Quite OT: Jurassic World out today*no spoilers*
Who's seen it so far? I caught a showing last night and was reminded why I loved the original as an 8 year boy.
Recaptured a bunch of the wonder for me and did what the original did, understood that the dinosaurs are characters too which is part of what made the first one so good.
Struggling to post without spoiling but it is to Jurassic Park what Aliens was to Alien. Familiar concept taken into a new direction while maintaining some of what made the original so good.
Certainly were a few cheesy moments but overall at solid B+/A- effort, with the last 30 minutes being pure popcorn summer action flick GOLD.
And as a spoiler that isn't a spoiler and is apropos for this website...GO BLUE! You'll understand if you've seen the movie.
The dinosaurs escape...again.
Saw it last night. Enjoyed it. Glad it didn't try to be tooooo serious, as that's where JP3 failed IMO. Jake Johnson was the star for me. Wish there was less CGI though.
Nothing tops the original, but I like a few homages they paid in this one.
Biggest criticism - no Jeff Goldblum cameo.
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But a closer inspection notes that Jake Johnson's character had a copy of Ian Malcom's book on his control room desk!
BOOM!
Apparently that bacon guy doesn't believe it.
I came in with tempered expectations, and they were exceeded.
Nostalgia aspect was nice, but there were some legit cool and fresh wow moments. CGI overall looked better than expected, and there was a lot of it.
My simple take- It was as good as it could have been. Worth checking out.
I did the same thing. Both me and the lady are big JP fans and we were basically expecting not much at all. And we walked out of the theater smiling and laughing because like you said, some fresh wow moments.
Also I really though the pacing the first hour was really great, it definitely built tension far more organically than 99% of action/adventure movies nowadays, which lead to that last half hour of slack jawed insert neo *WHOA* meme here feeling.
Your approach about "tempered expectations" is probably the best way to approach the film. It isn't one of the best films of the decade - and wasn't meant to be. It is a piece of entertainment for when school is out and you want to knock off a few hours.
I was excited until I saw the latest trailer... but honestly, the big evil Ingen corporation is so greedy it creates a genetically modified hybrid dinosaur, can you get any more cliche than that?
Is Ingen run by Saban and Dantonio?
The trailers are why I wasn't expecting much. I thought I basically knew what would happen because of it. The dialogue was just bad. Turns out some of that was spliced together to make two somewhat "meh" lines into one "fuck that is bad," line.
As others have said, the movie is pretty aware of what it is, and that is probably the best aspect of it. Trevorrow is 2 for 2 for me.
Very excited! Taking the afternoon off work, picking up the kids and dinoing out...
Eguardo dies.
Like I alluded to in my OP, it's like aliens to alien.
Yes, there is a similar concept but it is not as simple as repeating the same mistake twice. I was as cynical as you about it, basically thinking dinosaurs escape how is this different...and walked out two hours later with a completely different mindset.
This time and trying to not spoil, it's more like a Dr Frankenstein's monster sort of allegory. And weirdly it's almost like a self aware look and critique of our corporate culture and how it can cause problems. Trying not to be too serious about it because it is a summer action flick, but at the same time those two things stuck out for me(frankenstein allegory and corporate culture critique)
The Aliens similarties seem stronger than that. I've only seen the trailer, but even within that it apes some specific shots from Aliens pretty hard (touching the scratch marks on the wall, blood drip/guy looks up, Bryce Dallas Howard in the elevator with the flare).
The Bryce Dallas Howard shot is not an elevator. It's an homage to the first film and Malcolm's character...
But good point on the other two being aped from Aliens.
I guess when I saw in the trailer, I assumed it was an elevator. Either way, female character stripped down, with a flare, shot waist up as a door is rising up in front - its the same setup as Ripley confronting the queen. That was the first thing I noticed in the trailer.
I thought the big mistake in the first one was that they hired a shady computer janitor and gave him way too much power.
His only prior work experience was in the US Postal service.
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"No Spoilers"? It's Jurassic Park, not Game of Thrones.
I haven't seen it yet, but here are some spoilers nevertheless . . .
Someone will express concern about keeping all these dinosaurs in a theme park. Those in charge of the theme park will pooh pooh those concerns, claiming that their systems are state of the art, and there is no possibility that dinosaurs will escape.
Dinosaurs will nevertheless escape.
Some people will be eaten. The audience will not really care because wooh, dinosaurs!
Children will be in danger. They will not be eaten.
