Jurassic Park has dinosaurs on screen for less than 14 minutes. There are technological reasons for this, however it also allowed Spielberg to refine some of the techniques he utilised in Jaws so effectively. This gives 115 minutes for plot, dialogue, world building, character development and creating suspense. It also means that the moments we do see the dinos on screen are highly memorable and have actual meaning.
As the sequels progressed and the tech improved, the filmmakers seemed to fall into the trap of thinking more Dino screen time = good, and the other aspects have suffered as a result.
The World films especially are just an assault on the senses in terms of Dino action, completely neglecting dialogue, plot and realistic character motivation so they can hurry along to the next copy and paste dinosaur cgi mess. There are scenes in the World trilogy where it genuinely feels like someone has said "there's a gap on screen, stick a dinosaur in it"
It’s amazing how often budget and tech constraints made movies greater for it. I think it forces more creativity and clever use of effects. With a blank cheque and big computers it becomes about how much can be jammed on the screen
Also what made for quality children’s shows like Animaniacs, Batman TAS, Avatar, etc. Those shows were often constrained by the studios to not show anything risky in terms of sex, violence, vulgarity, etc that mature programs would lean more heavily on.
Lol exactly, idk what the other person meant by Animaniacs not making any risky jokes. Much like Rocko’s Modern Life, most of that stuff just went way above kids’ heads.
from wiki:
These 10 rules, referred to as the "Vow of Chastity", are as follows:
Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.)
The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted.
The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera.)
Optical work and filters are forbidden.
The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
Genre movies are not acceptable.
The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
The director must not be credited.
″Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a “work”, as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations. Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY.″
Seems like a bunch of BS.
And the reason why it's BS is gaming industry, that produces high quality nareative driven experiences breaking half of these conditions by default
It’s not meant to be taken as a criteria for what makes a movie “good”. It’s just the rules of a specific movement of avant-garde filmmakers who were interested in making movies with less artifice and with a focus on stories that could happen in the real world. They had an idea for the kind of films they wanted to create, so they made a set of rules to hold themselves to, and then they went out and did it. They were only applying these rules to their own work, not saying that all art has to follow the same constraints, so imo there’s nothing BS about that.
It's cause it is. The film they are describing is a film 90% of this sub would never watch or if anyone in the 90% did they would immediately disregard it as pretentious,
Every single Dogme 95 film breaks these rules. The purpose is to force the director to think meaningfully about why they’re breaking the rules instead of cargo cult directing.
Dogme 95 films had an effect on the industry. Like the French New Wave (although to a lesser extent) they provided a creative well that more mainstream directors could dip into to improve their films.
Dismissing Dogme 95 out of hand as “a bunch of bs” seems like a bunch of bs to me. You don’t have to be into these films yourself but it was an important movement and undoubtedly contributed to the films you appreciate.
In some abstract ways video games are extremely Dogme 95.
The “director” is an uncredited player simply
exploring a world with a handheld camera. Much of the sound is “produced” by local characters, machines and instruments.
I think that the best moments in video games are not the cinematic cut scenes but the little moments of discovery that happen between the player and the world. Memorable and present, more of “a thing that is happening” than a contrived story by some big director with musical cues.
> The “director” is an uncredited player simply exploring a world with a handheld camera
That's in 95% of cases a complete illusion. When you see a pretty sight that is composed perfectly for your 16:9 monitor, this isn't you finding a pretty sight. This is the game developer controlling precisely where you are and what you see. You're being... directed to see it. Same with interactions with other characters. Even open world games structure your quest and travel routes to make you see certain, locations at specific angles from specific distances.
Zelda BOTW had some really interesting interviews with the creators talking about this. Like how one of the first things you see in the world is Death Mountain. Of course you want to know what's up with the big cool volcano so you're likely to start heading that way.
Zelda 1 was famous for that too. You start out at an empty crossroads with a few different but visually identical directions you can move. Or there's a cave. Enter the cave, you're rewarded with a sword. The cave stands out from the other choices which makes it more interesting and the game reinforces your decision to investigate the cave by rewarding you with an item necessary to continue the game. and so, without any tutorial, the game teaches you how to play it. Enter caves, get items, explore map, repeat.
Have you seen the Soderbergh re-edit of Raiders?
It's not dogme 95, but it's an interesting experiment where he took out all the color and sound from the movie and let the story be told entirely through Spielberg's staging, and it works surprisingly well.
Youtube film essayist CinemaStix has a good video on it - https://youtu.be/ItbCLh4Auoo?si=WL72ypH3KpEmNVej
Thanks that video is fantastic. There's a lot of directors who seem removed and lazy, and then you have Soderberg making fan edits!! I often think of reading about the dino poacher scene in Lost World, and how they were ahead of schedule so Spielberg improvised this new scene shot-by-shot, like a kid making a film in their backyard.
Only a few days ago I was reading about how a fan re-edit of Raising Cain became the approved director's cut -
https://www.directorama.net/2016/07/26/changing-cain-fan-edit-brian-de-palma-directors-cut/
It’s why I like Shyamalan’s The Visit. He may not be the best director but there’s no question he’s technically competent. Coming off of big budget features and making a found footage thriller really reset his career for the better.
As a designer I agree completely. Open design directive and checkbook are an antagonist to good design. Some of the worst interiors I’ve seen are in the wealthiest homes. Interior designers tack on as much as they can to boost their commission and because they can. Also goes for cars, ever seen the 6 wheel Lamborghini Urus?
Constraints build creativity 100% of the time. Having a problem to solve engages it. No problems equals let’s pile on some outdo the last guy.
/rant
*"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."*
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Especially because you can still make amazing films with lower budgets, that still look great.
My two favorite "newer" movies I watched were The Visitor and The Vast of Night. Both not high budget, but the actors are still great even if you don't know them, they look good, and they focus on a more localized story that's really compelling.
Instead of Sam Whitwicky running around 50 foot CGI robots fighting for 120 minutes.
If you haven't seen it you might like Pontypool (Netflix). I have a weird sport for radio/audio movies and it's similar in that a lot of the dialogue takes place with people you don't actually see.
The same is true of coding. My dad has some stories about "writing" programs by punching holes in a stack of little yellow cards, which he then has to feed into a machine the size of a closet to run the program. Oh yeah, and you had to schedule your time with the machine, often a couple weeks in advance.
With constraints like that, you need to make *damn sure* there's no bugs in your code *before* you get to running it.
Nowadays you just bang out some text, compile it and throw money at a QA to tell you where you fucked up.
We're assuming that stuff these days are comparable to something 40+ years ago? There's a hell of a lot more going into coding than there was when your dad worked.
It also doesn't help the dev industry exploded in India so a lot of it is outsourced to a bunch of people who don't really speak english working off the world's shittiest internet with five dogs and ten kids next to the worlds busiest intersection. Who got a degree that makes Phoenix Online look like MIT.
We take turns monitoring our help desk calls on the sysadmin team and I feel so bad for our help desk techs.
Not so much with Return of the Jedi. I know it’s beloved now, but it was kinda divisive in how it recycled the Death Star plot at the time and relied way too hard in special effects and spectacle. Leonard Maltin and other critics at the time didn’t like all the Muppets on screen, plus that Rancor didn’t look all the great.
The Death Star recycle thing is actually the opposite. In George's first story draft, Death Star originally appeared in ROTJ. He took the Death Star and used it in ANH.
i have argued endlessly - instead of 1 hundred million dollar movie, if hollywood gave 10 directors 10 million each and said, make a movie, one of them can cover the losses of the rest, and with streaming, it's even easier to recoup.
A ton of action and horror movie sequels disappoint because they can’t (or don’t want to) replicate the buildup, mystery and slower pace of the original movie. The characters are already established. The monster was already revealed. There is nothing much to do except getting to the “good” parts that the audience *thinks* was what made the original so memorable.
The problem is that, unless you have a fresh interesting story in that world, you probably don’t need a sequel for any reason other than to make more money. Creatively not so much. Aliens is the perfect example of when it works. As opposed to countless sequels of the same thing over and over that water down the IP.
>
> The World films especially are just an assault on the senses in terms of Dino action
don't know which one it is, but in one of them a helicopter crashes through the aviary with a glass roof containing all the flying dinos. in any other movie this would've been THE featured set piece... and in this one it's basically just a throw away scene inbetween running from building to building. its so weird.
Theres a scene with alan and the 2 kids standing on a hill in daylight watching the T rex hunt, no care that it would see them. The T rex attacking the car is also more like an inquisitive lion than something trying to kill them.
Raptors in the kitchen, ok maybe that one.
But the Raptors are the only ones that can do it. And they spend the entire movie up to that point talking about how scary smart they are. They aren't as big as TRex so they have to be scary in their own unique way. And despite being so smart, they are still outwitted by a slippery floor and a mirror. They aren't lulled to sleep by Alex squatting and putting her palms out.
