Jabber Pack
Two lovers discuss and debate questions about movies, mental health and more. We may not always find the answers, but we sure will have fun trying. We are big fans of all things wolves, dogs and Disney, so you'll probably hear a lot of that entering the fray.
Jabber Pack
Episode 08 - Jurassic Movies
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Welcome to Jabber Pack! The podcast of 2 lovers discussing a wide variety of things. If you want to check out the video version of this on YouTube, you can also watch us playing, fittingly enough, Lego Jurassic World.
https://youtu.be/BjpywC9VKHM
Howl is everyone doing?
Like them or hate them, or somewhere in between, the Jurassic movies have been a cultural staple for over 30 years now. Whether you saw them in theaters, watched them at home or just saw all the merchandise, they are hard to miss. Join us, as we jabber about our thoughts on the main 6 and then what on earth they were thinking with “Rebirth”
Thank you for checking this out! We hope to see you bark again soon!
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How is everybody doing? Welcome to Jabber Pack. My name is Alex. And I am Rogue. And today we are gonna hit a little bit of a fun multi-movie topic. Uh, when will we ever learn? Trying to see how many movies we can talk about in one podcast. Um on a perfectly absurd side note here, we did just get done watching the Artemis II rocket launch into space. That was pretty cool. I hope you all get a chance to uh to see that.
SPEAKER_03So Or if you were too nervous, they successfully launched. All good.
SPEAKER_02The rocket went up. Well, it's funny because I didn't think I was going to. I tend to take the cowards route out and uh not watch these things, but um I just happened to uh be launching in like 15 minutes when I uh logged onto my computer, so I'm like, uh may as well, you know, watch history be made.
SPEAKER_03Yay. Date the video. Woo!
SPEAKER_02Indubitably. Hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray.
SPEAKER_03A little delayed on that one there.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah. In any case, um, speaking of history, uh, we're gonna talk about some movies that have a bunch of history behind them, and that would be the Jurassic Etc. Jurassic etc. movies. Hard to say that.
SPEAKER_03Jurassic Etc. movies?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, because I could say the Jurassic Park movies, but you know, they've expanded via. So.
SPEAKER_03Fair enough, Jurassic Etc.
SPEAKER_02So, we've got seven of them, and this isn't necessarily gonna be like a full-blown review of the whole movies, necessarily. More just our uh thoughts and opinions and all that good jazz. So, hope you join us and as we saunter through the Jurassic Era, even though a lot of the dinosaurs, some of them are technically dinosaurs, aren't all from the Jurassic Era. Yippity Yap, all of that is beside the point. We're not paleontologists, we don't know these things.
SPEAKER_03Um Details, details, semantics, semantics.
SPEAKER_02So, uh, as a kid growing up, I wasn't a dinosaur kid. Uh there's a lot of kids that, especially stereotypical male thing that uh little boys like dinosaurs. And that it's like fire trucks, dinosaurs, and space tend to be a lot of things people associate with kids. Um I was definitely more on the space side. Uh never really gotten to the whole dinosaur scene. Not that I didn't like dinosaurs, but I don't recall collecting uh dinosaur figurines or uh partaking in any dinosaur-related media outside of Jurassic Park itself. Um, so you know, not that that uh matters to any degree, but at least I had the astronaut cliche. That could have been me up on that rocket. Well, see, because I probably wanted to be an astronaut until I was maybe like 15, so it stuck with me longer than most, but then there's this whole like gr reality thing that happens, you're like, wait a minute, that's incredibly dangerous.
SPEAKER_03I mean, living is dangerous, but Yeah, living isn't dangerous, might as well live on the uh wild side, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So uh, you know, I grew up and then realized, okay, maybe I I don't want to be uh grew up and realized nope.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I say this when I worked for air, you know, worked around airplanes, very dangerous as well, but Yeah, but not as dangerous as launching yourself into space.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so uh I I took the safest possible uh at least around airplanes, you know, if you're smart about it, you can remain safe as long as other people aren't stupid. When you're getting launched into space, there's so many things that could go wrong that are both in and out of your control, especially the out of part.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, and then, you know, space is this giant vast killing machine for humans as well, so vast vacuum of nothing. So, nothing but death. Sounds like the title of a book. Anyway, back to dinosaurs. Um they can't kill you, they're already dead.
SPEAKER_03I mean, they could have uh uh if uh you know uh display of dinosaur bones fell on you, then technically the dinosaur could kill you. It wouldn't have been eating you, but it could kill you.
SPEAKER_02Though it's important to note that most dinosaur bones you see on display are actually casts of the bones they found that are uh um either like Again, semantics.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I'm just saying because the actual bones and fossils uh would be a lot heavier, um if you're a paleontologist and you're the one digging up the bones, they could still kill you if one fell on your head. I don't know which you would hurt more.
SPEAKER_02You were the bone, but But that would be a pretty cool way to go if you're like, okay, on your tombstone it could say, I literally was killed by a dinosaur. Like, legit.
SPEAKER_03And you know, if if it was a carnivore and if it was the head that fell on you, then you could say you were eaten by a dinosaur.
SPEAKER_02Alright. So, not a bad way to go.
SPEAKER_03It'd make a great story for your relatives.
SPEAKER_02So, for those out of the know, um Jurassic Park, the original Jurassic Park, was based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same title about bringing dinosaurs back to life through DNA uh bumbo jumbo. Now, having been in biotech for a while, yeah, I've had my fingers in a lot of industries. Uh I have a weird past.
SPEAKER_03Um Don't we all?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It goes without saying the DNA would have long degraded even in the best of circumstances. Amino acids just not amino acids, uh nucleotides. Nucleotides. Hard to say that. Um they're inherently unstable when your body isn't constantly rebuilding DNA. Because your cells, they uh constantly regenerate. And if they don't, uh I mean, after a while, everything in your cell dies and your body throws it away, and DNA is no exception. It uh it degrades. There's no like central repository in your body that stays untouched. Everything has to constantly be maintained. Life is this uphill battle. So you know, so that you have to stretch the truth to believe this bringing dinosaurs back.
SPEAKER_03And science fiction, of course. I mean, come on.
SPEAKER_02I'm just saying, with with my experience, very limited experience, um, with manipulating DNA and stuff, uh, it's cool to see stuff like that make it to the big screen, but um, you know, re-engineering is probably the future way to go if you want to bring dinos back. Uh as if these movies aren't a cautionary tale why you shouldn't do that. Now, uh, an interesting difference between the novel and the movie is the novel definitely paints the creation of Jurassic Park um and John Hammond's motivations as very reckless. Like a lot of the scientists in the book don't even know like what dinosaurs they're working on. They're just trying to get something created, some trying to make it work, get it out there, create an attraction. It's all uh purely money motivated. Um whereas in the movie, disasters befall as a cautionary tale to the forces of nature, that it's not necessarily from lack of trying, or that the people who created these dinosaurs didn't do, you know, their due diligence in uh trying to create them. It's more just, okay, you're messing with forces of nature that humans aren't meant to mess with. Um so catastrophe is inevitable. So that's an interesting little side note difference between the two. Uh that one of them is maybe saying, okay, uh the book is maybe saying DNA manipulation might not be the worst thing in the world. Um, but if you handle this incredible genetic power with recklessness, it's gonna come and bite you quite literally. Whereas the movie's more like it's inevitable anyway. It's more or less an act of God situation where uh there's not much you can do to control it. Clearly, movie after movie after movie, they can't control it. So uh at a certain point when if they keep making these, they're gonna have to title the movie When Will We Learn.
