I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m getting a big kick out of zookeepers posting pics of themselves doing the Chris Pratt “dino whisperer” stance:
Zookeepers Are Hilariously Recreating Chris Pratt’s Raptor Training Scene From ‘Jurassic World’
A problem I had was animals not behaving like animals, like the pterodactyls they would be freaked the fuck out after having their habitat destroyed and they would not instantly be in killing machine mode attacking prey the same size as them, they would flee and take time to recover from the stress. I mean were they being starved to death before escaping?
Even predatory animals get their fill.
Absolutely awful. Didn’t enjoy hardly a minute of it (and for anti-stick in the mud credentials I actually like JP III and saw San Andreas the night before and rolled with its stupid goofiness).
It is annoying that the window between franchise reboots gets so short. They just released a Godzilla reboot last year and then do it again this year? Makes no sense.
Until then, how about raptors on motorcycles?
You’re dirty sweet and your my girl.
I particularly like the dolphins who appear as if they’re in on the joke.
I like the veloci-otters.
Should have posted ‘you’re dirty sweet and you’re my meal.’
I’m still laughing at Tostitosaurus.
Some thoughts:
I liked it but didn’t love it. I would have liked to see more of the park, both before, when everything was normal and after when it all goes to hell.
The death of the assistant seemed needlessly brutal. It was the kind of death a bad or annoying character or possibly a faceless victim in the crowd would get and she was none of those things.
One of the things I liked about the first movie is that the dinosaurs weren’t good and weren’t bad. They were animals. The villain in this one was more than that. It was depicted as cruel and evil which kind of undercut the theme of the first one. At least the finale in this one kind of brought it back around to the “they are just animals” but having one randomly save everyone because it was hungry.
The I. Rex was bred to be hyper aggressive. Which opens up some fridge logic, like: how would the military control it? Even if you dumped it in a war zone I’m not sure it would be that great. Terrorists have plenty of RPGs, which would presumably wreck it.
They also tried to imply it had gone kinda crazy because it was raised in isolation, but wasn’t the original T. Rex too?
Realistically speaking, there’s no particular reason for the T. Rex/I. Rex to fight. Large predators avoid conflict when possible because it’s too risky. Even if they’re super territorial they’d probably just show off until one backs off. But that wouldn’t be as fun.
I enjoyed the movie overall, but I was kind of confused about the lack of closure regarding the parents divorcing storyline. Why even include it? The parents could have been on vacation, or even just wanting to have some time alone so they sent their kids off to visit their aunt at Jurassic World.
Did they stay together? I guess we’ll never know.
MtM
To make them more relatable / pitiable so you get invested and hope they don’t get eaten.
I misread that as relatable/palatable … natural mistake!
Indeed, her death was much more terrifying and torturous than the main villain’s was. Seems a cruel and unusual punishment for mild negligence in her job. Maybe because she was British, the Hollywood plot mistook her for an evil genius and wrought vengeance.
The Asian CEO was exploded quite surprisingly too I thought - I was sure the helicopter would get stuck in the wall of the massive glass aviary dome, leading to a rush to rescue him with the glass creaking all around him, perhaps.
I did like the film but felt it owed a bit to ‘Aliens’; the baddies pursuing the weaponisation of killer creatures, plus the use of marines using bodycams and flat-lining on the HQ’s monitors.
There two different flying animals in that scene. The smaller ones who could not pick up adults were Dimorphodons and the larger ones who attacked the assistant were Pteranodon.
I was bothered by that fact that the filmmakers have apparently no idea how DNA works.
I did like that the T-Rex is the same T-Rex as the first movie and even still bore the scars from the battle with the raptors at the end of JP.
I agree with a lot of others, it was fun, but so stupid. I didn’t feel like it was a waste of time, but it was still somewhat disappointing.
I agree, the militarized dino plan was so weird. It’s much more of an evil supervillian plan, like something Dr. Evil would do, because it’s unworkable, even in a world where genetically engineering dinosaurs exist.
