Has anyone seen "Jurassic World"?

[Clueless Morgan]

Watched it yesterday.
It was ok I guess. 6.5-7/10.

I'd give it a solid 6/10.

- Complete lack of a compelling story - any of the many stories, and I thought there were too many
- Complete lack of character-building such that I didn't care whether a single "hero" lived or died, and kind of wanted them all to die
- No chemistry between any of the actors (the brothers, the "love interests," the "hero" and "villain"...
- Felt in a lot of ways like a scene-for-scene crappy-ass remake of the original with a suckier story and even suckier cast (the cast was suckier than the story, I really love the original cast from JP1 - just to be clear)
- The return of the random previous character...  with not so much as a word about how they so radically changed...  
-

---

So they defeated the fuck-you-up-osaurs by releasing the t-rex to go chomp it to bits but they didn't have the t-rex in, like, any other part of the movie...  I think there was one passing shot of it being fed... maybe... and then some kind of talk about "we need more teeth!" which supposedly made the main annoying chick think of the t-rex?  Terrible writing.  Simply awful.

---

- Most of all, though, I though the entire movie was a huge slander piece on things like GMO and genetics research and feel like it's going to contribute more to the misinformation and fears that are already there than it will simply entertain.

But there were dinosaurs so I can't give it less than a 5/10, and a whole point must be given simply because it's a JP movie

And I guess the main guy was kinda cute, so let's add a quarter point just for making the movie tolerable by having him in it: 6.25/10

Good way to kill a few hours.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.  I thought it was a thoroughly terrible movie, but I didn't pay to see it (by sister bought the tickets) so I didn't feel like I was jipped or anything.  I wouldn't see it again, though, that's for sure.

I LOVED IT... until the final 20 minutes. [snip]

Funny, isn't it. It was the last 20 minutes which I enjoyed the most. (I had a tear in my eye when our "friend" came to lend a hand.)  hehe

I was practically rolling in the aisle when that happened.

---

My mom, sister and I reenacted the raptor's sauntering appearance all the way back to our hotel and then for the rest of the night...

---

I agree, though, the last bit of the movie was actually entertaining to me, for as stupid as it was.  I spent the whole first part of the movie wondering how long it would be before the dinosaurs would escape and kill those annoying brothers and in the end I was totally rooting for the dinos to eat everyone!!!

I actually don't mind the catastrophe induced family bonding theme.

I don't mind that sort of thing when there's character development.  All you see of the brothers before they leave is that the older one is generally kind of a sullen asshole and the other one needs to be pushed off a cliff.  Then all you see is the younger one being endlessly annoying while the older one eye-fucks every girl he can see... then suddenly you find out from the mom that the older one is really mean to the younger one?  Really?  All he's done is ignore him.  Then suddenly they're about to be eaten by a dinosaur and the older one grows a big-brother instinct and is all protective?

How endlessly bad can this movie be?...

[ignoramus]

CM, that last bit was so ridiculous, it looked like our friend was grateful he was being let out for a walk, I'm surprised he didn't have the leash in his mouth! Hehe

[Alex K]

Another thing that made it hard for me to maintain suspension of disbelief is the incoherent reaction of characters to catastrophe and tragedy. So she just finds out that her nephews jumped off a 1000 foot waterfall and rather than being in panicking rescue mode, the next interaction is that she is acting cute to charm main hero guy into taking her with him. Wtf?!! That pissed me off. Same in the control room when the animal escapes and some guards are eaten. There is no sense of horror in anyone, hell the main concern of control room technician is that big baddie threw his plastic dinosaurs on the floor. Wtf! Same again when they send in the military guys. They get killed off one by one Aliens-style (which was a cool scene because it was lifted 1:1 from a classic, no original ideas here) and noone really seems to mind all that much. I've acted more horrified when my computer crashes or something. Seriously, did the director go on vacation after the first scene? Did they put it all together backwards in editing? Jesus! Incompetent B movie level directing. At least in Shark Attack III they look horrified when people get devoured by the creature.

[ignoramus]

I think this movie sits better with religious people.
Hell, if they believe in a man in the sky, then this should be a doco for them....

[Alex K]

Huh? Explain...

[ignoramus]

Huh? Explain...

Y'know... Dinos and people lived together, it's all real man!

[Minimalist]

Yup....creatard documentary.

[Aractus]

Yeah I'll give a few quick comments here.

Good:
1. 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
2. Avoided detailed discussion on the sci-fi "science" this time.
3. The child actors were as good if not better than the actors in the 1993 film: in particular Ty Simpkins delivers a more believable scared child than Joseph Mazzello.
4. Plenty of nice references to the original film(/park).
5. It is set on Isla Nublar, the original island planned for Jurassic Park.
6. There are two kids that play a major role in the film - not just one.
7. It was nice to see B D Wong reprise his role from the original film.

