I just saw the trailer for Jurassic World, and I'm ready to share my thoughts. And if you intend to keep reading, you'd better get comfortable, because I have a lot to say! :)
Man have I been waiting for this movie forever! The last Jurassic Park movie was back in 2001; that was, of course, the God-awful Jurassic Park III. And since then, a fourth movie has been teased several times, but has remained in development hell as far as I can make out.
Now, I'm usually not one to keep up to date with a movie's development progress, but because I'm such a huge Jurassic Park fan, I found myself making an exception in this case. Any article I saw about the development of Jurassic World, I was all over it.
A Jurassic Park sequel is usually released every four years, so in 2005 – the time I'd been expecting another movie to be released – I read in Total Film magazine that Steven Spielberg was working with the studio to produce a script they were happy with. "Too much science will make the movie too talky," he said. "Too much fiction will make it seem dry."
From then until only a couple of years ago, nothing really happened. Then, when I read that the script was in the hands of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the husband-and-wife writing duo behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I was optimistic. My only hope was that they had as much passion for the Jurassic Park franchise as they did for Apes. But apparently, the script has been revised by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly since then, so that point may be proved moot.
On the other hand, another article I read presents a whole other discussion in itself.
It seems they decided against giving the dinosaurs feathers in this new movie, because, as they put it, "a Velociraptor with feathers is not a Velociraptor". And I think that's a shame. I mean, that would have been a great way to solidify the new evidence of feathered dinosaurs with the general public. Especially since an earlier article had included a script extract where Dr Wu addressed the outdated image from the earlier movies by discussing the flaws in gene sequencing: maybe the dinosaurs had no feathers because of their slapdash approach previously. (An idea that's also explored in Telltale's Jurassic Park game, by the way.)
Now, I can understand why some people would be reluctant to accept feathered dinosaurs, because I've been there myself. All my life, I've known dinosaurs as scaly reptiles, so for all the research that was turning up indicating that some species had feathers, I was extremely reluctant to listen to that evidence. Hell, it took me until a couple of years ago, when I saw the documentary miniseries Dinosaur Planet (not to be confused with the BBC's Planet Dinosaur) to finally accept feathered raptors; the feathered Velociraptor in that series looked amazing. Sometimes you just need to see something in action for it to really win you over.
But what about T-Rex? Well, we know the very earliest tyrannosaurs had feathers, and some of them were pretty big, but we're not so sure about the more advanced ones. Until recently, I remained a firm sceptic of the idea that Tyrannosaurus Rex itself had feathers.
But then I saw this picture of a statue in Poland that depicts it with a carpet of downy feathers. And the more I look at it, the more sense it makes. That's a feathered T-Rex image I can get behind. If this new Jurassic Park had made its T-Rex look like this, I wouldn't mind a bit. It would still look respectable and intimidating, certainly not like (to slightly alter a quote from the first movie) a "forty-foot turkey" that you couldn't take seriously.
Anyway, after all those developments, the trailer's finally out, the movie is finally within sight, so what do I think? Well, to be honest, the trailer did very little for me; I was kind of indifferent to it. Trailers very rarely get me excited to see the movies they advertise, because I know they can sometimes be misleading. The first teaser appeared to confirm one of my biggest fears for this project: that they were relying too much on CGI. The full trailer, like I said, didn't get me any more excited for the movie, but at least it didn't add any additional fears on top of that.
But, right off the bat, there are two major problems with this movie, both of which are very obvious, but I might as well get them out of the way.
The first problem is that I'm worried about the special effects.
Stan Winston, the special effects legend behind the animatronic dinosaurs in the first three movies, sadly passed away in 2008 – an unfortunate blow for any potential practical effects. The real genius of the series so far, and what made Jurassic Park so groundbreaking in the first place, was how well it blended the CGI with the animatronics. To paraphrase the words of the filmmakers, their intention was to make the two match up as best they could, so that they wouldn't come across as two completely different entities, and therefore the dinosaurs themselves would seem complete. And for the most part, they succeeded. I remember going to see the first movie when it was rereleased in 2011, and I didn't see animatronics: I saw frigging dinosaurs!
But now that the leader of the practical side of things is no longer with us, that sensibility could be gone altogether. Now, let's make one thing perfectly clear. CGI is very tricky to pull off convincingly; unless you do it perfectly, it just ends up looking like the digital animation that it is. And most blockbusters since Jurassic Park, especially in the most recent years, have made the mistake of relying too heavily on CGI; nothing seems grounded in reality anymore, so almost all CG effects just look like video game graphics, not live action in any way. I really hope Jurassic World doesn't succumb to peer pressure and reduce its computer effects to clearly animated sprites in that manner.