Yeah, the layout of the park didn’t make sense. And there weren’t enough safety measures. There are double fences and more safety measures at many regular parks with elephants and lions and other real animals, I would think in a dinosaur park they would have that and more.
I agree with all your points:
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It’s a good thing that Chris Pratt was cast, because anyone else as his character would have been insufferable. I felt sorry for BDH in her badly written role. The kids were both really annoying. Poor Judy Greer is an amazing actress who had such a bizarre role as the divorcing mother who chides her sister about not having kids.
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Right, when I first heard about Jurassic World I was wondering how a new park would even be open. I could imagine some safari type park being open, where the dinosaurs run around in an open area, and you just see them by going on a monorail overhead or something. But they didn’t seem to learn much from the first.
And the hamster balls really bothered me. They weren’t on a track. There seemed to be no way for them to stay as clean as they did. There was no way for the worker to call them back to the docking station when that was needed (although for some reason all the other people apparently went back when called other than the two kids, because as we know people always follow the rules at theme parks). And they are the perfect shape and size for dinosaurs to kick around for fun, or just accidentally squash. Even if this had been a normal day, the hamster balls are just a terrible idea.
- Yeah, I would have thought there would be a bunch of cameras everywhere in the Indominus Rex cage. I don’t remember them looking at cameras, just the heat signature. They could have had the cameras and still not seen it and then go in, it would make it marginally less stupid.
But also, there is no way for human workers to get in and out of the cage? There was no way to do any maintenance inside? And people fall in or stupidly climb in to bear enclosures and other dangerous animal pits in the real world, I guess in Jurassic World if you accidentally end up in a dino cage it’s just assumed to be a death sentence and they are okay with it. It would have made a lot more sense to have the big giant gate and it’s closed, and a smaller human sized door or gate that Chris Pratt runs out of. You could still have the dinosaur break out somehow, and it would better serve the theme of hubris causing man’s destruction, instead of stupidity causing the destruction.
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I genuinely didn’t understand all that was going on with the military stuff. Why couldn’t he tell the CEO what the genetics stuff was? Because it was some sort of joint venture with the military? And then when he died, Vincent D’Onofrio’s character took over, because something that was stated and I don’t remember, but I’m not sure if it made sense either.
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The DNA stuff didn’t bother me too much, it’s silly and unscientific, but it’s the silliness I can go along with.
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The I. Rex talking to the raptors was also very silly. A human who grew up in isolation wouldn’t inherently be able to talk with other humans. Very stupid, but didn’t bother me too much.
I agree about the kids, they were annoying. Both the “genius” younger brother, who showed his genius by spouting off numbers, and the teenage brother who stared agape at girls. They’re not the worst kid characters I’ve seen in movies, but they were annoying. I just saw San Andreas a few weeks ago, and there was a precocious kid in that who was so much better. I actively was cheering for him to live, while I kinda wanted at least one of these two kids to die.
Also I agree about I don’t understand that they needed to make the biggest scariest dinosaur to keep attendance up. Attendance appeared to be pretty good from what we saw. Disney does introduce new rides and attractions, but Disney has been around longer. And Jurassic World is likely a much rarer/more expensive trip. Most of those kids that are there have likely never been there before and have been dreaming of going their whole lives. I do not see them all being that jaded about seeing a T. Rex that a new carnivore has to be designed.
That was so weird and out of place. He’s a nerdy kid exciting about dinosaurs, on a monorail overlooking a dinosaur habitat, and he starts crying about his parents divorce? It might have made slightly more sense for him to start crying at the hotel at the end of a long day, but even then, it would have felt out of place in the movie. Like someone else said, you easily could have just had the parents wanting some time to themselves, or not being able to take off work, and sending the kids off.
Honestly, Bryce Dallas Howard’s character didn’t bother me too much. It’s how the other characters and the movie kept treating her that bothered me.