SPEAKER_03Maybe that's what they should have uh titled Rebirth.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we'll get to that one. Now, as far as the original movie is concerned, it came out, I believe, in '93. Yes. So I was alive, but not really at that memory-making age. So I can't say I remember the movie coming out, but what I was around for was the toys. So many toys. I remember they had these ones where they'd have a little piece f uh come off the dinosaur, and it would expose like bones and stuff, and uh. Now again, I I wasn't a dinosaur-loving kid, so I didn't have any of these toys myself, but I saw them out and about in the wild quite a bit. And they were hard to escape. And it was sort of a merchandising dream come true for the movie that there was already a brand and stuff in the movie itself. They already have the logo from the main movie inside the movie with Jurassic Park merchandise in the movie, so it wasn't difficult for them to expand that to the real world. And I just remember being uh under the impression that it was quite pervasive. You couldn't escape Jurassic Park merchandise, and that seems to be true even today. Uh, and I felt like it was true even before they started making the Jurassic World movies. Just like original Toy Story merchandise. I know we're up to Toy Story 11 now, but um It is not that far. Yeah. Uh as we discussed in a previous podcast. Uh, you know. But uh it seems to just be one of those surviving merchandisable franchises. Regardless of, you know, whether or not people are currently watching the movies, people seem endeared to the Jurassic Park intellectual property, the universe that the uh that the first movie created and established. Now, sure, each subsequent movie expanded on that, created more vehicles and dinosaurs that could be bought and appreciated, but um it it can't be understated just how much of a culture boom the first movie was. Uh, at a time where action movies were kind of the uh go-to standard in most theaters. This and this is an action movie per se, but it combines elements of you know science fiction, action, survival, uh, and yet it manages to be PG-13, so you can still take the family mostly to go and see it.
SPEAKER_03Mostly.
SPEAKER_02Now, uh so for the movie itself, if you hadn't seen it, uh, I think I tangented, started talking about it. Dinosaurs come back to life. An accident happens at uh while they're transporting a dinosaur, and so in order to make insurance people happy, they have a lawyer, an expert, and a few other experts they bring to the island to evaluate the park, its enclosures, and so on, to give reassurances that the park is safe for consumers. Um but then uh then hijinks ensue because there's a greedy guy who is being paid to steal from uh some dyno embryos from the park, and through his actions, um the park all falls to shambles. Some peeps get eaten.
SPEAKER_03Including the lawyer.
SPEAKER_02Including a lawyer, yes. Which started the running joke that we always say dinosaurs are uh craving lawyers. So when they're hungry, they're like, hey, do you have a lawyer? I want to eat a lawyer. So I don't know if you have any um childhood memories with this movie.
SPEAKER_03No. I I really don't. I don't I mean, I can't say I much remember much of my childhood to begin with. Um it it's kind of one of those movies that you don't really remember the first time you watched it, but it's kind of just always been there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I feel that way about the movie Fifth Element, which um actually I don't know that I've act I I've only seen the movie once, but I've seen bits and pieces of it for years, and my brain feels like it's always existed. It baffles me that they ever made that movie. It just seems like it's been a part of It's there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's unexplainably there.
SPEAKER_02So I I can see that because I don't remember the first time I saw Jurassic Park. I know it was at home. I don't I don't recall ever seeing it in a theater. In fact, uh I I didn't see any of the Jurassic Park movies in a theater. So that must have been an experience. Um but it also can't be understated the technical storytelling of the movie. Um now a lot of people talk about like, okay, there's certain monster movies that follow uh certain rules, like, oh, you don't show your monster till halfway through the movie and stuff like that, to build up suspense. And a lot of that comes from the movie Jaws, but that was mostly accidental with the movie Jaws, who Steven Spielberg also directed, uh same director as Jurassic Park. But that was most like I said, it was mostly accidental because the shark kept breaking. So a lot of the clever storytelling, props, you know, to Steven Spielberg and the whole team, uh, in Jaws that led you to not see the monster till much, much later in the movie, um, Full Face, was completely accidental. If Steven would have had his way originally in that movie, then he would have been seeing the shark a whole lot more. And it might have not been as iconic as it ended up being, and maybe we wouldn't even have the Jurassic Park movie we have today, because that might have been a flop, because it might have been the Sharknado of its day. Um, although Sharknado's one of those so bad it's good kind of movies, and they know that. The people who make who made the movie know that, and that's what makes it um as entertaining as it supposedly is. I've also never seen it. Anyway. But as far as the technicals of the movie are concerned, uh they're originally gonna do a lot of the dinosaurs with stop motion, where you sit there and have a model, you move one little micrograsm at a time and uh take a picture, move it again, take a picture, move it again, take a picture.
SPEAKER_03Tedious.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But, you know, there's uh shows like Sean the Sheep that uh uh Ardman Studios, I think they're called in the UK, who did movies like Chicken Run and stuff, um, who are still keeping that art form alive today, and I very much appreciate that. But uh for that movie they just weren't it wasn't quite hitting the notes that they were hoping. Um and so it was this movie is commonly credited with bringing computer-generated uh imagery in a big way to the screen. It existed before, but uh this was one of the first movies to really, really just push the envelope with how much they could do with it. And what made it most believable is whenever there was a limitation in one technology, they jumped to another. So they had some extremely intricate uh practical effects in the movie. I mean, they very famously built a T-Rex for the uh paddock escape sequence. Uh and they probably used it in a couple other shots. Uh so not uh so they have the CG s shots of the Rex, but when they needed a really good organic close-up thing for the actors to react to to give the proper scale and weight, then they had this, for lack of a better description, giant puppet to bring it to life in that way. And same with the raptors, they had several practical mechanical raptors, and then they had CG for the scenes where moving the uh practical ones wouldn't work. And so because they painted the picture with both, um it very much helped create a cohesive, workable, realistic, tangible narrative to the audience at the time. Now, sure, we can look at it under today's lens and obviously tell, oh, well, that's clearly the CG shot, that's clearly the real shot, but it wasn't so easy back then, i and for what it is, I think it still holds up incredibly well. Especially because they didn't lean on that computer-generated component super heavily. They used it as a tool to solve problems when they needed it to, but they still employed every trick under their hat to technically tell the story as best they could. So, I think that's worthy of its place in history. And it's justifiably one of the most famous blockbusters in history. So it's hard to recreate that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, nothing's gonna beat the OG Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's one of two reasons why I'd want a Jeep Wrangler.
SPEAKER_03So Yeah, not just because you want to play with the gear shift.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So for a little bit of history, I used to work for a rental car agency. Again, I've worked a lot of interesting jobs, and so I had to move a lot of cars, and a lot of the newer Jeep Wranglers, uh, their gear shifts like most cars today, uh, they're completely digital. There's no mechanical connection between what you're doing and your actual transmission. Especially because a lot of cars are hybrid now, and so that wouldn't work anyway, because how would the car, you know, how would you manage a lot of technical stuff. Yeah. Anyway, so modern Wranglers have a very fidgety, clicky gear shift that's just fun to play with. So uh one of the only things I miss about that. So, and the other reason is I would love to just have a Jurassic Park decked out, uh, Wrangler. Whenever I see somebody, you know, put a wrap on their uh Wrangler to make it look like the Jurassic Park Jeeps, I just uh who wouldn't want that?
