Jurassic World - Discussion and Grading

[Pondwater]

I enjoyed it. Although, I didn't care for the family/divorce parts. My favorite was the T-Rex vs. Indominous sequence.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Is the movie about dinosaurs?!?!?!

Yes, it is about extremist Republicans.

Really?

I mean, you're not wrong, but really?

 

[Velocity]

Pathetic

 

[Trekkin]

I did like it for the most part, but I'm firmly smack bang in the middle with it just being 'okay.'

One thing which drove me absolutely insane throughout most of the movie was how it treated Howard's character. Literally every character she speaks to hung shit on her at one point or another. Why? It seemed really disproportionate to her actual displayed flaws.

-Control room glares at her when the IRex escapes, but it only got out because Owen went in the cage. She also had nothing to do with making the damn thing.
-Her kids pull the 'We'll stick with him' schtick, but all they've seen is Claire saving Owen from a toothy flying chicken.
-Sister pulls the 'when' crap regarding if she wants kids.
-Her boss tells her she is too devoted to her job, even though part of said job is making sure guests don't get eaten and ensuring he has time to bugger around in a helicopter.
-Oh noes, she's mean to Owen! Even though the first thing he does is start coming on to her whilst she's working.
-Her sister dumps her kids on her in the middle of her work day, and is shocked when she ends up being busy.
-Owen mocks her shoes, even though they didn't end up being a problem at all, and unless he was going to pull some sneakers out of his ass then the alternative was bare feet.

It did let up once the raptors were released. Thank fuck.

I do wonder, what did the people think of all the callbacks? I don't really think it's an exaggeration to say that nearly every second scene had some sort of reference to the prior movies and even the two books. It was really nostalgia driven.

 

[DWF]

Truthfully though Claire accepted the responsibility for the boys then dumped them on her assistant, not a very nice move on her part. but then I didn't think Claire's job was very defined, she gave alot of orders but never really seemed to be in charge of the park. Letting the raptors loose was a bad idea and letting teh T-Rex was was an even dumber move, but the movie was full fledged disaster mode by that time.

 

[Trekkin]

She wasn't in charge when the raptors were let loose. Rexie was on her, but I don't think we were meant to see that as a stupid thing (even though it really should have been. All the tourists were still somewhere on the island.)

I do get that she shouldn't have ditched the kids before even seeing them, but I think it would have worked better if we'd seen her do it more than once, and the eldest sibling hadn't been freaking 16 years old, and if the sister had actually been upset about the ditching of said responsibility. Instead of 'you shouldn't spend so much time focusing on work' and 'you'll understand when you have kids'.

Poor Zara. They tried to make her the Ed Regis/Gennaro of the movie, but she didn't really do enough to earn it. It seemed weird that her death got so much screen time, yet the actual villain got probably the only cut away in the entire movie.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Poor Zara. They tried to make her the Ed Regis/Gennaro of the movie, but she didn't really do enough to earn it. It seemed weird that her death got so much screen time, yet the actual villain got probably the only cut away in the entire movie.

Definitely. I'm sure there's a good case for her being chosen for the brutal death to be a sexist thing, but even if that's true, seems like they had to stick in one more Mosasaur shot and that was the only way they found to make it fit.

Not the best choice, to say the least.

 

[DWF]

Poor Zara. They tried to make her the Ed Regis/Gennaro of the movie, but she didn't really do enough to earn it. It seemed weird that her death got so much screen time, yet the actual villain got probably the only cut away in the entire movie.

Definitely. I'm sure there's a good case for her being chosen for the brutal death to be a sexist thing, but even if that's true, seems like they had to stick in one more Mosasaur shot and that was the only way they found to make it fit.

Not the best choice, to say the least.

It's Katie McGrath's payback for playing Morgana on Merlin.

 

[davejames]

One thing which drove me absolutely insane throughout most of the movie was how it treated Howard's character. Literally every character she speaks to hung shit on her at one point or another. Why? It seemed really disproportionate to her actual displayed flaws.

-Control room glares at her when the IRex escapes, but it only got out because Owen went in the cage. She also had nothing to do with making the damn thing.
-Her kids pull the 'We'll stick with him' schtick, but all they've seen is Claire saving Owen from a toothy flying chicken.
-Sister pulls the 'when' crap regarding if she wants kids.
-Her boss tells her she is too devoted to her job, even though part of said job is making sure guests don't get eaten and ensuring he has time to bugger around in a helicopter.
-Oh noes, she's mean to Owen! Even though the first thing he does is start coming on to her whilst she's working.
-Her sister dumps her kids on her in the middle of her work day, and is shocked when she ends up being busy.
-Owen mocks her shoes, even though they didn't end up being a problem at all, and unless he was going to pull some sneakers out of his ass then the alternative was bare feet.