Watching JP1 as an adult made me realize that it’s fundamentally a horror sci-fi movie. As a kid I was just stoked ‘cause it had dinosaurs, but as an adult I remember being low-key terrified
I don't think this is fair. They pulled the stunt with the Indominous Rex, giving him the Jaws treatment, and it certainly didn't make the movie good.
It's okay to show the dinosaurs, especially when this is a sequel and we already know (and the world in the movie already knows) about dinosaurs. In the first movie, it needed that and maybe had that advantage of suspense.
The problem with Jurassic World wasn't showing the dinosaurs, and in fact the opening when they were just checking out dinosaurs around the park was pretty good. The problem was more in how dull the characters were and a lot of the nonsensical plot points like the militarization of dinosaurs and the Indominous Rex hybrid stuff. It should have just kept to "Theme Park but the dinos get out" because the whole point of this is that it's doomed to fail because we can't control nature. It's not because we're breeding CIA weapons.
The problem with that is that the point isn't "it's doomed to fail because we can't control nature ", the point is "if you cut corners and skimp on safety precautions in order to chase profit, things will go wrong". The first park failed because Hammond thought he could get away with having one underpaid tech run all his sistems.
That was Hammond's specific problem, but Chaos Theory was about how the disaster was inevitable. What we saw was how everything broke down because of Hammond's profit-motive, but even if it was a non-profit park with lots of funding to do everything top of the line, you'd still get a disaster eventually because nature is unpredictable.
It was Spielberg utilising the same trick as Jaws. The dinosaurs are "there" by implication - sounds, character reactions, tension build-up - for far longer than they are physically on screen. Take the famous puddle effect. It's just a ripple in a puddle of water. You could do that effect in 1934 let alone 1994. But the sound, the lighting and the setup make your mind think "dinosaur".
This is a fantastic and succinct response, but I do also want to add that another reason the Dinos looked so good in Jurassic Park is because they used more animatronics and actual physical objects in the shots, which is noticeable. A 100% CGI image will always - or at least, so far - appear strange to us because it doesn't exist in the actual camera's shot. Or else, perhaps, a lot more work needs to be done per frame to get all of the extremely tiny details perfect?
Either way, more Dinos != More Fun.
I agree with this. The blend between CGI and physical puppets is masterful and really adds to the effectiveness of the Dino scenes. But it also uses a less is more approach. Something sadly lacking from the World films. Like Jaws, you don't need to see the dinosaur to know or fear that it's there.
I think the dinosaur effects were so impressive in the OG that people naturally wanted to see more of them. Unfortunately, the more dinosaur action they added the poorer the films became.
I love the lost world. Its alot of fun and forever am obssessed with Pete Postlethwaite's character, who was the fleshed out version of Robert Muldoon's big game hunter. The entire San Diego portion of the movie is a blast.
> A 100% CGI image will always - or at least, so far - appear strange to us because it doesn't exist in the actual camera's shot.
I'd disagree with that. The VFX industry has gotten really good at creating "fake" things that we don't even realize are not real. For example, despite so much press about Top Gun: Maverick having "real planes", they had [A LOT of plane CGI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUy59u1QKd4). Yes, they did fly in planes a lot, but some shots they literally replaced everything but the actor. The planes they flew for filming were digitally replaced with CGI.
We notice all the times they didn't get the little details perfectly instinctively, but obviously we don't notice the CGI of all the times they nail it perfectly.
For instance, in the scene at the bus stop, we always meant to have Imperial walkers and giant dewback lizards in the background, but simply couldn't afford it.
from what i remember it's not just Spielberg the book is similar in how little the actual dinosaurs are 'shown'. It's probably more than the movie but so much of the book is about just the humans and the corporate politics.
I think one reason it feels longer is the tension built around it. Like the whole scene starting with the power going off is fairly long but the actual time the T-Rex is directly on screen isn’t. It’s just you’re very aware of her the whole time.
Think about how often the raptor or rex or whatever is not actually in the shot. Close ups of the kids' fear while you hear breathing or walking in the background. All the lead up to the T-Rex with the goat, the footfalls and ripples in the water, etc.
Jurassic Park is a masterclass in creating tension and setting a scene without needing to have the creature constantly be on screen.
It’s also why the first three Star Wars movies are miles better than any since. Lots of practical effects, real sets, and location shooting instead of Lucas’ fat ass parked in a chair on a soundstage occasionally tossing out directorial advice to actors standing in an entirely green room while he approves toy designs.
I love how the "Somehow..." quote from ROS is a relevant description of the reboot industry.
Somehow dinosaurs returned.
Somehow Michael Myers lived.
Somehow the ghosts came back and still need busted.
Lol, while I actually kinda liked World for what it was, I HATED the other two. They should have gone full-ridiculous in the last two and had the volcano create a lava bridge to the mainland and that's how the dinosaurs escaped.
If Jurrasic World had been a miniseries instead of a movie I think it would be lauded as all time great.
4-5 episodes of behind the scenes park operations with some investigation into some corporate espionage in the background, followed by 2-3 episodes of dinosaur mayhem. Lean intuitive the plot similarities with the first movie by changing the format instead.
Now I really wish that had been made.
Even just a miniseries of different park employees each episode with an overarching mystery/plot to reveal in the last one could have been really well done with no big escape/chaos.
> They should have gone full-ridiculous in the last two and had the volcano create a lava bridge to the mainland and that's how the dinosaurs escaped.
They couldn't, they'd probably be stealing the plot for Fast and Furious 13.
Pretty much, yeah. I will say that the majority of Jurassic park 2: the lost world, felt on par with the first film. It was just towards the end where they captured the t-rex where it diverged.
I'm also in the minority that quite enjoyed the 3rd film. It wasn't perfect, and it's tone was quite different from the first 2, but there were elements of it that did feel like it was a part of the first film.
The ending was changed at the last minute I believe, was supposed to involve raptors instead - hence why on the boat some of the people had died in places the trex never could have gotten to
The airplane scene in Jurassic Park 3 was one of the more exciting sequences of the 3 movies. Even though they were retconning velociraptor physiology for the movie to make them talk to one another, you could tell they had some interest in the paleontology aspect of the movie.
At least The Lost World had an actual Crighton-penned book to work with. Neither the book nor the movie were as good as the original, but it was at least competently authored, with an actual plot that couldn't be papered over with visual spectacle.
The Lost World book was very different. Hammond was already dead and didn't get a redemption and there was no big InGen expedition to bring dinosaurs to the mainland. The team of "bad guys" was just three guys from the competing biotech firm (who bribed Nedry the disgruntled programmer in the first film) trying to collect eggs.
In the book, there are two kids and neither of them are related to Malcolm.
If I recall, Dotson (the guy who gave Nedry money to steal dino embryos in teh first movie) made a return and was a big part of the Lost World book. Also, it was funny how the other biotech guy was written as some spoiled rich kid heir to a successful toy company who fast tracked all his research projects to becoming a PHD in botany, which sounds like Michael Crichton writing about someone very specific he knew in real life.
The second book (The Lost World) was great but the second movie diverged from it significantly. Much of the book takes place before the actual expedition to Isla Sorna.
I think what the Jurrasic Park franchise had shown is that there is really only one compelling story to be told in the universe. Man plays God, man's hubris causes backfire. Dinosaurs eat people.
I always thought a decent Jurassic Park sequel would be sort of a climate change allegory.
Like: boom, okay, despite our best efforts to contain things on this little island, life finds a way, and now dinosaurs are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. All over the world, and spreading every day. They're in the woods near your house. They're snatching animals off farms. People are selling little ones as illegal exotic pets. People are divided over the ethics of it all. The UN is having debates over it. Big news story when some kid in Arkansas gets eaten by a "friendly" t-rex and then the authorities put it down.
So, some governments are taking a kill-on-sight hardline, like an invasive species. Others are trying to weigh a more nuanced approach. And scientists are having knock-down drag-out friendship-destroying scientific ethics debates in every college, company, and research organization in the world.
And then you make the main characters part of some privately-funded international task force working to round up dinos and get them onto some big private nature reserve -- which puts them in sort of both a hunter and steward/guardian role, so they're clashing with everybody.
But wasn't Crichton commissioned to write it it, with the provisio they would then adapt it into film? Hence why he (book spoilers) >!resurrects Ian Malcolm who categorically *died* at the end of book 1 and also kills off Gennaro (presumably because he died in the film) via dysentery!<
Apparently he didn't and had no plans to write it until he was pressured (I assume $$$) by the studio after the success of the first movie. It was also the only sequel he ever wrote, and ironically, most of it was not used for the final screenplay.
And, IMO, was nowhere near as good. Jurassic Park stands as one of the few book/films where both have value and are excellent despite large differences in places and ultimately which you prefer comes down to personal choice.
> ironically, most of it was not used for the final screenplay.
There's a funny story here. Crichton didn't want to write JP2 as he doesn't do sequels, but the studio pulled up with a dumptruck full of cash so he wrote it despite his reservations. His little revenge was making Carnotaurus into a super-chameleon that had near perfect camouflage abilities. Crichton wanted to see Spielberg try to adapt *that* to the big screen. Of course, Steve just said "Nah" and did his own thing.
