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Life After Jurassic Park?

Comments

  • #2
    Ziphius
    Registered Users Posts: 714 ✭✭✭Ziphius


    Perhaps Jurassic Park was a little too influential. It seems almost every Dinosaur film post-1993 must include some kind of small, deadly, pack-hunting 'raptor' creatures.

    With the huge increase in scientific knowledge of Dinosaurs since the nineties it's a shame that none of it has made it to film. I'd love to see feathered Dinosaurs in the next Jurassic Park.

    Although I guess dinosaurs in films are always going to be pastiched as dumb movie monsters rather than real living animals.


  • #3
    Galvasean
    Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    It seems almost every Dinosaur film post-1993 must include some kind of small, deadly, pack-hunting 'raptor' creatures.

    I think Godzilla was the worst offender in this regard. There was truly no need to include the baby 'zillas (other than to ape JP of course).
    Ziphius wrote: »
    Although I guess dinosaurs in films are always going to be pastiched as dumb movie monsters rather than real living animals.

    That's what I really love about the Jurassic Park films*; the way the dinosaurs were presented as animals rather than just plain killers. I especially love that closing shot in The Lost World where you just have a bunch of animals living their day to day lives. You had carnivores near herbivores and it didn't turn into a bloodbath.
    * I think JP/// failed in this respect for the most part. I know they tried with the raptors, but that was a tad bit too surreal. The Spino on the other hand was just a killing machine. It didn't feel like an animal at all, just a movie monster.


  • #4
    Ziphius
    Registered Users Posts: 714 ✭✭✭Ziphius


    Galvasean wrote: »
    I think Godzilla was the worst offender in this regard. There was truly no need to include the baby 'zillas (other than to ape JP of course).

    Godzilla's actually what I had in mind.
    Galvasean wrote: »
    That's what I really love about the Jurassic Park films*; the way the dinosaurs were presented as animals rather than just plain killers. I especially love that closing shot in The Lost World where you just have a bunch of animals living their day to day lives. You had carnivores near herbivores and it didn't turn into a bloodbath.

    Or the scene in the first Jurassic Park where you first glimpse the herd of dinosaurs in and around the lake.


  • #5
    Adam Khor
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    I don´t count Godzilla as a dinosaur movie. Wasn´t it supossed to be a sea-iguana mutated by radiation who somehow developed a taste for fish? I'm talking about the American version, of course, although the Japanese Godzilla wasn´t much of a dinosaur either...
    I do agree with you that the baby Godzilla scenes were nothing but a raptor rip off.

    Peter Jackson's King Kong was visually amazing but I hated the way they portrayed the dinosaurs as terminal idiots. The sauropod stampede was particularly ludicrous; the Vastatosaurs were awesome looking but c´mon! No self respecting giant predator goes to such lengths to eat such a diminutive prey as Naomi Watts, especially when there's already a freshly killed land crocodile back there that should have been a much more satisfying meal. Kong vs three Vastatosaurs was overkill; the whole point of having a T-Rex fight Kong in the original 1933 movie was because one T-Rex was supossed to be a more than worthy opponent. The respect for dinosaurs is completely lost in Jackson's movie.

    Other than those I can´t remember that many post-Jurassic Park dinosaur movies.
    I think its like Steven Spielberg once said. Most of them are terrible, but they all usually have something good about them.

    Land of the Lost was very bad and not meant to be taken seriously, but the dinosaurs looked cool, and it was nice to see Allosaurus get some attention even if it gets blown to bits later on.
    Oh and it DOES have a bunch of Jurassic-Park raptors appear just for a second and eating someone, as if it was an obligated cameo.

    A Sound of Thunder     was terrible. I love Ray Bradbury's stories but this movie was just bad. And the dinosaur was so poorly rendered that its hard to believe the movie was made in 2005.

    I think probably Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs may be one of the best dinosaur movies of lately which is kinda sad... but at least it did referenced some new discoveries (Guanlong, feathered dinosaurs, spinosaurs larger than T-Rex) as well as the old genre cliches- like the Pteranodon/Rhamphorhynchus hybrid... as well as older "prehistoric" fiction, from Journey to the Center of the Earth to Jurassic Park III itself. I was never a fan of the Ice Age movies but everything's better with dinosaurs...:(


  • #6
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,127 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    Adam Khor wrote: »

    Peter Jackson's King Kong was visually amazing but I hated the way they portrayed the dinosaurs as terminal idiots. The sauropod stampede was particularly ludicrous; the Vastatosaurs were awesome looking but c´mon! No self respecting giant predator goes to such lengths to eat such a diminutive prey as Naomi Watts, especially when there's already a freshly killed land crocodile back there that should have been a much more satisfying meal. Kong vs three Vastatosaurs was overkill; the whole point of having a T-Rex fight Kong in the original 1933 movie was because one T-Rex was supossed to be a more than worthy opponent. The respect for dinosaurs is completely lost in Jackson's movie.