Well, if the trailer is anything to go by, I have good reason to be apprehensive. Right from when I saw that shot of the gate in the first teaser, I thought it looked straight out of a video game, completely devoid of the wonder we felt as we approached the gate to the park in the first movie (which was achieved mainly because that gate was a real prop, it was actually there). And the dinosaurs look like cartoons.
Still, according to Wikipedia, there are indeed animatronic dinosaurs in this movie. We'll just have to wait and see how it all fairs out.
The second thing that hurts it for me is that it just took too damn long. Nothing is worth so many false release dates and setbacks. With each year, our expectations grew higher, and sometimes we let our imagination run away with us. The early concept art of dinosaur mutant hybrids certainly didn't help.
But, with all that aside, what else did I take from the trailer?
Well, Chris Pratt's performance, for one thing. It's about as far from his Star-Lord performance (and, if I'm not mistaken, his usual roles) as you can imagine! He's so deadpan serious he wouldn't be out of place in Man of Steel. But that's all right with me, because… I'm just going to come out and say it: I hated him in Guardians of the Galaxy. Though maybe that was just the character of Star-Lord himself; if the trailer's only showing us a tiny portion of Chris Pratt's scenes and it turns out he's applying that same shtick to a more likable character, maybe I won't mind so much.
What the fuck was up with that mosasaur show? I asked this question of Jurassic Park: The Game and it still applies here: where did they get the DNA to clone it? And during the show, how can they guarantee the safety of the spectators? How does the creature even fit in that pool? Is it supposed to be a satire of the killer whales' cramped conditions at SeaWorld?
But there is one thing I have to commend the trailer for: intrigue. They're promising a new dinosaur – which, by the way, I really hope they can justify well, otherwise it's just going to come across like the clichéd "scientists didn't know what they were doing" story. But if this new creature is to be a replacement for T-Rex, let's hope it's a more worthy choice than Spinosaurus from the last movie.
And on a side note, they didn't show this in the trailer, but I'm glad Dr Wu is in this movie. He basically had a cameo in the first movie, played by BD Wong, but he played a much bigger part in the original novel. Maybe he'll finally live up to his potential this time.
Anyway, that's about all the preconceived feelings I have for now. Now we just have to wait until June 12th, and all will be revealed. :) And, regardless of everything I just said, I'm still looking forward to the new movie. I'll be there opening day if I can. …Wow, it's hard to believe the wait is almost over! Fourteen years of anticipation is coming to an end.
So thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.
Again, since the last time I posted to this blog (nearly two months ago), I've felt very little motivation to write about the movies I see. But that leads to another problem resulting from not noting down my thoughts immediately: by this point, some of them have faded from my memory altogether. For both those reasons, I'm just going to run through everything very briefly – perhaps only a couple of sentences each – sort of like I remember doing at the end of an essay-style post a while ago.
As always, I'll start with the movies I've seen in the cinema since my last post…
Gone Girl (2014). Well, it's been a while since I've seen a thriller that kept me guessing all the way. :) The mystery of what happened to the wife only lasts for the first act, then it becomes something entirely different: an equally riveting battle of wits. The last act made no sense to me at the time, but fortunately does so on reflection. On the whole, it's a well written and highly effective thriller. My rating: 80%.
The Book of Life (2014). Right from the opening scenes, this movie was so emotionally potent that it won me over instantly. The story is as basic a fairytale as you can get, but that just makes it all the easier to get invested. I can't emphasise enough how creative the art style is! :) The pop songs are a little distracting, but otherwise this is easily one of my favourite movies of the year so far. My rating: 85%.
Nightcrawler (2014). At first, I could completely relate to the main character's struggle to find work. But as the movie progressed, I realised that devotion to him was misguided: the guy's a sociopath, plain and simple. And the movie is basically about his rise to success by being a complete slimeball. There are enough movies out there for the good guy; this is one for the bad guy. My rating: 80%.
Interstellar (2014). Well, it's more of the same complex sci-fi fare from Christopher Nolan. :) A few things don't add up, but I could still follow the overall story well enough. The whole "time is relative" thing leads to one of the most powerful emotional punches in recent memory. The only thing I really didn't like was the music. Overall, it's not one of Nolan's best, but still pretty good. My rating: 80%.
