Funny, I had the mistaken impression the lack of spark plugs would make push-starting a diesel easier.
And also that diesel engines were an option for civilian jeeps, apparently.
Anyhoo, the jeep’s tires would certainly be flat, but no matter. A far bigger contrivance is the D’Onofrio character’s determined stupidity in wanting to use the raptors in a combat role, even after he’s seen with his own eyes how they almost ate their “alpha”, who barely saved himself by barrel-rolling under a descending cage door.
What if you took some of that DNA-magic stuff and bred, I dunno, super dogs that could and would charge into tunnels and mangle the terroristy goodness within? If you’re going to breed war-animals, maybe consider a version a little more cuddly and a little less boomerang-grenade-like.
And I was incidentally getting a little tired of:
MASSIVE FOOTSTEP BOOM
MASSIVE FOOTSTEP BOOM
MASSIVE FOOTSTEP BOOM
[Super T-Rex’s snout comes into frame near cowering humans, withdraws]
MASSIVE FOOTSTEP BOOM
MASSIVE FOOTSTEP BOOM
MASSIVE FOOTSTEP BOOM
[five-second pause, human character stands up to see if the coast is clear]
No, it’s not clear, you fucking idiot; he only took three steps - he’s still standing there! If he’d walked away, you would have heard and felt a lot more MASSIVE FOOTSTEP BOOMS gradually fading in the distance. Why are you constantly being surprised by the ten-ton biped?
Gotta agree with you here, wanted to reach for the vomit smiley. The shoes were the worst, but their whole relationship=dreck.
When the raptors all look back in unison=oh shit.
Gyrobuggies=want!
Big bore lever action carbine=probably useless, but want!
Apropo of nothing, but one thing I do like about JP3 is when they find the kid and he’s darting around in the undergrowth with a green cape, using cover and concealment, behaving, ya know, probably just like an early mammal in that environment would=cool.
Also I thought the center mass body armor on the asset containment red shirts was stupid, they needed something a little more medieval, or more Aliens.
I liked the movie but it was a dumb as an empty box of rocks and chock full of cardboard characters. You knew 5 seconds after each character was introduced whether they were going to be eaten or not. I really disliked Pratt’s character because it was almost over the top and I wasn’t impressed by his acting.
At least Claire was competent. In the past it would have been Pratt who brought the T-Rex into the fight.
Even worse was that the paddock door could be raised by pressing a single button. Pretty poor design!
I’m embarrassed to admit, though, that most of the flaws of the movie were made moot by the 'raptors going hunting. I thought that was sweet.
True to form, the standard JURASSIC template was in full effect:
(1) Arrogant corporate asshole? Check. Because it’s not enough to have badass dinosaurs that eat people. You also have to have a greedy, ridiculously myopic dickhead to make things even worse.
(2) Irritatingly precocious kids? Check. Though not quite as hateful as the kids in the first two, these still got on my nerves early and often, and they were on their own and managed to restart a 20-year old abandoned car and make their way across the island. The older brother was first on my Hopes He Gets Eaten list.
(3) Ridiculous female lead? Check. Props to Laura Dern for while she didn’t really act much like a scientist, she also wasn’t a blithering idiot like Julianne Moore was. But now comes BDH who, once the park is genuinely compromised, starts acting like no human on earth would ever act and does one phenomenally stupid thing after another. And the heels in the jungle thing is just as preposterous as the My Daughter’s a Gymnast thing.
In fact, this is why my favorite of the films remains JP3. Corporate asshole? Nope. It’s just people eluding dinosaurs, which should be enough for any film. Precocious kid? That kid is easily the best in the series–smart, resourceful, without spewing one-liners or oh-so-convenient specialized skills. Ridiculous women? My hatred of Tea Leoni knows no bounds, but at least she plays a normal Midwestern housewife, which forgives some of her behavior (which, in retrospect, is not really so bad). What excuses do Moore and BDH have? Plus, it uses pterodactyls better than JW, too.
