Jurassic World - Discussion and Grading

[The Borgified Corpse]

<<The one thing they SHOULD have had were armored doors and panic rooms everywhere. That central corridor of the park was one big kill zone.>>

Well whatdoya know. I'm reading Jurassic Park the novel right now and when Grant gets to his hotel room there's a heavy metal door, thick iron bars over the skylight, and the windows are tiny reinforced glass. And the hotel is hidden behind a vast fence of twelve foot tall iron bars.

I guess Michael Crichton is smarter than most screenwriters. I should get around to reading the books some time. I've only ever read one of Crichton's novels (Rising Sun) but I really liked it. He has a fast, punchy writing style that really makes the story move, even when it's loaded with technical details.

 

[Trekker4747]

Will go see this this weekend. I've heard mixed things on it, mostly leaning to the positive side. Which, really, I'm not expecting much except for dino-fun.

I maintain that they really need to "reboot" the Jurassic Park franchise and do a more faithful, dark, adaptation of the original book.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Yeah, and there's a lot of kind of goofy humor that's also out of place. Sure the rest of the movie had some jokes but for the most part, they weren't that much worse than the first movie-but here you had stuff like the Blockbuster with the fake movies, the Dinosaur in the backyard (Although the Rex eating the dog was sort of a funny reaction to dogs surviving in films such as ID4, Volcano etc.), the Japanese guys running etc.

David Koepp, who wrote the original (as well as other Spielberg stuff) also is the guy who gets eaten by the Rex.


Getting back to the current film, it's interesting that there were no Hadrosaurs (AKA Duck-billed Dinosaurs) outside of the holograms unless I missed something (They were in all the other films, although only from a distance in the first). Along with the Dilophosaurus, I guess that's kind of all they could really give us and couldn't work them in otherwise.

 

[davejames]

Overall, I would rank the movies thusly:
1. Jurassic Park. Still can't beat the original.
2. The Lost World. Deserves way more love than it's been getting. Spielberg took everything he learned from the 1st movie and made it darker, scarier, & with better blending of CGI & animatronics. If it weren't for the stupid San Diego ending, it would have surpassed the original.
3. Jurassic World. Takes the premise of the original and notches it a step further by making it an actual, functioning amusement park. It's the closest any movie has gotten to replicating that magical feeling I had when I saw the original in theaters when I was 10.
4. Jurassic Park III. It's got people getting eaten by dinosaurs, which means it can't be too bad. But the abrupt ending with the guy on the beach with a megaphone is just bizarre. (I only saw it once, 14 years ago, and I'm starting to think that I hallucinated the whole thing.)

Actually if there's one I think is underrated it's JP3. It's obviously nowhere near as good as the first, but it still has some pretty effective action sequences in it and works a lot better than the overly-cluttered Lost World I think. JP3 tells a much more straightforward story and isn't really trying to be more than a simple, fun guilty pleasure, which I actually think works in it's favor.

Plus it was just a lot of fun seeing Alan Grant get dragged back into that world again.

 

[Mr Light]

Having just rewatched all three... Lost World was a lot better than I remembered it being. It was jammed full of incredible edge of your seat sequences and I absolutely love the ending makes the whole movie.

JP3 on the other hand is just very... meh.

Having seen JW twice, the only part of the movie I found a little stupid was when Claire literally says "and I am Claire" and then looks into the frickin' camera and says "Welcome to Jurassic World". Good god

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

The one part I thought was amazingly stupid was the younger boy had matches in his fanny pack or whatever, later they jump into the river and then even later they find the old Jurrasic Park and the boy uses his matches after they jumped into the river. There's no way those matches would light.

 

[Beagleman]

The one part I thought was amazingly stupid was the younger boy had matches in his fanny pack or whatever, later they jump into the river and then even later they find the old Jurrasic Park and the boy uses his matches after they jumped into the river. There's no way those matches would light.

Plastic bags?

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

The one part I thought was amazingly stupid was the younger boy had matches in his fanny pack or whatever, later they jump into the river and then even later they find the old Jurrasic Park and the boy uses his matches after they jumped into the river. There's no way those matches would light.

Plastic bags?

Oh sure, ruin my nitpick why don't you?

 

[Corran Horn]

<<The one thing they SHOULD have had were armored doors and panic rooms everywhere. That central corridor of the park was one big kill zone.>>

Well whatdoya know. I'm reading Jurassic Park the novel right now and when Grant gets to his hotel room there's a heavy metal door, thick iron bars over the skylight, and the windows are tiny reinforced glass. And the hotel is hidden behind a vast fence of twelve foot tall iron bars.

I guess Michael Crichton is smarter than most screenwriters. I should get around to reading the books some time.

If I remember correctly, it's also obvious to Grant that the bars, etc, were put on after the fact - showing that while they might have had great plans it quickly became necessary to beef things up.

 

[DimesDan]

<<The one thing they SHOULD have had were armored doors and panic rooms everywhere. That central corridor of the park was one big kill zone.>>

Well whatdoya know. I'm reading Jurassic Park the novel right now and when Grant gets to his hotel room there's a heavy metal door, thick iron bars over the skylight, and the windows are tiny reinforced glass. And the hotel is hidden behind a vast fence of twelve foot tall iron bars.

I guess Michael Crichton is smarter than most screenwriters. I should get around to reading the books some time.

If I remember correctly, it's also obvious to Grant that the bars, etc, were put on after the fact - showing that while they might have had great plans it quickly became necessary to beef things up.

