Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdoms, bizarre morality, now with spoilers ;)

[snowblizz]

I'll give people a shot to not see spoilers in first post but then gloves come off.

Went to see JW:FK with a friend.

Meeh.

I've seen the previous one with him so that was more the point of the excersie. He brought his wife so couldn't comment on the movie in place, may have detracted from the entertainment value.

I'm not impressed, again, how material for a trailer was used.

Theatre was almost empty second day of showing, but then again they usually close during summer due to low attendence.

Had to see it in 3D due to conflicting schedules. And I really can't watch stuff in 3D I find. So also a minus. By and large didn't not reallyt grip me. I preferred 1st JW with it's parallells to original JP.

[Kitten Champion]

I find it deeply amusing that both the positive and negative reviews pretty much draw the same conclusion - some variation on "it's an underwhelming rehash of franchise tropes with the ultimate aim of making another sequel at the expense of itself" - and they just push to one direction or the other as to whether there's still enough there to be worth seeing.

So, I don't know, it'll be on Netflix in a bit. I think I'm just cynical as to Jurassic Park having the legs to be a franchise in the first place, some concepts just aren't.

[Jeivar]

So, I don't know, it'll be on Netflix in a bit. I think I'm just cynical as to Jurassic Park having the legs to be a franchise in the first place, some concepts just aren't.

Yeah. It always takes quite a series of unlikely events and idiocy to make the dinos actually pose a threat to the humans. Dinosaurs aren't demons, aliens or Godzilla. They're just big animals, and we're so good at killing those that we need laws in place to protect THEM from US.

[Rater202]

I'm not the only one who thinks the clone girl is part raptor, am I?

Becuase she acts exactly like the Raptors do, minus the killing part.

Going beyond the implication that the Indominus was part human, what are the morals and ethics of that?

[snowblizz]

I'm not the only one who thinks the clone girl is part raptor, am I?

Becuase she acts exactly like the Raptors do, minus the killing part.

Going beyond the implication that the Indominus was part human, what are the morals and ethics of that?

I did not. Now I do. And am very afraid.

I honestly can't quite see how they envision to create a franchise out of this. I can see that an attempt will be made with a JW:3 but the barrel honestly seems craped bear by now.

Blue is jsut oen raptor, Rexy si alone too, as is Mossy. So go out and kill those and don't let surfers be eaten. Unless the surfers are lawyers in which case, go Mossy!

The irony of Hammond thinking someon was immoral for using cloning for personal gain is quite hilarious.

And I'm not the only one who took about 3 seconds to figure out slimy young secretary/assisstant/(certainly lawyer) whatever was evil am I? Or could see what was gonna happen the second Lockwood told him to call the cops on himself. And this was supposed to be a smart guy?

I see Wu survivied another movie. I'll go watch a third JW just to see him killed.

[Rater202]

I don't think that World is meant to be a long-running franchise.

I'm pretty sure that it's just meant to be a second trilogy.

I mean, there's plenty of room for action, survivor horror, and simulation video games based on these films, but I figure that movie wise the plan is just the trilogy.

[ben-zayb]

I'm not the only one who thinks the clone girl is part raptor, am I?

Becuase she acts exactly like the Raptors do, minus the killing part.I guess that makes sense...tbh every scene where there was a quick cut of someone sneakily moving that turns out to be her, I always thought was a raptor.

After she sneaked in to the lab, and with all the exposition of the indoraptor's need for a domesticator, a "mother figure" or just someone for filial imprinting, I thought she'd be able to get that role.



I did not. Now I do. And am very afraid.

I honestly can't quite see how they envision to create a franchise out of this. I can see that an attempt will be made with a JW:3 but the barrel honestly seems craped bear by now.

Blue is jsut oen raptor, Rexy si alone too, as is Mossy. So go out and kill those and don't let surfers be eaten. Unless the surfers are lawyers in which case, go Mossy!

The irony of Hammond thinking someon was immoral for using cloning for personal gain is quite hilarious.