SPEAKER_03I mean, honestly, who wouldn't want a Jurassic Park Jeep?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's like one of the coolest things ever. Uh as long as the T Rex doesn't come like chasing me out of the mountains or something, then I'm I'm would that wouldn't be preferred, but come on, it's a Jurassic Park Wrangler.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean even people who haven't seen the movie give mad respect to uh Jurassic Park decked out cheap, so So yeah. Now the other aspect to talk about Jurassic Park that's probably embarrassing for me is I did experience that movie as a kid. So I had a lot of Jurassic Park-related nightmares.
SPEAKER_03I mean, if you're a kid watching a movie about man-eating dinosaurs, who couldn't have nightmares about that?
SPEAKER_02So, you know, on one hand, it's like I'm talking about this movie that uh I loved as a child and love as an adult too, and knowing the history of what it means for the industry and all that good stuff. It's just an amazing movie all around. And but at the same time, it terrified me as a kid. Which was part of the point.
SPEAKER_03Part of the fun of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh because I'm not a horror movie genre watcher, generally speaking. But especially survivor horror movies, it's just not my cup of tea.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um if I'm gonna l if I'm gonna watch or listen to something horror, just give me creepypastas. They're more entertaining to to listen to, and a little more, you know, get you worked up than uh horror movies, because it's just jump scares.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Horror movies are mostly jump scares, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're not wrong. Uh so yeah, it uh I can't say I recovered from that. Every once in a while, I will still have a movie where dinosaurs are in it. A movie?
SPEAKER_03A nightmare?
SPEAKER_02A brain movie.
SPEAKER_03A sleepy brain movie.
SPEAKER_02There you go.
SPEAKER_03That's it. Nightmares and dreams will not be called sleepy brain movies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, yeah, it's also part of my psyche for that reason, too. Because I guess if a movie just gets into your little child brain just right, it just builds something in there that just never goes away. Uh, another movie that did that for me as a kid, at least, was Independence Day.
SPEAKER_03Um, I don't think I ever remember having nightmares about like Jurassic Park or Independence Day. Maybe I was just a psychotic kid.
SPEAKER_02Oh well. What can you do? I like you just as you are.
SPEAKER_03Grow up to be even more psychotic, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Don't admit it.
SPEAKER_03Why? Let's have a fun. Because then people know people have been warned. They never know what you're gonna expect. Or what to expect from you, I should say.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_03Well Oh, what's that look for?
SPEAKER_02But so. Uh, one final note about the original movie before we move on to the others, because I I'm not gonna have as much to say about the rest of the movies.
SPEAKER_03Um Yeah, you can't beat the classic OG Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Nothing nothing's gonna top it.
SPEAKER_02And I I can't talk about the praises of the movie without talking about the music to the movie, which I won't mutter here, even though it's got some really, really catchy themes that, you know, just capture the majesty of the movie to a T. John Williams is uh absolute legend, and Jurassic Park is by far one of his most famous uh musical compositions for good reason. Because, like I said, Jurassic Park has horror elements about it, but one of the things it does is for the f you know, basically the first half of the movie, it's capturing the wonder of bringing these animals back to life. And capturing wonder in a movie is really difficult to do. But it's it's easy to overdo. And I think Spielberg and Williams together with the visuals and the music just uh captured the beauty of what some of the dinosaurs could be, and makes some people uh wish that they were real for that reason. Not because they want to be eaten, but to be like, wow, just uh view some of these creatures from the past and bring them back, it uh messes with your sense of mortality, because you're like, oh, well, nothing's truly extinct if we can bring it back. Uh but also just the sense of uh seeing something from long ago when the world was completely different and uh you know, but also a little more violent than your Land Before Time interpretation of dinosaurs. I say that, but Land Before Time had plenty of violence in it as well. R.I.P. Littlefoot's mother.
SPEAKER_04Spoilers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, spoilers, don't get attached to her.
SPEAKER_03I'm pretty sure most people have at least seen uh at least the first one, I hope. But I can't I I might be hoping for too much. Anyway, back to Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So you can't top the original, but they at least tried to continue it many, many times. The So the second installment, also based on a novel by Michael Crichton, is called The Lost World, or sometimes The Lost World Jurassic Park, I think is its full official title.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the official title is The Lost World Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_02Which probably came out around 98, 97.
SPEAKER_0397.
SPEAKER_02Oh, 97. I was really close. So I was old enough to remember this one coming out, but again, didn't see it in theaters. Uh, especially because at the time, uh my family was dealing with divorce, uh, costs of living were really high. I had a lot of other things on my mind in life than uh going out to see movies. I did see the first Pokemon movie in theaters whenever that came out. Um I want to say 98, 99 on that one. But not important. Regardless, uh Jurassic Park, I call it Jurassic Park 2, it's Lost World, Jurassic Park. Uh, kind of like how Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first Indiana Jones movie. So it confuses some people because some people want to call it Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
SPEAKER_03And for all those curious, Pokemon the first movie, the Pokemon the first movie originally came out in '98.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So it's not that I wouldn't see movies, but uh far between. Yeah, and it just wasn't the jam vibe of my family to scrounge money to see this one in particular. It's one of those that I I saw years after the fact. Probably on TV.
SPEAKER_03Uh and Yeah, you know, you could uh sit there as a when it premieres on TV late night.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, plot of the movie in a nutshell. Uh, because let's be honest. Uh for Jurassic Park 2 and 3, I'm just gonna keep calling it Jurassic Park 2, sorry. Uh, not sorry. It's basically an excuse to get people back on a Dino Island. Because the first movie, like I said, it had a big sense of wonder of bringing these creatures back and experiencing them, but every movie after that, uh, at least for, you know, the next couple Jurassic Park movies, is basically more just the horror aspect and an excuse to get people in the danger. So the excuse in this movie is uh team goes to research dinosaurs for reasons, and our uh good friend played by Jeff Goldblum, Dr. Ian Malcolm, uh, goes to save his girlfriend who is one of the researchers there. At the same time, Ingen, the company who made these dinosaurs, uh, brings this big military-esque team to extract dinosaurs with the intention of bringing them to the mainland to bring to make a theme park there. Because, well, the one on the island is a loss. You could call it a lost world even. But so that's the excuse to get people there. Clearly things don't go to plan. And uh hijinks ensue. Death deadly hijinks, I should say. Um. Now, I don't recall I I don't want to say this is one of the least memorable Jurassic Park movies, but uh a lot of the details escape me, even though I have seen it. If you want to experience these movies in the best way possible, play the Lego version.
SPEAKER_03Um Okay, then you can watch most on Netflix. Just saying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But um but yeah.
SPEAKER_03And for the record, the reason that a team is sent to the island under the guise of John Hammond is to encourage non-interference, i i.e. not removing the dinosaurs from the island to move to, I guess it was San Diego, yeah, for a theme park. Because his n John Hammond's nephew wanted to start a theme park in San Diego, which I I'm sorry. Why would you want to take dinosaurs to a place like San Diego?