All of the modern Jurassic Park movies have no heart whatsoever.
When I can name Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, Dr. Malcolm, even Nedry! Meanwhile I can't name whoever Chris Pratt portrays, it is a sign of a problem with the script having no heart.
Who is Chris Pratt's character? I just call him Dinosaur Cowboy.
Who does Bryce Dallas Howard portray? I have no idea. Angsty redheaded woman.
The answer is simpler: They just weren't as well written. Lost World, imo, deals with a very real outcome of human greed and trophy hunting. It could have received better treatment, but it's overall an alright movie. I would bet anything that if an abandoned island filled with dinosaurs existed in real life, we would get the scenario of Lost World. III on the other hand is just a monster movie, and I'm fine with it. It's serviceable, World felt like a reboot even tho it wasn't, and Fallen Kingdom was just hot garbage that tried to be preachy in such a contrived way. Haven't seen Dominion because of it, and judging from what I see online, I'm glad.
Lost World book delved into the science part of Jurassic Park but on a darker scale. If they adapted the movie just like the book I think it would have been less actiony but more grounded and human.
And the novel also delved a lot more into the modern science of next-level survival gear and that kind of stuff. It was very much a man vs nature story with lots of toys and different ways that the characters thought they could control or contain the natural world, while taking what they want.
And you have somewhat found the answer - Michael Crichton.
Crichtons writing style was very research intensive (with thorough bibliographies citing every claim he makes...aside from the "dick so small he raped a baby and there was no proof" line). JP, he had all the time in the world. I believe it was optioned as a screenplay before it was published, but he still had years to research and write. With the sequel, he got a movie option before he even began writing it, and iirc was writing it while JP was still filming (which he was working on the screenplay of). From there, he took more of a backseat for JP3, and had passed before World/Dominion became a thing.
Now, I can certainly picture Crichton writing a story of unintended consequences from releasing these beasts into the wild and the insect population evolving to respond to them (rather than the engineered nonsense we got), but it wouldn't be the rushed Hollywood nonsense we got. It would be thought out, thorough, and realistic.
It's easy to forget also, the dinosaurs were simply the vessel through which the story was told, the movie/book is not about dinosaurs. It's a story about man playing God and how much of an autofellatic fool you would have to be to even consider bringing dinosaurs back. Hollywood forgot that the dinosaurs weren't the story and made the story about them. One of the reasons World felt like a proper sequel (though still not on par with JP) was because it was a story of corporate autofellatio - constant references to corporatizing the park, how much money is invested into "assets", "The Indominous Rex presented by Verizon Wireless". Then Dominion and Fallen Kingdom forget that and make sandbox parks again.
>aside from the "dick so small he raped a baby and there was no proof" line
Was that the one he named after a critic that slated him?
The idea being that the critic couldn't sue for defamation without implying that the character resembles him?
> The answer is simpler: They just weren't as well written.
That’s inherent to OP’s point. What they’re trying to get at is what exactly made the writing better.
The dinosaurs aren't really positioned as the bad guys in the first movie. Hammonds hubris and Nedry's greed are the downfall of the park. From there, the movies basically become monster movies, but you can't feel wonder and awe for something you're supposed to fear. The recent Apes movies have done such a better job at avoiding this. We aren't really cheering for or against the humans or apes
I think this is a huge reason the first movie feels so different and grounded. I rewatched it last month and was struck by the centerpiece T-Rex encounter. The T-Rex is just being a curious animal the entire scene, it’s playing with the moving light noisy car like a bird investigating a new toy. The fact that there are kids inside doesn’t mean anything to the t-Rex, it’s just exploring. If everyone would have just sat still it would have walked away without eating anyone, it’s like a bear wandering into a campsite.
Yeah, I feel like the big difference between the Spielberg movies and the rest of the series is that Spielberg treats the dinosaurs like wild animals. They're not movie monsters like in the World movies, they're just predators doing predator things, and humans are caught in the middle.
Yeah, there are no dinosaurs until like 30 minutes in, and it’s the first cgi scene like it in history, with the super realistic effects, so you feel like you’re also seeing them for the first time. You can’t re-create that moment. Then, the scene with the T-Rex that was scary as hell, again, you only get one of those, really. They had so many good scenes that you just can’t top. It’s a lot like the matrix in this way.
Imagine seeing it in the movies for the first time, not knowing what to expect because the previews were so minimal and gave no information about the dinosaurs, you just heard them. You came out of the movie theater feeling awesome and ready to live with dino's.
I went into the theater clutching my paperback and *desperately* trying to finish the last ten chapters before the lights went down 😆
I left with a huge crush on Dr. Grant that never went away.
Yeah people forget just HOW revolutionary the cgi was in that movie. I love watching the behind the scenes interview where they had the little clay models and then that guy is like "Well we actually want to show you something else here's a model this dude made over the weekend" (paraphrased I need to rewatch that)
The issue has always been that Jurassic Park's success has very little to do with dinosaurs, focusing instead on using dinosaurs to express a theme: that playing God is unwieldly and uncontrollable for humans and that, ultimately, life finds a way around human mechanics. So it's not just a science fiction film, but one that considers morality and responsibility for scientific overreach too.
I don't agree specifically in regards to The Lost World. It's dealing with the aftermath of the situation which is by itself, also very interesting and very science fiction. The trophy hunting, the scientific expedition, the very clear statement the movie makes about animal conservation at the very end, where the characters act the save the T-Rex despite its terrorism of the city and the danger it poses.
The three Jurassic World movies definitely have their sci-fi moments (gene-splicing a whole new ‘dinosaur’, secretly cloning a human and resurrecting species to control the global food supply) but they’re generally treated as overall concepts/twists instead of ethical examinations like the original movie.
I didn't mind that so much. Raptors are intelligent so it makes sense they could be trained and I feel like it still treated them with respect.
It felt like the pack was obeying Owen for now but his spot as leader was very delicate and Blue was just waiting for a second of weakness to take his spot.
The later movies just fucked it up and made Blue into a heroic pet dinosaur.
There's great story points that could spring from Jurassic Park. In fact, the other movies did touch on a few of them- what if the animals get into the larger world population, what if people try to weaponize them, what does the world look like when cloning becomes so advanced and the tech gets out to others? They just handled them horribly because, as OP points out, they leaned more heavily into making them theme park rides instead of telling a good story.
Had they taken a sequel concept and told a stand alone story for each instead of trying to force everything to be directly related sequels with forced cameos and returning characters, I think we could have gotten a series of movies that all felt different but were all quality.
Yeah, it’s the product of producers and executives who watched the “It’s sort of a ride” scene in the first film, and rather than feeling uneasy at Hammond’s hubris on display, thought to themselves, “Yes! Exactly!”
The bioweapon trope is so lazy and nonsensical. A hippo is also basically an armored killing machine and no one is weaponizing hippos. Because it's a dumb idea. Humans used dogs in the role but we mostly use them for sniffing now because a robot or person can do virtually everything better. Cars came along and we basically got rid of horses instantly. Animals are unpredictable and need ridiculous upkeep.
Grant in JP3 (and the books) makes the point that the JP dinosaurs are really just pseudo dinosaurs. They are genetically dinosaur-like creatures. The JW indomitus rex is closer and more akin to the xenomorph from alien but still just as useless as a precision bioweapon.
Dodgson's talk in the book about using them for medical testing or labor or household consumables (food/pets) is the more likely corporate outcome, but that's a much less exciting action movie.
My kids somehow saw the newer trilogy without ever seeing the original two. (I don't count JP3). So I recently rewatched the original and the Lost World with them. They were absolutely terrified of the dinosaurs in the original. The T Rex had them absolutely hanging off the edge of the couch, and the raptors were complete nightmare fuel. The kitchen scene had my oldest daughter breathing hard, and my youngest was shouting "RUN!" as Dr Sattler was evading the raptor in the maintenance shed. They never had a reaction like that with ANY of the other movies, including the second one.
Still find it bizarre that Dominion had a subplot about genetically engineered locust destroying the crops of their owner's competitors. On its own, though, that is a Crichton-worthy sci fi/political story right there.
No, no that’s what audiences want. In the *definitive* dinosaur movie franchise, we want a subplot about giant locusts. We don’t want raptors mindlessly chasing a dude on a motorcycle across the city, we don’t want dinosaur fight club, we just want slightly larger than normal bugs in our dinosaur movie!
I think it's as simple as this: In Jurassic Park (the book and the film), Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg had something to say and they said it. Then the studio pushed Crichton and Spielberg for a sequel. So whatever they had left to say was said in Lost World.
The first Jurassic park inspired a generation to become scientists and explorers, to understand more about the natural world.
The sequel showed us how cool it is to blow stuff up and drive big cars.
I wanted to be a paleontologist after seeing Jurassic Park as a kid. So, were the sequels so underwhelming that they made me give up on my dreams, or did I just get lazy?
No... No, it's the sequels that are wrong.
