Jurassic Park and Papo

[Wallnut]

@Stegotyranno I know you're referring the movie that you post the image of because I looked at google.

[Over9K]

Bit unfair to compare the public reactions of the Spielberg-directed blockbuster Hollywood adaptation of a Michael Crichton mega-best seller to a foreign, direct to obscurity, b-movie that almost nobody saw outside of Australia/UK...

The mass audience made Jurassic Park one of the biggest hits of all time... the mass audience never got to see Dinosaur Island.

[Patrx]

True, not a great comparison, but it's still a good question. Jurassic Park brought pop-culture dinosaurs out of the '60s and into the '90s, so what upcoming movie will bring them out of the '90s and into the present? It's sure not Jurassic World, if anything that moved everything backward.

[Bread]

The dinosaur movie's camed before original JP are mainly trash in accuracy ways.İf someone makes a dinosaur film that feature accurate dino toys with the correct time it would be more accurate then JP.

You have to remember that many movies before JP, dinosaurs were still stuck in the Kangaroo posture, lizard like appearance. I don't know how exactly far back you would consider dinosaur accuracy in films to be "trash" but movies like The Lost World (1925) was right for its time, I guess you could say. Also there are plenty of films that are more accurate than JP that are currently available to watch. Documentaries exist and I consider the best we can get. But yes I do see your point/want to have an accurate representation of dinosaurs in a movie opened to the public. However I give Jurassic Park credit where credit is due, and they did popularize dinosaurs for many people, even if they are inaccurate (in terms of back when it was released and now).

Side note, why has this become a discussion in a papo topic thread? I see it was revived by a simple "." 3 years later.

[Stegotyranno420]

@Bread maybe they should split the topic to "influence of Jurassic park designs " or something like that

To everyone else, I was listing movies that contained somewhat accurate depictions of dinosaurs. Also what about Walking with Dinosaurs movie and documentary series(along with beasts and monsters, chased by series, etc)?

[Patrx]

Honestly, it will probably be a Jurassic Park remake in 20 years that updates the look of dinosaurs in pop culture. I can't think of another hypothetical dinosaur movie that would have the staying power and mass appeal of Jurassic Park. Maybe a Dino-Riders movie down the line? An Ark movie? Even still, I doubt they would be quality productions that would care to portray accurate dinosaurs. Maybe another remake of King Kong? Personally I'm still crossing my fingers that Jurassic World does it in Dominion with the addition of more accurate dinosaurs created by companies other than Ingen. I feel like they're going to do that. But will it catch on?

Adding this post from Gwangi, it was posted while I was in the process of splitting this thread from the older discussion and didn't make the journey!

[Stegotyranno420]

In response to Gwangi's post maybe it's not a movie but a documentary that's as popular as say Our Planet narratied by either Kenneth Baranagh(I kind of forgot the name, he is the guy who narrates BBC Walking with series) or David Attenborough

[Bread]

@Stegotyranno ahhh yes, splitting the topic would be nice. I like this JP topic.

@Gwangi Jurassic World could possibly add in accurate dinosaurs, but I have quite a bit of doubts. I've noticed that Jurassic World tries to aim for "monster" looking creatures, for example both hybrids in the last two movies. Both have become iconic in a way. I feel like if they brought in natural looking prehistoric animals that once roamed the Earth 65 million years ago (although I would love that so much) it would be somewhat be a big shift in the franchise. It would be strange if they changed their Tyrannosaurus due to how popular it is. But who knows???
Also, you're probably spot on about a JP remake in the next 20 years, hollywood has a knack for doing that.

[Gwangi]

In response to Gwangi's post maybe it's not a movie but a documentary that's as popular as say Our Planet narratied by either Kenneth Baranagh(I kind of forgot the name, he is the guy who narrates BBC Walking with series) or David Attenborough

I think that would be the ideal scenario, especially if it were to play at Imax or something. There are a few influential documentaries, like WWD, but not many I'm afraid.

