Amph Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom, Dominion & Camp Cretaceous

TLW is my favorite of the Jurassic Park films (that's a rare statement, I know), but I just love the heck out of it. I don't find JP3 that bad. I didn't care for the fact that they dumped the T-Rex for something "cooler" but Sam Neil's return to the trilogy was nice. None of the JP movies "suck" in my opinion. All 3 are loads of fun to watch.

 

Yes, but the cliff sequence only happens if you have a naturalist so idiotic as to take a T. Rex baby back to the trailers in the first place.

I mean, it was quite seriously the sheer proponderance of stupidity in the characters that killed TLW for me. I mean, Sarah Harding is supposed to be this great, educated naturalist, right? And yet she purposely invades a Steogsaurus nest; any naturalist would know better than purposely messing with an animal's babies. Heck, I know better than that. Then, she takes a baby T. Rex away from its parents and is shocked when the parents show up. She then wears a jacket covered with the baby's blood for the better part of the movie and is blown away when this results in the parents being able to track her. Right. She's a doctor. Sure, she is.

Then there's Roland Tembo. You remember him. He's the great hunter who carries his rifle through a rainstorm in the jungle with the BARREL UP! I have never been hunting in my life and I know you don't do that. He then leaves his rifle untended right the hell next to Van Owen, despite the fact that Van Owen is a saboteur who is his enemy. Then he goes out to get the T. Rex and discovers that his rifle doesn't work when he is actually face to face with the T. Rex, which means that he went out on the biggest hunt of his entire career without checking his weapon first. Right. Great hunter. Sure. I believe that.

In JPIII, it's a stupid decision for the folks to go to the Island in the first place, but this isn't a movie killer for me because Grant is essentially tricked and the other folks don't know what they're getting into really - they think they're prepared because they've never experienced the dinosaurs before. Then, once they're on the Island, there is little stupidity on display - they're focused on simply getting off the Island alive.

Now, to discuss the action elements, I hold TLW at a huge fault here because it squanders so many great sequences in the original novel: the motorcycle chase is deleted, the jeep running out of gas is deleted, the high hide attack is deleted, the kid in the cage sequence is deleted. These are sequences Crichton probably wrote specifically because they would be awesome on the big screen. And they cut them. WTF? And then the cliff sequence is here, but it's not nearly as good as it is in the book. I suppose they cut all this stuff because they had to make room for the bit where the T. Rex rampages through the city at the end; good, that's great, let's cut some really original and exciting action sequences we've never seen before so we can see a remake of a billion Godzilla movies. That's awesome. That's really great. Idiots.

JPIII is shorter and ridiculously fast paced; it just moves and never lets up. It's essentially a long chase movie with hardly a pause for even character development. It's not a great movie in the way the original was, but it's a great action movie in its unflagging energy.

Plus, The Lost World cuts the best character Crichton has ever written, Richard Levine, in favor of merging him with Sarah Harding. Doc Thorne, the single most likable character of the novel and the humanist center of the story, is also cut; this is why the movie essentially has no warmth to it: they cut the character intended to be the human warmth. Also, for all the reasons I've already outlined Roland Tembo is an idiotic character; why did they even create him when the novel gives them a perfect analogue, Lewis Dodgson, who is a character from the original movie and would create another tie to the original film? I dunno. TLW is just a trainwreck. Sorry, it just is. It's one of the worst adaptations I've ever seen and far weaker than III.

 

Maybe that's the problem for me, or one of them. I mean, I know it sounds weird, but I was actually wanting the sequel to Jurassic Park to be more like Jurassic Park. You're right that TLW isn't much like it at all; it's much darker, much more cynical, sort of ironically removed from the actual story (that's a great catch that you point out with Malcolm sort of lampshading the awe moment and when you think about it, the entire T. Rex in the city sequence is one long, extended parody; I dunno, I think you've given me something to think about here - TLW really is almost interested in sending up its own conventions and this is perhaps partly the reason none of the characters come to real emotional life in TLW; they're not in a regular movie, they're in a parody), and populated with mostly unlikable characters. JPIII does have more of the original's tone. I'm all for sequels that change things up, but sometimes I want a sequel because I just want more of the same, the same being the original film.