She starts off the movie as the serious business ice queen. She’s shown as being fairly good at her job, but people keep telling her that she’s too uptight and needs to relax. She’s told that by one of the control room underlings, by her boss, and by Chris Pratt. In some romantic comedies at least the heroine is told she needs to relax when she’s complaining about how hard her job is, or how much trouble she is having dating. But in Jurassic World she is just trying to do her job and have the park run smoothly, and people out of no where are telling her to chill out. It felt like something from a movie from 20 years ago.
Also, her nephews who she hasn’t seen in 7 years are visiting. Maybe it’s not ideal that she hasn’t seen them more, but it doesn’t make her evil. And when she says that she can’t show them around but she’ll have dinner with them later they treat it like a slap in the face. She’s the head of a dinosaur park and gave them VIP passes to tour around and fancy accommodations! I didn’t get why everyone was so offended, other than she’s a woman so she should want to hang around kids.
And if I’m remembering correctly, after a lot of dino mayhem, the first time that the nephews see her again is that she shoots a dinosaur that is attacking Chris Pratt, then she and Pratt kiss, then the four of them run to a jeep, and Pratt swings it around to get it out of the way of the running people. Then the kids say “can we stay with you?!” and she says “I won’t leave you again” and they say “no, we meant him!” That would make more sense if originally Pratt saved Howard, and then the scene was reshot but that conversation was left in. But as it is, I don’t see why they are more impressed by Pratt other than he’s a man wearing a leather vest.
I do absolutely love that.
I agree, I liked San Andreas a lot more. I’m not exactly sure why, because San Andreas is just as silly and stupid. Maybe it seems more self aware of it? And I don’t remember people making as many stupid decisions in San Andreas; the peril was more from the absurd circumstances.
I agree, her death was gratuitous. It was like she was being punished for being a bad babysitter.
I didn’t think the effects were bad, but I definitely didn’t think they were great. There were a bunch of times that it seemed like the dinosaurs were obviously CGI instead of animatronic puppets like in the first one. I think it helped in the first one that a lot of it happened during the night and in the rain, it made the effects look better. The only time that it looked more real and not CGI was the hurt dinosaur laying on it’s side, and it turns out I was right, that was the only non CGI dino.
I am aware there were two different species but the ones they had shown attempting to lift other people were the larger ones, the smaller ones were way too small for that. It just seemed silly that other people were too heavy but that chick was so light they could toss her around like that.
But at least I’m willing to accept that two kids started a jeep that sat idle for 20 years.
Explain.
Do you also apply this criticism to the original JP?
The Navy trains dolphins and sea lions to scout under water and detect sea mines.
Animals trained to detect land mines.
I’d tend to agree the I. Rex wouldn’t be a very good war animal. Maybe if it was scaled down. The raptors might be pretty useful, if they can be suitably domesticated. Even if it ends up being unworkable I have no doubt the military would be interested in starting a program.
I think it might be due to the fact she was the first woman to die in the JP series. They also wanted to shoe horn the Mosasaur in there so the audience didn’t forget about it before the finale.
I’m far from being an expert on military matters, but I see a big difference between animals scouting and bringing information back like about land mines, and animals being used as weapons. Also if a dolphin or sea lion went rogue there’s a big difference in how much damage that animal could do to soldiers or civilians, compared to if a raptor or other dino went rogue. The dinosaurs as weapons just made me think of Dr. Evil wanting sharks with lasers on their heads.
The bat bombs is a real world instance of animals being used as weapons. And it seems like possibly equally dangerous as a raptors on the loose, since they do have bombs. But that program was shut down before it was implemented, so it’s hard to judge how effective or dangerous it would have been in an actual war situation.
I wasn’t bothered by her being a woman and being killed. Is she really the first woman to die in the JP series? That would be surprising to me, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen the others so I don’t remember.
If she had just been picked up by the dinosaur and carried away presumably to her death, then that would fit in more. It was how long it took and the sequence of events that made it feel like it belonged more in a Saw or Final Destination movie.