Tag Archives: Blue

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom: Not As Bad As I Remembered (But Still . . .)

by in Dinosaurs and tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Well, #JurassicJune has come and gone, and for once I managed to actually stick to reviewing properties in the Jurassic Franchise. However, it didn’t quite go as planned and I still have one more “Jurassic” movie to review before I go see the new movie (so you’ll get at least one more dinosaur post after this).

That woefully neglected movie is none other than Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, 5th in the series and the second with Jurassic World in the title.

I’ve watched the original movie countless times growing up, and as an adult. A similar if slightly smaller number for The Lost World (Jurassic Park II) and Jurassic Park III. And am still solidly in the double digits for the first Jurassic World movie. Even Dominion has a handful of viewings.

Before this rewatch, I’d seen Fallen Kingdom exactly once. Literally only when I watched it in theaters and never again. I remember leaving the theater feeling disappointed. Honestly a bit confused, and even a little uncertain. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the ending. What were the rules of the this new world? What did it mean for the future of the franchise?

Obviously we got SOME of those answers when Dominion finally arrived, and honestly I think they made it work the best they could. However, when I left the theater after that first viewing I was in a bit of a panic that one of my favorite properties of all time had just been irrevocably flubbed.

So I was quite curious to rewatch the film in preparation for Jurassic World: Rebirth.

Would I hate it as much as I had back in 2018?

The short answer is no. I’m not sure if I’ve become less critical as I’ve gotten older, or simply knowing how things would end — and how they would continue into the next movie — allowed me to just disassociate enough to enjoy Fallen Kingdom for what it was: a movie with dinosaurs in it!

For me the best parts of the movie were sending the team back to the island, and feeling that sense of awe at seeing the dinosaurs roaming free in their “natural” environment. The looming threat of the volcano and threat of extinction felt sufficiently tense for a full movie, and I’m sure I would have been quite happy watching Grady and Clare hunt for Blue with a team of untrustworthy mercs, and complete camping newbs.

However, this would not have presented us as many opportunities to take shots at corporate greed, or introduce the film’s big bad, the Indo-Raptor.

My opinions on the Indo-Raptor are mixed. The scenes where it is hunting Owen, Clare, and Maisie through Lockwood’s estate are certainly tense, however, the dinosaur itself just feels incongruous somehow. Like it’s too big in some shots, but not big enough in others. It seems to be able to move really fast when dispatching extras, but then is somehow not as quick when chasing a main character.

And I was about losing my mind when Maisie was just hiding in her bed not even under the covers. It’s the most advanced predator ever created and it doesn’t just pounce on her immediately after it climbs in from the window?

In any case, the movie delivers what it promised. Dinosaurs, thrills and even some chills.

For any tracking references to earlier movies, Fallen Kingdom makes quite a few. One of the homages which stood out the most to me was Maisie in the dumb-waiter, attempting to pull the door closed before the Indo-Raptor could catch her, echoing back to Lex in the kitchen scene during Jurassic Park.

Also, early in the movie, Grady, Claire and their companions run from stampeding dinosaurs — who are running from volcanic destruction — before hiding behind a big log pinned in place by a gyrosphere. This prop does double duty harkening back to Grant, Lex and Tim hiding from the flock of Gallimimus (and then a T. Rex), and Zach and Gray in the gyrosphere in the last movie.

Give ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘ a Watch?

Ultimately I think I have to say yes for continuity’s sake, however, this one is probably my least favorite of the franchise. I don’t think it’s quite as bad as I remembered, but it is also perhaps not as good as any of the others.

I appreciate the willingness to take things in a new direction, it’s just that I think they did not really think through all of the implications it would have.

That’s all I have on this one. What does everyone else think? Hit? Or Flop?

And thanks everyone who has been reading these #JurassicJune (and now Jurassic July) posts. Please check out my post on Jurassic World Dominion, and stay tuned for my review of Jurassic World: Rebirth coming (hopefully) next week!

See you next time.

IT’S FINALLY HERE! Jurassic World Dominion! (a review)

by in Dinosaurs and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I finally saw it! I finally saw it twice!!

Last Friday, June 10th 2022, twenty-nine years (why not thirty?) after the original Jurassic Park’s release back in 1993, Jurassic World Dominion “closed” out the franchise with new and old Dinos, new and old friends, and weirdly a whole lot of bugs.