Claire certainly wasn't the most complex or three-dimensional character ever, but I didn't really get the sense everyone in the movie was completely hating on her or taking issue with her at the beginning. And if they did, it was only because of how overly corporate and marketing obsessed she was being about everything-- and not just because "OMG it's a woman in charge!"

Although I do think the movie took it a bit far by having her completely brush off her nephews in the cold and disinterested way she did. Surely it wasn't necessary to make her seem THAT cartoonishly cold-hearted and out of touch about the whole thing.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

^ I didn't take it as her being cold and indifferent, but as having a huge deadline looming over her head that she had to worry about. Indominus Rex was scheduled to be unveiled and become an attraction in just three weeks, and she had no idea what to even do with it since it was attacking the fences, the glass and needed to find Owen to get his opinion on it.

I took it like you hear stories about game developers really putting in grueling hours in the days and weeks before a game release.

 

[Trekkin]

It didn't bother me so much because she was a woman, though I think that might have been part of the reason why she was written to have the flaws that she did. It was more because there was so much 'telling' us that we're meant to see her as almost always in the wrong, and not enough 'showing.'

For eg. The first one (hardly an example of in depth characterisation itself) got across that Alan didn't like kids with two conversations, both of which were him clearly displaying that they all (as a sub-species apparently) annoy him. We didn't need everyone else constantly telling us or reacting that he had a problem, because we could clearly see that it was an unreasonable flaw in his personality.

The Lost World bugged me for the same reasons when it came to its villains (or antagonists I suppose), though Jurassic World wasn't near as bad as that.

 

[Trekker4747]

It seemed other characters were being a bit harsh on Claire, other than maybe Owen when he recounts their date where, apparently, she brought an itinerary and didn't "let her hair down" - so to speak- during the date. Her lesson seemed to be more that she needed to know when, and how, to have fun. To compartmentalize her work and her social life rather than letting her professional life and work rule her 24/7.

But the sister was being needlessly harsh. I'm not sure if it was made clear to us how much of a heads-up she had on the arrival of the kids and their stay with her but expecting her to spend so much time with them when she's running a huge park with hundreds of freaking giant DINOSAURS on it and needing to protect the safety of 20,000 people seems needlessly harsh. She's got a job and responsibilities. She'd deal with the kids if/when she can. One of those times isn't during the middle of a work day.

And the "your biological clock is ticking!" plot-point was lame. It's old and clichéd thing in movies that needs to go away.

But I agree with some of the logic BDH had about Claire's staying in the heels through the movie, it showed that she could be a badass while still being a glamorous woman with a professional life. It was something of a lesson to both us AND her. That Claire did need to relax and that to do so she didn't have to really change who she was (represented by her minor alteration to her clothing.)

 

[Shaka Zulu]

There was another issue with the kids. In each of the films, there have been one or two kids with parents who were either in a rough patch in their relationship (TLW) or were divorcing (JP, JP III, JP IV). So, what I get from the films, let's throw children from one trauma into another. This will be good for them. Huh? (I come from a broken home.)

The parents were going to sign the divorce papers while their kids were away, without the kids knowing (they thought). Auntie Bryce works at the biggest tourist destination on the planet and can get the kids in for free. The younger kid loves science and dinosaurs. At that point, no dinosaurs have eaten any tourists. Seems a no-brainer.

There were instances where I was puzzled. So, Marsani has a talk with Wu. He learns that he signed off the I. Rex and that the project is largely classified, even to him. Huh? He is the top officer of his corporation - a corporation that, according to the faux website for it, was founded by him. There is nothing that is unknown for him. For such a successful person, a person who is the eighth richest person in the world, I never believed for once that the character that I see in the film is the same as described in the dialog nor in the faux websites. So, what comes of this conversation? Nothing. Marsani never pushes back for full disclosure of what created the dinosaur nor calls a conference to discuss what was done to create this dinosaur with his top officers at the park. I would have written Marsani as a corporate founder and entrepenaur would be. I am thinking of how Carnegie dealt with the striking miners in 1892.