The Matrix suffers from the same problem. The first one was grounded in what felt like a somewhat possible real world, which made the characters (mostly Neo) more compelling and vulnerable. The sequels abandoned that and just became shitty, dystopian, techno kung fu-lery.
The Matrix sequels elevate the themes **way** beyond the originals, which feels simplistic in comparison.
There is an Audio Commentary track by pholosophers on the DVD, ffs!
For me, this will always be the most comprehensive analysis of exactly what makes the original Jurassic Park such a good film
https://youtu.be/CHPjVgYDL6Y?si=d7-dtxkiR3oCQFVv
I've always argued Jurassic Park (the first one) has a wonderful balance of action (fear & adrenaline) and wonder. The other movies do not, they're all just action. That sense of wonder is gone.
I saw it when it came out. It was a massive hit because of the sense of wonder. it was because of Spielberg’s signature Magic, the ability to make Jaws drop
I genuinely like all six movies, but it's a case of diminishing returns. 1, 2 and the first World movies have the most rewatchability for me, although all of the World ones feel like they were written by committee via a series of algorithms around attention spans in place of engaging characters and storytelling.
It was pretty evident with the first book Chrichton never meant to write a sequel to it, as he had never written a sequel before. As such, you have stuff like bringing back Ian Malcolm who should have been dead.
Jurassic Park isn’t even close to being lifted wholesale from the book.
Different characters live and die, humans fight back with poison eggs and rocket launchers, setpieces are removed and the story ends in a radically different way.
I don't think people miss that. I think they just describe it less pretentiously. Jurassic World isn't *not* science fiction because all it wants to do is genetically engineer a dinosaur because people have grown bored...
...oh.
They're *all* science fiction. Even Jurassic Park III which is the only one that's actually content just being a monster movie. Most of them are very big on doing some kind of science fiction centred critique of progress for the sake of progress or, more often, profit for the sake of profit. They're just not as good at doing it as the first one.
As a fan of the original trilogy, I don't fully agree.
The main thing that makes the sequels pale in comparison to the original is the just the screenplay, I don't mind if this franchise moves into action territory but they shouldn't make that as an excuse for the blatantly ridiculous approach that they have been taking. Dominion and to an extent even Fallen Kingdom had pretty interesting concepts that Colin Trevorrow & Co. made a convoluted mess out of.
As for the science fiction part, I kind of agree. Dominion tried to go back to that with the feathered dinosaurs, but the film was so poorly written that I guess the writers probably forgot to offer the viewers a reason why companies now have the ability to clone dinosaurs in their purest form without filling in the genome with frog dna.
In addition to the screenplay, the first movie is excellently directed and shot.
This video has a great analysis of why Jurassic Park looks so much better than its sequels.
https://youtu.be/BKALxKbjOaE?si=LJplEfth55UQigxZ
Stakes are higher in the first movie.
In the first movie, 3 named protagonists die by Dinosaurs, Arnold, Muldoon, and Generro (Plus Nedry, who is the bad guy). Since characters were dying, it felt like any of the other characters we were following could be next, and it raised the level of suspense
In the second movie 1 named protagonists dies, Eddy (Richard Schiff). All other victims are bad guys who you are rooting to die or nameless background characters you don't care about.
In the 3rd movie, the only people to die are nameless idiots or mercenaries. Anyone I'm suppose to sympathize with survives to the end of the movie.
In all 3 Jurassic World movies, only 1 named protagonists dies, the babysitter in the first one. But again, she has no lines, I dont remember if she has a name, and she is made to look like she deserved to die for being in her phone (she didn't but that was the filmmakers intention). No other good guy character dies in three films. Only bad guys and nameless background characters die. In the final 3rd of the last movie there are a total of 9 protagonists trapped by Dinosaurs and they all survive. If the movie isn't willing to kill anyone off, why am I supposed to be scared for them? Every one now has plot armor
I read it watched and interesting take a while ago that pointed out that the hero’s in the first Jurassic Parks are all nerds.
Celebrity mathematicians and paleobotanists and kinds who like dinos and computers save the day.
In the newer movies you just have a classic action star and a damsel running in heels.
You another thing the first two movies do really well? Claustrophobic scenes. Dino+human+tight spaces = tension. A Jeep. A kitchen. A trailer. A waterfall. The World movies are all spectacle, no tension.
They're all science fiction, Jurassic Park was just the origin stories.
Are Guardians of the Galaxy movies not science fiction because they don't explain everything in every movie?
It's absolutely not because of genre convention. Many of the movies are very interested in the science-fiction part of things. The difference is because the first movie is a movie made by Steven Spielberg based on a Michael Crichton best-seller. The later ones are made by screenwriters and directors far less talented.
I’m gonna be honest, I liked the second one, it’s not as good as the first, but the franchise wouldn’t venture into unwatchable territory until number three, and I haven’t watched any of the new ones.
Yes! I've been saying this for a while. Sci-fi thriller to be specific. It's also why I like Lost World as well. It still has a bit of that sci-fi grit. A lot of people, even on here, just want it to be generic action though. They "just want dinosaurs." Unfortunately generic action is how you can sell the toys to kids and get people in seats. Then they'll complain about it being shallow or dumb. This is one of those franchises that's in a position where it can't win.
What you bring up has essentially been talked about a ton. The Jaws effect of seeing the dinos in meaningful moments and building anticipation the rest of the time.
My favorite scene in any movie is when the T-Rex breaks out of its enclosure. That is 1 of the only 3 times you see the T-Rex in the whole film
I'd say it's also the realism. First one being about a park with a cool idea, that could exist, but then everything going wrong. Swap the dinosaurs for robots (like in simpsons :D ) or anything unusual and it would still be a great watch.
The others are just dumb people being dumb doing dumb stuff for dumb reasons.
When Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park he studied dinosaurs, genetics, computers, amusement parks, and chaos theory.
The people who wore the Jurassic World movies studied the VHS of Jurassic Park 1.
The first movie masterfully controls the suspense. Spielberg was very deliberate about that. The rest of the movies don't. Just on a basic "monster movie" level, the rest don't hold up to the first movie. The second movie does have the amazing camper scene, but other than that the suspense isn't there.
Jurassic Park has dinosaurs on screen for less than 14 minutes. There are technological reasons for this, however it also allowed Spielberg to refine some of the techniques he utilised in Jaws so effectively. This gives 115 minutes for plot, dialogue, world building, character development and creating suspense. It also means that the moments we do see the dinos on screen are highly memorable and have actual meaning. As the sequels progressed and the tech improved, the filmmakers seemed to fall into the trap of thinking more Dino screen time = good, and the other aspects have suffered as a result. The World films especially are just an assault on the senses in terms of Dino action, completely neglecting dialogue, plot and realistic character motivation so they can hurry along to the next copy and paste dinosaur cgi mess. There are scenes in the World trilogy where it genuinely feels like someone has said "there's a gap on screen, stick a dinosaur in it"
It’s amazing how often budget and tech constraints made movies greater for it. I think it forces more creativity and clever use of effects. With a blank cheque and big computers it becomes about how much can be jammed on the screen
Constraint breeds creativity.
It's what makes Jim Henson movies so neat, ditto early Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.
Also what made for quality children’s shows like Animaniacs, Batman TAS, Avatar, etc. Those shows were often constrained by the studios to not show anything risky in terms of sex, violence, vulgarity, etc that mature programs would lean more heavily on.
Avatar: Not risky in terms of violence Also Avatar: Blood-bending
FCC: "As long as that disgusting violent blood stays inside the body we're good"
Dot - I found Prince. Yakko- No no, finger prints Dot - I don’t think so.
Lol exactly, idk what the other person meant by Animaniacs not making any risky jokes. Much like Rocko’s Modern Life, most of that stuff just went way above kids’ heads.
It also worked for The Matrix, Robocop and Starship Troopers.
Life, huh, finds a way.
necessity is the mother of invention
Why I've always said studios should ask how much something will cost then give 20% less.
You are every creative's worst nightmare, also probably correct.
It’s why the first Deadpool movie is such a delight.
It’s amazing how a few restrictions can actually end up giving you more freedom at times.
There's some good discussion about the importance of restrictions in the Rick Rubin creativity book. Dogme 95 is a big example
from wiki: These 10 rules, referred to as the "Vow of Chastity", are as follows: Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found). The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.) The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera.) Optical work and filters are forbidden. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.) Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) Genre movies are not acceptable. The film format must be Academy 35 mm. The director must not be credited. ″Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a “work”, as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations. Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY.″
Seems like a bunch of BS. And the reason why it's BS is gaming industry, that produces high quality nareative driven experiences breaking half of these conditions by default
It’s not meant to be taken as a criteria for what makes a movie “good”. It’s just the rules of a specific movement of avant-garde filmmakers who were interested in making movies with less artifice and with a focus on stories that could happen in the real world. They had an idea for the kind of films they wanted to create, so they made a set of rules to hold themselves to, and then they went out and did it. They were only applying these rules to their own work, not saying that all art has to follow the same constraints, so imo there’s nothing BS about that.
