing the skills she developed through her career as a trained manager, press representative, and negotiator.

And hey, I'll put up with some iffy volcano physics if it means we got that hilarious scene with Owen waking up from the tranquilizer and stiffly avoiding the lava before he could fully move.

[close]

To really get into why I loved Fallen Kingdom, I actually need to do a brief dissection of all the previous films and books, not just a few main concerns that carried over from Jurassic World and Trevorrow's PR ramblings. Warning for (very) unpopular opinions and boring philosophical discussion incoming.



Spoilers for the previous films (and first book) inside, but mostly spoiled because it's a giant wall of text that I really hope someone actually reads.

Spoiler

I enjoy every Jurassic film, and despite my particularly harsh criticism JP/// in particular will always have a soft spot for me. None of these films truly fail to entertain, but execution is always key, and that's what I'm focusing on here.


I personally believe that on a fundamental level Jurassic Park the novel is based on an entirely flawed premise, the idea that nature can't be controlled. And I feel like the book itself illustrates this point rather well. Crichton's impeccable world-building and research actually works against the central theme at many points throughout the story, to the point where he knew he needed to make the park fail because of human error(/corruption) since anything else would raise the question "ok but why didn't the cast anticipate this?". To actually have nature be uncontrollable as the core concept states would cause plot-holes.

This central theme isn't the only point where I disagree with Crichton philosophically, namely I feel a lot of his books (and West World [the original film]) tend to be overly cautionary with regard to capitalism and science/technology, or at least the mixing of the two. I also take issue with give or take 80% of what Malcolm says throughout the book, but I'm hardly alone there.

My overall point here is that even though I disagree with just about every theme and central premise present in Jurassic Park, the impeccable execution pays off with a truly engaging and enjoyable book and story. I actually recommend reading it more if you disagree with a lot of it's ideas, you'll probably get more out of it.

And this carries over into the first film, which follows the same central theme of "nature can't be controlled/life finds a way". And while the film definitely tones down a lot of the more divisive themes from the book, they are still present. Again the world-building and great direction from Spielberg manage to tie everything together in a very nice way.

To sum up, I think Jurassic Park is a flawed concept that's executed so well it works.



The Lost World Jurassic Park is a movie that general audiences found unrelatable, and that I adore for it's attempts at unconventional thematic storytelling. The concept isn't "man can't control nature" but rather is a question "should man control nature?" which is explored through characters with contrary world views.

Roland Tembo views nature with respect and admiration, as a worthy challenge to overcome and one that's worth preserving for future generations to experience, he is apprehensive about what they're doing on Sorna, but recognizes that he's the best one for the job and that he can get it done in the best way for everyone involved. Peter Ludlow sees the world in terms of how much it's worth financially, and this extends to the dinosaurs. Dieter Stark cares only about what's in front of him at the moment, he doesn't think about long term repercussions and so has very little empathy for the animals (or the safety of the other humans), to the point he will abuse animals for easy laughs. And Robert Burke (though he gets very little screen time) seems to want to capture the dinosaurs so they are contained in a forum where everyone can learn about them and experience them as he does.

And the protagonists... well they exist. With the possible exception of Sarah none of them offer any real insight into the movies central theme (and frankly her view is just kind of a repeat of Tembo's). And so comes the huge fatal flaw of The Lost World, the protagonists are almost wholly unrelatable bordering on unlikable and even boring. The idea of a film that explores it's themes through its antagonists is a wonderful idea but it completely failed in execution because that left audiences trying to relate to bland protagonists.

The novel version of the Lost World doesn't really offer any additional insights because it continued with the same themes and concepts of the first novel where the film did not.

To sum up, a concept I personally I see a lot of potential in, but a flawed execution.



Oh Jurassic Park Three, how do I possibly lead into this one lightly? #TeamSpino? Sure, let's start with that.

The central theme of Jurassic Park Three is a lot more simplistic than the other films, and that is parental bonds. This is expressed through the Kirby's seeking their missing son and through the alpha female Velociraptor tracking the protagonists to retrieve her eggs. Frankly it's a premise so simple it practically can't be messed up, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Unless you mess it up.

And there is one big crocodile-faced wrench in the films central theme.