Yep. It was because of a few "accidents" regarding building the site and the Raptors.

It's also why the Avery in the book isn't part of the tour, they liked to attack the workers and is probably why the Avery in Jurassic World isn't open to the public.

Instead of a sequel to Jurassic World, I would like a kind of bridging movie between the first and this one, explaining how they managed to get the park built and regarding the breeding "attractions" especially after the first poster that was released a while back.

 

[Beagleman]

Oh sure, ruin my nitpick why don't you?

Sorrryyyyy!

 

[sojourner]

Just saw this today. The multiple plot lines were a muddled mess. It needed another pass with the script writers.

 

[Skywalker]

I loved this way more than I ever thought I would when I first learned it was going into production. The movie was a lot of fun; there were a ton of cliches, especially Owen, Claire, and the kids, but they were all performed well enough that they didn't bother me so much. I was nine years old when Jurassic Park came out back in 1993 and that was probably the most magical movie experience of my childhood. Neither The Lost World or Jurassic Park III were able to recapture that feeling for me, but Jurassic World did. This was a very pleasant surprise, and I hope they don't bungle what they've got going here in the inevitable sequel.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Was skeptical from the synopsis, but this was a very enjoyable movie. Nostalgic and fun.

 

[Trekker4747]

The one part I thought was amazingly stupid was the younger boy had matches in his fanny pack or whatever, later they jump into the river and then even later they find the old Jurrasic Park and the boy uses his matches after they jumped into the river. There's no way those matches would light.

Plastic bags?

Water-proof matches?

 

[Gryffindorian]

'Jurassic World' Scores Biggest Opening Weekend in History, Beats 'Avengers' Record

Score one for the dinos!

Those look more like geckos than raptors.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/How-Much-It-Would-Cost-Build-Jurassic-World-72045.html

The article "How Much It Would Cost To Build Jurassic World?", via Cinemablend, Fandango came to the conclusion that the yearly operating costs would be $11.9 billion/year. In the reply section, someone did the calculation for a family of four -

"So if $11,907,000,000 is the annual repeating cost, if the park stayed open everyday of the year and averaged 20k in guest each day, adding 15% profit markup the ticket cost would be close to $1,875 per guest. They would make the majority of their profit money on merchandise sales. OK so take an average family of four going to the park. Flights from DFW airport to San Jose Santamaria International (made one month out) are a total cost of $3,878 for round trip. Hotel for a week will cost around $2,000. For the sake of argument, I didn't calculate food costs/souvenirs. So for a family of four (kids 12 & 6) to go to Jurassic Park from DFW travel & park costs would be $13,378 for one week. This doesn't include food cost/souvenirs or costs to get to the islands from the mainlands. This would easily be a $14k+ trip for one week. Unfortunately, I think Mr. Hammond would lose a lot of money on this venture."

I remember two figures from the film: Clare Dearing mentioned a 2% increase in, I think, attendance, and that a soda costs $7.

Losing the park is a money saving benefit for Marsani. I think the animal that will suffer the most is the water dinosaur. Unless they know how to transport that animal, it will starve in the park's lagoon. The I. Rex might be the animal's last meal.

Was the lack of response by the park staff and general incompetence in protecting their guests a reflection of customer service disasters in the years since JPIII? I am thinking of the cruise ship mishaps. In both cases, the customers were kept out of the loop on what was happening and the staff were being reactive.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

That's allright. For dinosaurs they can charge what they want and they have an occasional coupon day.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I'm really on the fence about this movie.. I did have fun watching it. The first forty minutes felt like a chore to get through. It's a shame because that's all the "dinosaur theme park realized" stuff we' had all wanted to see. And the actual stuff - the various exhibits - were fine. It didn't help that the kids were boring and that most of the dialogue and acting had no life to, no zest. And as much as we'd all like to see a theme park wth dinosaurs realized on screen.. when we actually do see a theme park in a movie, it's hard to get emotionally involved because we are not actually there on those rides. So all the attractions had more emotional impact for me when I saw glimpses of them in the trailer than watching them in the film.

So what would have made it work better for me?

Well there was a moment near the end of the film, in the control room that I laughed at, despite the fact that I'm not sure it was supoposed to be funny. When all the chaos is happening and DiNofrio is watching it the control roo, he's almost entertained (he's a bad guy) and he grabs a big soft drink cup labelled "Jurassic World" and it was then that I realized that even the original film had poked fun at how the fact the "Park" and now the "World" were branded.. one of the funniest moments in the original film was just simply Spieberg panning the camera in the giftshop (it's funny because it happens long after the dinosaurs have been loose.)

So getting back to the dry early scenes. I almost wished that they would go for satire a bit more. I don't want the movie to be a satire.. but they could have edged it closer to satire of theme parks.. almost inching it's way there, just to give theme park material a bit more of an edge. I would have suggested the filmmakers watch "Gremlins 2 the New Batch" and see how that silly film satirized corporate offices even before the chaos starts. I'm not suggesting that Jurassic World goes that far in its satire.. but because we as the audience are not actually in this theme park, we need to be more entertained watching it on screen. This film had no edge whatsoever.

Still a good movie.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

The satire isn't dripping from every pore in the first portion of the film, but it's there.

The only thing wrong with this movie is a bit of the pacing; there seemed to be a struggle between "yeah, you know shit's going to go wrong" and "look at this amazing place" for the first hour of the movie or so.

Other than that, FUCK YEAH DINOSAURS