As is my usual, I did not have time to blog about it after I saw it Friday night, and of course I did not have time to blog about it after I saw it again on Sunday night, but finally I’m finished working on all my other projects (*cough* newsletter quarterly fiction for July first! *cough* sign up please!) and thought it might be a great topic for #JurassicJune2022’s third post (also check out #JurassicJune posts from all years).

So, keep reading if you’re curious about my general thoughts and impressions. Was it another classic? Or a terrible disappointment? How about a fitting “ending” to the franchise? (I have no faith it’s actually over).

General Thoughts and Impressions

I genuinely enjoyed it! I’ll save caveats and analysis for later sections of the post, and just write what my heart has told me, which was that I enjoyed this movie.

As I’ve said before (and will definitely say again), I’m a big fan of anything dinosaur related, and it doesn’t take much for me to get excited by your art if it includes one (but hopefully more than one!). I’m sure a lot of this stems from my original sense of awe, fear, and wonder learning about them as a kid, and I am under no illusions that the original Jurassic Park film likely played a huge role in that.

Going into the film, I fully recognized that bringing back all the old cast members and combining their adventure with the new Jurassic World cast, was a blatant appeal to my sense of nostalgia (which I generally don’t enjoy), but everyone has their kryptonite, and this franchise is definitely mine.

As such, what I wanted from the movie was dinosaurs, and hey, there were dinosaurs, so I was having a great time no matter what.

“Inevitably, underlying instabilities begin to appear”
— Ian Malcom

Ugh. If I was a better blogger, I would have just used Malcom’s chaos theory quotes from the original novel (at the section breaks) as all the headings, but I’ll limit that gimmick to just this once.

In answer to my earlier questions, I do not think this film will achieve the title of “classic” that the first film has, or which even The Lost World carries, but I did not feel that it was the overwhelmingly ‘creative disappointment’ reported by IndieWire. I can definitely agree that there was a lot of time devoted to call backs and fan-service, making the film feel a bit more like a museum exhibit than an adventure film.

But the funny thing about fan-service is, it’s for the fans! And as a fan myself, I enjoyed picking up each of the references (also I enjoyed the more paleontology related Easter-eggs like the name of the lecture hall Malcom lectures in though I didn’t spot that one myself).

Flaws in the system will now become severe”
— Ian Malcom

Heyyyy! I was able to squeeze a second one in that kind of makes some sense.

What I mean is, much of the feedback I received (which I can’t link to because it was IRL) from friends was that they didn’t enjoy the movie because creating dinosaurs was “obviously” a bad idea. How did anyone suspect that this would go right?

Most of this was from people younger than me, which I found fascinating for two reasons. The first was because it occurred to me that they had probably grown up in a world which already took for granted the lessons of corporate abuse, and the danger of “genetic power” which this franchise was trying to teach, but made no connection (and in some cases refused to acknowledge) that these movies were probably a large part of the reason that belief was so prevalent.

They spent the entire movie wondering how people could be so dumb as to create dinosaurs and their suspension of disbelief was broken not because dinosaurs could be created (swallowed that pill easily enough), but that at each step along the timeline, the active agents didn’t turn back, and that the situations continued to get worse.

Isn’t that how fiction works? This is not the only movie (or book) I’ve heard this from recently and I’d love to dive deeper into it, but it’s not a topic for this post.

But what these conversations really showed me, was just how much we’re in a strange place right now with many of these “legacy” franchises. Just how delicate the balance film makers (or any creatives) have to strike between the franchise’s original audience, and those who have come to it later (I’m seeing the same thing with Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond, The Matrix, and many others)

A Fitting End?

Honestly, I have no trust that this is really the end of the ‘Jurassic‘ movies. If it is, it will be bittersweet for the reasons I stated above in the general impressions part of the post, but I would not be mad at it. These days it almost seems more bold and daring to let an IP go extinct than to keep it going.

As for whether or not you should go see it? I’m still going to recommend it, but I also just love dinosaurs THAT much . . .

Thanks for reading. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below. I’m curious what y’all thought of the new dinosaurs and of the movie as a whole. Excited to talk about his one!!

See you next time.