Jurassic Park

The raptors are too sneaky...


I've always hated the raptors in JP, since i was a kid, just because they, they're like cats-sly and intelligent. me personally like the T-rex, because they are quite thick (lol) and are more like dogs if you know what i mean. And at the end of JP1, The T-rex hammers the raptors and saves the day - whats's better?

 

You gotta respect their cunning and ability to hunt though - though I'm a fan of pretty much all of the creatures in there.

 

I hated the first two and if anything I thought the third was the best. I thought the original was one of the more egregious literary adaptations in film history. Some people think that I give too much credit to the book but I think its a modern classic and the film does it no justice other then applying technology to make realistic looking dinosaurs. Big deal. I walked out of the theater two thirds through the film. This was Spielberg at his worst, IMO, in that it pandered to a completely different age demographic then the book. It was a rated R book, it shouldve been a rated R film and it was just a total money grab. Even Crichton sold it out when he wrote a terrible sequel and tried to pass it off as a genuine follow up instead of the movie tie in that it was.

 

Steven Jay Gould wrote an essay about how he thought that the film adaptation of Jurassic Park was too commercial, pandered to the kiddie demographic, and sucked all the imagination out of Crichton's origianl story, but I actually disagree.. part of it may be the nostalgia factor I attach to the movie, but I've always found Michael Crichton's books, while often thought-provoking, to be very poorly written almost to the degree of unreadability. His ideas translate very well to film, and I actually thought the film surpassed the text by a long shot. The movie was visually stunning, the dinosaurs were believable, and the score was fantastic. But, like I said, I watched it over and over when I was younger and perhaps I romanticize it a little bit too much.

That said, I found The Lost World - the book - far superior to the film version. While I wasn't bothered by the changes in plot and the removal of various characters in Jurassic Park, there were far too many irksome dissimilarities between The Lost World book and movie versions. I mean, the addition of Jeff Goldblum's adopted daughter? Why was that necessary?

 

I liked the lost world....i hated the 3rd tho...crappy plotline etc, etc.

 

It was a total Spielberg thing to do IMO. Throw in a superficial "family issue" with a genius daughter trying to reconnect with her father, who just happens to be a gymnast, who just happens to walk into a shed with perfectly positioned poles for her to use that skill to save the day. My wife and I just roll our eyes everytime we saw that.

 

The other night I couldn't find anything to watch, so I went to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night and bought the JP DVD set. I haven't watched the first two all the way through since--I'm serious--probably the turn of the century (funny saying it like that) So it was fantastic, almost like watching the movies for the first time all over again, except I actually understood so much stuff that I never did back in elementary school. There were so many lines I never cared to pay attention to when I was young (I remember seeing JP1 in the theater when I was 5), and it was great actually catching everything for once. I especially liked the stuff with Dennis rambling on excuses for not debugging things, because having programming experience now, I understood everything he was saying

JP1 is just so much more special to me now than it was 6 years ago, let alone 13. But sad to say, stuff looked CG to me Some of the shots still held up, but it was obviously missing the complexity in the models that systems can handle now, and things that were just developed in the last 5 years, like sub-surface scattering. JP4 better deliver then But I'm still amazed at what ILM achieved all those 13-14 years ago, and the JP1 dinos beat out King Kong's dinos IMO.

 

i think i might watch JP1 this weekend. haven't sat down and watched it in a while

 

i think i'll watch JP 1 today (sunday) good idea

 

"Clever girl."

 

Lost World is my fave film of the three, by far.

I really don't understand why everybody hates it so much. It's got great action sequences (the entire safari romp, the raptors in the grass, the RV breaking glass, running from the Compys and the final San Diego bit), not to mention twice as many dinos as in the original, a better score, and an awesome Pete Postlethwaite as a dinosaur hunter. And I love the dark tone of the film.

I wasn't a fan of the Crichton novel, so I like how Spielberg ditched most of it and made it into a safari picture. Sure the film has plot holes and annoying characters, but I watch a JP flick to see people running around being chased by dinos and this flick delivers!

The original JP is cool and all, but it lags on repeated viewings. I find the non-action parts to be a chore to sit through. Although, I liked seeing the always great-Sam Jackson in a supporting role.

JP III acts as a shorter made-for-TV rehash of the first two. The film, I believe, was still being written as they were filming. And it shows. The flick feels rushed and made without any creativity, whatsoever. Not to mention that the two sleazy people (Leoni and Macy) trick people to go to the island and get them killed. They should have had Leoni get eaten or something just to add some surprises. I guess the Birdcage sequence and the running from the Spinosaur was great, but I wish they showed us more we hadn't already seen before.