[Over9K]

True, not a great comparison, but it's still a good question. Jurassic Park brought pop-culture dinosaurs out of the '60s and into the '90s, so what upcoming movie will bring them out of the '90s and into the present? It's sure not Jurassic World, if anything that moved everything backward.

It's important to note that Jurassic Park also appeared just as the public interest in Dinosaurs was exploding. The science was waaaaay ahead of the public in the late 80's and early 90's, despite there having been a decade-long renaissance in the study of dinosaurs, signposted by numerous important books (Dinosaur Heresies, Predatory Dinosaurs Of The World, Kings Of Creation) and at least one mega-popular documentary, 1985's DINOSAUR!

So in reality, Jurassic Park wasn't the Big Bang in the explosion, it was the waves of heat, coming after the shockwave. Jurassic Park is the result of the Dinosaur Renaissance of the 80's, not the catalyst.

There is also the uniqueness of Jurassic Park (the movie, not the franchise), being the first, and really the only well-budgeted, well consulted dinosaur movie with the intention of actually showing the public "scientifically accurate" dinosaurs. Yes, they failed much of the time, and the movie's dinosaurs are far from accurate, but the intention was there. That intention was NOT there in 2003/4 while Peter Jackson was making King Kong, it was not there in 2007/8 when Brevig was making Journey To The Center Of The Earth, or Silbirling was making Land Of The Lost.

Finally, there has to be a financial reason for a movie to give us accurate dinosaurs, versus movie monsters. Note how everybody in the film industry copied how Jurassic Park's looked, but totally ignored how they acted?

For another film to make a similar impact to Jurassic Park, I feel like there'd have to be a period of discovery and advancement in the science, that is not observed by the public, and that's a bit difficult to happen anymore.

In response to Gwangi's post maybe it's not a movie but a documentary that's as popular as say Our Planet narratied by either Kenneth Baranagh(I kind of forgot the name, he is the guy who narrates BBC Walking with series) or David Attenborough

If only Discovery hadn't become a cesspool that intentionally lies to its audience, becoming more of a DIY channel than an honest educational outlet...

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Interesting discussion in this thread, I assume the stagnation can't go on forever, but it will take something big to do what the original Jurassic Park did,  and I'm not sure that can happen right now.

[PumperKrickel]

Jurassic World could possibly add in accurate dinosaurs, but I have quite a bit of doubts. I've noticed that Jurassic World tries to aim for "monster" looking creatures, for example both hybrids in the last two movies. Both have become iconic in a way. I feel like if they brought in natural looking prehistoric animals that once roamed the Earth 65 million years ago (although I would love that so much) it would somewhat be a big shift in the franchise. It would be strange if they changed their Tyrannosaurus due to how popular it is. But who knows???

I think if anyone can update the general public on how an accurate dinosaur should look like, it HAS to be the Jurassic franchise. They have dictated how the mainstream views dinosaurs since the first movie and no other company really seems interested in taking over. Marvel could potentially do it if they ever make a Savage Lands movie and want to visually distinguish themselves from JW, but that would sort of betray the dinosaur designs from the comics, which are VERY 90s.

Of course even a new JW movie would now be fighting an uphill battle after gradually turning their dinosaurs into protagonists and having two movies where our good pals, the "real" dinosaurs, fought an evil fake hybrid dinosaur in the end. Now if anyone else in the movie's universe makes their own realistic dinosaur that looks drastically different from Blue, Rexy and the rest of the gang, the general audience might just disregard that as another hybrid or reject it in favour of nostalgia. It's a tricky situation they maneuvered themselves into.

However, let's also not forget that scientific accuracy is not Hollywood's job and presenting dinosaurs as warm-blooded, intelligent animals for the first time in Jurassic Park wasn't done to educate the public, it was done to make them appear more dangerous and to make the big summer blockbuster more exciting.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Interesting discussion in this thread, I assume the stagnation can't go on forever, but it will take something big to do what the original Jurassic Park did,  and I'm not sure that can happen right now.