And I'm not the only one who took about 3 seconds to figure out slimy young secretary/assisstant/(certainly lawyer) whatever was evil am I? Or could see what was gonna happen the second Lockwood told him to call the cops on himself. And this was supposed to be a smart guy?

I see Wu survivied another movie. I'll go watch a third JW just to see him killed.Nah, dude and the military guy both had EVIL written all over them. I actually thought Lockwood was in on it, too, making his morality a bit more similar to the book version of Hammond.

I actually like Wu's second karma houdini.

So we got a group of people lobbying to save dinosaurs thinking it's the right thing. Are you telling me that this group who's supposed to be comprised of smart people who may or may not have taken a basic biology class, doesn't realize how introducing a crapton of new species--possibly carrying their own set of bacterial strains, virus, and diseases--would actually affect the local and global biosphere?

For the ending, I'm just glad that Claire ultimately decided to let them die, for whatever reason she may have. Seriously, though, how the heck were four adults not able to stop a kid from pressing a covered button?


And lastly, boy am I glad I never watched the trailers, because apparently, the best parts that people wanted to see more of, didn't.

[hamishspence]

So we got a group of people lobbying to save dinosaurs thinking it's the right thing. Are you telling me that this group who's supposed to be comprised of smart people who may or may not have taken a basic biology class, doesn't realize how introducing a crapton of new species--possibly carrying their own set of bacterial strains, virus, and diseases--would actually affect the local and global biosphere?


This isn't a time portal - they're not going to have Cretaceous-era viruses and bacteria, because they were grown in a lab.

[Rater202]

There is the possibility that viral DNA is located in their Genome(there are several complete viruses verses of viral DNA in the junk DNA of the human Genome) which could in theory be incorporated into te genetic sequences of retroviruses(which work in part by mixing their DNA with the host cell,) resulting in dangerous hybrid viruses, but that's rather unlikily.

[snowblizz]

The ending left me somewhat unsatisfied yes.

Maybe they tried wielding some kind of morality club at the end there. At least Claire got that yea it was a bad idea as it always has been.

I was surprised when she aquiesced to kill them. And realised they tried to have their cake and eat it when the girl pressed the button, we can't be angry at the innocent girl can we. Boom, space for 3rd movie.

Seemed a bit heavy handed "I'm just as much unnatural as they are" moment.

I'm also slightly let down by the T-Rex popping up and eating evilz dude too. If it's not gonna be center stage don't throw it in at the end. It worked in JW1, IMO now just feels clumsy. Sorta like a bad cameo appearence.

I will say that though. No risk of foreign bacteria and viruses. These are all modern genetic creations. Unless you mean tropical diseases in California. Am honestly not sure how they expect the dinosaurs to survive. California isn't the tropics. Can't offhand say which dinos would fit the climate, am just certain there has to be a fair bunch of malplaced ones.

Also, T-Rex loose in the forest, wtf people! That's not dangerous at all?

[ben-zayb]

Also, T-Rex loose in the forest, wtf people! That's not dangerous at all?Yeah, that was a headscratcher. Agreed that they really tried too hard to have their cake and eat it.

As for dinobacteria...I mean animals have bacteria in their body as necessity for functions such as breaking down nutrients.

By the way, I can't remember but are these dinos reengineered to be sterile again. Because again, introduction of plenty of new species like these can lead to a chain reaction that adversely affects the biosphere.

[hamishspence]

As for dinobacteria...I mean animals have bacteria in their body as necessity for functions such as breaking down nutrients.

Yup. I presume that they are made to work with "bog-standard modern bacteria" rather than the scientists actually trying to recreate Cretaceous or Jurassic microflora within them. Saves effort.


Am honestly not sure how they expect the dinosaurs to survive. California isn't the tropics.

Animals can be surprisingly adaptable to climates outside their original range.

[Rater202]

IIRC, most of the "New" Dinos had the frog DNA removed so that they wouldn't be able to switch sexes anymore.

