Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 42
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston, MA

    Jurassic World - Spoilers

    $204M????? Seriously? 2nd highest opening ever behind only the first Avengers? Seriously?

    OK, I saw Jurassic World. It was kind of fun. Enjoyable even. But (channeling an old V-P Debate), I quote, "Jurrasic World, I knew The Avengers. I've seen the Avengers. Jurassic World - you're no Avengers." It's not even close. Here are my top 10 things wrong (some of them laughably wrong) or bad (some of them laughably bad) about Jurassic World.

    10) It's almost exactly like the last movie...with a new big, bad dinosaur. It even has the birds back.

    9) You know almost immediately who will live and die. The jerk military guy? Uh, he's a goner. The new owner? Uh, he's a goner. The kids and Chris Pratt and Bryce Howard Jones? Uh, they'll live.

    8) The entire scene with the new owner and the science guy in the lab. I mean, what? The owner, who admits that he was always asking for bigger and badder monsters, gets mad because the science guys created a bigger and badder monster? What? That scene went like this, "How dare you create this?" "Um, you told me to create it." "Yeah, but I said create it, not create a monster." "But dinosaurs are monsters?" "Yeah, but not really awful monsters!" "Dude, what are you saying? Are you drunk?" (note, how many of you kept hoping that Richard Parker would make a scene during the movie?)

    7) Raptors that can be trained by Chris Pratt? I mean, I get the part where the military would be all over that. And I actually could (sort of) buy the part where Pratt jumps in and saves the guy who fell into the pen (why would the other guy care if the pig got killed, by the way). I liked that...they were confused, and he jumped under the gate, just as they were going to attack and kill him. But to then suddenly be riding with them on motorcycles as they chase off into the woods to find the new big bad dinosaur. Sorry - that's laughable.

    6) Those lovable (and completely unbelievable) kids. So many things wrong here. They see that the fence has been torn down, and they've been ordered to go back to the start, and they decide to just go off road? Oh yeah, that would happen. And then the dinosaur can't outrun them after it cracks open their pod? And then they dive into the water and it doesn't dive in after them (but they are under just long enough for it to think they somehow got away or drowned?). And then they fix the car (where the time period seems to go from day to night to day in about 2 hours) just like that? Was it wrong that I kept wanting them to get eaten?

    5) The dinosaur that would not die. Let's see, the big baddie clearly gets hit with some kind of large explosive device (so much that it knocks it over after blowing up right under it), and gets shot a ton by real bullets, and the dinosaur is fine? What kind of skin did it have? Kevlar?

    4) T-Rex. Ah, our old friend T-Rex. Who just happens to be sitting in some pen right near the main gates where everyone else stayed? For what reason was it there? Why would they not have it on the island? And DBH gets it to chase her with a flare, and it doesn't just eat her? So forced and contrived (and fake).

    3) The ever present bad dinosaur. So they are on an island, that's clearly pretty big, and the big bad dinosaur is always exactly where they main people are? In a pod that moves around? Yep, he's there. Near the old Jurassic Park headquarters? He's there too. Oh, and he can kill a whole bunch of big dinosaurs all at once (because you know, they don't run away from him at all, right), and he gets chased by the raptors, then follows everyone back to the main tourist area? Blech.

    2) The incredibly awful Dallas Bryce Howard. From her high heels, to the senseless nature of her story (the parents who are divorcing, and the sisters who don't seem to like each other - I mean why would a sister send her kids to another sister who she knows will ignore them, and that scene where they talk on the phone was awful and didn't fit into anything), she was really terrible. And speaking of high heels? She kept them on pretty much the entire movie, I think. Even at the end. And her acting was stiff and forced, and unbelievable. And she had no chemistry with Pratt at all. 2nd most important person in the movie, and she was stiff, unbelievable and overacted.