SPEAKER_02They're trying to compete with SeaWorld.
SPEAKER_03Or they were trying to get the dinosaurs an all-you can eat buffet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fair enough.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I think the the second option there is more accurate, but you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, California is famous for coming up with over-the-top fusion cuisines, you know, so why not put people on the menu too?
SPEAKER_03Because that's not that's not right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But sadly, kind of hilarious, but just not right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but uh, you know, if I'm being honest, Lost World's one of those that I just didn't really like very much. Uh I I mean it's not a a super terrible movie in a lot of respects. There's plenty of uh interesting things that happen. But uh I also recall that it had the most deaths that bothered me, if that makes sense. Because the T-Rex eats a dog. Enough said, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I like dogs, so so that made that made me mad.
SPEAKER_03Well, I Okay, so while we're sitting here discussing, I'm also researching the movies a little bit because why not? Researching can be fun. And with what I'm reading, it gives me a little more I how should I put this? I'm a little more forgiving to The Lost World with how much how many people are eaten, and so on and so forth, how quote unquote action-packed it is compared to the first one. Mostly because if this is accurate, which I've written it, I've read it on several places. There wasn't originally supposed to be a sequel to Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_02No, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_03The author of the book was pressured into writing a sequel to his book, which is where the story for Lost World came about because he was pressured to writing a sequel book. Because according and again, I can't guarantee that this information is accurate, but from what I'm reading, um the author was pressured by fans for a sequel and then was also pressured by Steven Spielberg to create a sequel because Steven Spielberg said he would love to direct said sequel if there was one.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean the first movie made a bunch of money, so Well, this was during filming. Yeah, uh, and that's unfortunate when that's where the pressure's coming from, and money talks, so uh, I guess Hollywood and Michael Crichton listened, but maybe a little begrudgingly. Um but in any case, so I don't know what much I can say about The Lost World. It's interesting. There's some fun levels to play if you take you play the Lego game. Um but it it's just one that doesn't stick with me very much. Uh again, I don't think it's a terrible movie per se, in hindsight, having watched it, but even as a kid, it was the one that I didn't remember much about. Uh I hated that they ate a dog.
SPEAKER_03Um I mean the the most I I honestly never don't remember much of watching it as a kid, but although let's be honest, one of the most memorable parts is just watching a T-Rex run down the streets of San Diego.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'd say the one random guy who got eaten, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's why I said not the safest. But it would still be awesome to watch from a window.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there you go. But yeah, and I I think Jeff Goldblum bringing his kind of hammy acting style is probably one of the things that held it together a little bit. Uh you know, and and you feel for the people who are in danger for the most part. Um there's some interesting things that happen. Like the main uh guy on the In-Gen team that's trying to extract dinosaurs, um, you know, and his big thing is he just wants to, you know, shoot a T-Rex for trophy's sake. Uh, but by the end of his sequence, because he's not he basically leaves the movie before they make it to San Diego. Uh but by the end of his sequence, he's like, I've had enough of this, I've seen too much death, because I guess uh his best friend who was with him got killed in some of the dinosaur attacks, and so, you know, you see some interesting character development, and you know, that guy doesn't end up being a complete cartoony bad guy for the whole thing, and the big bad guy that gets eaten at the end is the you know corporate uh idiot who wanted to bring the dinosaurs to San Diego. Because money. And you know, maybe that was a subtle middle finger to uh the people pressuring to make this movie and book anyway, to say, oh yeah, well, here's what happens to people who just care about money.
SPEAKER_03Maybe. Who knows? The world may never know.
SPEAKER_02But, you know, feel free to check it out. It's uh it's there. It's as uh you know, from a legacy standpoint, I can't hate on it too much. It's just one I'm the least familiar with. It's one of those movies you see, and then you know, six months later you you try to remember parts of it and you're like, huh. I don't remember much. I remember raptors chasing people through tall grass, the guy who stupidly dies because he's afraid of a snake, um the T-Rex running through San Diego, and that Jeff Goldblum's in it.
SPEAKER_03Also, you gotta remember the guy who um the uh doesn't the one guy just get eaten by the little compies?
SPEAKER_02Yes. That's true.
SPEAKER_03The one jerk gets eaten by compies, so yeah, so you know the compies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, that's uh I that's another point, is you know, there's some deaths in these movies that like feel cathartic, like when the bad guys get it. The guy who was mean to dinosaurs gets eaten by compy, the greedy guy gets eaten uh by T-Rex and baby T-Rex at the end. Uh but you know, but then you intersparse it with, you know, uh unfortunate deaths. You know, like the guy who saved them from falling over a cliff ends up getting eaten by two T-Rexes, you know, and that sucks. The dog sucks. Uh random innocent guy in the street getting eaten sucks. Um so, you know, weird mix.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But I guess every Jurassic movie's that way. You know, for every lawyer that gets eaten, like, you know, there's uh uh Samuel L. Jackson who also gets eaten, so you know. But fun.
SPEAKER_03Still a good movie overall though.
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. Like I said, for some reason it's just the one that sticks in my brain the least. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, because I that means there's nothing atrocious that is. Yeah, I mean it's got some fun action scenes I remember. Um but you know, overall I don't think it's again T-Rex running through San Diego. Yeah. Uh but they made a third one.
SPEAKER_03It brings us to Jurassic Park 3.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Which, if my information serves me correctly, came out in 2001.
SPEAKER_03Stop looking at my screen.
SPEAKER_02Well cheater. Well, I should say if your information is correct, it can't be.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so this is the Cinemark website itself. So I'm I'm pretty sure they'd have the release dates or the release years correct on the Cinemark website. It could have been hacked, but um Okay, I'll c I can cross-reference with Wikipedia and every other release information I've got.
SPEAKER_02Well Yeah, but it also corroborates with my memory of about when the movie came out as well. And yeah. So let's see. So I'm trying to fill in the gap. So the original one came out in '93, next one '97, 2001. So that's pretty even. It's like every four years. So for some reason, when I remembered number three coming out uh when I was a kid, I felt like it was out of the blue.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it probably was.
SPEAKER_02Uh and maybe it's because I d I guess I don't rem the second one didn't stick in my memory a lot. So it more felt like a spiritual successor to the first one than it did the second one in my brain, I suppose. So it's it made it feel like a lot more time had passed, especially since I don't know how well the second one did financially. Clearly, well enough to justify uh the existence of a third.
SPEAKER_03Uh well, according to again, information on Cinemark's website, the Lost World Jurassic Park had a box office gross it grossed over uh six hundred and eighteen point six million worldwide. Which, if you compare it to the original, again, you're talking movie released in nineteen ninety-three, it grossed over one point zero five eight billion worldwide.
SPEAKER_02Neat.
SPEAKER_03Heck of a difference, though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, I mean, either they thought that they could come up with a concept that would breathe new life into the franchise enough to make a decent amount of money, or that that still made enough money to squeeze it for a little more money. I use money twice in the same sentence.
SPEAKER_03Who cares?
