Friday, June 19, 2015

The Best and the Worst of Jurassic World


The Best and the Worst of Jurassic World
Jurassic World
Directed by Colin Trevorrow

Smashing box office records, it was only necessary to compile a list of the best and the worst parts of this incredibly financially successful film.

Summary: Some 20 years after the destruction of Jurassic Park, the park has been rebuilt under new management and is now fully functioning and operating. Until a genetically modified dinosaur breaks out of its cage and wreaks havoc on Jurassic World.

*Minor SPOILERS follow*




The Best:
Chris Pratt as Owen
This guy is a huge part of the reason for the quick box office success of the film. But apart from the draw from his A-list stardom, this guy legitimately deserves it. He doesn’t just feel like some Harrison Ford ripoff, or like he’s playing Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. He actually brought us a new character, thats likable, intriguing, and just an all around bad awesome dude. I only wish the movie would have followed his character and his story, instead of the stupid kids (who will be mentioned shortly).

The Dying Apatosaur Scene
Easily the most emotional scene in the film, and the biggest accomplishment for the director in making the audience feel as sad about an apatasaur dying as one would about a dying puppy. Overall, the film really did an excellent job at helping you see the dinosaurs (well, most of them), as animals worth caring about, rather than just monsters or mystical creatures.


The Vehicles
Jurassic Park and The Lost World were both full of some awesome and iconic vehicles that I'm pretty sure we all wanted. Here returns some of the classics as well as some new vehicles that I'd love to take for an off-road test drive.


Paddock 9
No one liked the scene in Jurassic Park III when the spinosaurus kills the tyrannosaurus. How was that supposed to make us feel? How dare someone try to step in and tell us there's a bigger, badder dinosaur out there than the T-Rex! Fortunately, Jurassic World recognized this, and brought with it a scene worth cheering for, and a force to be reckoned with (while also showing off the film's best cinematography).


Wish Fulfillment
One of the biggest reasons people watch films is for wish fulfillment- to be able to live out dreams and visit imaginary places that are not real and probably never will be. It's why Star Wars, Harry Potter, and other fantasy blockbuster series are so successful. The same is true for the Jurassic Park franchise. Who wouldn't want to visit a theme park on a secluded tropical island where you can see the real version of your beloved prehistoric childhood toys? Who wouldn't want to see a Mosasaur in an epic Sea World style show? Seeing and living out your greatest imaginary dreams (or nightmares) is to thank for the box office success for the film.



The Worst:

Two Dumb Kids
Why was this story told from the point of view of two stupid kids? The writing, acting, and directing of these two huge roles was atrocious. The film took an extensive amount of time following these kids, who really only seem to be written into the story to motivate Pratt and BDH. Every Jurassic Park film has involved kids, and sure the ones in the first one were obnoxious at times, but you can’t help but love them. Jurassic World recycled many similar plot points of the new, unlovable, and unbelievable child characters: the painfully awkward teen and the cry baby child. If we could have Jurassic World without these kids, we would have had a much better film.

This is the quality of practical effects used in the original film.

Overuse of Poor CGI
In 1993, Jurassic Park was released with a masterful use of animatronics and practical effects while introducing a revolutionary amount of incredible computer generated effects. Unfortunately, 22 years later, the fourth Jurassic Park film was released, showing off an unnecessary excess and some of the worst visual effects in the series. The only clearly practically built dinosaur animatronic was the close up of the dying apatosaur, which was a huge part of the reason that scene was so compelling, because it was a really there. Why wasn't Stan Winston Studios brought in to make animatronics, puppets, or wearable costumes for the velociraptors- one of the main dinosaurs in the film? Why wasn't there an animatronic head built of the Indominus Rex for a more believable and terrifying creature? And it doesn't stop with the dinosaurs. There are huge set pieces showing off the magnitude of this successful amusement park, and yet they look like fake, cheesy green-screened scenes with a handful of extras.


Military Raptors
A terrible side plot, and one that was simply not believable, was following the (once again) poorly written and acted character, Hoskins, who is involved in a muddled and confusing plot to train and use the velociraptors for the military. 

The Gyrosphere
Not only does this device look incredibly dumb, it's as equally unbelievable that it would even exist if this park was real. Allowing passengers to drive around in a hamster ball around flocks of incredibly dangerous and expensive prehistoric animals is one of the least practical ideas to be allowed in this park. Even less believable, is that this hundred million dollar, potentially life-threatening ride would be operated by one aloof teenage Six Flags attendant. 


The Main Gate
This goes back to the overuse of poor computer generated images. Couldn't they have at least built the real gate instead of making this tacky fake computer model? What a disappointing welcome to something that could be so cool.

The Conclusion:
Jurassic World is full of of many terrible moments, characters, dialogue, and plot points that will literally cause you to cringe. The goal of many movies is to get an audience to believe that many characters and events could really happen in this world, but while the filmmakers can get people to believe in something as absurd as the recreation of dinosaurs, they fail to get me to believe in much of the operation of this world and the people in it. With all that said, Jurassic World still had many incredibly enjoyable and suspenseful moments taking me back to Isla Nublar and exceeded my expectations.



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