As for the old ones, well, the only confirmed specimen from the "Old" batch if Dinosaurs is Rexy, and she doesn't have a bull tyranasaurus to mate with and might be too old for it-- Sue the T-Rex at the Field Museam in Chicago, fmamed for being one of the most complete skelletons ever found, is belived to have been about 29 when she died and doesn't seem to have passed from violent means. Rexy's gotta be at least in her thirties. Even if we assume that captive animals would live longer than wild ones,

The only problem is if any of them have monitor lizard DNA since some breeds of monitor lizard can reproduce asexually via parthenogensis, but I have to imagine that Wu, for all of his amorallity and arrogance, wasn't stupid enough to make the same mistake twice.

(Though, since Mosasaurs are believed to be an evolutionary relative of monitor lizards, that might still be an issue with her.)

[hamishspence]

Rexy's gotta be at least in her thirties.

Apparently (according to sources giving movie timeline) the first dino cloned was a Velociraptor in 1986. Assuming Rexy was cloned later the same year, then, given that Jurassic World is set in 2015, Rexy was 29. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is in 2018 - Rexy would be 32 then.

[snowblizz]

Apparently (according to sources giving movie timeline) the first dino cloned was a Velociraptor in 1986. Assuming Rexy was cloned later the same year, then, given that Jurassic World is set in 2015, Rexy was 29. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is in 2018 - Rexy would be 32 then.

Which reminds me that I thought JW was set slightly in the future. For some reason. And I was mightily surpsied when they said "3 years later today in 2018".



Animals can be surprisingly adaptable to climates outside their original range.

I mean mostly just more of a "so we just released them and hope they'll make it on their own then?".

This is what well-meaning animal rightss activists to ensuring those animals starve painfully to death in the weeks following their "release".

Annoyingly am also now curious to see how that shakes out. In essence this movie straddles an annoying bridge spot I didn't relly find captivating. Basically keeping it mostly on the island or mostly the aftermath woulda been way more interesting than this half and half. If you gonna leave the door open for a trilogy, just make it obviously and naturally like that. Instead of this oh we got it all sorted, or did we dun dun duuunh.

There's a point where they go "we can't let the Indoraptor out of the house!" and I'm thinking, you mean you can't let it live right? Because not gonna keep that thing indefinitely in a house it can smash through on a whim.

Saw a review saying "don't think about anything" and yea that's certainly true.

[Kitten Champion]

Which reminds me that I thought JW was set slightly in the future. For some reason. And I was mightily surpsied when they said "3 years later today in 2018".


Really? That's... why would they do that? I mean, the Jurassic Park universe never set a date before and World in particularly was full of advanced technologies even outside of the bio-engineering aspect. Why start now?

[snowblizz]

Really? That's... why would do that? I mean, the Jurassic Park universe never set a date before and World in particularly was full of advanced technologies even outside of the bio-engineering aspect. Why start now?

It gave me such wibes I'd have pegged the JW1 around 2030 or some such. The globe thingys, stuff around, holograms... and the kids being super impressed by this weird gaspowered jeep. Like errr, 90% of the cars are gaspowered.

Also I think because they say "everyone has now got bored with dinos". Since the first few films are set from the mid 1990s and onwards, well I expected it to be a bit longer for everyone to be bored of dinosaurs.

The original JP wasn't particularly futuristic IMO.

[Kitten Champion]

Also I think because they say "everyone has now got bored with dinos". Since the first few films are set from the mid 1990s and onwards, well I expected it to be a bit longer for everyone to be bored of dinosaurs.



There's no span of time which can sufficiently excuse such a lame plot point. People still go to zoos for regular-ass animals after all this time, just having a baby polar bear or whatever is enough to drum up traffic for at least a season.

If you really wanted a new attraction just for the sake of having one, you could always go out and find more DNA from extinct animals and resurrect them. There's a not-insignificant number of species to choose from, much of which are herbivores who are likely indifferent to the concept of hubris and will keep the killing sprees to a minimum.