One other thing: I’ve seen people go apeshit over Disneyland 60 years after it opened. The notion that people are ho-hum jaded with freakin’ dinosaurs after 20 years simply defies credulity. It’s a huge contrivance necessary for the chain reaction of stupid decisions to be set in motion (just like the horrible Newman subplot in #1). Is Pratt fun? Yes, and even believable as a raptor Alpha, which is saying a lot. But the movie was dumb. Not fun dumb. Just dumb dumb.
When he younger kid started sobbing because Mom and Dad were getting a divorce, my soul writhed in frustration because I very much wanted him to die but I knew that he would not.
I saw it today with my teenaged son who was prepared to hate it. He didn’t. We both enjoyed it, though not as much as Jurassic Park. It easily outshone The Lost World and Jurassic Park III, although it had similar levels of ridiculousness.
Chris Pratt was great. He’s always playing Chris Pratt, but I LIKE Chris Pratt, so that’s okay.
The scientist gave a vague response about their use of tree frog DNA, as though it were an accidental effect, but D’Onofrio’s character later made a comment that made it clear they were trying to breed their killing machines to evade heat-detection, to make them more suitable for military use.
I saw it yesterday. It was fun enough, although I agree that you could tell almost immediately who would be eaten and who would survive. (No way would Vincent D’Onofrio survive and Irrfan Khan was way too cocky about his flying ability, given how inexperienced he was.) When the troopers went after the Indominus rex, their ammo seemed way too underpowered. Why didn’t they just send a grenade or a mortar down her mouth? And the Mosasaurus looked too crowded in that lagoon.
I also wondered about the logistics of the project. Twenty-thousand visitors, mostly from the US, flying into Costa Rica and then traveling by ferry to that island.
We saw the movie this morning and despite its formulaic nature, we enjoyed it.
Not to derail the discussion, but I owned a 1979 Malibu. If those kids could help grandpa keeping that piece of junk running, a 20 year old Jeep would be an easy task…
Stan Winston’s homage was a restaurant in the park named “Winston’s”, Malcom’s book showed up twice, the unfortunate assistant was reading it as was the tech guy.
Also, it’s been confirmed it is the same T-rex from the first film. I did notice the older scars on it from it’s previous fight with the raptors.
From an interview with Colin Trevorrow:
"You mentioned earlier that there’s a dinosaur that we have seen in the previous films that we’re going to get to see.
Trevorrow: The T. rex that’s in the film is the T. rex from the original Jurassic Park. She is 22 years older. But she’s not limping around.
Will audiences immediately recognize that it’s the same–?
Trevorrow: I hope so. Yeah. I mean, we took the original design and obviously, technology has changed. So, it’s going to move a little bit differently, but it’ll move differently because it’s older. And we’re giving her some scars and we’re tightening her skin. So, she has that feeling of, like, an older Burt Lancaster. And this movie is her Unforgiven."
Movie was awesome. Half the complaints in the thread were either explicitly explained or the movie was winking hard. Like when the camera panned down to show her still wearing the high heels in super slow motion, how do you not laugh?
Hating on an uptight career woman who realizes she wants kids? Yeah, that never happens.
I thought the trailers were red flags but the raptor scenes ended up being the best parts. Had a flashback to How to Train Your Dragons 2, though, what with the big antagonist monster stealing your dudes then having the scene where they rebond. I approve of this sappiness, though.
Were the hippie dippie environmentalist messages overwrought? Maybe. But I felt bad for the raptors and even the I. Rex all the same. They’re just innocent animals caught up and victimized by man’s hubris. The I. Rex was basically held in solitary its whole life and lost its mind and was given all these over the top hunting instincts because of the big bad military. Let’s all get in a drum circle, man.
Chekhov’s mosasaur! Perfect.
I’m not sure what they’re supposed to do after this one, though. Jurassic Park in Space! Zombie Nazi Dinosaurs? Raptors with jetpacks?
I’m expecting a fan animation of raptors going into a cave and eating a bunch of terrorists. What a great plan.