Over9k did a great job explaining things above.  I'm just going to comment on the " stagnation" and ability to do what Jurassic Park did.

Hollywood /movies in general is facing major changes now things are not exactly terrible, but it there is change and it's being VERY hard on the entertainment industry.  All the sequels , remakes, you have all seen it. Shuttering of theaters was a big blow and one that format is having a lot of trouble coming back from.  What we don't have is the proper social environment for a film like Jurassic Park to prosper so much as the first one did and have that same impact on popular culture.  The term "perfect storm" sits well, for whatever reason just about any major film in the 80's was able to take advantage of it.  For a film to make the changes in popular culture we are looking for it would need that same ground to stand on. I just don't think that exists much anymore. 

If we were to kind of try to do something, you would need money..a lot of it.  Who has that now? Disney.   Disney has been down playing dinosaurs for years since they don't want to fight Universal with Jurassic Park. With Marvel, Star Wars and Twentieth Century Fox they don't really have too and seem content to let Universal rule the dinosaur movie game.   It's a shame Paramount didn't go full throttle on Dinotopia, that would have been a franchise for them and if done now could present more accurate ideas about dinosaurs...kind of expect that to end up as a Miyazaki Ghibli film at some point.   Of course it could be wrong in a year with the way the science is growing and changing. As Malcolm observed, " The world has just changed so radically, and we're all running to catch up.." 

That is probably one reason Universal has stuck with established, trademarked designs. Staying power.  Who wants to pay to update and refresh something so often in business?   I'm just glad of the people Jurassic Park introduced to dinosaurs and science. It gives them a place to start that excites them and hopefully makes them curious enough to learn more about the real animals.

[Dinoguy2]

The dinosaur movie's camed before original JP are mainly trash in accuracy ways.İf someone makes a dinosaur film that feature accurate dino toys with the correct time it would be more accurate then JP.

You have to remember that many movies before JP, dinosaurs were still stuck in the Kangaroo posture, lizard like appearance. I don't know how exactly far back you would consider dinosaur accuracy in films to be "trash" but movies like The Lost World (1925) was right for its time, I guess you could say. Also there are plenty of films that are more accurate than JP that are currently available to watch. Documentaries exist and I consider the best we can get. But yes I do see your point/want to have an accurate representation of dinosaurs in a movie opened to the public. However I give Jurassic Park credit where credit is due, and they did popularize dinosaurs for many people, even if they are inaccurate (in terms of back when it was released and now).

Side note, why has this become a discussion in a papo topic thread? I see it was revived by a simple "." 3 years later.

This is important to remember for people who are waiting for another movie to popularize modern dinosaurs again. Dinosaurs went from big, slow, dumb beasts to big, fast, intelligent monsters, as far as general audiences were concerned. It's similar to the evolution of zombies from slow, shambling corpses to fast-moving things that can actually be stronger than you. Both zombies and dinosaurs got scarier and more threatening with their modern makeovers.

That's why I doubt there will ever be another JP. Having dinosaurs look and act more like real animals from a nature documentary would be a severe downgrade in terms of their drama potential in an action or horror movie.

The only hope for getting modern dinosaurs into public consciousness is not movies but kid's shows and kid's books. As a parent I can tell you that while there's still a lot of garbage out there, most popular books and shows for kids that feature animals and dinosaurs are doing a good job of being scientifically accurate and thoughtful bout how they integrate real science into their entertainment. Dino Dana, Dinosaur Train, and shows about modern animals like Wild Crats and Octonauts are all really good. I think the current generation of kids will grow up knowing what real dinosaurs are like, and it's possible big-budget movies in 10-20 years might start incorporating more of that simply because that's what people expect and grew up with, both audiences and the people making the movies. Of course, by then, it might already be outdated!

[Bread]

The real question for me is if there could be another Walking With Dinosaurs (including the entire walking with series) type of documentary? I don't think any prehistoric/dinosaur documentary has really ever surpassed that, in my opinion.