    1) How the big bad dinosaur got out. So let me get this straight - they are at the pen with the big dinosaur where a ton of construction people are still building the place up. They get there, and can't seem to find him with the infrared, so they just assume that he got out. They don't ask anyone else if they heard or saw anything. They don't look for any signs outside that he got out. They just say it climbed the walls. So then DBH gets in her car to drive back to headquarters and calls them and says "Hey - look at the thing that actually tracks the dinosaur and tell me where he is," and they point out that it's still in the cage. So...um...YOU WOULDN'T ASK THAT QUESTION FIRST? WOULDN'T THE VERY FIRST THING YOU DO WOULD BE TO CALL THE GUYS AND SAY - HEY, WHERE THE HELL IS THIS THING? Nope - just send some guys into the pen. And none of this is pointing out that somehow the dinosaur was smart enough to know that it was being tracked by infrared signals, and then smart enough to all of a sudden stop giving off heat just so it could hide from the cameras (it likely didn't know existed anyway) to trick people into thinking it had gotten out, even though it knew it had a tracker in its head that would tell them where it was. Guess it also figured out that everyone there was idiotically stupid.

    This movie...this movie, made $204M.

    As I said, I still enjoyed it. Pratt was great. It was a fun popcorn flick. But nowhere near as good as the first Avengers. Nowhere near as good as Edge of Tomorrow. And it made $204M. Yeesh

    Uda (stealing JE's thing and pointing out that my sarcasm has nothing at all to do with me not picking this movie in my top 5. Nothing at all) man

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Brooklet, GA
    You forgot the </rant> tag. Solid rant though.

    As my wife likes to say when I go on a similar rant... in a very calming tone, as if to a child...

    "It's not real, hunny. It's fairyland."

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Quote Originally Posted by Udaman View Post
    10) It's almost exactly like the last movie...with a new big, bad dinosaur. It even has the birds back.
    The premise of the movie is the exact same as the premise of the new park.
    "Dinosaurs are as common as elephants, so for people to pay money, we need bigger and badder with more teeth."
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  4. #4
    Read the Variety Story about this:

    There's one that's overlooked, and I write this as a fan boy: To be blunt, we're all starving for blockbusters NOT based on comic book stories.

    I LOVE comic book movies. They've gotten so sophisticated with CGI, green screen effect, etc. we can get the kinds of things we never dreamed of as part of a comic story 10 years ago, let alone in the 80s and 90s.

    But, between Disney's excellent management of Marvel studios in the Phase I, II, III story lines -- and Warner Brothers' massive catch-up attempt that never seems to be able to get underway -- everyone is sick - and tired - of comic book movies. Even some of the non-traditional comic book movies are now based on graphic novels, which is fine. But Jurassic World is the follow-on to the original popcorn flick -- and THAT was based on a Michael Crichton novel.

    So while Avengers is a much better film than JW, JW is the right flick at the right time (month, year, etc.) to blow away the box office. It probably helped that Ultron was underwhelming, so people were hungry for something fun and cool.

    BTW, it's a Spielberg movie, so there is going to be an obligatory set of kids embedded in the action. It's all part of the Spielberg formula. The only time he didn't incorporate that was Raiders (which he promptly screwed up in Temple of Doom, and then rectified in Last Crusade (Crystal Skull just doesn't exist :-)).

  5. #5
    I'll throw another "problem" in the movie at you: the X-Rex ended up in the Park because it had thermal sensors, and they gathered everyone together. So why, when it gets to the park, doesn't it beeline for the hotel lobby where everyone is being treated for their Aviary injuries and waiting for the next ferry?

    I don't care....

    I loved it -- and would see it again if it were going to be in Imax for longer than 2 weeks.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    One of my big beefs with the ending and T-Rex and Indominus Rex fighting was that in the third movie they had essentially the same scene, and the T-Rex got its neck snapped in about 20 seconds. Fight over, bigger badder dino moves on to eat more people.

    I DID enjoy the use of props and sets from the first movie, all the way down to the banner that fell at the end of the climactic scene in JP. Someone put in a lot of time and thought into using that first park, and it worked really well, down to the use of the dining hall mural to bring an air of suspense and creepiness, and the Jeeps to escape. Believable? No, but still fun.
    By the way, what are those night vision binoculars powered with that they still fired up after sitting 20 years on the shelf?
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by cf-62 View Post
    Read the Variety Story about this:

    There's one that's overlooked, and I write this as a fan boy: To be blunt, we're all starving for blockbusters NOT based on comic book stories.

    I LOVE comic book movies. They've gotten so sophisticated with CGI, green screen effect, etc. we can get the kinds of things we never dreamed of as part of a comic story 10 years ago, let alone in the 80s and 90s.