SPEAKER_02Uh regardless, I remember feeling it was a little bit out of left field. And the main thing I remember is I wasn't a dinosaur kid, but my cousin was. And at the time this came out, I was living in the same house as my cousin, and I remember him being really excited about it, and when it came out on um were DVDs around at this time? Probably.
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Either way, whatever home media it came out on at the time, he sure watched it a bit. And so it's one of the ones I'm more familiar with it not because of my own watching of it necessarily, but because it was something that was watched many times in the house I was living in at the time.
SPEAKER_03So uh VHS and DVD. It was released on VHS and DVD on December 11th of 2001.
SPEAKER_02Well, there you go. But so, the excuse that gets our humans in danger in this one is uh Child and I think Uncle. Um I guess you're researching.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You can continue talking while I research.
SPEAKER_02Uh child and guardian at the moment, not legal guardian, but person with him, uh go parasailing around uh one of the Jurassic Islands, you know, for kicks and giggles.
SPEAKER_03Oh, divorced couple, their sh it's the couple is divorced, it's their son and the mother's boyfriend, apparently.
SPEAKER_02Well, okay. So, yeah, him. Uh you know, he makes the brilliant decision to take this kid on a parasailing uh adventure around an island. Uh stuff goes wrong, as it tends to, and kid gets stuck, so uh mother, father, uh uh band together trying to shanghai Alan Grant from the first movie to help them rescue, under the guise that they just want to Alan Grant to give them a little tour of the island from an airplane. Uh and he only agrees because his main motivator in all these movies is getting his digs funded. So uh he's like, hey, you know, take take me and my wife on this whirlwind airborne tour of the island, and uh you know, we'll pay for your digs. Wait, wait, wait. Uh, your digs.
SPEAKER_04Indeed.
SPEAKER_02So, that's how Grant gets Shanghai into it, but of course, they knock him out during the flight, because he he tells them, don't land on the island, you know, if you don't want to die. But of course, they want to rescue their son, so they do land on the island after knocking him out, and hijinks ensue. Uh. Some peeps get eaten, but the core group, Grant Kid, uh, Grant's helper, and parents. Eventually I'll make it off. Nobody else does. So, there you have it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Now, starting from Jurassic Park 3 forward, there's always some dinosaur of note in the film. And because I don't really recall a new dinosaur in Jurassic Park 2, Lost World, whatever. Uh, I know they had some that didn't appear in the first film, like the Bonkheadosauruses.
SPEAKER_03Um that's the official name. Yes, it is. Bonkheadosaurus.
SPEAKER_02Uh, so there was some appeal that they were new dinosaurs, but there wasn't a new like front-of-the-poster apex dinosaur until Jurassic Park 3, where it featured the Spinosaurus. Uh, which is there. It's a big old dinosaur. Um, they interpret it bigger than the T-Rex. I don't know how that holds up to reality, but uh it's also the only Jurassic movie where there's a fight between the new dinosaur and a T-Rex where the T-Rex loses. Though it's important to note this isn't the same T-Rex from Jurassic Park. Uh, the original, that T-Rex is um in basically almost every movie in the future. They establish even the ones in the Jurassic World, it's the same uh T-Rex from the past, so you know, it's a good old Rexy. She's hanging in there. Um, so to try to make it more scary than the T-Rex, they have it win a fight against a T-Rex, and they're always running from it, and there's also Raptors, and there's a silly subplot about the guy who's helping Grant stealing eggs from Raptors, and they eventually have to give them back and somehow not get eaten by the Raptors, even though some of them get eaten by the Raptors, but not the core group. Including one of the bad guys who uh also plays the villain in Airbud for, you know, all that's worth. Uh, so it wasn't too sad to see him go, I suppose. But so it uh like I said, it it it leans into the horror genre a lot more. It's it there's just get us to the island as an audience, and then it's just who's gonna survive and all that good stuff.
SPEAKER_03In all fairness, according to Fossil Fossilera.com, a spinosaurus is roughly the size of a T-Rex.
SPEAKER_01Neat.
SPEAKER_03If not a little bigger.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03Just for the record.
SPEAKER_01Neat.
SPEAKER_03So random research.
SPEAKER_02Definitely something to be scared of. Uh it'll eat ya. Yeah, there there was also a lot more flying dinosaurs in this one, as I seem to recall.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Because I don't remember if there were any in the first two Jurassic Park movies.
SPEAKER_03Uh not depicted during the full movie itself, but I want to believe at towards the end of it was either the beginning or end, I don't remember. Of the first one, they did show some flying dinosaurs. Because they were outside the helicopter.
SPEAKER_02I know that was definitely in the third one, there's uh famously they're flying away and there's flying dinosaurs.
SPEAKER_03I thought they had it in the first one too. Maybe I was thinking of the third one.
SPEAKER_02Eh, who knows?
SPEAKER_03Either way. Well, they probably didn't have them on the first one just because they were uh you know, worried that they were gonna fly off the island anyway.
SPEAKER_02Uh, perhaps so. And you know, I don't know if we even need to talk about the plot hole that is the lysine contingency from the first movie.
SPEAKER_03Hey, they technically explained that in the second one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, did they?
SPEAKER_03The they gave an explanation on it was either the second or third movie. They had an explanation for why that didn't work. I couldn't tell you what it is.
SPEAKER_02Well, then it was probably in the second one, because I said I I remember the least about the second one.
SPEAKER_03But I remember in one of them they did give an explanation as to why the dinosaurs weren't dead. I believe it had something to do with the plants they were eating. I think it was in the second one.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_03And I think it had something to do with something that was in the plants that they were eating.
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_03Basically negated the effects of it.
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_03But we also want to talk about the fact that the third one and the first one are based on the same islands, if I recall correctly. I could be wrong about that.
SPEAKER_02I'd have to reference the video game. I think the second and third one are the on the same islands. Dang it!
SPEAKER_03I just accidentally closed my window.
SPEAKER_02No, except for I was pretty sure the second and third movies did not take place on the same island as the first one. We don't go back there till Jurassic World.
SPEAKER_03Actually, no. Well, you're right. You wait, that makes no sense then. Hold on.
SPEAKER_02Okay, you can continue on what you were Well, regardless, they end up on an island with dinosaurs, hijinks, and Sioux. So, um they do a little more with the flying dinosaurs in the third one, because regardless of whether or not flying dinos appeared in the first two movies, they make a much bigger threat appearance in the third one.
SPEAKER_03Okay, and technically, Isla Nubar is the site is the movie location for both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, but not the other two.
SPEAKER_01Neat.
SPEAKER_02Well. So, good stuff. So, like I said, if it were it not for my cousin, I probably wouldn't have really watched Jurassic Park 3, especially because I was a bit of a wuss. Like I said, I'm not much into the horror movie genre, and most Jurassic movies after the first one were pretty much just, like I said, excuse to get people eaten by dinosaurs. But I I felt the third one a little more palatable than the second one, so um so I remember more about it. Uh especially that stupid satellite phone ring. Because the father has a satellite phone that uh you know was used a few times in the plot, and one of the times they hear it because one of the guys who got eaten had it, so they hear it, and it's coming from the Spinosaurus itself. So dun dun dun. So I mean, uh I remember thinking it was interesting, had some fun little action and stuff, but I don't know if you have any specific memories of Jurassic Park 3. But I can definitely see why the f franchise burned out kind of at that point. Because, yeah, apparently every four years they came out with a new one. But I uh Jurassic Park 3 probably didn't perform super great because although it's it's interesting, um I think people were starting to get tired of uh oh, it's just another excuse to get people on a dinosaur island, and will they survive? Won't they survive?