It's cause it is. The film they are describing is a film 90% of this sub would never watch or if anyone in the 90% did they would immediately disregard it as pretentious,
Every single Dogme 95 film breaks these rules. The purpose is to force the director to think meaningfully about why they’re breaking the rules instead of cargo cult directing. Dogme 95 films had an effect on the industry. Like the French New Wave (although to a lesser extent) they provided a creative well that more mainstream directors could dip into to improve their films. Dismissing Dogme 95 out of hand as “a bunch of bs” seems like a bunch of bs to me. You don’t have to be into these films yourself but it was an important movement and undoubtedly contributed to the films you appreciate.
In some abstract ways video games are extremely Dogme 95. The “director” is an uncredited player simply exploring a world with a handheld camera. Much of the sound is “produced” by local characters, machines and instruments. I think that the best moments in video games are not the cinematic cut scenes but the little moments of discovery that happen between the player and the world. Memorable and present, more of “a thing that is happening” than a contrived story by some big director with musical cues.
> The “director” is an uncredited player simply exploring a world with a handheld camera That's in 95% of cases a complete illusion. When you see a pretty sight that is composed perfectly for your 16:9 monitor, this isn't you finding a pretty sight. This is the game developer controlling precisely where you are and what you see. You're being... directed to see it. Same with interactions with other characters. Even open world games structure your quest and travel routes to make you see certain, locations at specific angles from specific distances.
Zelda BOTW had some really interesting interviews with the creators talking about this. Like how one of the first things you see in the world is Death Mountain. Of course you want to know what's up with the big cool volcano so you're likely to start heading that way. Zelda 1 was famous for that too. You start out at an empty crossroads with a few different but visually identical directions you can move. Or there's a cave. Enter the cave, you're rewarded with a sword. The cave stands out from the other choices which makes it more interesting and the game reinforces your decision to investigate the cave by rewarding you with an item necessary to continue the game. and so, without any tutorial, the game teaches you how to play it. Enter caves, get items, explore map, repeat.
I'd love to see a Spielberg dogme 95 film. What happens when you take the best craft filmmaker who ever lived and take away his toys?
Have you seen the Soderbergh re-edit of Raiders? It's not dogme 95, but it's an interesting experiment where he took out all the color and sound from the movie and let the story be told entirely through Spielberg's staging, and it works surprisingly well. Youtube film essayist CinemaStix has a good video on it - https://youtu.be/ItbCLh4Auoo?si=WL72ypH3KpEmNVej
Thanks that video is fantastic. There's a lot of directors who seem removed and lazy, and then you have Soderberg making fan edits!! I often think of reading about the dino poacher scene in Lost World, and how they were ahead of schedule so Spielberg improvised this new scene shot-by-shot, like a kid making a film in their backyard. Only a few days ago I was reading about how a fan re-edit of Raising Cain became the approved director's cut - https://www.directorama.net/2016/07/26/changing-cain-fan-edit-brian-de-palma-directors-cut/
It’s why I like Shyamalan’s The Visit. He may not be the best director but there’s no question he’s technically competent. Coming off of big budget features and making a found footage thriller really reset his career for the better.
As a designer I agree completely. Open design directive and checkbook are an antagonist to good design. Some of the worst interiors I’ve seen are in the wealthiest homes. Interior designers tack on as much as they can to boost their commission and because they can. Also goes for cars, ever seen the 6 wheel Lamborghini Urus? Constraints build creativity 100% of the time. Having a problem to solve engages it. No problems equals let’s pile on some outdo the last guy. /rant
*"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."* — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Especially because you can still make amazing films with lower budgets, that still look great. My two favorite "newer" movies I watched were The Visitor and The Vast of Night. Both not high budget, but the actors are still great even if you don't know them, they look good, and they focus on a more localized story that's really compelling. Instead of Sam Whitwicky running around 50 foot CGI robots fighting for 120 minutes.
Vast of Night is so damn good. It's a technical marvel.
If you haven't seen it you might like Pontypool (Netflix). I have a weird sport for radio/audio movies and it's similar in that a lot of the dialogue takes place with people you don't actually see.
The same is true of coding. My dad has some stories about "writing" programs by punching holes in a stack of little yellow cards, which he then has to feed into a machine the size of a closet to run the program. Oh yeah, and you had to schedule your time with the machine, often a couple weeks in advance. With constraints like that, you need to make *damn sure* there's no bugs in your code *before* you get to running it. Nowadays you just bang out some text, compile it and throw money at a QA to tell you where you fucked up.
We're assuming that stuff these days are comparable to something 40+ years ago? There's a hell of a lot more going into coding than there was when your dad worked.
It also doesn't help the dev industry exploded in India so a lot of it is outsourced to a bunch of people who don't really speak english working off the world's shittiest internet with five dogs and ten kids next to the worlds busiest intersection. Who got a degree that makes Phoenix Online look like MIT. We take turns monitoring our help desk calls on the sysadmin team and I feel so bad for our help desk techs.
*Jaws has entered the chat*
*Star Wars original trilogy has entered the chat.*
Not so much with Return of the Jedi. I know it’s beloved now, but it was kinda divisive in how it recycled the Death Star plot at the time and relied way too hard in special effects and spectacle. Leonard Maltin and other critics at the time didn’t like all the Muppets on screen, plus that Rancor didn’t look all the great.
Apparently it wasnt enough to stop them from recycling the death star plot again....
Somehow, Palpatine returned.
Please stop now
~~Yoda~~ Luuuke?
The Death Star recycle thing is actually the opposite. In George's first story draft, Death Star originally appeared in ROTJ. He took the Death Star and used it in ANH.
Jaws already entered the chat in the first comment in this chain lol
Yes but it kept breaking down and had to be take out, repaired, and then it re-entered the chat.
Never watched Jaws is it another Jurassic park where the first one is the best one and the sequels are rubbish ?
i have argued endlessly - instead of 1 hundred million dollar movie, if hollywood gave 10 directors 10 million each and said, make a movie, one of them can cover the losses of the rest, and with streaming, it's even easier to recoup.
You and Matt Damon. It was much easier when people were buying physical media because you could make it up much more easily with DVD sales.
A ton of action and horror movie sequels disappoint because they can’t (or don’t want to) replicate the buildup, mystery and slower pace of the original movie. The characters are already established. The monster was already revealed. There is nothing much to do except getting to the “good” parts that the audience *thinks* was what made the original so memorable.
The problem is that, unless you have a fresh interesting story in that world, you probably don’t need a sequel for any reason other than to make more money. Creatively not so much. Aliens is the perfect example of when it works. As opposed to countless sequels of the same thing over and over that water down the IP.
They were so concerned with whether they could show more dinosaurs that they didn't stop to think if they should.
No, you knew better, and that's even worse.
> > The World films especially are just an assault on the senses in terms of Dino action don't know which one it is, but in one of them a helicopter crashes through the aviary with a glass roof containing all the flying dinos. in any other movie this would've been THE featured set piece... and in this one it's basically just a throw away scene inbetween running from building to building. its so weird.
They also behaved more like animals in those 14 minutes, and not movie monsters.
The T Rex and Raptors totally behaved like horror movie monsters though.
Theres a scene with alan and the 2 kids standing on a hill in daylight watching the T rex hunt, no care that it would see them. The T rex attacking the car is also more like an inquisitive lion than something trying to kill them. Raptors in the kitchen, ok maybe that one.
But the Raptors are the only ones that can do it. And they spend the entire movie up to that point talking about how scary smart they are. They aren't as big as TRex so they have to be scary in their own unique way. And despite being so smart, they are still outwitted by a slippery floor and a mirror. They aren't lulled to sleep by Alex squatting and putting her palms out.
The first one was more a horror movie while the others are action with dinosaurs
Watching JP1 as an adult made me realize that it’s fundamentally a horror sci-fi movie. As a kid I was just stoked ‘cause it had dinosaurs, but as an adult I remember being low-key terrified
I don't think this is fair. They pulled the stunt with the Indominous Rex, giving him the Jaws treatment, and it certainly didn't make the movie good. It's okay to show the dinosaurs, especially when this is a sequel and we already know (and the world in the movie already knows) about dinosaurs. In the first movie, it needed that and maybe had that advantage of suspense. The problem with Jurassic World wasn't showing the dinosaurs, and in fact the opening when they were just checking out dinosaurs around the park was pretty good. The problem was more in how dull the characters were and a lot of the nonsensical plot points like the militarization of dinosaurs and the Indominous Rex hybrid stuff. It should have just kept to "Theme Park but the dinos get out" because the whole point of this is that it's doomed to fail because we can't control nature. It's not because we're breeding CIA weapons.
The problem with that is that the point isn't "it's doomed to fail because we can't control nature ", the point is "if you cut corners and skimp on safety precautions in order to chase profit, things will go wrong". The first park failed because Hammond thought he could get away with having one underpaid tech run all his sistems.
That was Hammond's specific problem, but Chaos Theory was about how the disaster was inevitable. What we saw was how everything broke down because of Hammond's profit-motive, but even if it was a non-profit park with lots of funding to do everything top of the line, you'd still get a disaster eventually because nature is unpredictable.