    But, between Disney's excellent management of Marvel studios in the Phase I, II, III story lines -- and Warner Brothers' massive catch-up attempt that never seems to be able to get underway -- everyone is sick - and tired - of comic book movies. Even some of the non-traditional comic book movies are now based on graphic novels, which is fine. But Jurassic World is the follow-on to the original popcorn flick -- and THAT was based on a Michael Crichton novel.
    So what you're saying is that audiences were tired of movies based on the sophisticated writing in comic books, and want adaptations of shallower works?

    So while Avengers is a much better film than JW, JW is the right flick at the right time (month, year, etc.) to blow away the box office. It probably helped that Ultron was underwhelming, so people were hungry for something fun and cool.

    BTW, it's a Spielberg movie, so there is going to be an obligatory set of kids embedded in the action. It's all part of the Spielberg formula. The only time he didn't incorporate that was Raiders (which he promptly screwed up in Temple of Doom, and then rectified in Last Crusade (Crystal Skull just doesn't exist :-)).
    Spielberg didn't direct Jurassic World.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    It's hard to forgive this movie for giving a cameo to Jimmy Fallon without having him eating by a dinosaur.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    So what you're saying is that audiences were tired of movies based on the sophisticated writing in comic books, and want adaptations of shallower works?



    Spielberg didn't direct Jurassic World.
    roflmao Duvall.

    I'm not going to say all Crichton novels are great, but you're seriously barking up the wrong tree if you think a graphic novel (ANY graphic novel) could hold Jurassic Park's little toe.

    Also, I never said Spielberg wrote JW - I said it was a Spielberg movie -- and it was. He produced it.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by cf-62 View Post
    roflmao Duvall.

    I'm not going to say all Crichton novels are great, but you're seriously barking up the wrong tree if you think a graphic novel (ANY graphic novel) could hold Jurassic Park's little toe.
    I mean, "graphic novel" covers a lot of ground, and a work like PERSEPOLIS is roughly 100 times better than the best of Crichton's "FIRE BAD" potboilers. But even if you limit the conversation to corporate superhero product it's not hard to find works better than JURASSIC PARK, a brilliant idea weighed down by lousy writing.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    I mean, "graphic novel" covers a lot of ground, and a work like PERSEPOLIS is roughly 100 times better than the best of Crichton's "FIRE BAD" potboilers. But even if you limit the conversation to corporate superhero product it's not hard to find works better than JURASSIC PARK, a brilliant idea weighed down by lousy writing.
    Wow - hate Crichton much?

    Sorry D, while Crichton novels are full of scientific fiction, much of it untenable, even in the best of circumstances, again, you're WAYYYY off base with JP. JP does the kinds of things to you when you read it that are usually reserved for King novels.

    I'm not referring to the SCREENPLAY of the JP movie. I mean the novel.

    You may not like Crichton's style, but JP was anything but lousy writing.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Charlotte, North Carolina
    I'm going to take the middle ground on the excellent Duvall/cf-62 debate. JP (the novel) was a fun airplane novel - entertaining from the wait in Charlotte-Douglas all the way to the landing at LAX, good enough even to put in your book case at home rather than in the recycling bin because, hey, you might want to re-read it during some other flight. It was a good book, im(h)o, but a long way from great.

    That being said, there have been some comic series (or parts of series) and some graphic novels and mini-series that border on genius and I would place above Crichton's novels (although the Andromeda Strain and The Great Train Robbery were both very good). I'd mention Ronin, The Watchmen, X-Men (from the Hellfire Club through the death of Jean Grey), Daredevil 168-181, and The Dark Knight Returns as comic work with brilliant writing. Been a LOOONG time since I looked at new comics, so I have no doubt that there has been some marvelous work in the medium in recent years. Comics, ideally, are a great format for creative work.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    The real issue for me is my expectations outpace studios' ability to deliver.

    The original Avengers movie was a top ten all time entertaining movie for me.

    Avengers 2 and Jurassic World were good, not great.

    I've not seen Ex Machina or Mad Max yet, I suspect I would rate them higher than A2 or JW.

    Originality counts in entertainment, although I suspect there is a strong counter that sentiment is highly variable from person to person.