[Grim Portent]

They could also start making some of the more harmless species fertile so they can get babies to draw in visitors. Baby polar bears, pah, baby brachiosaurus is a surefire crowd pleaser.

[snowblizz]

They could also start making some of the more harmless species fertile so they can get babies to draw in visitors. Baby polar bears, pah, baby brachiosaurus is a surefire crowd pleaser.

They had that didn't they? There was a kids petting zoo I thought was juvenile dinosaurs?

Reminds me, in JW I would have loved to see a bit more about the attractions. Normal park stuff you know. To contrast with When Things Go Wrong more.


Another thing buggin me now. The handprint from Claire. They got hackerdude with them who can open the doors. But oh no, they needed dupe Claire to press a print on the computersystems? Like hardware access wouldn't let anyone that wanted to bypass security.

Also, who has been feeding Mossy for the past 3 years.:smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

[Rater202]

The gate was damaged and reptiles don't actually need to eat that often.

She was probably piecing on the Indominus's remains and on any fish that got through the damaged gate, maybe any dinosaurs that came up to her pool to get a drink.

And yeah, they had a petting zoo full of baby Dinosaurs.

In fact, I think that might be how they got the various herbivores okay with spending time together and decently well behaved around humans--keeping them together adn around humans as babies means that when they grow up and get introduced into the herds, they're used to other species and the humans that occasionally come through

[Grim Portent]

They had that didn't they? There was a kids petting zoo I thought was juvenile dinosaurs?

Reminds me, in JW I would have loved to see a bit more about the attractions. Normal park stuff you know. To contrast with When Things Go Wrong more.


Another thing buggin me now. The handprint from Claire. They got hackerdude with them who can open the doors. But oh no, they needed dupe Claire to press a print on the computersystems? Like hardware access wouldn't let anyone that wanted to bypass security.

Also, who has been feeding Mossy for the past 3 years.:smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

Seems I misremembered the petting zoo as having small adult dinosaurs like Protoceratops, you're right it is just baby versions of various adult herbivores.

Now I wonder if they could do more with those species, if triceratops is safe enough that kids can ride their babies without risk what could you teach the adults to do?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Not as much. Baby rhinos are cute in a dorky kind of way, quite sociable with humans and can even be hitched to a cart. Then they grow into adults, and those exact same rhinos will flatten the people they were chummy with a couple months previously.

[Slurm]

They've really been dropping the ball with this franchise since... well, Jurassic Park 3. So, I'm really not all that surprised this latest one is bad too.

[SaintRidley]

I'm not the only one who thinks the clone girl is part raptor, am I?

Becuase she acts exactly like the Raptors do, minus the killing part.

Going beyond the implication that the Indominus was part human, what are the morals and ethics of that?



Definitely had that same thought, but am not completely certain in it. Also thought there was enough there to get thinking about the ethics of cloning in general.

Anyway, it was enjoyable enough. Glad the saving from an active volcano part wasn't the bulk of the movie. I think it took several of the ideas behind the Lost World movie and made them better, at least.

The big dangling plot hooks to build sequels from to me are dinos in the wild and whatever dinos got sold before the Indoraptor was revealed, because those have already been shipped off to their purchasers (they were really fast about that, I thought).

Xia and Franklin were good characters, enjoyable.

And as far as the dinos go, I would have answered same as Owen at the beginning of the movie, and you wouldn't have seen me board that plane at all. That said, the Brachiosaurus as they departed the island was very sad, and I can't blame Maisie for empathizing with the dinosaurs given their similar stories.

Plus, there's a fun tie-in website. (http://www.dinosaurprotectiongroup.com/reports.html)

[Cormac Mac Art]

Dreadful, hopefully this is the last one!

[Rater202]

Dreadful, hopefully this is the last one!

There's already confirmation that a third film is in the works for 2021.