SPEAKER_03Well, it also doesn't I mean, I guess it kinda doesn't help that the settings for the thir for the second and third one were technically the same island.
SPEAKER_00Uh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's like, okay, you just had this island which was it's commonly referred to as quote unquote site B.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You had this island, uh just shown in this movie, and then and then you turn around and have people stupidly going to same island in next movie. Yeah. And let's be honest, the world knew about the incidents from the second movie, because that was a big issue. I mean, that's part of a plot as to why Alan Grant in the third movie can't get funding, is because the public and everybody is so hung up on the events from movies one and two. So how could I guess it's a how could people be so stupid as to go to this island where they know they're likely to get killed and eaten?
SPEAKER_02People are gonna be dumb.
SPEAKER_03I get thrill seeking, but dang.
SPEAKER_02I mean people die taking selfies all the time in really stupid ways and stupid places, so you know, i if people have the opportunity to do something dumb, they probably will. But as the movie going public, there's only so much of that you can swallow and have it be believable. I mean, obviously you're talking about science fiction dinosaurs coming to life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's not necessarily believable enough on its head. So but just trying to think of all these reasons to shoehorn our heroes into danger, uh i it takes a toll on the brain after a while, especially if you binge these movies. Then after a while you just think, man, they're just coming up with any dumb excuse to get people in danger. Come on. So, at least with the world movies, there's a little bit of leeway in that, which is probably why they were able to breathe some life back into the franchise with them. Um the next leap in the franchise uh was the Jurassic World series, which I think they departed from the name to specifically try to tell the movie going public that, hey, um, we've got something new here. It's not just another, you know, uh cash grab of diminishing ideas of how to get the same group of people in danger on a dinosaur island over and over again. Now it's getting new people in danger on a dinosaur island. Uh but no, to be fair, uh I do like the premise of the original Jurassic World because it was like, okay, what if Jurassic Park succeeded and didn't fall apart before it had a chance to gain footing? What if it really did become a tourist attraction? Uh and what would that look like? Which was pretty cool. But of course, greed drives the world. So apparently people got bored with dinosaurs, so in order to keep shareholders happy, they had to make newer, crazier dinosaurs that weren't even really existent. They were ones that were cooked up in a laboratory. Hijinx ensued.
SPEAKER_03Indeed.
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, and then you get Star Lord, who uh hangs with raptors and don't discredit blue. Oh, yeah. Good old blue.
SPEAKER_03You can't go wrong with blue.
SPEAKER_02So um, and then the the second Jurassic World, uh Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Is uh uh Premise for Fallen Kingdom is basically volcano on the island where Jurassic Park was reopened is about to erupt. And so beginning of the everyone's trying to petition to save the dinosaurs, government doesn't agree with them, let them die, is what they say, which well, let's be honest, that probably would have been for the best. Depressing, but for the best. Um then relative of some dude who uh worked with Hammond steps in to help save the dinos, only he doesn't really want to save the dinos, he wants to turn around and sell them to the highest bidder. Uh again, hijinks and two, end of the movie, dinosaurs are roaming around freely.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03Which then leads to Jurassic World Dominion. Uh people living on Earth with bunch of dinosaurs. Probably should never happen. For some reason they allowed it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, and um, so a lot of the dinosaurs end up getting taken to uh a sanctuary set up by Biosyn, which was a rival company to In-Gen, but of course In-Gen's basically um toast at this point because Ingen did. How how could they have any uh value in their company after all the disasters they caused? Um and Biosyn famously was the other company that was trying to steal from Jurassic Park in the first movie. Um and the CEO of Biosyn currently is the one who paid off Dennis Nedry, the guy who stole the embryos in the first movie, so he gets to come back to get eaten. Spoiler alert.
SPEAKER_03Which I love the irony of him dying the same way uh Dennis did Dennis did in the first movie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, come on, that that was peak ironicness there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Death by Spidasaurus.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um so. Good fun romp, all three of those movies. Uh I think they did, you know, kind of successfully bring interest back. Uh, I think of the three, Dominion probably fell off the rails the most. I feel it was the most confused film uh of the three. Because it's like half the film is them on the island, half the film is them at a mansion where uh Well that that was two. Oh, did I say Dominion?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, you did say Dominion. I meant Fallen Kingdom. Fallen Kingdom was the one that was confused. I mean, I I would say for the first it wasn't even half it was I'd say the first third of the movie was them on the island, um and the latter two-thirds was them at this random mansion in the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, where they kind of shoehorned in that, oh, it wasn't just John Hammond that, you know, started all this, it was also the farmer from Babe.
SPEAKER_03Um I'm never gonna be able to unsee that.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Um yeah, I was there too. I I love that uh retro writing people do, like, oh yeah, I I was totally there too, 100%. Uh yeah. Uh yeah. So I don't know, to me uh the the of the three Jurassic ones, that was the weirdest.
SPEAKER_03I mean, it kind of falls in line with the first set though, because it was like three the second one of Lost World was the odd one out of the first three movies. And so it was the s the second out of the three, it was kind of the odd one out, didn't know what it was doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And same with Jurassic World. The second one was the odd one out, didn't quite know where it was going with it, but bridge the gap between the first and third, so I guess it works.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, you know, then there's plenty to like. Um, I mean, and then uh as I mentioned with the Spinosaurus and the third one, each one of these movies has their signature dyno. Uh Jurassic World has the Indominus Rex, the Abomination created to uh try to impress the public, but was too smart for to be contained. Uh the second one was what they call the Indoraptor, which is basically just the Indominus Rex, but more Raptor than The Indominus Rex, but shrunken. Yeah. Um and then the third one, uh some big carnivore, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Well, they had the big carnivores at the end, which you only see for a little bit, but they also had the um the other trained Raptor Variation.
SPEAKER_02I think they called them like atrociraptors or something.
SPEAKER_03I don't remember what they were called. It was a raptor variation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Either way, uh what I liked about Dominion was that it went a lot more places. I mean, so, you know, a good chunk of the movie, the third last third takes place in Biosyn, but the first third of the movie Um kind of takes place, you know, in America in the with uh Chris Pratt and friends um, you know, living in the woods, and so you get to see some dinosaurs here and there, including Blue and Blue's little baby beta. Um great for toy sales.
SPEAKER_03Indeed.
SPEAKER_02Um, and then the the second third, oh shoot, where were they? Somewhere overseas.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say some desert-esque place overseas that had a dinosaur black market.
SPEAKER_02I want to say it was Mombasa, but not sure. Don't quote me on that.
