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Yeah I really liked that.
Rate the Jurassic Park movies
- Thread starter Drain Bamage
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Yeah I really liked that.
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Let me start by saying this. . .
Jurassic Park wanted to be steak. And indeed it was steak. It was a succulent filet mignon from the finest steakhouse in town.
The Lost World WANTED to be steak, but it ended up being more like hamburger. Still a tasty enough meal, but you know that despite appearances it's not really fine dining. You didn't eat something truly special and it makes you think wistfully about that excellent steak you once had.
Jurassic Park III, however, doesn't want to be steak. It's not even trying to be. It wants to be a pack of Starburst. It wants to be something that you consume and it's fun and it hits your sweet tooth, but it's not to be mistaken for real nutrition.
I feel like most people's reaction to JP3 will be entirely dependent upon one thing: How they feel about pure popcorn entertainment. JP3 isn't trying to confront any social issues or teach a moral lesson or break any barriers in terms of story development. It's a straightforward, fairly lighthearted dino action movie that requires the viewer to suspend their disbelief and just enjoy the ride. Actually, "suspend" might not be the right word. There's a lot of silly shit in here. You might as well just leave your disbelief at the door. You can pick that shit back up when you go out.
(Spino says fuck your disbelief.)
Having now revisited JP3, I think it's a fairly fun film. Like I said earlier in the thread, it's grown on me a bit. It's not that I love it now. It's that I no longer think it sucks, and that's a big step forward for me. I'm willing to meet it on its own terms and find some enjoyment in what it is.
To break it down:
Positives
- Sam Neill's back! Fuck yeah!
- I know that the Kirbys are often criticized for being annoying, and yes in some ways they are, but hey, if you're going to get annoyed why not have it be by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni? Both of them are always a joy to watch, regardless of what they're doing.
- Lighter tone. One of my problems with The Lost World was that it was overly dark and ominous from start to finish. I do realize that some people basically want the JP franchise to be nothing but R-rated dino carnage, but this has never been my perspective. The first film, while occasionally brutal, was at heart a family film. A family film with an edge, yes, but still a family film.
- The final showdown with Spino was pretty good.
- The kid actor who played the son was above average. We know how it can go with kid actors. Often times they can be annoying as fuck. But he was okay.
(Sam Neill! Goddamn right!)
Negatives
- The story is too basic. Not sure how many of you read my post earlier about the script-writing process, but they went through several different story ideas and when the film went into production there was no script. They just wrote it day-by-day as they went along and it shows.
- It doesn't expand the franchise mythology in any meaningful way. This was also a complaint I had against the second film. But more on the story in a bit.
- The characters are mostly pretty weak. This is one area in which The Lost World definitely has JP3 beat. You can't even count the return of Ellie Sattler here since she's given almost nothing to do and has a total of about 5 minutes of screen time.
- Uneven effects. Some of the effects are very good. The animatronic Spino in the finale is excellent, for instance. But I found the CGI to shuffle back and forth between very good to pretty weak and occasionally even cringe-worthy at times.
- Spino killing the T-Rex. I do understand that they were wanting to introduce a new dino here, and that's fine because they can't just keep doing the same thing over and over, but did he really need to kill Rexy?
- Speaking of the Spino, honestly, I didn't really love the look. I mean, I know it's a real dino, but he just didn't look that cool to me. I didn't really like the spine, for instance, or the snout. The T-Rex is iconic. I just can't say the same for this guy.
- You can hear a satellite phone ringing while it's inside a dinosaur's stomach, several yards away?
- The ending is very abrupt and just comes out of nowhere. Like literally. It's barely set up earlier in the story.
(Where'd these guys come from?)
The question has been asked: How does JP3 compare to The Lost World?
I feel like The Lost World is objectively a better film--it's better made, there's more to recommend it, and there's just more "meat on the bone," as they say. But I'm not sure that it's as FUN of a film as JP3 is. I think the real test here is for me to give it a year and then see which one I have a greater desire to re-watch. But regardless, I think both films fall right around in that 6/10-6.5/10 range.