 

There's apparently a new Jurassic Park game coming to just about every system soon:

linkie

With apparently a new film on the way and this game's placement as being right after the first film...how will the continuity work out? Does the JP franchise even have continuity for games? They seem to release a new game every few years or so.

 

I think the games basically all ignore each other.

 

Interesting. Wasn't Operation Genesis (the last one I remember) an RTS sort of game?

 

TLW has problems for sure, but at least the realism didn't go completely out of the window like it did in JP3. Spinosaurus killing T-Rex was bad enough, but Raptors setting traps? Give me a break, they were never that smart. Smarter than dolphins and primates? Seriously? Thank goodness the idea to have them use guns was killed off. JP was great because it made you believe on a senario where dinosaurs and humans could exist together, JP3 just turned into total sci-fi monster nonsense.

TLW had some problem characters, but otherwise is a genrally solid film although oddly paced.

 

So far as I know, Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues was the only game to maintain any sort of continuity with the film, as it was apparently based on a rejected story concept for The Lost World.

 

http://screenrant.com/jurassic-park-4-tintin-sequel-kathleen-kennedy-sandy-142185/

Some "new" imformation from the producer Kathleen Kennedy. Basically, they are working on a story. They want to have a good reason to do it.

Good reason? What about being a first film to have feathered dinosaurs? I've been waiting for any film to show them like that, but as for now, that hasn't happened.
That's my main hope for the film: update the dinosaurs. I know that suddenly having feathered Velociraptors would seem out of place, but that is easily helped by using some other small theropod (they are the only species to have feathers, so no need to worry about the T-rex or herbivores). I'd generally like them to use other dinosaurs, I'm only 19 and I'm already sick of brachiosaurus, stegosaurus, triceratops and T-Rex. Spinosaurus was cool for being different.

 

Nice.

JP 3D will be fun for sure. I think I saw it in theaters when I was almost a year old, although my parents said
I slept through the whole thing. So I really saw it for the first time 4 years later on VHS.

 

Awesome! This sounds like an appropriate film to go track down an Imax 3D screen for.

 

I hope a JP4 will be good, I'm pleased they dropped that stupid Raptors-with-guns idea that was originally put forward.

Last thing we need is something like this, funny as it might be.

 

I want some plesiosaurs in this next movie, dammit. Have them have to travel between islands and come upon a whole bunch of plesiosaurs and giant alligators and whatever the hell other sea-based dinosaurs there were.

 

That would not have gone over well with Crichton, since JP's first draft was told from Tim's point of view. That's also the reason the kids featured so prominently in the book.


As for JP4.....we don't need it, and I probably won't see it. Telltale Games' Jurassic Park 2 was good enough.

 

They weren't dinosaurs, only the terrestrial reptiles with the erect underneath walking-gate (as opposed to the sprawled style of walking that lizards & other reptiles have) were called Dinosaurs.
But seeing as they had Pterosaurs in JP3 I think some of the Marine Reptiles of the Dinosaur era would be good. Predator X was awesome and having it feature could be great. Have it eat a T-Rex a Spinosaurus or something.

 

Not a dinosaur (but neither were the flying reptiles), but Liopleurodon would be nice to have.



Other cool stuff that would be cool to see:
-Feathered dinosaurs. Perhaps by having non-feathered Velociraptors still around (science mumbojumbo: they had more frog genes and that's why they didn't have feathers) and then having a new species with feathers, for example Deinonuchys. Because I really want to see those on screen, and I trust that blockbuster-makers can make the feathers look cool
-More new species. Triceratops, Brachiosaurus and the rest are nice and all, but haven't we seen them quite a many times?
-Be as scientifically accurate as possible. The first two films did as accurate dinosaurs as was possible at the time, but in the third movie especially the raptors went completely in the monster direction. That was funny the first time I watched the film (I excepted them to fly helicopters any time), but not so much anymore.

Ah, looks like I made these same points before the move, on this same page. Well, there's some news for you if you haven't heard: They want the film in theaters in two years. Good news: Animatronics are still in.

 

They need to bring Dilophosaurus back!

And feature Ankylosaurus too.

 

I want sea monsters!

 

I remember the Velociraptors in JP3 having spines along their heads, which in the special features the creators state is because of new knowledge stating that they had feathers. So it wasn't really all that well done, but it was there.