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_02But either way, I loved the adventure feel, because dinosaurs got introduced into the world at the end of the second one, and this was showing a lot of the reality of what that would look like is oh crud, there are dinosaurs everywhere, and there's gonna be an underground market for selling them. Um And so it was uh I don't know. It it felt a lot more adventurous. I I liked the you know, now dinosaurs are in our world. And what's that look like? What are we gonna do about it? And um seeing our protagonists have to navigate and survive that, and then they bring back all the old goodies like uh uh Alan Grant, Ellie Sadler, Ian Malcolm, and so to see the old OG Jurassic Park uh protagonists teaming teaming up with the Jurassic World protagonists, you know, I mean, th it's just just fan candy at that point. Malta? Okay. It's fan candy at that point, but I appreciate it. I like seeing Ellen Grant again and uh Ellie Sadler and Ian Malcolm.
SPEAKER_03It it worked to wrap up in my book what should have wrapped up the whole Dino Jurassic World Jurassic Park franchise as a whole.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then they went and did it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They went and made Jurassic World Rebirth. They went and made Rebirth. Just just why? Why did they do it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because as a whole, one of the biggest problems with Rebirth is it's redoing a lot of the stuff that we've seen before, but now with people we don't know. Now, I'm okay with that, because when they did Jurassic World, it was introducing all new people. The only really recurring character you saw from before was Dr. Henry Wu. Um and, you know, he has his whole like redemption arc through the Jurassic World movies as well. But with this one, it's a completely new group of people, completely new company with completely new motives to um apparently extract some bio gunk from some of these dinosaurs to create a cure for heart disease and make billions.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yay. Uh and so our our main protagonist is Scarlet Johansson, I think.
SPEAKER_03Uh uh, yes.
SPEAKER_02And so she's basically a mercenary, and she teams up with some other mercenaries, and hijinks in Sue. Uh and there's a family in there for some reason. Who yeah.
SPEAKER_03The family was trying to escape the I guess get away from the life they were living or taking. I don't know if that was that or taking a vacation or whatever it was.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Random family on a small sailboat in the middle of nowhere. Cause that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Oh, totally, 100%. Anyway, so random family, along with your set of mercenaries and evil rich guy, uh eventually get stranded on the island together, and hijinks ensue. People get eaten, and a few of them escape at the end. Bad guy gets eaten by this movie's blinking you miss it monster dino, which is called the D-Rex.
SPEAKER_03Yes, it is the D-Rex, or Distortis Rex.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Let's be honest, it looks like a cross between an alien, a T-Rex, and a blue whale.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03There's there's no other definition for that.
SPEAKER_02So it seems to be fairly unanimous that a lot of people didn't really like this movie. And everybody has their own specific reasons, either because it didn't have any of the protagonists we care about, because it repeated a lot of things or stole a lot of elements from other movies, um, in the franchise. People even said like the the scene with the Mosasaurus when they're getting its DNA was stealing a lot from Jaws, and I can see that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and uh for me personally, it just didn't seem necessary. It it was like the the French, like you said, Dominion wrapped up the whole Jurassic feeling pretty good. Um and it just didn't seem to n be a need to do anything. And if they were gonna do something, uh I feel like they should have done a few rewrites on the general reason why people are getting once again stuck on yet another island, uh, where there's even more dinosaurs. It just it seemed too hack me, too, too by the books, to okay, try again, come up with something a little more creative to make people want to care about this story, uh, want to care about these characters. Like, I feel like the family was just um like, okay, we're following a bunch of mercenaries and a rich guy, and then one doctor scientist who's supposed to be the heart of the team, you know, the moral compass. Uh but maybe they're like, oh, that's not enough to make you care about 'em, so let's shoehorn in an innocent family, uh, just to m you know, raise the stakes, make you care more, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I mean, I guess the biggest thing that bothers me with the whole family insertion is one. How the heck did they get on there in the little boat that they were on? Because it was a small sailboat. You're not gonna be sailing across the ocean as a group of four on a tiny sailboat. That's not logical.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I'm sure people have done dumber things, but yeah, you know, F minus on the father's part for uh endangering his family that way.
SPEAKER_03Well, and I mean I I can kind of give him a little bit of an excuse just because the island that they're on in the in Rebirth isn't the island mentioned anywhere.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03In the assortment of islands from well, I say assortment of islands in the other two islands associated with Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. It was the, I guess, island that you put all of the weird dinosaurs that they decided to make.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, because, you know, in in the first Jurassic World movie, the big bad dinosaur was the Indominus Rex, which, you know, they made because people were getting bored of normal dinosaurs, so it was clear they started making hybrids. And I guess this island was where they were making a lot of these hybrids, and, you know, some of them were more failure-y than the others, so the Indominus, I guess, was a success that they actually brought to the park, but I guess my biggest problem with that though is why would they keep them alive?
SPEAKER_03All these dinosaurs are because as as it's quoted that the this island was the house of transgenic and mutated dinosaurs that Injun deemed were too disturbing to take to Jurassic Park. Why did they not just then euthanize the dinosaurs if they weren't going to use them for the purpose they were created, knowing that if they bred it with if they had any kind of carnivore de like personality to them, they probably would escape and get eaten. Why did they not just destroy them?
SPEAKER_02Why did they make a security system that fails by having a Snickers wrapper sucked into it?
SPEAKER_03I mean, fair. But why didn't they just destroy the thing to begin with?
SPEAKER_02Reasons. Yeah, th there's a lot of head shaking to be had in this movie, and I'm sure I'm not gonna s think of anything more clever to say than a lot of other people have. I just see if I had to describe it in one word, it would be unnecessary.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I mean I I I'll go on the tangent. I don't remember. But I I'll I'll go on the short tangent. They messed up with the sizing of dinosaurs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Not just when it comes to like, you know, actual possible sizing, but one. And this is the only one I just thought of. They don't depict the mosasaurs very big in rebirth. However, if you look at the I'm pretty sure it was a mosasaur that was in Jurassic World.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's supposed to be the same one.
