Jurassic World

Not really, it's pretty awful. Still awesome in how putrid it is, but I think it doesn't resist second viewings because then it stops being awful awesome and becomes awful awful.

The mosasaur has plenty of time to practice hunting skills while she burns off the fat reserves gained in captivity. I doubt she would not figure out hunting tactics before that.

At one point in the film, she grabbed a piece of shark that was already in the water when she noticed it, so she knows not all food is above the surface. Plus I'm sure iRex clawed at her when she beached herself to grab her, and she managed just fine, thank you.

edited 31st Dec '15 5:58:29 PM by Bk-notburgerking

Something just randomly popped in my mind.

If any of the characters from JW returns in the sequel, I want to see the character suffering from some sort of trauma from all the ordeals, even just to a small degree.

Would Bad Dreams and persistent anxiety/paranoia about anything that seems to pose a chance of repeating that incident in some way be sufficient?

Only if there's a talking velociraptor who addresses the character as, "Alan!"

In fact, I want the talking velociraptor to follow them out of the dream and be a persistent hallucination.

Oh God, I would LOVE to have Alan Grant in JW sequel. Or Ian Malcolm.

Heck, both if possible. By possible I mean capable of writing a coherent story with them.

I wouldn't mind catching up with Tim and/or Lex and see how they feel about the commercialized success of the place that scarred them for life as children.

Imagine having a kid who thinks Jurassic World sounds like the coolest thing ever and desperately wants you to take them, and every time they bring it up, all you can do is PTSD flashback on teeth and claws.

EDIT: I assume Ian Malcolm does a holy ritual every morning where he wakes up, faces in the direction of Jurassic World, and sends up a giant middle finger.

edited 1st Apr '16 10:23:11 AM by TobiasDrake

You. Please write the screenplay for the next movie.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind a whole movie about the park without it having to close down. You ask me, the first half of Jurassic World, with the characters all having fun with the animals was the best part. Even the staff monitoring the condition of the park and complaining about dealing with rambunctious dinosaurs had a special charm to it.

Give me a movie about all the trials and tribulations about restarting the park, trainers getting the know their animals, and winning back public trust.

Also, there was this from yesterday:

edited 2nd Apr '16 12:02:02 PM by Parable

The problem with Jurassic Park as a franchise is that it has as its message 'do not do this cool thing'

And the public is like 'but the cool thing is so cool'

People will always err on the side of DINOSAUR THEME PARK.

... Wait, if he got a prosthetic arm, then that means that dismembered arm really was his... so how the hell did he survive having an arm ripped off without immediate medical attention? Wouldn't he have died from the rapid blood loss, since there are several major arteries? How did he even escape from the raptor that persumably was responsible for his dismemberment?

The answer to all of your questions is: Because the 1st of April is a lovely time for wild claims.

edited 3rd Apr '16 6:27:00 AM by TobiasDrake

I knew that had to be a joke. I doubt anyone in the business holds up Snakes on a Plane as his best work and immediately go "I want that guy!"

So will the next one have any overly-long and drawn out, gratuitous, and incredibly mean-spirited death scenes for characters who don't deserve it as well? Because I didn't think that it was possible to rival the sheer awfulness that was Eddie's death in TLW, but boy if this movie didn't try and give it a run for it's money with a certain character.

Probably. This franchise has a tendency to kill off people who didn't really deserve it while letting some of the more obnoxious ones - like Nick, the secret villain of Lost World - survive. At least Eddie's death was over quick enough and acknowledged by characters who were legitimately aggrieved by the loss.

• MALCOLM: You might show some respect. The man saved our lives by giving his!

The first film killed off Muldoon and Mr. Arnold, the two characters involved in the Park's construction who aren't complete shitheads, while letting John Hammond walk free. JP 3 slaughtered all the mercenaries brought to the island to protect the Kirbies and their kidnap-victims on their suicide mission, but the Kirbies get to have a happy ending and ride off into the sunset together.