Please bear with me for a moment because things are going to seem strange at first. Jurassic Park Three was in many ways a "super safe" sequel, there was only one real risk they took, and it's going to seem really arbitrary at a glance; they started writing the dinosaurs as characters. Yes we had the Tyrannosaurus parents from The Lost World, but even they weren't really treated as characters, at least not to the same degree as the alpha Velociraptor and Spinosaurus from Three. And it pays off well enough for the Velociraptors, it makes them rather sympathetic antagonists, their behavior is justified and makes sense, they feel real. Spinosaurus just doesn't.

Spinosaurus has literally no motivations for any of what it does in the film. It has no reason to kill the Tyrannosaurus, it has no reason to chase down the airplane, and it has no reason to follow the protagonists across the island. The films direction and editing treats Spinosaurus as if it was a fleshed out character without actually writing it as one. Spinosaurus who is undoubtedly the main antagonist of the story has absolutely no relation to the films theme, and is just "kind of there" through the entire movie. Even the Pteranodon who only got a handful of scenes at least played into the theme with their attacking the protagonists to feed their chicks.

I bet most people didn't even entirely pick up on that the airplane hit the Spinosaurus, because they completely iced over it very quickly and gave no real indication that it ever happened after the plane itself crashes. They could have pulled a great reveal and gave Spinosaurus a big wound on its sail from the plane collision when it first appears, establishing it has a temper when it chases down the falling plane and destroys it. If the death battle really needed to even happen how about have the Tyrannosaurus feeding on Spinosaurus nest or infant instead of a Stegosaurus, and boom, not only have we established Spinosaurus motivations, but we've established genuine character traits, and tied it back to present an alternate perspective of the films central theme.

There. I fixed like half of Jurassic Park Three. See how easy that was? Why didn't anyone on the production staff do that? It took all of five minutes of brainstorming.

Jurassic Park Three has a trend of individual scenes simply lacking context or in some cases even content, and these pile up very quickly and drag the film as a whole down. Just imagine how much the film could be improved with a few fairly basic tweaks to key scenes, like Grant encountering Erik Kirby, or the talking raptor day dream, or the aforementioned Spinosaurus reveal?

Would it have been an amazing film to rival the first? Probably not, but it could have been as close to an "objectively decent" film as I can picture.

To sum up, Jurassic Park Three really should have been a sure thing but somehow managed to be a catastrophic failure on nearly every level. Genuinely mind boggling.



I've already went over my two major concerns with Jurassic World, Claire's character arc and Owens generally unlikable personality, but these and others are worth covering in more depth.

We all know by now the intended character arc for Claire was to represent her overdoing herself and putting all of her effort into her work, and then the repercussions of this force her to reconnect with nature and her own humanity. The idea is supposed to be that we should all take breaks from what we do to experience what we love. Unfortunately what was presented was a successful career woman being incapable of what her male predecessors were and in trying to emulate them she destroyed her empire and was forced to rely on a male romance interest to protect her while arbitrarily developing a maternal bond with the nearest children. And no, them being her nephews does not make it less arbitrary, it's clearly established she barely even knows them.

Owen is just, kind of a jerk? He's incredibly full of himself and extremely boastful bordering on actively rude. And he doesn't get any sort of character arc to address or explain this. If any other actor besides Chris Pratt were playing him he would be completely unlikable (not unlike Malcolm and Goldblum, if I may say so). Who is Owen in Jurassic World? He's either "angry Starlord" or "the raptor guy", take your pick.

I get it, Jurassic movies are supposed to have kids in them, because reasons, but the brothers in Jurassic World felt like they genuinely dragged down the experience. The two actors play off of each other very well but that just isn't enough. Their character arcs were simplistic and contained between the two of them, with their influence on the main arc of the film (Claire's character arc) being entirely unneeded and arguably detrimental to the films message and to Claire as a character.

Lowery and Vivian weren't "bad", but I just find the whole "will they won't they" thing is a really overused way to develop character relationships, and one could argue they were already doing that for Claire and Owen. Masrani and Barry I felt were pretty good, but be honest you didn't even remember Barry's name. And his name is Barry. That should not be a hard name to remember. Jurassic World overall just gave very little time to it's interesting supporting characters in favour of it's rather large main cast which only split the time yet further.

The real breakout stars of Jurassic World however, are Blue, the Indominus rex, and Isla Nublar. Jurassic World continued Three's trend of thinking of the dinosaurs as characters and took it in a very logical direction with a dinosaur as a supporting protagonist and a dinosaur antagonist with actual motives and story.