[snowblizz]

Yay!

I'm actually not sure why that excites me.

[Friv]

And as far as the dinos go, I would have answered same as Owen at the beginning of the movie, and you wouldn't have seen me board that plane at all.

"If I die, I just want you to remember... you made me come here."

Seriously, though, a very charming cast and some pretty cool dinosaurs made up for an exceptionally stupid plot. Even by the very low standard set by Jurassic Park movies, security on this expedition was lax. I choose to believe that this is because the primarily organizer was an idiot, and the soldier in charge of the operation was really, really, dumb, so there wasn't anyone to organize a halfway-functioning mission.

Possibly everyone that Eli tried to hire to go and grab dinosaurs who was competent took one look at the situation, and then just laughed at him until he left.

[Lord Joeltion]

I remember a time when even the worst JP movies, relied on a lot of sciencey subthemes and attempts to make the saga more science-fictiony, rather than purely dramatic action. And also, conveying a more scientific message (it's hard to control Nature).

This movie was a dumb excuse to get Star-Lord wrestling around with dinosaurs. Except, unlike the first, there were few rewarding scenes and instead I got a lot of "karmic" deaths, "karmic" stupidity*, and a mind boggling anti-scientific message through some "rainbows and sunshine" kind of rhetoric.

But I think nothing disturbed me more than the message. A message that laypeople can easily misinterpret and take out from the context of the "moral" dilemma that the movie offered. And the problem is, there wasn't even a "moral" dilemma to begin with. People who understood the first movies, know very well (because it was and idea constantly hammered since the first JP) that these aren't natural creatures. These featherless dinosaurs are little more than monsters, mutants, aberrations ill suited/prepared for both current and Mesozoic environment. There is nothing natural about JP, even Hammond knew he was just making little more than a puppet show, only this time, he perfected the technique of fleshy animatronics. They are NOT dinosaurs, and hence, not a natural species from this planet.

Sure, they are "alive", and thus, they deserve to live/die peacefully; but that is the thing: being the imperfect human creation they are, they will be forever at odds with every other ecosystem in the world. If the beaver is a plague in those continents who never had had beavers before; just imagine what a pseudodino would cause to any natural environment. My mind was crippled the moment those wannabe Green Rebels proposed DESTROYING AND ENTIRE ISLE ECOSYSTEM just to save a dozen species of Monstruosius Mutantae TM

Also, Indoraptor is the stupidest mash-up name I ever heard. They couldn't have been any more lazy if they wanted. I couldn't help but picture the saurian version of the Fusion Dance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioBSO_7VJM) every time the beast was mentioned.

*I distinctly remember the guy facing Blue with a frigging machine gun, cautiously positioning himself at arms length from the beast instead of firing from behind cover.

[ben-zayb]

I remember a time when even the worst JP movies, relied on a lot of sciencey subthemes and attempts to make the saga more science-fictiony, rather than purely dramatic action. And also, conveying a more scientific message (it's hard to control Nature).
That has more to do with the first two movies directly being adaptations of Michael Crichton's books, and his works being mostly scifi.

[warty goblin]

Saw this the other night. Totally and utterly ridiculous, in an enjoyably terrible sort of way.

However it fits the dinosaur-centric morality of the series perfectly. As in, the ethical calculus makes complete and utter sense if you operate from the principle that a t-rex is simply vastly more important than a human. In trolley problem terms, you divert the trolley to run over a coupla humans, instead of the triceratops. I find this charmingly misanthropic.

I think it's also a rather clever reflection of being a kid interested in dinosaurs. Ask a five year old which is cooler, a dinosaur or a person, and they'll go with the dinosaur every time. Same thing here; dinosaurs are way cooler than people, so the movie favors them over people constantly. I find it a rather refreshing break from our endless need to yammer on about how goddamn special we are, like we require constant reassurance of this. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a world where the pinnacle of creation is an eight ton carnivore, and the most important question in your life is how you can help said beast.