One thing I have to say, though, is that while revisiting these films it helped me to better understand why the first film is so good. And one of the things I realized with the first film is how rich the plot is. Consider:
The Lost World's plot is just that some people go to Isla Sorna to do some science shit, and some other people go to Isla Sorna to do some hunting and capturing, and eventually these two groups both get marooned on the Island and have to fight dinos before being rescued.
In JP three, a group gets marooned on an Island and then has to fight dinos before being rescued.
But with Jurassic Park, there's so much more going on. We get to learn about the science of dino recreation, we get to understand how the park works and how it's set up, our main characters are trying to do their science shit and learn about these new majestic creatures, while Nedry is trying to smuggle out the dino embryos, and Hammond is trying to sell the idea of the park and get his safety endorsement, and Dr. Grant is learning to like kids . . . and then the shit hits the fan and Dr. Grant's paternal instincts rise to the surface, and Nedry's plan falls apart, and Hammond is trying to hold shit together, and Lex's foreshadowed hacker skills get us back into the computer system. And so on. We all know the rest.
You see, there's just so much more to that movie. There's so much more going on, so much more substance. And yet the script and direction are such that the plot is NEVER confusing. The film is simply a masterpiece.
(The dream team!)
Not sure how many of you guys are still with me, but if you've read this far . . . you're awesome! Give yourself a gold star. Don't worry, I'm about to wrap it up.
The last thing I will say about JP3 is about the Blu-Ray. It's excellent. I'm the kind of guy who likes to explore all the special features and it's is fucking packed FULL of shit. Last night I watched about an hours worth of the behind the scenes featurettes and that's just getting started. There's a ton of good material on here, and I got to learn about how the (very convincing) sets were built, how the animatronic Spino was made, as well as the rough-and-tumble production style that literally beat the cast up.
(It wasn't all CGI, yo!)
All in all I think that JP3 is a fairly fun sequel in a string of sequels that have all lived in the shadow of the original. No, it's not a great movie and it's easily the most lightweight film in the whole franchise. But if you're just in the mood for a fun 90 minute popcorn movie with dinos, it's not a bad way to kill the time.
The bottom line is that only one film in the franchise has been great, and that's the first film. The sequels, while disappointing, at least allow us ways to go on new--even if somewhat unsatisfying--adventures within the world of Jurassic Park. And that's probably better than no new adventures at all.
For a plot recap and lots of behind-the-scenes info, here's the video for you:
Awesome write up, as usual. I haven't seen it in a long, long time so I'd have to revisit. But I feel as though your positives/negatives section is spot on from what I do recall.
Makes me wonder how you feel about Jurassic World in the sense that I think it is sort of Jurassic Park III-like in terms of put your brain on autopilot for a fun adventure. But, at the same time, it also has more meat on the bones as you phrased it because there is more content in terms of the narrative revolving around an actually fully functional park with families/patrons.
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It was so unbelievably cheesy. I was 17 when i saw this movie,and i could only roll my eyes at it. Way too overdone and forced. Wannabee indiana jones stuff but not anywhere near as good,and on top of that,you dont really give a shit about the characters,so you just wait for it to be over.
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I've seen movies that are so, so much worse than The Lost World though. The worst criticism I have for The Lost World is that it is generic and forgettable. I still think it's entertaining. I think some of the action setpieces are really good. I like Goldblum. But there's just nothing outstanding about it.
I have to say I re-watched Independence Day a few years back and the sheer cheese factor had me barely able to watch out of fear that it would completely ruin my childhood love for the movie. Well, I did sit through it and it did ruin it as I realized it was pretty...let's just say not good.
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Don't get me wrong,there are def worse movies,i just mean in comparison to the first one,theres not much to really recommend it. I always hated ID4.
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I was 14 I think when ID4 came out,and I had wanted to see it,but then when..
when he knocked the alien out with one punch,i just completely tuned out of the movie. I mean it was bad before that,but that was like,wow this movie doesn't even take itself seriously.