And when I say Isla Nublar was a star I mean it. I normally don't get much out of nostalgia pandering (or soft reboots for that matter), but I acknowledge it can be done well. And for all of Jurassic Worlds faults it used nostalgia very effectively, the visuals of the park are absolutely wonderful and seeing all of the functional exhibits really brings Jurassic Park to life in a way the earlier films weren't in a position to do.

[close]

And now, spoilers for Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, as it relates to what I've established above.

Spoiler

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom is essentially a redemption story for the previous sequels, and it even goes through them counting backwards for extra convenience! The establishing scenes recover a lot of the problems Jurassic World left unfinished in terms of its characters. Claire's arc finally gets a satisfying conclusion, and we get an actual look into why Owen acts the way he does. He sections himself off to try and hide his feelings, particularly about Claire. He tries to push her away because even though he cares about her he doesn't feel they're happier together. And this is why he tries to push away Blue who he sees as a surrogate daughter, but also as a reminder of his years spent living on Isla Nublar with Claire.

The first act of Jurassic World is a retelling of Jurassic Park Three. Claire and Own are the separated parents rejoining to rescue their lost child, and the lost child in Fallen Kingdom is Blue. That's actually about as deep as it gets, but one could make the same claim about Jurassic Park Three.

When the smugglers betray them the movie switches gears into The Lost World. There are a lot more direct call-backs to be found here, most notably the gyro-sphere scene mirrors the trailers sliding off the cliff and the inclusion of explicit human villains. Rather than go out of its way to make the villains sympathetic Fallen Kingdom does the opposite, and establishes as clearly and quickly as possible that the smugglers are not the hunters from TLW. None of these people are "just misguided" or otherwise there because they needed to be, these are villains in about as cartoon-ish a way as possible, but that's not a bad thing as it doesn't take focus away from the protagonists.

The Brachiosaurus scene is beautiful, the first dinosaur seen on Nublar is the last.

While I do feel the movie slows down after Nublar, I don't feel that it got worse. I thought the auction scenes were quite clever, and everything with Stygi was a lot of fun. Maisie is about as enjoyable as kids in Jurassic movies have ever been, if not better, I quite liked her. The Indoraptor is an enjoyable villain, and the callback to Wheatley dying by the same tune as Dieter Stark was another great moment (as well as a great scene in general).


Particular highlights for me were that opening sequence, everything comedic felt well placed and timed, and that establishing segment was so good it might even make me like Jurassic World a little more in retrospect. Excited to watch them back to back in the future.

Parts where I felt it fall flat a bit were when Wheatley betrays Owen (what is it with characters named Wheatley and betraying us?), the establishing shots of wild dinosaurs at the end having no real context, and the reveal of Maisie being a clone not really being put to much use.

Why did Wheatley betray Owen before he captured Blue? It wasn't even necessary that he do this to progress the plot, everything that happened could have happened with Wheatley trying to leave Owen for dead after Blue was in the cage.

What are we supposed to assume based on the shots of wild dinosaurs? Are we supposed to assume this is an apocalypse of some kind? A single Mosasaurus is an apocalypse now? What is it actually going to do? We saw it eat someone but all it takes is one radio tag and boom, no more Mosasaurus attacks ever. Will it attack whales or something? Or are we supposed to assume everything is going to be alright? I mean really what's the worst that's going to happen, are Compsognathus going to out-compete raccoons? Was there even any other dinosaur abundant enough it could theoretically repopulate itself?

It just doesn't really tell us what to expect from the next movie.

I really hope they use the reveal that Maisie is a clone moving forwards. If she isn't back for the next movie I will be disappointed, potentially to the point it could make Fallen Kingdom a bit worse in retrospect if that reveal really is just used for that one line.

[close]

[Fembrogon]

^That was a fascinating breakdown of the franchise, stargatedalek; I really enjoyed reading that. I might have to review all the books and films with those points in mind! 

I'm pretty sure I liked FK more than JW, if only because I think it was more honest about what sort of movie it was - a sci-fi monster movie about "nature" being distorted and unleashed. Most worldbuilding issues (like all the carnivores being mad murderbeasts) were just carried over from the previous film, and FK did the best with what it had in spite of it.

[DinoToyForum]

 
https://youtu.be/Zy_9K_FGTeo

[DinoToyForum]

My reaction to the movie: damn, that Concavenator was cool! Favorite part.

Yeah, it looked awesome.  I'm wondering what Ceratopsian skull that was, looks too big for anynormal Ceratopsian.

It was a skull of a made up ceratopsian with horns that are large enough to impale a medium-sized predator and point straight upwards... for some reason.