Next, everything I've rented over the last two months (making use of Xtra-vision's platinum offer, I might add: unlimited rentals for three months for only €49.99)…
A New York Winter's Tale [AKA Winter's Tale] (2014). I have a hunch that this is going to become a new classic "so bad it's good" movie. Half the time I just found it aggravating, but the rest of the time I was laughing my ass off. It starts out as a laughable failed attempt at a modern fairytale, and as it progresses, it just gets stupider and stupider. My rating: 25%.
The Invisible Woman (2014). This is a movie that conveys its period setting to a T: the set design, costumes and dialogue completely envelop you in the world the movie's created. But the attention to the setting comes at the expense of the actual story, which isn't very engaging. My rating: 55%.
The Quiet Ones (2014). This is by far the most forgettable movie I've seen all year; I hardly remember any specifics at all. I just remember it wasn't remotely scary, the characters were all assholes, and there was one scene where a character made an assessment that completely contradicted his attitude in an earlier scene. It's just a very unremarkable movie. My rating: 35%.
The Two Faces of January (2014). This one started out promising, with an almost Hitchcockian take on characters on the run. But as it progressed, I started to like the characters less and less; the only reason there's a movie at all is because the husband jumps to conclusions. So overall, I think it's just okay. My rating: 65%.
Tarzan (2014). Where do I begin with this one?! Right off the bat, the animation struck me as surprisingly lifeless: using motion capture with exaggerated, cartoon-like character models just doesn't work. The other big problem is the pacing: all the first two acts feels like first-act build-up. And don't even get me started on that cassowary! Boy did this movie suck! My rating: 30%.
Cuban Fury (2014). It's a cheesy dance movie that hits all the plot points you'd expect. …That's all I can really say. It's a mixed bag: parts of it are kind of effective, but other times the jokes are so contrived that I often found them groan-worthy. My rating: 55%.
Pompeii (2014). Again, this one isn't really worth commenting on. It's as predictable a disaster movie as it gets, with stock characters, humdrum storytelling and unconvincing CGI. Though it does end with one of the silliest images I've ever seen. My rating: 45%.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014). As a standalone thriller, this keeps your attention well enough and delivers a surprisingly breathless climax. But by completely rebooting the franchise, you've emphasised what a run-of-the-mill protagonist Jack Ryan's always been; the hero here is so plain that he might as well not even be called Jack Ryan. My rating: 60%.
Bad Neighbours [AKA Neighbors] (2014). GOD, this one was annoying! It's a movie where both sides of the rivalry are as unlikable as the other, since all they do is shout and scream and be as loud and obnoxious as possible – it's just noise, noise, noise! The fact that the jokes are unfunny and often sophomoric is almost secondary. I hated this flick! My rating: 20%.
Oculus (2014). So far, this is probably the year's biggest surprise. Even if, like me, you don't find the supernatural scary, this is still a great psychological study. You start to wonder which of the two leads is actually delusional, and you genuinely don't know what's real and what isn't. It's a very well written, compelling mind trip, and probably the best horror movie I've seen since Cabin in the Woods. My rating: 80%.
Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014). Another movie that I just wouldn't recommend you show your children. It's a disastrous attempt to bring Oz into the twenty-first century by making the dialogue and humour very contemporary. The songs are bad, some of the voice acting is terrible… and I didn't care much for Oz the Great and Powerful, but it had a far better china character. My rating: 35%.
Frank (2014). You can't go too wrong with a story about making music! :D The overall story is about the main character gradually destroying the band through his own selfishness. I didn't completely take to the characters, but still liked it well enough. Also, it's been a while since I've seen a movie that convinced me to buy the soundtrack! :) My rating: 75%.
Heaven Is for Real (2014). First of all, this movie is painfully slow! If you cut out all the scenes that don't go anywhere, this movie would be less than half an hour long. I had some issues with the message, too – but I'd need a full review to go into that. But at least Greg Kinnear was giving it his all. On the whole, I'd say this is deeply flawed, but not terrible. My rating: 45%.
Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow (2014). This is sort of like if Groundhog Day was an alien invasion story. :) I really love how the movie plays around with the idea, especially with how many times the characters have been through each scenario already. Oddly enough, the weakest aspect is the action scenes, which are a bit too frenetic and at times unintelligible. But overall, very clever and enjoyable. My rating: 75%.
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). You know… I'm kind of done being angry at this series by now. The continued success of these movies is just depressing by this point. It's just a sad fact of life: Michael Bay has got the movie-going public by the balls. This instalment wasn't as infuriating as two and three, but still pretty boring and way too long, and the human characters are more annoying than ever. My rating: 25%.