Like I mentioned above, I feel the same way about Jurassic Park. I don't think there will be anything to top it in terms of a dinosaur movie. Then again, I did not even like Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, so I could be biased on how much I love the original two movies. If hollywood would to ever try to shift into a different franchise pertaining to dinosaurs, it has quite a bit of competition. Again, this is just
my opinion. I am kind of all over the place with this thread. My bad...

[Stegotyranno420]

where our good pals, the "real" dinosaurs, fought an evil fake hybrid dinosaur in the end.

However, let's also not forget that scientific accuracy is not Hollywood's job and presenting dinosaurs as warm-blooded, intelligent animals for the first time in Jurassic Park wasn't done to educate the public, it was done to make them appear more dangerous and to make the big summer blockbuster more exciting.

Thank you P @PumperKrickel , i had this kind of idea too. I thought it could be like accurate dinosaurs from another company fighting the Ingen dinosaurs. I would love to see a Jp3 spinosaurus trying to fight an accurate spinosaurus, but then it loses, and it shows a symbolic triumph of reality and fiction.
Also i think you kind of got the dangerous/intelligent/warmblooded thing a little mixed up. Im not sure, but i believe they were made dangerous to show their activeness and warm blood, and not the other way around, but i guess they realised that it also contributed to the movie's exciting and thrilling nature

[Carnoking]

This thread seems to have gone a bit off topic, but I don't care cuz I love talking about movies as much as I love talking about dinosaurs.

I believe I read in an interview at one point that some dinosaur related script never made it to production because "Universal has cornered the market on dinosaurs". I'll need to see if I can find the interview out there, but it does make sense. Jurassic is a massive franchise that would be difficult to compete with, especially when it came to audiences expectations of what a dinosaur movie "should" be nowadays.

That being said, there have been countless interviews with Trevorrow and team that they want to put more focus on accuracy with this final film, and now that the technology within the universe of JP is open source, it makes sense to be reinventing the looks of the classic dinosaurs. Of course, I'll take all of that with a pinch of salt until we actually see designs or a trailer or really anything, but I think it's a great opportunity to give us some updated dinosaurs in the mainstream.

I will say though, if there is to be a movie that would achieve some levels of popularity akin to the Jurassic franchise, it would probably have to be some remake/reboot/adaptation of a popular IP from the past. Like I said, big-budget original dinosaur theatrical films are few and far between, and most of the notable examples were not well received. I don't see a studio throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at some wholly original idea that would need to be competing with JP, but if some other guaranteed seller was brought forward, there might be a chance to see some new dinosaur designs stomping across the big screen. I almost hate to say it, but The Land Before Time comes to mind, especially given the financial success demonstrated with Disney's "live-action" remakes of their classic and beloved 2D animated films.

[Over9K]

The real question for me is if there could be another Walking With Dinosaurs (including the entire walking with series) type of documentary? I don't think any prehistoric/dinosaur documentary has really ever surpassed that, in my opinion.

Like I mentioned above, I feel the same way about Jurassic Park. I don't think there will be anything to top it in terms of a dinosaur movie. Then again, I did not even like Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, so I could be biased on how much I love the original two movies. If hollywood would to ever try to shift into a different franchise pertaining to dinosaurs, it has quite a bit of competition. Again, this is just
my opinion. I am kind of all over the place with this thread. My bad...

Another 'Walking With Dinosaurs' would have to be British again, I would think, due to the lack of a serious educational outlet in North America. The Brits take their nature TV seriously. I think that time/distance from the OG WWD, would create enough of an accuracy gap, that at some point, some film maker will see the need for a new one.

One thing that I personally have always dreampt of is a feature length, David Attenborough-narrated, state of the art telling of the complete lifecycle of the most popular, and best known dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex, sort of Steven Bissette's Tyrant, in the form of an accurate nature film. Given two hours, going from hatching to death as an old matriarch, a T.rex-centric film done right could give the audience a real good look into what the current science indicates life in the Late-Cretaceous would have looked like, introducing us to the flora and fauna around our protagonist rex.