The JP movies have never been very good at prioritizing which characters narratively deserve to be eaten.

edited 4th Apr '16 9:27:56 AM by TobiasDrake

This franchise has a tendency to kill off people who didn't really deserve it while letting some of the more obnoxious ones - like Nick, the secret villain of Lost World - survive.

Just like real life, then?

There's no such thing as atheist fiction. Everything that happens within the Work is governed by an all-powerful and all-knowing God: the author.

Everything within the work happens for a reason. When someone wears a certain outfit, it's for a reason. When someone makes a choice, it's for a reason. When someone dies, it's for a reason.

In horror/thriller Works, death happens with a purpose. Frequently, that purpose is to punish. The despicable members of the cast are neatly killed off by the monster while the ones the narrative considers good and virtuous make it out the other end unscathed.

For an example: In real life, children would be eaten by dinosaurs rather easily. In Jurassic Park, there has never been a single child fatality. Even the little girl from The Lost World's opening survived her injuries and recovered. Children never die in Jurassic Park because Author Almighty isn't willing to allow children to die.

Until a velociraptor eats a 12-year-old, "just like real life" doesn't really fly.

edited 4th Apr '16 9:35:10 AM by TobiasDrake

Though the way the scene transition was structured made it look like she turned into Ian Malcolm. XD

This ain't real life. And the films cannot present themselves as morality places about mistakes and consequences, like they love to do, and then pull stuff like this.

There was no reason for Zara's death to be that gratuitous, and there's no real emotional kick for it since she was barely a character in that movie. And Eddie's death was anything but "quick." And he might as well have had "dead meat" tattooed to his forehead (Zara to for that matter) from the moment that he walked onscreen, it was that predictable.

And my biggest problem with TLW particularly, the hypocrisy of it. It paints Malcolm and co as heroes, never once has them display even the slightest hint of self-reflection or guilt, and yet THEY'RE the ones constantly being reckless, getting people killed through said recklessness and idiocy, and the EEVVIIILL hunters, still SAVE THEM when they don't have to, repeatedly. And yet the movie wants me to see said hunters as the bad ones, um NO MOVIE!!

It's why I'd take JPIII over TLW any day. At least the hypocrisy and pretentiousness isn't present there.

Of interest: the first movie actually uses dinosaur victims as a way of creating a faux sense of placement on the "Good Guy/Bad Guy" spectrum for its animals.

The initial tyrannosaurus scene is terrifying, but she only kills the blood-sucking lawyer, Gennaro. She also injures Ian Malcolm but doesn't manage to kill him or anyone else on the scene. Gennaro's death happens with a purpose: the movie goes out of its way to portray him as a Bad Guy; he immediately rolls over on the park's safety concerns when he realizes how profitable it's going to be, and he abandons the children to die in the car.

By only being able to kill Gennaro, the film creates a false impression of Rexie as one of the Good Guys. This comes into play in the end. The velociraptors, conversely, are depicted as Bad Guys because they kill Mr. Arnold and Muldoon; brave, heroic characters. Because the raptors kill Good Guys, they establish themselves as Bad Guys. But because Rexie has only eaten a Bad Guy, she's able to come to the rescue in the final moments and save everyone by attacking only the raptors as heroic music swells.

And nobody questions it. She doesn't pay a single mind to our heroes and we're okay with that because we're able to associate Rexie as someone who only kills Bad Guys. This association even comes back into play when Rexie - the exact same Tyrannosaurus, mind you - shows up in Jurassic World to only kill the iRex. Even though she's ostensibly a giant, predatory dinosaur who will eat anyone, the narrative has gone out of its way to prevent Rexie from eating anyone the audience likes so that there is no question at the end of either film that she is here to heroically save the day.

In essence, even though she should logically attack anyone on either side of the protagonist/antagonist spectrum, Rexie has earned herself Hero credibility because her only victims have been the blood-sucking lawyer, the villainous velociraptors, and the sinister iRex. Audiences f*cking cheered for her in JW's final scene.

edited 4th Apr '16 9:45:05 AM by TobiasDrake

So, a movie can't portray life ever being unfair and random, even as side details in the context of an otherwise moralizing overall theme?