Locke (2014). This is a prime example of the "less is more" sensibility. The whole movie takes place in this one car, putting you right into this guy's mindset. You can feel his frustration when the job starts going to hell, and his reasoning is so sound that you really want his wife to listen to him. I just wish it hadn't ended where it did; I wanted to see it go on a little longer. My rating: 70%.
Now for all the miscellaneous movies I've watched on a whim, either by downloading them or picking them out from my DVD collection…
Wolf Creek (2005). Brad Jones' glowing comments naturally got me curious. But as I got into it, I quickly started to really dislike the characters: they laugh at everything, even when the car breaks down and they're stuck in the middle of nowhere! So, when bad stuff starts happening, it's just tedious to sit through, especially when they start making stupid decisions on top of that. My rating: 30%.
Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014). How could I resist a tie-in to the Batman: Arkham games? :D This is more of a Suicide Squad movie, though, and their personalities are so strong and their interplay so natural that they're just as enjoyable to watch as Batman himself. My rating: 80%.
Son of Batman (2014). It just sort of is what it is: Batman and his son's ideals clashing. I suppose it's kind of appropriate that I get some very anime-ish vibes from it (since the League of Assassins appears to operate out of Japan), but the mood's a little too sombre for me to get fully invested. My rating 70%.
The Haunting (1963). This is another one that had a promising start, especially with its clearly mentally unstable protagonist. But the whole middle section made very little sense to me: the dialogue is pretty laughable at times, and the characters often pull conclusions seemingly out of thin air. The creepy atmosphere never falters, though. My rating: 60%.
True Lies (1994). Well, the middle section of this movie made me distinctly uncomfortable, because it came off as very anti-feminist; Mrs Tasker is forced to pose as a hooker basically for a joke. Most of the humour is just plain awkward, too. But the second half is a different story. :) As with any James Cameron movie, the action scenes are some of the best ever, especially the big finale. My rating: 70%.
Last Day of the Dinosaurs (2010). This TV special is a minute-by-minute depiction of the Cretaceous extinction event. It's fair to expect TV documentaries not to have the best CGI, but for some reason it was really distracting here. But the one thing that's captured almost perfectly is the atmosphere: the desperation of the impact's immediate aftermath, and then the sense of desolation that follows. My rating: 75%.
Planet of Dinosaurs (1978). I went in expecting sci-fi trash, and that's exactly what I got. But it was so dull that I couldn't even enjoy it ironically. The music is terrible, the special effects shots stick out like a sore thumb because the scenery is a different colour, and even the stop-motion dinosaurs themselves look like low-rent Harryhausen effects – until the T-Rex shows up. Overall, definitely not good. My rating: 45%.
And finally, I've also played three video games in the last two months (and, in the case of the first two, this is where I feel the need to elaborate the most)…
The Amazing Spider-Man (PS3). It obviously takes many cues from the Batman: Arkham series, especially the combat system, but I feel that this game does for Spider-Man what those games did for Batman: you never get tired of being the hero in question. That's why I didn't mind at all how repetitive the game is. When you web-sling, it really feels like you're swinging. My only real complaint is that it's an epilogue to the first Amazing Spider-Man movie, so it's continuing a story that I didn't particularly care for in the first place. But still, swinging around, capturing criminals, getting into car chases, helping infected civilians, and even a section where you lose your powers… If you just freed it from the baggage of being a sequel, you could have something pretty close to the best Spider-Man game ever made. My rating: 80%.
The Wolf Among Us (PC). This one, I could probably do a full review on! :) The mystery is so involved that I had to watch several Let's Plays on YouTube just to make sure I had every detail down. I really love the premise – and even though I never read any of the Fables comics, you don't have to, because this game precedes them. There are too many good examples of humour and character moments to even count. The fight with Bloody Mary is simply one of the best battles I've ever seen, period. But one thing that particularly stands out to me is the music by Jared Emerson-Johnson; I could watch those opening credits all day, the music's so perfect! Overall, it's not my favourite Telltale Games title, but still a really good one. My rating: 85%.
The Walking Dead: Season Two (PC). The most striking difference this time around is the overall tone: while the first season was an emotional rollercoaster, this one is almost a complete downer, very bleak and joyless indeed. There are plenty of individual scenes that are powerful in and of themselves, but I wish I could appreciate the whole as much as the parts; it's just not as compelling as the first season overall. My rating: 75%.