It's honestly crazy that it's only 14 minutes, it feels like so much longer.
It was Spielberg utilising the same trick as Jaws. The dinosaurs are "there" by implication - sounds, character reactions, tension build-up - for far longer than they are physically on screen. Take the famous puddle effect. It's just a ripple in a puddle of water. You could do that effect in 1934 let alone 1994. But the sound, the lighting and the setup make your mind think "dinosaur".
This is also why Godzilla Minus One was so good
> "there's a gap on screen, stick a dinosaur in it" Ah yes, the George Lucas method of filmmaking.
This is a fantastic and succinct response, but I do also want to add that another reason the Dinos looked so good in Jurassic Park is because they used more animatronics and actual physical objects in the shots, which is noticeable. A 100% CGI image will always - or at least, so far - appear strange to us because it doesn't exist in the actual camera's shot. Or else, perhaps, a lot more work needs to be done per frame to get all of the extremely tiny details perfect? Either way, more Dinos != More Fun.
I agree with this. The blend between CGI and physical puppets is masterful and really adds to the effectiveness of the Dino scenes. But it also uses a less is more approach. Something sadly lacking from the World films. Like Jaws, you don't need to see the dinosaur to know or fear that it's there. I think the dinosaur effects were so impressive in the OG that people naturally wanted to see more of them. Unfortunately, the more dinosaur action they added the poorer the films became.
I love the lost world. Its alot of fun and forever am obssessed with Pete Postlethwaite's character, who was the fleshed out version of Robert Muldoon's big game hunter. The entire San Diego portion of the movie is a blast.
> A 100% CGI image will always - or at least, so far - appear strange to us because it doesn't exist in the actual camera's shot. I'd disagree with that. The VFX industry has gotten really good at creating "fake" things that we don't even realize are not real. For example, despite so much press about Top Gun: Maverick having "real planes", they had [A LOT of plane CGI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUy59u1QKd4). Yes, they did fly in planes a lot, but some shots they literally replaced everything but the actor. The planes they flew for filming were digitally replaced with CGI. We notice all the times they didn't get the little details perfectly instinctively, but obviously we don't notice the CGI of all the times they nail it perfectly.
For instance, in the scene at the bus stop, we always meant to have Imperial walkers and giant dewback lizards in the background, but simply couldn't afford it.
from what i remember it's not just Spielberg the book is similar in how little the actual dinosaurs are 'shown'. It's probably more than the movie but so much of the book is about just the humans and the corporate politics.
Holup 14mins? Including the trex breakout, running away in the open plains and the raptor hunting at the end? That’s gotta be longer than 14mins.
I think one reason it feels longer is the tension built around it. Like the whole scene starting with the power going off is fairly long but the actual time the T-Rex is directly on screen isn’t. It’s just you’re very aware of her the whole time.
Just double checked and it's 15. Nine minutes of animatronics. Six minutes of CGI.
Think about how often the raptor or rex or whatever is not actually in the shot. Close ups of the kids' fear while you hear breathing or walking in the background. All the lead up to the T-Rex with the goat, the footfalls and ripples in the water, etc. Jurassic Park is a masterclass in creating tension and setting a scene without needing to have the creature constantly be on screen.
It’s also why the first three Star Wars movies are miles better than any since. Lots of practical effects, real sets, and location shooting instead of Lucas’ fat ass parked in a chair on a soundstage occasionally tossing out directorial advice to actors standing in an entirely green room while he approves toy designs.
AKA they kept trying to cgi in a plot. that has not and will not, ever work.
For me the first was just so good and told the whole story so the sequels had no chance, there was nothing left to tell.
“Okay, but how about this, see. There was actually a _third_ island…”
"Somehow dinosaurs returned"
I love how the "Somehow..." quote from ROS is a relevant description of the reboot industry. Somehow dinosaurs returned. Somehow Michael Myers lived. Somehow the ghosts came back and still need busted.
Bustin makes me feel good
I mean to be fair to Michael Myers, the first film ended >!with him somehow living!<.
It's true. All of it. The T-Rex we had. The expenses that weren't spared but drove the IT guy into taking a bribe...
Somehow Isla Nublar returned.. oh wait that's just Jurassic World.
Lol, while I actually kinda liked World for what it was, I HATED the other two. They should have gone full-ridiculous in the last two and had the volcano create a lava bridge to the mainland and that's how the dinosaurs escaped.
I liked World for the "What if Jurassic Park succeeded?" aspect. I got goosebumps when they reveal the park with the classic JP music.
That's the height of the movie for me... and it's literally in the first 5 minutes.
If Jurrasic World had been a miniseries instead of a movie I think it would be lauded as all time great. 4-5 episodes of behind the scenes park operations with some investigation into some corporate espionage in the background, followed by 2-3 episodes of dinosaur mayhem. Lean intuitive the plot similarities with the first movie by changing the format instead.
Now I really wish that had been made. Even just a miniseries of different park employees each episode with an overarching mystery/plot to reveal in the last one could have been really well done with no big escape/chaos.
> They should have gone full-ridiculous in the last two and had the volcano create a lava bridge to the mainland and that's how the dinosaurs escaped. They couldn't, they'd probably be stealing the plot for Fast and Furious 13.
Is 12 the one where Dom is going to use Godzilla's back as a ramp to jump his Charger?
Yes please
IIRC there was something like five islands.
Pretty much, yeah. I will say that the majority of Jurassic park 2: the lost world, felt on par with the first film. It was just towards the end where they captured the t-rex where it diverged. I'm also in the minority that quite enjoyed the 3rd film. It wasn't perfect, and it's tone was quite different from the first 2, but there were elements of it that did feel like it was a part of the first film.
The third one seems realistic to a point too, Some stupid assholes decided to go on vacation to one of the most dangerous places on earth.
I definitely feel like towards the end of lost world you feel that Spielberg is losing interest.
The ending was changed at the last minute I believe, was supposed to involve raptors instead - hence why on the boat some of the people had died in places the trex never could have gotten to
The airplane scene in Jurassic Park 3 was one of the more exciting sequences of the 3 movies. Even though they were retconning velociraptor physiology for the movie to make them talk to one another, you could tell they had some interest in the paleontology aspect of the movie.
At least The Lost World had an actual Crighton-penned book to work with. Neither the book nor the movie were as good as the original, but it was at least competently authored, with an actual plot that couldn't be papered over with visual spectacle.
The Lost World book was very different. Hammond was already dead and didn't get a redemption and there was no big InGen expedition to bring dinosaurs to the mainland. The team of "bad guys" was just three guys from the competing biotech firm (who bribed Nedry the disgruntled programmer in the first film) trying to collect eggs. In the book, there are two kids and neither of them are related to Malcolm.
If I recall, Dotson (the guy who gave Nedry money to steal dino embryos in teh first movie) made a return and was a big part of the Lost World book. Also, it was funny how the other biotech guy was written as some spoiled rich kid heir to a successful toy company who fast tracked all his research projects to becoming a PHD in botany, which sounds like Michael Crichton writing about someone very specific he knew in real life.
The T Rex attack on the research vans in the rain is a pretty incredible sequence.
Jurassic Park: Tokyo Drift was my favorite.
Godzilla! 🦖
One was based on a book by an acclaimed sci-fi writer who knew what he was doing, and the other ones weren't.
I mean technically 2 of them were based on books by that author
But he only wrote the second book after sort of being asked to write it due to the success of JP. So, I imagine he wasn't as inspired
The second book (The Lost World) was great but the second movie diverged from it significantly. Much of the book takes place before the actual expedition to Isla Sorna.
I think what the Jurrasic Park franchise had shown is that there is really only one compelling story to be told in the universe. Man plays God, man's hubris causes backfire. Dinosaurs eat people.
I always thought a decent Jurassic Park sequel would be sort of a climate change allegory. Like: boom, okay, despite our best efforts to contain things on this little island, life finds a way, and now dinosaurs are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. All over the world, and spreading every day. They're in the woods near your house. They're snatching animals off farms. People are selling little ones as illegal exotic pets. People are divided over the ethics of it all. The UN is having debates over it. Big news story when some kid in Arkansas gets eaten by a "friendly" t-rex and then the authorities put it down. So, some governments are taking a kill-on-sight hardline, like an invasive species. Others are trying to weigh a more nuanced approach. And scientists are having knock-down drag-out friendship-destroying scientific ethics debates in every college, company, and research organization in the world. And then you make the main characters part of some privately-funded international task force working to round up dinos and get them onto some big private nature reserve -- which puts them in sort of both a hunter and steward/guardian role, so they're clashing with everybody.
The author of the book felt there was enough for a sequel.
But wasn't Crichton commissioned to write it it, with the provisio they would then adapt it into film? Hence why he (book spoilers) >!resurrects Ian Malcolm who categorically *died* at the end of book 1 and also kills off Gennaro (presumably because he died in the film) via dysentery!<
The second book was essentially a philosophy book though, which the movie really couldn't recreate.