Who the fuck ever actually wrote that rule anywhere? Are dinosaurs supposed to take your Moral Alignment before trying their best to bite your head off, and if you pass your test they only half-try?

And yet the movie wants me to see said hunters as the bad ones, um NO MOVIE!!

The movie still ends up portraying the lead hunter as a man of morals and principles and legitimate badass, however. I never got the feeling we were supposed to hiss on him.

edited 4th Apr '16 9:45:52 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Yes, but it does that by having him abandon his lifestyle and turn against InGen. His final scene is snubbing an offer of a job with the words, "I've spent enough time in the company of death," a complete 180 from the man who once said, "Somewhere on this island is the greatest predator who ever lived, and the second greatest predator must take her down."

It's not about how hard they try. It's about whether the narrative allows them to succeed. Consider also the Motorcycle Raptor Squad.

They try to eat several people throughout the movie. They try to eat that feeding kid in the beginning as well as Owen. They try to eat Owen, Claire, and the kids in the third act. They even manage to corner Barry inside a log. But they fail, over and over again they fail. The only people the raptor pack manages to kill are Hoskins and his mercenaries, who we are meant to despise. This allows them to retain their Good Guy Cred for the climax, when they and Rexie defeat the iRex and save the day.

When Barry is trapped in a log, fate conspires to save his life because he doesn't deserve to be disemboweled by one of his raptors and because the raptors are meant to be sympathetic later. But when Hoskins is backed into a corner, nobody comes to save him because the narrative wants him to be punished for his crimes. Whether a character lives or dies is a moral judgment by Author Almighty, either on the victim or the killer.

EDIT: In fact, the very scene of the raptors attacking the mercenaries aptly demonstrates how it feels about both sides by presenting a mercenary blowing up a raptor with an RPG as a tragic, unjust death. The film wants you to be on the raptors' side, even though they're a threat to the protagonists as well.

edited 4th Apr '16 10:03:24 AM by TobiasDrake

And Roland's best friend/partner had to DIE a really gruesome death in order for that to happen as well.

And as an aside, Nick makes the most asshole decision in the entire movie, and yet the film plays him up as a hero for it. There's a T-Rex rampaging through the camp (which it only found because supposed "animal expert" Julianne Moore was stupid enough to leave her BLOODY BACKPACK hanging up in the air for it to smell, oops) and eating people. Roland goes to shoot it, and finds that the shells have been removed from his gun. So he has to spend more time, again while the T-Rex is still on the attack, to run back, grab a tranquilizer gun, load it, run back, and shoot the T-Rex. At the end, why find out that it was Nick who removed the bullets. He is responsible for EVERY death and maiming that the T-Rex does during that time, and yet the movie has him make a "big damn hero" one-liner and acts like it was the right thing to do.

Frankly, the only truly likeable "hero" among them was Eddie, who dies like halfway through, for ACTAULLY having a big damn hero moment.

Nick's responsible for every death in the film.

• He releases the dinosaurs in InGen's camp.
• He brings the baby Rex back to the trailer.
• He takes the bullets out of Roland's gun.

Even the Rex in the city is only possible because of the combination of all these elements.

• InGen only wanted to transport herbivores. They were very specific about this. The only reason they were willing to take the Rex is because Nick's sabotage left them nothing to show for their efforts. And then suddenly there was an unconscious Rex right there.
• The Rex was following them because of Nick bringing the baby Rex to the trailer and establishing the conflict between them and her.
• The Rex was alive and unconscious, ripe for the taking, because Roland was forced to take her down with tranq darts.

The Rex's city massacre could only happen after a series of unlikely events conspired to bring it about, all of which were caused by Nick. If even one of Nick's aforementioned actions had not taken place, neither would this scene.

edited 4th Apr '16 10:11:52 AM by TobiasDrake