At the end of the day, the children, the hero and his love interest will be saved, and most people at the park will escape from danger. We will all learn a valuable lesson about attempting to bend nature to our will. But it will be clear that some have not learned that lesson, and that danger will again rear it's ugly head in oh, let's say three summers from now.
Apropos of nothing, I remember seeing the first Jurassic Park in theatres. Before the movie started, the woman in front of me was asking her friend about the title -- "What does Jurassic mean? Is that just a made-up word?" Anyone know the answer to her question?
There's this new thing called the internet. It's kind of handy for miscellaneous useless knowledge. Check it out.
Dear god people. No, it was not a serious question.
I'm the worst. Too eager to jump on that nerdy dinosaur wave that I haven't been able to surf since '93.
Dinosaurs existed over three specific time periods called Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. Each spanned millions of years.
Jurassic just sounds cool. A lot of the dinosaurs they use existed in one of the other two periods.
Until about 15 years ago, one of the creatures used in the new film previously was unknown to mankind. . . . Many people have become Kardas-SICK of the creature.
So should there be a Jurassic Park prequel called Permian Park? The only animal I recall from the permian time period is the dimetrodon. It was in a book I had as a kid over 30 years ago and the name stuck because I thought the sail on its back looked really cool.
The one thing I hated about the first one was that the boy and girl were too annoying. Can the same be said about JW?
That's the worst thing about these movies. You want to see the annoying kids get eaten, but know that there's precious little chance of that happening. So you watch, with this faint glimmer of hope.
"Come on, raptor. That kid with the annoying voice is the slowest freakin' gazelle. And you're running right past him! WTF?!? HE"S RIGHT UNDER THAT LOG!
No wonder you and your idiot kin went extinct."
I mean, little Timmy got absolutely roasted by an electric fence THAT WAS MEANT TO DETER DINOSAURS, and he was completely fine. Just put some contaminated cloth over that 4th degree burn and you'll be okay, sport.
Same with the kid from Temple of Doom, the constant bickering ruinied it for me. Why couldn't his heart get ripped out of his chest?
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I read an article that his brother was auditioning for the role but the casting crew saw him showing his brother how to act out the scenes and he got the part instead. Sounds like an asshole to me.
I actually thought the kids in Jurassic World were great. Obviously, it's a different dynamic with two boys, but the bigger age gap made for a different dynamic. I thought both young actors played their roles very well.
Message I specifically took from Bryce Dallas Howard's character arc: if you're an unmarried woman who is career-oriented and has no kids, YOU'RE FUCKING SHIT. And, also, potential dino-bait until you find a big strapping man to protect you, and children to look after who will help give rise to your latent motherly instincts. tThese being really the only reasons a person with a vagina such as yourself exists, no?
Yes, I know, it's a movie about dinosaurs, but still I found it to be kind of a dickish and incredibly antiquated (not so) subliminal message to be communicating, particularly to young girls, and especailly after Mad Max found a way to combine supreme action badassery with a really thoughtful, subversive critique of patriarchy.
But, the dinosaur action was pretty good I suppose, and I wasn't going in expecting anything more really.
It was aiight, basically.
I hear what you're saying, but in the first film didn't Sam Neill's character have a similar arc, in which he didn't like kids at first but then discovered a paternal side in protecting Hammond's grandkids from velociraptors (as one does)? I recall one of the final shots of the movie was the kids resting against him in the helicopter, while Laura Dern looked on approvingly.
As a larger issue I agree that popular media sometimes suggests to women that their greatest value is as a set of ovaries, but given that this franchise has already done a similar arc with a dude in this instance it may be a case of homage, rather than retrograde misogyny.
Interesting thought Fuzzy, because I was in the wow this is kind of a tired trope camp.
She does end up doing something ridiculously badass in the movie which is a nice...but yeah, even if it was an homage, and it may well be, it still feels mildly wonky. Then again at the same time if you ignore her gender she was cast as Dave Brandon in charge of a theme park. She talks about the wow factor, and needing to impress shareholders and measuring 'guest satisfaction'
Which given how many Dave Brandon sorts there are in the world is a case as noted of the movie being self aware of current issues.
I spoke with the concession stand workers about your popcorn. They don't like you, because you're constantly complaining about the food quality.
Oh, and that wasn't butter. They served up somethin' special just for you.
Glad to hear JW is not bleah, which is what I had been hearing prior to this thread. And yeah, Mad Max was feminist and awesome. I think one of the great things about it is that it celebrated all women, mothers and kick-ass imperators, and while it certainly took a dim view of a statist patriarchy, it also endorsed the typical male role of hero, protector, and guide.