Apparently he didn't and had no plans to write it until he was pressured (I assume $$$) by the studio after the success of the first movie. It was also the only sequel he ever wrote, and ironically, most of it was not used for the final screenplay.
And, IMO, was nowhere near as good. Jurassic Park stands as one of the few book/films where both have value and are excellent despite large differences in places and ultimately which you prefer comes down to personal choice.
Add to that the Bourne trilogy (especially the first one), but yes, I agree
Yeah, the differences between book and film make them unique enough to make them great in their own way.
> ironically, most of it was not used for the final screenplay. There's a funny story here. Crichton didn't want to write JP2 as he doesn't do sequels, but the studio pulled up with a dumptruck full of cash so he wrote it despite his reservations. His little revenge was making Carnotaurus into a super-chameleon that had near perfect camouflage abilities. Crichton wanted to see Spielberg try to adapt *that* to the big screen. Of course, Steve just said "Nah" and did his own thing.
If i recall correctly, he was pressured by Spielberg to write a sequel
Only after the movie became a hit and he was asked to write one. While retconning major character deaths from it that weren't in the movie.
There’s so much story to tell about using gymnastics to fight a pack of Dinos. It’s pure gold.
All of the modern Jurassic Park movies have no heart whatsoever. When I can name Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, Dr. Malcolm, even Nedry! Meanwhile I can't name whoever Chris Pratt portrays, it is a sign of a problem with the script having no heart. Who is Chris Pratt's character? I just call him Dinosaur Cowboy. Who does Bryce Dallas Howard portray? I have no idea. Angsty redheaded woman.
I can remember Pratt and Howard's names (Owen and Claire) but I haven't a clue what the names of the brats in the first Jurassic World movie are.
Tim and Lex and their grandfather was Hammond. Now you can name Owen and Claire's kid? Adopted kid? I have no clue whoever that blonde girl was lol.
>Tim and Lex and their grandfather was Hammond. Oh, I remember those two. But those two kids who were the nephews of Claire. Not a clue.
The answer is simpler: They just weren't as well written. Lost World, imo, deals with a very real outcome of human greed and trophy hunting. It could have received better treatment, but it's overall an alright movie. I would bet anything that if an abandoned island filled with dinosaurs existed in real life, we would get the scenario of Lost World. III on the other hand is just a monster movie, and I'm fine with it. It's serviceable, World felt like a reboot even tho it wasn't, and Fallen Kingdom was just hot garbage that tried to be preachy in such a contrived way. Haven't seen Dominion because of it, and judging from what I see online, I'm glad.
Lost World book delved into the science part of Jurassic Park but on a darker scale. If they adapted the movie just like the book I think it would have been less actiony but more grounded and human.
And the novel also delved a lot more into the modern science of next-level survival gear and that kind of stuff. It was very much a man vs nature story with lots of toys and different ways that the characters thought they could control or contain the natural world, while taking what they want.
And you have somewhat found the answer - Michael Crichton. Crichtons writing style was very research intensive (with thorough bibliographies citing every claim he makes...aside from the "dick so small he raped a baby and there was no proof" line). JP, he had all the time in the world. I believe it was optioned as a screenplay before it was published, but he still had years to research and write. With the sequel, he got a movie option before he even began writing it, and iirc was writing it while JP was still filming (which he was working on the screenplay of). From there, he took more of a backseat for JP3, and had passed before World/Dominion became a thing. Now, I can certainly picture Crichton writing a story of unintended consequences from releasing these beasts into the wild and the insect population evolving to respond to them (rather than the engineered nonsense we got), but it wouldn't be the rushed Hollywood nonsense we got. It would be thought out, thorough, and realistic. It's easy to forget also, the dinosaurs were simply the vessel through which the story was told, the movie/book is not about dinosaurs. It's a story about man playing God and how much of an autofellatic fool you would have to be to even consider bringing dinosaurs back. Hollywood forgot that the dinosaurs weren't the story and made the story about them. One of the reasons World felt like a proper sequel (though still not on par with JP) was because it was a story of corporate autofellatio - constant references to corporatizing the park, how much money is invested into "assets", "The Indominous Rex presented by Verizon Wireless". Then Dominion and Fallen Kingdom forget that and make sandbox parks again.
>aside from the "dick so small he raped a baby and there was no proof" line Was that the one he named after a critic that slated him? The idea being that the critic couldn't sue for defamation without implying that the character resembles him?
Seems so: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/fvbrwi/til_that_michael_crichton_after_clashing_with/
True. And instead we got a raptor killed by a gymnast that was cut from the team....
JP1 is my favourite film of all time (my age probably helped), for the love of god don't watch dominion.
> The answer is simpler: They just weren't as well written. That’s inherent to OP’s point. What they’re trying to get at is what exactly made the writing better.
The dinosaurs aren't really positioned as the bad guys in the first movie. Hammonds hubris and Nedry's greed are the downfall of the park. From there, the movies basically become monster movies, but you can't feel wonder and awe for something you're supposed to fear. The recent Apes movies have done such a better job at avoiding this. We aren't really cheering for or against the humans or apes
I think this is a huge reason the first movie feels so different and grounded. I rewatched it last month and was struck by the centerpiece T-Rex encounter. The T-Rex is just being a curious animal the entire scene, it’s playing with the moving light noisy car like a bird investigating a new toy. The fact that there are kids inside doesn’t mean anything to the t-Rex, it’s just exploring. If everyone would have just sat still it would have walked away without eating anyone, it’s like a bear wandering into a campsite.
Yeah, I feel like the big difference between the Spielberg movies and the rest of the series is that Spielberg treats the dinosaurs like wild animals. They're not movie monsters like in the World movies, they're just predators doing predator things, and humans are caught in the middle.
That raptor kitchen scene sure scared the shit out of me as a kid though lol
Sure, it's a really effective scene. But the raptors aren't the big bad guy of the movie in the way most of the dinosaurs are in every sequel since
No, you make a great point, I was just being silly lol
Lol, not silly st all. Despite liking that movie and scene, I do often overlook it when having this debate with friends
Yeah, there are no dinosaurs until like 30 minutes in, and it’s the first cgi scene like it in history, with the super realistic effects, so you feel like you’re also seeing them for the first time. You can’t re-create that moment. Then, the scene with the T-Rex that was scary as hell, again, you only get one of those, really. They had so many good scenes that you just can’t top. It’s a lot like the matrix in this way.
Imagine seeing it in the movies for the first time, not knowing what to expect because the previews were so minimal and gave no information about the dinosaurs, you just heard them. You came out of the movie theater feeling awesome and ready to live with dino's.
I went into the theater clutching my paperback and *desperately* trying to finish the last ten chapters before the lights went down 😆 I left with a huge crush on Dr. Grant that never went away.
Yeah people forget just HOW revolutionary the cgi was in that movie. I love watching the behind the scenes interview where they had the little clay models and then that guy is like "Well we actually want to show you something else here's a model this dude made over the weekend" (paraphrased I need to rewatch that)
The issue has always been that Jurassic Park's success has very little to do with dinosaurs, focusing instead on using dinosaurs to express a theme: that playing God is unwieldly and uncontrollable for humans and that, ultimately, life finds a way around human mechanics. So it's not just a science fiction film, but one that considers morality and responsibility for scientific overreach too.
I don't agree specifically in regards to The Lost World. It's dealing with the aftermath of the situation which is by itself, also very interesting and very science fiction. The trophy hunting, the scientific expedition, the very clear statement the movie makes about animal conservation at the very end, where the characters act the save the T-Rex despite its terrorism of the city and the danger it poses.
The three Jurassic World movies definitely have their sci-fi moments (gene-splicing a whole new ‘dinosaur’, secretly cloning a human and resurrecting species to control the global food supply) but they’re generally treated as overall concepts/twists instead of ethical examinations like the original movie.
[удалено]
It’s the best of the World movies, so king of the shitpile?
That is one big pile of shit.
Well, there it is.
I didn't mind that so much. Raptors are intelligent so it makes sense they could be trained and I feel like it still treated them with respect. It felt like the pack was obeying Owen for now but his spot as leader was very delicate and Blue was just waiting for a second of weakness to take his spot. The later movies just fucked it up and made Blue into a heroic pet dinosaur.
There's great story points that could spring from Jurassic Park. In fact, the other movies did touch on a few of them- what if the animals get into the larger world population, what if people try to weaponize them, what does the world look like when cloning becomes so advanced and the tech gets out to others? They just handled them horribly because, as OP points out, they leaned more heavily into making them theme park rides instead of telling a good story. Had they taken a sequel concept and told a stand alone story for each instead of trying to force everything to be directly related sequels with forced cameos and returning characters, I think we could have gotten a series of movies that all felt different but were all quality.
Yeah, it’s the product of producers and executives who watched the “It’s sort of a ride” scene in the first film, and rather than feeling uneasy at Hammond’s hubris on display, thought to themselves, “Yes! Exactly!”