No CEO knows every detail of everything that goes on in their company. Nobody bores the boss with the details unless he asks for it. In this case, I get the feeling Wu and Hoskins were perhaps in secret talks with government/military forces of some kind (hence why Hoskins was chomping at the bit to try out the trained raptors) and Marsani was left in the dark. And Marsani had an immediate crisis in his park to attend to. The conference would have come later, had he lived.



You don't tell the boss no (as Wu just did and as the trainer may have). He wanted to be John Hammond II, and Hammond wasn't one to hide in a control room.



Once it becomes clear the ride is not opening back up, the visitors would have either gone back by themselves or (more likely) been ordered back by the security officers the operator would have called as a last resort.



That probably would've been the Phase III evacuation (they were only up to Phase II, I think). We didn't see where the guests were at night.

Speaking as someone who works at Walt Disney World, I can tell you from experience that once their money's plunked down, NO guest will be willing to just leave the park mid-day and return to their hotel unless they absolutely must. They want their money's worth, and they'll get it come hell or high water. I've seen guests willingly sit at the side of a street for nearly two hours in no-shade, no-clouds 100+ degree weather just to have a prime viewing spot for the afternoon parade. The only way to get them to go would be to panic them, which wasn't going to happen. InGen was obviously trying to keep as much of the park open as possible despite the emergency (hence the kids still riding the baby triceratops) and were keeping guests (and, probably, the other park employees) in the dark as to the nature of the problem. No one expected the sudden mass aviary breakout.

I don't believe for one second the military would have accepted the Velociraptors and other dinosaur as successors to drones and dogs.

Depends which military wanted it. Maybe someone who wasn't very picky about collateral damage.

And, honestly, I don't believe that Middle East militia would be frightened by dinosaurs. Some of these militia fighters are loco - they drive mobile improvised explosive devices into the front lines of enemy troops. Initially, they would be frightened by these animals - then, they would recover from their shock, and would decimate the animals.

Anyone who isn't scared of dinosaurs, no matter how well trained, is in need of psychological counseling. And as we saw, they weren't given a chance to recover from the shock before I.Rex and the Raptor Crew dropped the blitzkrieg.

^THIS.

 

[Admiral2]

Claire might have been better loved...if she were played by Jessica Chastain...

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipObSiFHpyY[/yt]

 

[Velocity]

thanks for that musical montage. Hilarious!

 

[Klaus]

A bizarre stew of 21st century CGI and 1950s gender dynamics... Gave it a B+ overall, fun but silly, as expected. Nice to root for the T-Rex.

 

[Corran Horn]

-Control room glares at her when the IRex escapes, but it only got out because Owen went in the cage. She also had nothing to do with making the damn thing.

He only went in there because she asked him, right? And it was another one of the workers that opened the door that ended up letting it get out - not Owen.

I'm with you on the kids wanting to stick with Owen over her though - that didn't seem earned to me - it was just a cliche.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

A bizarre stew of 21st century CGI and 1950s gender dynamics...

It wasn't great in that regard but that's hyperbolic. 50s shows and movies wouldn't typically have a woman managing a corporate facility and not prioritizing family first, or another woman having an equal say and a sympathetic role in a divorce proceeding.

 

[Trekkin]

-Control room glares at her when the IRex escapes, but it only got out because Owen went in the cage. She also had nothing to do with making the damn thing.

He only went in there because she asked him, right? And it was another one of the workers that opened the door that ended up letting it get out - not Owen.

I'm with you on the kids wanting to stick with Owen over her though - that didn't seem earned to me - it was just a cliche.

I don't think she did tell him to go in, but I've only seen it the once and I might be wrong. She only left to check the tracker because she thought the temperature reading was a glitch, so it seems unlikely that she would.

...although admittedly every damn plot element in the movie did rely on somone doing (or ordering someone to do) something unbelievably stupid.

I know it was one of the two red shirts that opened the door. The thing is, even as the scene was playing I was expecting Owen to nag at them to go back in the shelter thing because they didn't know what had happened. His scene where he Very Seriously told the newbie to never underestimate the animals seemed to be setting that up. Instead he just...followed them in. And just stood in place without keeping an eye on his surroundings. And didn't even shut the shelter-thing's door behind him.

 

[Disco]

Saw it tonight. It was packed in the theater and people clapped at the end. I thought it was pretty good and very much what I expected. No real surprises, but I still enjoyed it. I gave it a B. It was better than Jurrasic Park 3 and The Lost World, but nothing beats the first one.

People clapped in the cinema?!