    I agree with your points but I thought that punch up between Kong and the dinos was great, in terms of spectacle at least.


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  • #7
    Galvasean
    Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    It was fun, but maybe a bit too silly IMO. It's one thing to suspend disbelief to the point where a giant ape can fight a dinosaur, but when he's fighting three at the same time while receiving bites left right and center to no ill effect whatsoever it just fills a little bit dumb. It's like they tried too hard to outdo all the dinosaur fights we've seen before but took it too far.


  • #8
    Ziphius
    Registered Users Posts: 714 ✭✭✭Ziphius


    Galvasean wrote: »
    It's one thing to suspend disbelief to the point where a giant ape can fight a dinosaur, but when he's fighting three at the same time while receiving bites left right and center to no ill effect whatsoever it just fills a little bit dumb.
    Exactly. At one stage weren't they fighting trapped in vines suspended over a bottomless precipice?

    It really removes the sense that the protagonists are in any real real peril or danger. I've noticed this a lot in action films, probably just because I'm older.


  • #9
    Adam Khor
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Ziphius wrote: »
    Exactly. At one stage weren't they fighting trapped in vines suspended over a bottomless precipice?

    It really removes the sense that the protagonists are in any real real peril or danger. I've noticed this a lot in action films, probably just because I'm older.

    How old are you? I'm a kid of the 90s and I too have noticed that. Its like the new Clash of the Titans movies, which I think are awful; they have loads of frantic action scenes and CG, but none of it is scary, and you never fear for the main characters (it helps that they are completely unlikeable, I suposse), whereas the original Medusa scene from the original, even though it was a stop motion creature and only seen directly a couple times, was really scary and tense, to me anyways...

    Sometimes less is more :cool:


  • #10
    Ziphius
    Registered Users Posts: 714 ✭✭✭Ziphius


    Adam Khor wrote: »
    How old are you? I'm a kid of the 90s and I too have noticed that. Its like the new Clash of the Titans movies, which I think are awful; they have loads of frantic action scenes and CG, but none of it is scary, and you never fear for the main characters (it helps that they are completely unlikeable, I suposse), whereas the original Medusa scene from the original, even though it was a stop motion creature and only seen directly a couple times, was really scary and tense, to me anyways...

    Sometimes less is more :cool:

    24 (do I count as a nineties kid? ). The recent transformers films were like this also. A bit of a mess really.

    It'd be great to see Dinosaurs treated in a mature fashion but I doubt it'll ever happen. Dinotopia if handled well (not like the TV series) could be wonderful. Or something by Pixar or Studio Ghibli.

    Tangentially, have you ever seen the stop-motion dinosaurs from Jurassic Park? Part of me is slightly disappointed they never went down this route.



  • #11
    Adam Khor
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Ziphius wrote: »
    24 (do I count as a nineties kid? )

    Yeah I think you do.
    Ziphius wrote: »
    . The recent transformers films were like this also. A bit of a mess really.

    I honestly never watched those. Takes more than Megan Fox to make me watch a movie and giant robots were never as awesome as dinosaurs in my book. Oh and I despise the guy who plays the main character, so... XD
    Ziphius wrote: »
    It'd be great to see Dinosaurs treated in a mature fashion but I doubt it'll ever happen. Dinotopia if handled well (not like the TV series) could be wonderful. Or something by Pixar or Studio Ghibli.

    Pixar is developing a dinosaur movie but it seems it will be a comedy thing ala Monsters Inc. I've kinda lost faith on Pixar lately but I know I'll end up watching this anyways...

    Ziphius wrote: »
    Tangentially, have you ever seen the stop-motion dinosaurs from Jurassic Park? Part of me is slightly disappointed they never went down this route.


    I had seen them in the DVD extras I think. Pretty cool, but honestly I think the JP movie was great with the CG and animatronics alone. The only things that looked fake where the raptor when it attacks Muldoon, and one shot of the dilophosaur hopping in the foreground during Nedry's death scene.


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  • #12
    Ziphius
    Registered Users Posts: 714 ✭✭✭Ziphius


    Adam Khor wrote: »
    Pretty cool, but honestly I think the JP movie was great with the CG and animatronics alone. The only things that looked fake where the raptor when it attacks Muldoon, and one shot of the dilophosaur hopping in the foreground during Nedry's death scene.

    Yes, Jurassic Park still holds up very well to this day. I saw it re-release this year and it's still as good as I remember.

    That's disappointing re Pixar. I was hoping for something a long the lines of the first half of Wall-E.


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