Bad:
1. The main character from JP/TLW - Ian Malcolm - isn't in this film.
2. Biosyn is not in the film either.
2. TLW makes it clear that InGen went bankrupt following the events of JP. This is not mentioned in TLW:JP (the 1997 film adaptation), however it is very unlikely that the company would survive.
3. How did they make Isla Nublar safe? For example - towards the end of JP, Grant and co find a colony of velociraptors in a huge underground building. Not only have they been breading there, but it allows them to go outside of their enclosure. How many other caves and underground areas are there for dinosaurs to nest in? How did they get rid of them all and secure the island?
4. Wu makes a "new dinosaur" for a "new attraction". Why??? Why couldn't they have kept to the original concepts that are in the books, and even Wu himself says in JW: none of the InGen dinos are real dinosaurs. They're all created by splicing genes together and hoping for the best; there are all kinds of valid reasons why Wu and his team would be changing the genetics - they want more predictable dinos, perhaps more docile dinos, perhaps more manageable dinos, perhaps they want healthier dinos, etc. This would not have threatened the integrity of the film, in fact it would have been a much better plot device.
5. The kids go run about on their own, lose with a killer dino on the loose. Yeah - WHY??? The whole point of JP was that the kids were guided by Grant - they survived the whole ordeal together, and made their way across the island on foot, and they bonded. In JW you have some of the most ridiculous things - for example, the kids find some Jeeps that have been sitting in an old InGen building for 22 years, and they manage to start one and drive away. WHAT?!! And WHY? Why did InGen not service those Jeeps and use them? Why are their old buildings wasting away unused for 22 years??
6. Oh yeah, we get to see a T-Rex, and just... wow. Underused, and completely stupid when it is used. Spielberg, everyone owes you a huge apology: letting a T-Rex loose in San Diego in TLW:JP wasn't the worst possible idea for the use of a T-Rex in a film after all. And I just echo what Clueless Morgan says about the T-Rex - it just happens to be exactly where it's needed exactly when it's needed and does exactly what's needed for the story to proceed - despite the fact that its enclosure could have been elsewhere on the island making it impossible to use it for the purpose it's used for. And in fact it's enclosure should be further away from the main area where people gather, where the cafes and petting-zoo is. And why does it do what it does - what motivation does it have? I mean I understand WHY, I just don't believe that it will do it. It's a hunter dinosaur, like a Tiger. You can scarcely expect a tiger to attack a lion just because you tell it to go and eat it!
7. Why is the killer dino rampaging anyway? I mean, in JP the T-Rex they're all scared of is just doing what it does - hunting for food, but this dino goes around killing everything just because it can.
8. The rampaging dino claws out the tracker that's implanted in it. Again - WHY? That's just not realistic.
9. Owen Grady is the protagonist who protects all the main characters, what a guy! Hoskins, who wants to use the raptors as a weapon - that makes him a "bad guy". But there's a scene where Owen could have saved Hoskins' life (or at least tried), and instead he just lets him die!!! WOW, so much for being a good guy.
10. The raptors - where are their feathers from JPIII? And OK, no feathers, but why do they behave in a way that defies belief at the end of the film?? WHY???
11. Why not use all the GREAT material left over in JP and TLW that wasn't used in the first two films? There's plenty of it that would have worked so well with the JW story.
12. Wu's darker character was overall great. However, what motivation is there to keep what genes are spliced together a "secret" from the executives? That just doesn't make any sense. That whole part of the story could have been done better, and it could still have lead to the so-called "twist" in the story that happens later on.

[Pyrrho]

Oh well now I've seen it, too!
...  Ordinarily one would think that with a 150 million budget, there should be some money in it for making a good film, but apparently that's just not the objective any more. Jesus, does sensible dialogue cost a million dollars per word or why is it so hard to come by. Some things though are so incoherent that one wonders whether the put the movie together in a different order as originally intended. Weird!

Good stories have always been problematic for Hollywood.  Good writers are not as common as one might want, and those making films typically cannot recognize good writing if they trip over a well-written book.

In some cases, good films have been made by taking a story from a good writer of long ago and making a movie of it without changing it too much.  But idiot filmmakers like putting their stamp on their films, and so they like to fuck up the writing even if they managed to stumble onto a decent story which they have adapted to film.

Or to more directly answer your question, good writing requires some intelligence, and that is something that humanity does not have in abundance.

If you want proof that most filmmakers are morons, buy some DVDs or BDs of films with director commentaries, and watch them that way.  With very few exceptions, one finds that filmmakers are idiots who would have made something even worse if they had not had help from others who were not completely incompetent at their tasks.

I can think of one director whose commentaries do not give that impression, and that is Werner Herzog.  Ironically, you are not very familiar with your [former] countryman [he now lives in the U.S., or did the last time I checked].  His films do not have the biggest budgets, and that affects the final product, but he is always interesting, at least in the films of his that I have seen.  In the case of Herzog, his films are interesting with his commentaries.  With most directors, I turn off the commentary within 15 minutes, as I cannot stand their moronic comments and their incredible stupidity.  But, viewing films this way does explain why so many films are so very lacking in so many ways.

[Pyrrho]

Yeah I'll give a few quick comments here.

Good:
1. 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
...

If the best thing you can say about a film is that you liked its aspect ratio, it must be a total piece of crap.