Done right, in the WWD/Jurassic Park style with practical effects augmenting pure CGI, my dream-doc would cost a bunch, but for about 15 seconds, it would exist as the most accurate view into the past to that time. The trouble is finding anyone to bankroll such a niche project.

[Over9K]

This thread seems to have gone a bit off topic, but I don't care cuz I love talking about movies as much as I love talking about dinosaurs.

I believe I read in an interview at one point that some dinosaur related script never made it to production because "Universal has cornered the market on dinosaurs". I'll need to see if I can find the interview out there, but it does make sense. Jurassic is a massive franchise that would be difficult to compete with, especially when it came to audiences expectations of what a dinosaur movie "should" be nowadays.

That being said, there have been countless interviews with Trevorrow and team that they want to put more focus on accuracy with this final film, and now that the technology within the universe of JP is open source, it makes sense to be reinventing the looks of the classic dinosaurs. Of course, I'll take all of that with a pinch of salt until we actually see designs or a trailer or really anything, but I think it's a great opportunity to give us some updated dinosaurs in the mainstream.

I will say though, if there is to be a movie that would achieve some levels of popularity akin to the Jurassic franchise, it would probably have to be some remake/reboot/adaptation of a popular IP from the past. Like I said, big-budget original dinosaur theatrical films are few and far between, and most of the notable examples were not well received. I don't see a studio throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at some wholly original idea that would need to be competing with JP, but if some other guaranteed seller was brought forward, there might be a chance to see some new dinosaur designs stomping across the big screen. I almost hate to say it, but The Land Before Time comes to mind, especially given the financial success demonstrated with Disney's "live-action" remakes of their classic and beloved 2D animated films.

The Land Before Time thing totally makes sense. Hollywood adores established IP's with built-in fandoms, especially when that fandom is engaging in heavy nostalgia. I could totally see a live-action version of Land Before Time, a'la Jungle Book.

Dinotopia is another IP that should find it's funding at some point.

Speaking of  Marvel, where the hell is The Savage Land? Where's Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy?

What about Xenozoic Tales/Cadillacs And Dinosaurs? I have wanted a multi-film franchise based on that comic for decades! Not only would we get kick ass dinosaur action, but Hollywood could engage in it's favorite thing: virtue signalling/shaming the audience for global climate change, win/win!

[Gwangi]

The real question for me is if there could be another Walking With Dinosaurs (including the entire walking with series) type of documentary? I don't think any prehistoric/dinosaur documentary has really ever surpassed that, in my opinion.

Like I mentioned above, I feel the same way about Jurassic Park. I don't think there will be anything to top it in terms of a dinosaur movie. Then again, I did not even like Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, so I could be biased on how much I love the original two movies. If hollywood would to ever try to shift into a different franchise pertaining to dinosaurs, it has quite a bit of competition. Again, this is just
my opinion. I am kind of all over the place with this thread. My bad...

Another 'Walking With Dinosaurs' would have to be British again, I would think, due to the lack of a serious educational outlet in North America. The Brits take their nature TV seriously. I think that time/distance from the OG WWD, would create enough of an accuracy gap, that at some point, some film maker will see the need for a new one.

One thing that I personally have always dreampt of is a feature length, David Attenborough-narrated, state of the art telling of the complete lifecycle of the most popular, and best known dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex, sort of Steven Bissette's Tyrant, in the form of an accurate nature film. Given two hours, going from hatching to death as an old matriarch, a T.rex-centric film done right could give the audience a real good look into what the current science indicates life in the Late-Cretaceous would have looked like, introducing us to the flora and fauna around our protagonist rex.

Done right, in the WWD/Jurassic Park style with practical effects augmenting pure CGI, my dream-doc would cost a bunch, but for about 15 seconds, it would exist as the most accurate view into the past to that time. The trouble is finding anyone to bankroll such a niche project.

PBS