They really could have made the T-Rex/Spino battle into something epic. They could have had the two dinos duking it out and then have the Rex run away. Then at the end, the humans could be running from the Spino to the safety of the marines only to have the Rex block their path. The Rex and the Spino duke it out as the humans sneak away, with the T-Rex killing the Spino and roaring triumphantly. It could have been a nice way to echo the original and hammer the point that these islands aren't for humans.

Alas, they blew it by having it right at the start of the film and staging it for like two minutes.

 

I've been doing some researching and have discovered that they made a script for Jurassic Park 4, then slated and and are starting over from scratch. Right here


what do you think?

 

"Oh, the book was much better."

"Yeah? You know what I liked about the movie? No reading." //Jim Gaffigan

 

i'm not surprised. with all the news that we've been getting on it i can't see it being released before 2009

 

I liked the first two better than the third for several reasons:

1) The fist two did deal with moral issues. The first had to do with whether it was right to clone the dinosaurs or not. The second one dealt with taking the dinosaurs off the island and putting them in a zoo. The third dealt with nothing.

2) the third was too short. 'nuff said.

3) The third had a good premise (boy gets lost on the island) but they didn't follow it up with a good storyline.

4) Dinosaur interactions were 'bad' compared to the first two. Not enough work put into it. For example, in the second movie, you see the raptors making lines in the grass as the get towards the people. Nothing of that quality in the third.

5) T-Rex is always king. The first two established that. And when did they clone a Spinosaurus? I don't remember that as being in the park in the first place. And if they did clone one, they never said why it wasn't put in the park. Are we to assume an answer?


[/rand]

 

i agree

and if i may say how in the name of hell did the boy survive, with the addition of the "smarter raptors" and the *cringes* addition of the lamest dino in jurassic park - yep, you guessed it, the Spinosaurus

 

Spinosaurus


Spinosaurus in from the early Cretaceous era where T-Rex is from the late. This, however, got me thinking: Each era (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous) have their own balanced ecosystem. But in Jurassic Park, select dinosaurs from each era are brought together. That would unbalance the ecosystem (making Dr. Sattler right.) Perhaps that might make a base for the fourth movie.

 

actaually, that is a really good point. I never thought of it that way...what would you have in mind for the 4th movie relating to the eco system being unbalanced, and (because ive never thought about it before lol) how could you even get a story based on the unbalanced eco systems anyway.

Also, different dinosaurs live in different environments, so how could the first park control the different temperatures etc.

wait a minute...thats not the whole eco-system thing is it? or am i just trying to be smart but getting nowhere?

lmao

 

The T-rex and the Spinosaurus were seperated by millions of years. Bringing them together got the T-rex killed. See, a majority of the herbivores on the island were from the late cretaceous or late Jurassic periods, which means that they are fitted to fight the predators from those periods. What happens when the predators, which came from early Cretacious period, start hunting them. The herbivores aren't adapted to fight those predators, which makes the predators nearly hunt the island to extinction.

Now what if they decide to stabilize the island, by say, introducing predators and/or herbivors from one era. But then another group wants to kill all the dinosaurs. What do you think about that?

 

i can't see them doing a 4th movie based on the unstable environment. there'd have to be more

 

The T-rex and the Spinosaurus were seperated by millions of years. Bringing them together got the T-rex killed. See, a majority of the herbivores on the island were from the late cretaceous or late Jurassic periods, which means that they are fitted to fight the predators from those periods. What happens when the predators, which came from early Cretacious period, start hunting them. The herbivores aren't adapted to fight those predators, which makes the predators nearly hunt the island to extinction.

Now what if they decide to stabilize the island, by say, introducing predators and/or herbivors from one era. But then another group wants to kill all the dinosaurs. What do you think about that?[/quote]


thanks for that, i get it and i do think theyll get a film out of it...do you think Sam neil will be in or would it be Jeff goldblum?

sounds good at the moment anyway...so when do you think itll come out if it even does...

 

My six year old has the adventure pack with all 3 DVDs, and I've seen the movies far, far more than I ever wanted. I mean, I liked them when I saw them, but the amount of times I've seen these three movies is almost criminal.

Still, I liked the first one best.

 

Maybe some scientist makes a mutant dino or something...

 

Its been done...