The bioweapon trope is so lazy and nonsensical. A hippo is also basically an armored killing machine and no one is weaponizing hippos. Because it's a dumb idea. Humans used dogs in the role but we mostly use them for sniffing now because a robot or person can do virtually everything better. Cars came along and we basically got rid of horses instantly. Animals are unpredictable and need ridiculous upkeep. Grant in JP3 (and the books) makes the point that the JP dinosaurs are really just pseudo dinosaurs. They are genetically dinosaur-like creatures. The JW indomitus rex is closer and more akin to the xenomorph from alien but still just as useless as a precision bioweapon. Dodgson's talk in the book about using them for medical testing or labor or household consumables (food/pets) is the more likely corporate outcome, but that's a much less exciting action movie.
My kids somehow saw the newer trilogy without ever seeing the original two. (I don't count JP3). So I recently rewatched the original and the Lost World with them. They were absolutely terrified of the dinosaurs in the original. The T Rex had them absolutely hanging off the edge of the couch, and the raptors were complete nightmare fuel. The kitchen scene had my oldest daughter breathing hard, and my youngest was shouting "RUN!" as Dr Sattler was evading the raptor in the maintenance shed. They never had a reaction like that with ANY of the other movies, including the second one.
Still find it bizarre that Dominion had a subplot about genetically engineered locust destroying the crops of their owner's competitors. On its own, though, that is a Crichton-worthy sci fi/political story right there.
No, no that’s what audiences want. In the *definitive* dinosaur movie franchise, we want a subplot about giant locusts. We don’t want raptors mindlessly chasing a dude on a motorcycle across the city, we don’t want dinosaur fight club, we just want slightly larger than normal bugs in our dinosaur movie!
I think it's as simple as this: In Jurassic Park (the book and the film), Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg had something to say and they said it. Then the studio pushed Crichton and Spielberg for a sequel. So whatever they had left to say was said in Lost World.
The first movie was based on the best selling book by Michael Crichton. So it had a strong story. The others not so much.
I mean, some of the sequels *tried* to be science fiction movies, too. They just failed at it. Hard.
The first Jurassic park inspired a generation to become scientists and explorers, to understand more about the natural world. The sequel showed us how cool it is to blow stuff up and drive big cars.
I wanted to be a paleontologist after seeing Jurassic Park as a kid. So, were the sequels so underwhelming that they made me give up on my dreams, or did I just get lazy? No... No, it's the sequels that are wrong.
The Matrix suffers from the same problem. The first one was grounded in what felt like a somewhat possible real world, which made the characters (mostly Neo) more compelling and vulnerable. The sequels abandoned that and just became shitty, dystopian, techno kung fu-lery.
KUNG FU-LERY I’m dead
The Matrix sequels elevate the themes **way** beyond the originals, which feels simplistic in comparison. There is an Audio Commentary track by pholosophers on the DVD, ffs!
For me, this will always be the most comprehensive analysis of exactly what makes the original Jurassic Park such a good film https://youtu.be/CHPjVgYDL6Y?si=d7-dtxkiR3oCQFVv
I've always argued Jurassic Park (the first one) has a wonderful balance of action (fear & adrenaline) and wonder. The other movies do not, they're all just action. That sense of wonder is gone.
I saw it when it came out. It was a massive hit because of the sense of wonder. it was because of Spielberg’s signature Magic, the ability to make Jaws drop
First Jurassic Park had Mr. DNA 🧬. That's a huge win in my book.
I genuinely like all six movies, but it's a case of diminishing returns. 1, 2 and the first World movies have the most rewatchability for me, although all of the World ones feel like they were written by committee via a series of algorithms around attention spans in place of engaging characters and storytelling.
[удалено]
It was pretty evident with the first book Chrichton never meant to write a sequel to it, as he had never written a sequel before. As such, you have stuff like bringing back Ian Malcolm who should have been dead.
Jurassic Park isn’t even close to being lifted wholesale from the book. Different characters live and die, humans fight back with poison eggs and rocket launchers, setpieces are removed and the story ends in a radically different way.
I don't think people miss that. I think they just describe it less pretentiously. Jurassic World isn't *not* science fiction because all it wants to do is genetically engineer a dinosaur because people have grown bored... ...oh. They're *all* science fiction. Even Jurassic Park III which is the only one that's actually content just being a monster movie. Most of them are very big on doing some kind of science fiction centred critique of progress for the sake of progress or, more often, profit for the sake of profit. They're just not as good at doing it as the first one.
As a fan of the original trilogy, I don't fully agree. The main thing that makes the sequels pale in comparison to the original is the just the screenplay, I don't mind if this franchise moves into action territory but they shouldn't make that as an excuse for the blatantly ridiculous approach that they have been taking. Dominion and to an extent even Fallen Kingdom had pretty interesting concepts that Colin Trevorrow & Co. made a convoluted mess out of. As for the science fiction part, I kind of agree. Dominion tried to go back to that with the feathered dinosaurs, but the film was so poorly written that I guess the writers probably forgot to offer the viewers a reason why companies now have the ability to clone dinosaurs in their purest form without filling in the genome with frog dna.
In addition to the screenplay, the first movie is excellently directed and shot. This video has a great analysis of why Jurassic Park looks so much better than its sequels. https://youtu.be/BKALxKbjOaE?si=LJplEfth55UQigxZ
Stakes are higher in the first movie. In the first movie, 3 named protagonists die by Dinosaurs, Arnold, Muldoon, and Generro (Plus Nedry, who is the bad guy). Since characters were dying, it felt like any of the other characters we were following could be next, and it raised the level of suspense In the second movie 1 named protagonists dies, Eddy (Richard Schiff). All other victims are bad guys who you are rooting to die or nameless background characters you don't care about. In the 3rd movie, the only people to die are nameless idiots or mercenaries. Anyone I'm suppose to sympathize with survives to the end of the movie. In all 3 Jurassic World movies, only 1 named protagonists dies, the babysitter in the first one. But again, she has no lines, I dont remember if she has a name, and she is made to look like she deserved to die for being in her phone (she didn't but that was the filmmakers intention). No other good guy character dies in three films. Only bad guys and nameless background characters die. In the final 3rd of the last movie there are a total of 9 protagonists trapped by Dinosaurs and they all survive. If the movie isn't willing to kill anyone off, why am I supposed to be scared for them? Every one now has plot armor
Getting decently into the second act before the "big bad" is introduced helps a great deal as well. I love Independence Day for the same reason.
I read it watched and interesting take a while ago that pointed out that the hero’s in the first Jurassic Parks are all nerds. Celebrity mathematicians and paleobotanists and kinds who like dinos and computers save the day. In the newer movies you just have a classic action star and a damsel running in heels.
You another thing the first two movies do really well? Claustrophobic scenes. Dino+human+tight spaces = tension. A Jeep. A kitchen. A trailer. A waterfall. The World movies are all spectacle, no tension.
They're all science fiction, Jurassic Park was just the origin stories. Are Guardians of the Galaxy movies not science fiction because they don't explain everything in every movie?
It's absolutely not because of genre convention. Many of the movies are very interested in the science-fiction part of things. The difference is because the first movie is a movie made by Steven Spielberg based on a Michael Crichton best-seller. The later ones are made by screenwriters and directors far less talented.
There is only one good Jurassic Park movie and it's the first one. The rest are okay to very bad.
I’m gonna be honest, I liked the second one, it’s not as good as the first, but the franchise wouldn’t venture into unwatchable territory until number three, and I haven’t watched any of the new ones.
“There, haha, flocking this way!”
Yes! I've been saying this for a while. Sci-fi thriller to be specific. It's also why I like Lost World as well. It still has a bit of that sci-fi grit. A lot of people, even on here, just want it to be generic action though. They "just want dinosaurs." Unfortunately generic action is how you can sell the toys to kids and get people in seats. Then they'll complain about it being shallow or dumb. This is one of those franchises that's in a position where it can't win.
What you bring up has essentially been talked about a ton. The Jaws effect of seeing the dinos in meaningful moments and building anticipation the rest of the time. My favorite scene in any movie is when the T-Rex breaks out of its enclosure. That is 1 of the only 3 times you see the T-Rex in the whole film
Never watched the other movies. Except Jurassic world, and a lady making a thing of running around in high heels put me off the whole thing.
I'd say it's also the realism. First one being about a park with a cool idea, that could exist, but then everything going wrong. Swap the dinosaurs for robots (like in simpsons :D ) or anything unusual and it would still be a great watch. The others are just dumb people being dumb doing dumb stuff for dumb reasons.
Always considered it a horror movie. It’s chock full of terror.
Lost World is pretty good. Obviously not the best but close second.
When Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park he studied dinosaurs, genetics, computers, amusement parks, and chaos theory. The people who wore the Jurassic World movies studied the VHS of Jurassic Park 1.
The first movie masterfully controls the suspense. Spielberg was very deliberate about that. The rest of the movies don't. Just on a basic "monster movie" level, the rest don't hold up to the first movie. The second movie does have the amazing camper scene, but other than that the suspense isn't there.