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Like when I went to the theatres to watch it,as its happening,im like OK ENOUGH ALREADY.
It was total movie making masturbation. "look at this cool shit we can do!!!!"
Im like omg get to the FUCKING Dinosaurs already.
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I've only seen JW once, when I caught it in the theater, but my reaction walking out was that it was an OK movie but nothing more than that. It could've been better . . . it SHOULD'VE been better . . . but it's not terrible.
I thought what really drug the movie down was all the stuff about weaponizing raptors. Everything surrounding D'Onofrio's character was just dumb to me.
I also would've liked to have seen more of the fully functioning park. It would've been nice to have spent more time there, just hanging out and watching dinos, before everything busted loose and got out of control.
I'd put JW right around 6/10, same as Lost World and JP3. Fingers crossed that Fallen Kingdom manages to be better.
Since I just revisited LW and JP3, maybe I should rewatch JW as well.
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This is where we part ways. I love Independence Day and feel like it holds up extremely well. I never understand it when someone says it doesn't.
It's one of the greatest summer blockbusters of all time. I still revisit it every few years and think it's a lot of fun.
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I am very readily able to suspend my disbelief for movies and yet the D'Onofrio end game had me thinking, "Oh that is fucking ridiculous." You know how expensive it must be to breed raptors within this universe. You're telling me you can make enough of them to make any type of impact in a combat scenario.
And maybe they're intelligent but they're not of human level intelligence. It's relative. It's not like you can make them into some type of SEAL Team- elite unit doing combat missions.
And I think D'Onofrio makes some point like, "They're the perfect killing machine." Dude they're wild animals that are very good hunters. Plenty of wild animals that are very good hunters in the world and I wouldn't bet on any of them to stack up against military grade weapons.
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I'm glad you still enjoy it. I don't know what it is because the effects are great and it's certainly one of those game changer blockbusters of the time period, but I just found it to be a frustrating watch.
For the most part, the invasion and destruction stuff, the whole spectacle of the movie is impressive. But it's the human stuff that really lost me on the re-watch. I just kept thinking of everybody as sort of a stereotyped, cookie cutter character.
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Yeah, it's just dumb. I remember just kind of going with it as I was watching the movie, but it was one of those things that the more I thought about it later, the more I disliked it.
I'm really hoping that NONE of that plotline carries over into the next movie.
I actually just read that the next movie was filmed in both Hawaii and the United Kingdom. Since the name of the film is Fallen Kingdom, does that mean that we'll see dinos rampaging through the UK? Hmm.
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I dunno, man. Perhaps the characters themselves are stock to some degree, but they're brought to life so well by the actors that I've never found them to be generic.
I think it's a great movie. I can still watch it and have a lot of fun.
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hmm. Interesting.
I have no idea of any plot details so far and I was actually surprised to a see a poster at a movie theater for it recently- honestly had no idea that it was coming this summer. Really not far off at all. I'm sure we will get a trailer shortly.
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I remember loling at that. One look at a spinsosaurs jaws will tell you what it ate.
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Jurassic Park is the only one that matters. Tim and Lex were pretty solid in their roles and not cringy bad (other than the Lex as hacker stuff). Kids in all the sequels were shit actors with ham fisted crud storylines.
Jurassic World would probably rank second only for the opening shot of the park open in all it's glory. That gave me goose bumps. But the movie didn't even attempt to take itself seriously most of the time.
Jurassic World would probably rank second only for the opening shot of the park open in all it's glory. That gave me goose bumps. But the movie didn't even attempt to take itself seriously most of the time.
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I reasonably liked Tim and Lex but there are people who find them to be as annoying as shit.
I think what it comes down to is that those two actors did a great job in the scene where the T-rex attacks the car. In terms of convincingly being able to sell terror, they were spot on.
On the scale of annoying children in Spielberg movies, they aren't bad. Now Hook on the other hand...