    For a short entertaining fan flick, check out Predator: Dark Ages on YouTube.
    Nothing overtly original, and still a neat twist on the Predator franchise.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by davekay1971 View Post
    I'm going to take the middle ground on the excellent Duvall/cf-62 debate. JP (the novel) was a fun airplane novel - entertaining from the wait in Charlotte-Douglas all the way to the landing at LAX, good enough even to put in your book case at home rather than in the recycling bin because, hey, you might want to re-read it during some other flight. It was a good book, im(h)o, but a long way from great.

    That being said, there have been some comic series (or parts of series) and some graphic novels and mini-series that border on genius and I would place above Crichton's novels (although the Andromeda Strain and The Great Train Robbery were both very good). I'd mention Ronin, The Watchmen, X-Men (from the Hellfire Club through the death of Jean Grey), Daredevil 168-181, and The Dark Knight Returns as comic work with brilliant writing. Been a LOOONG time since I looked at new comics, so I have no doubt that there has been some marvelous work in the medium in recent years. Comics, ideally, are a great format for creative work.
    I want to clarify - I LIKE, no LOVE, comic book and graphic novel movies. And I have no problem with anyone that says they're phenomenal pieces of literature - they are. But Hollywood has gone way overboard in making these into films. We are in complete overload on these things right now. There hasn't been a SUMMER blockbuster outside of comic books in years.

    Bond is always thanksgiving.

    HP, Hunger Games, and LOTR are also Thanksgiving.

    We're just overloaded on these things in summer now.

    What makes movies based on novels awesome is that producer, screen writers, and director taking something described in a book - and translating it to the screen. Making a movie that looks like a graphic novel isn't exactly imaginative.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    West Palm Beach, FL
    I really enjoyed JW, it was fun in Imax 3D, and I want to go see it in Dbox seats. I think it was on par with the original and much better than the Lost world and JP3. This is the sequal that the original movie deserved. The nods to the original park were really fun. Also the Jimmy Buffet cameo at the parks Margaritaville was hilarious and I don't think everyone realized it was him. It had just enough comedy to offset the carnage, the bad guys got eaten, the bad dino got eaten, Blue and TRex teamed up and was awesome!! The perfect summer movie, and it was my favorite movie of the summer so far.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    I'm still chuckling at the use of the term "spoiler" in the thread title.

    Details of the movie may have been revealed, but to suggest that knowing those details would in any way "spoil" the movie going experience is just funny.

    A "spoiler" would be the revelation that none of those details came to pass in the movie.

  17. #17
    I appreciated that they included the line about how the dinosaurs didn't look accurate because they spliced other animals' DNA into them. I still would have liked to see the movie be bold and take it a full step further and portrayed dinosaurs accurately, feathers and all.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    ... I still would have liked to see the movie be bold and take it a full step further and portrayed dinosaurs accurately, feathers and all.
    You mean like in Family Guy where Peter fights the big chicken?

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Missed JW opening weekend due to being out of the country so I am chiming in late.

    I want to echo many of Udaman's comments about the quality of the plot. I found myself somewhat underwhelmed by the film. It was good popcorn fun, but if you bother to really think about the plot, it was just silly and not well thought-out. In addition to his comments, let me add a few more that are still bugging me many hours after seeing the film.

    1) The point of Indominus Rex was to be "bigger and badder" than a T-Rex. Ok, fine. But when they set the T-Rex free to fight IR, they sure looked to be about the same size. Sure, IR was smarter and maybe had more teeth or something to cause it to win, but they seemed pretty darn similar in size. Certainly, IR wasn't so different from the T-Rex so that attendance at the park would dramatically spike.

    2) So, the Raptors think of Chris Pratt as the Alpha. Then, they see IR, appear to chat with her, and decide she is the new Alpha. Ok, I am cool with that. But, why did they turn on her and decide to be on Chris Pratt's side again later in the movie? Why were they fighting IR at all? What changed?!?! You can't pull a switcheroo like that without explaining it a little bit.

    3) The scenes with Dr. Wu leaving the island with his secret embryos were clearly to set up a sequel. I've got no problem with that, but my sons insisted that Dr. Wu had engineered IRex with Raptor DNA so the military guys could use IRex as a weapon too. Did anyone else think that was the case?