SPEAKER_03It was probably at least twice the size. Because someone was able to eat a T-Rex without any or sorry, it was able to eat the Indominus Rex without any problem, yet seemed smaller than the smaller or the same size as the boat that the mercenaries were on. That's a heck of a size difference in my book.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So either there's another Mosasaur that we don't know about, or they messed up in uh consistency of the size of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I'm thinking it's the latter just because of the size issue with the D-Rex.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, there had to be a uh like a shrinking mushroom or something on that on that helicopter, because you're talking a dinosaur that's able to grab and eat a helicopter, but then had a mouth just a little while later that was barely big enough to fit an adult in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So either you've got two very, very disturbed looking D-Rexes that magically trade places, or they really messed up when doing the uh sizing for that thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I there's a lot about this movie that it seems like was rushed, and I think errors were to be had. But, I mean, even if they were gonna try to take the angle that they sort of advertised that, okay, we're gonna get people stuck on this island full of genetic freak dinosaurs that were uh, you know, deemed too freaky even for uh Ingen to parade around for entertainment value. Um, first of all, there's only one. Even though this island supposedly had more, there's only one that's alive at this point, and it's the D-Rex. Second of all, he's barely in the dang thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he maybe gets between what? I think it's fifteen, twenty twenty minutes of screen time if you count the beginning of the movie and the end of the movie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Just uh so it it makes the stakes feel different. And another thing that makes the stakes feel bizarre is people are allowed to die in the mercenary team, but the family's untouchable. Which I get it. You know, if they're like, oh, killing off the family, then people are gonna be um sad and stuff. But it kind of made it feel like two different movies, because those two groups get separated when they get to the island. So for a while you're following just the family, and for a while you're following just the mercenary team. So it just feels weird because like, okay, there's genuine danger whenever it's the mercenary team, because somebody could get killed. But whenever it's the family, it feels like you're watching, like, Journey to the Center of the Earth, or one of those kind of more family-friendly uh that's a good comparison. Yeah. Uh adventure movies where you're like, okay, it's supposed to be the same danger, but it doesn't feel like the same danger. Especially when it's like, oh look, the little girl's carrying around a little baby triceratops, maybe.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_02You know, it it so it it it it felt like, okay, that's a PG movie we're watching over there, and then we're watching the PG-13 um Jurassic movie with the mercenary team, and I just don't feel like they ever properly reconcile the, you know, those two storylines in a way that felt cohesive, in my humble opinion. So, I don't know. I mean, there's plenty of aspects about the movie that had potential, which is what's most tragic, is okay, they came up with here's another island, and there's a semi-good reason why it might be here. And they came up with a semi-good reason why they might need to go to an island. And they came up with some semi-good um motivation for you know, for the team and for the the moral compass of the team to be like, oh, we shouldn't sell these cures, we should give them to the world, and you know, it splits our main mercenary protagonist between do I go with the thing that gets me money or the thing that could really help everybody in the world? Um, you know, and even having the family there could have some potential for, oh, we don't want to see too much bad happen, and things like that, but it just didn't come together in a way that felt necessary, new, or entertaining enough to justify its own existence.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean it they they should have stopped at Dominion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They just should have stopped with Dominion. Because it was good. Again, Dominion wrapped up everything nicely. The only logical reason to continue at all with another movie would have been to more or less kind of graduate from, you know, living with dinosaurs everywhere to getting back to regular society where dinosaurs aren't around everywhere, which they kind of touch base on a little tiny bit at the beginning of the movie to explain why they have to travel to this specific place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03To get these DNA samples, but it's mentioned very only just briefly as to why dinosaurs aren't roaming the streets like they were.
SPEAKER_02Right, even though they were all living around the world seemingly fine, now overnight, it's like, oh, never mind, they're not fine. They all have to live at the equator because it's the closest climate to what they're used to, otherwise they all die.
SPEAKER_03And yet for some reason they're still showing they they still had a dinosaur in the middle of the street.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because I guess wasn't it transported yet?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's it's it's pointless. Rebirth is pointless.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's just a shame because I would have loved to see an intriguing take on the story. Um even the notion of somebody ending up on an island there that doesn't belong, and it being one of the Jurassic Islands, and it becomes a survival story there, that could have been interesting. You know, like maybe a s uh a long burn story, maybe a short series, even, about a small group of people who get stuck on an island like that, and they have to learn to live with these dinosaurs, and you know, it's like Swiss Family Robinson meets uh Jurassic Park. Not that anybody knows what Swiss Family Robinson is, but I'm I'm sure some people thought they do. Hooray. But I don't know. Not mine cup of tea necessarily. So I'm sure it has fans out there, it's got proponents out there. I just feel it's a shame that there were so many pieces of it that had some sort of potential. They even brought some of the wonder back, you know, like when they were uh interacting with those long-necked dinosaurs and you know, appreciating these extremely long tails. Yeah. You know, for five seconds they they, you know, were taking a breather to really appreciate these dinosaurs, which um i is easy to get lost in these films. Like I said, a lot of the times after the first one, there wasn't a lot of sense of wonder. It was more just about survival horror meets dinosaurs. Um so they tried to bring some of that back, and it kind of worked for a minute, but interlaced with the weird plot lines, the weird humor, uh it didn't last in a way that held the same gravity as when you first saw the Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it made you miss the older movies and want to go back to them instead of seeing this one. So I wish it was better. I would have liked to be pleasantly surprised. One of my favorite things with movies with bad reputations is to be pleasantly surprised by them. To not believe the masses, give them a chance and think, oh, okay. You know, there actually is something to this, and people are just hating on it for no reason other than to just hate on it. But unfortunately, it seems like the reputation of this one is justified. Cause uh they if they wanted to make it, they maybe should have given it another year of thinking and working before they committed to actually shooting the thing, but they probably wanted to put it as close to uh Dominion's release as possible to try and keep the franchise going in a meaningful way.
SPEAKER_03I mean they they broke the I'm pretty sure yeah, they did. They broke the uh four-year gap rule.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh the exception that I mean, between the first and third, I think it was a three-year gap. Because the f Jurassic World came out in twenty fifteen, um, and Fallen Kingdom came out in twenty eighteen. But then Dominion didn't come out till twenty twenty-two. And then with Rebirth having just been released last year, they broke that four-year gap.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, they should have given it another year.
SPEAKER_03They should have given it the fourth year and could have used it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it's a shame because uh I would love seeing things um have creative new takes on 'em. I mean, you look at shows like Star Trek that have been around for decades and decades, and they have their hit or miss series that are out there. Um, but the franchise stays alive when they find new ways and new angles to tell new stories about this uh universe they've created. So I I was hopeful that, you know, they were finding ways to keep interest in this franchise, but I think they really shot themselves in the foot. And uh I don't know that they're gonna recover from that anytime soon. Because either they're gonna have to spend a ton of money on an apology movie that uh that fixes all the problems of this and repr you know, presents ideas in a way that uh don't make the audience scratch their head so hard it starts to bleed. Uh you know, so they'd have to have a really, really good idea to keep it alive at this point.
SPEAKER_03I don't even think it's possible.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think in retrospect, nostalgia will always keep the Jurassic Park franchise alive, but I don't foresee in the near future them trying to uh try again at any of this.
SPEAKER_03At least we can hope not. No offense, but it it the franchise needs to stay where it is.
SPEAKER_02Leave well enough alone. Like I said, with like the original animated Lion King, that uh I don't actually didn't mention Lion King, but it's one of those where the merchandise has just lasted for decades. Jurassic Park has that power. You can merchandise that thing continuously. You don't need to try to make these new movies to get people interested in it. They already like it.
SPEAKER_03Let's be honest. No matter what the generation, there's always gonna be kids who like dinosaurs.
SPEAKER_01Indeed.
SPEAKER_03And as long as there's kids who like dinosaurs, Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, uh all the Jurassic franchises, they're still gonna Make money from toys.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_03That's not gonna change.
SPEAKER_02Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.
SPEAKER_03Indeed.
SPEAKER_02But that's about all I have to say about it.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if you I think we've uh I think we've covered them all pretty well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean we could jab her for hours if we really wanted to, but we respect your time better than that.
SPEAKER_03I don't think they'd want to listen to that. They'd probably cut it off halfway through anyway.
SPEAKER_02But we thank all of you who did join us today for this blibbity blab about the Jurassic movies through the years and how we've seen them and how this last one was really kind of a thorn into the side of the uh legacy that the others left behind.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So unfortunately. But you know that it's what you get with some movies.
SPEAKER_02DOS Hollywood, Hollywood's gonna Hollywood.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, until next week, we uh hope you'll join us uh Bark again. And we hope you take care of yourselves. Have a lovely week, and we'll see you around.
SPEAKER_03Indeed. We will see you, Bark, next week.
SPEAKER_02Adios.