    4) By the way, the lunacy of Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio) thinking that Pratt had enough control over the Raptors to actually lead them into battle was almost comical in how stupid it was. That said, I did enjoy the notion of the Raptors being given a sniff of the IRex's flesh and then being able to track her through the woods. Who knew that Raptors were the genetic parents of Bloodhounds?!?!

    5) I know it would ruin the entire premise of the movie, but the fact that the park did not have better, more efficient ways of dealing with escaped dinos was pretty comical and distracting. They sent out guys with nets and cattle prods and they were surprised when those guys got killed. Really?!?! But it did allow them to rip off the fun scene from Aliens where all the marines get killed while the control room gets to watch the life signs go flatline.

    -Jason "like I said, it is fun if you turn your mind off, but the fact that this will make exponentially more than Ex Machina or Edge of Tomorrow is a crime" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Seattle
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    Missed JW opening weekend due to being out of the country so I am chiming in late.

    I want to echo many of Udaman's comments about the quality of the plot. I found myself somewhat underwhelmed by the film. It was good popcorn fun, but if you bother to really think about the plot, it was just silly and not well thought-out. In addition to his comments, let me add a few more that are still bugging me many hours after seeing the film.

    1) The point of Indominus Rex was to be "bigger and badder" than a T-Rex. Ok, fine. But when they set the T-Rex free to fight IR, they sure looked to be about the same size. Sure, IR was smarter and maybe had more teeth or something to cause it to win, but they seemed pretty darn similar in size. Certainly, IR wasn't so different from the T-Rex so that attendance at the park would dramatically spike.

    2) So, the Raptors think of Chris Pratt as the Alpha. Then, they see IR, appear to chat with her, and decide she is the new Alpha. Ok, I am cool with that. But, why did they turn on her and decide to be on Chris Pratt's side again later in the movie? Why were they fighting IR at all? What changed?!?! You can't pull a switcheroo like that without explaining it a little bit.

    3) The scenes with Dr. Wu leaving the island with his secret embryos were clearly to set up a sequel. I've got no problem with that, but my sons insisted that Dr. Wu had engineered IRex with Raptor DNA so the military guys could use IRex as a weapon too. Did anyone else think that was the case?

    4) By the way, the lunacy of Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio) thinking that Pratt had enough control over the Raptors to actually lead them into battle was almost comical in how stupid it was. That said, I did enjoy the notion of the Raptors being given a sniff of the IRex's flesh and then being able to track her through the woods. Who knew that Raptors were the genetic parents of Bloodhounds?!?!

    5) I know it would ruin the entire premise of the movie, but the fact that the park did not have better, more efficient ways of dealing with escaped dinos was pretty comical and distracting. They sent out guys with nets and cattle prods and they were surprised when those guys got killed. Really?!?! But it did allow them to rip off the fun scene from Aliens where all the marines get killed while the control room gets to watch the life signs go flatline.

    -Jason "like I said, it is fun if you turn your mind off, but the fact that this will make exponentially more than Ex Machina or Edge of Tomorrow is a crime" Evans
    I gathered that they planned on being able to use IRex in battle as well.

    Also, I've heard rumors that Chris Pratt is signed on for more JW movies. Like you said, leaving the island with all of the lab information allows for the transition to the next movie.

Similar Threads

  1. Thor: The Dark World (some spoilers)
    By Jim3k in forum Off Topic
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 11-22-2013, 11:08 PM
  2. Jurassic beer: calling Devildeac
    By rthomas in forum Off Topic
    Replies: 9
    Last Post: 09-24-2008, 08:57 AM
  3. Harry Potter SPOILERS !!! REPEAT SPOILERS!!
    By Windsor in forum Off Topic
    Replies: 62
    Last Post: 08-21-2007, 04:12 PM
  4. Harry Potter SPOILERS !!! REPEAT SPOILERS!!
    By Windsor in forum Off Topic
    Replies: 40
    Last Post: 08-19-2007, 07:58 AM
  5. Potter book spoilers (no spoilers in this post)
    By JasonEvans in forum Off Topic
    Replies: 25
    Last Post: 07-18-2007, 02:45 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •