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Why are there no good dinosaur films?

briannazigler.substack.com

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Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#31

Post by SlowTao »

sdsd wrote: post #17

I actually really enjoy dinosaur movies when I watch them with my toddler. To him, big dinos chasing people is pretty much peak cinema. Watching it with him is so much more entertaining than doing it alone, and tbh, the last thing I want to see is artslop where dinosaurs are a metaphor for the director's divorce or insecure aging professionals trying to feel better about their midlife crisis or whatever. Dinosaur mov…

Pretty much this. I saw the latest Jurassic whatever film on the weekend. 6 out of 10. It is some cheap but well done thrills that achieves exactly what it set out to do.

Not every film has the strive for some great metaphors, and the ones in the film are basically "greed bad" but that doesn't stop the action for more than a minute at best.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#32

Post by yeahboats »

I didn't see any references to Rebirth, and I see that this was published before the latest film came out, so I'm guessing the author didn't want to wait to publish in case anything in there would have changed the tone of this essay. Having seen it this past weekend, rest assured that it would not have.

There's a bit of backstory in the new one about how dinosaur zoos are closing, and that no one wants to see dinosaurs anymore. That premise struck me as strange, as people have been going to zoos for a lot longer than these fictional dinosaur zoos would have been open, and so I have to wonder if it was aimed as a little dig at audiences. The rest of the film ends up exactly as the post spells out. Hollow characters with forced exposition and mutant dinosaurs that you haven't seen in any book, making them just another monster in a monster movie. Maybe it's just that Jurassic Park was the first movie to really capture the size and scale, bringing these creatures to life, and in doing so, became the standard bearer and yardstick to which all future movies get compared to. You'll never get to experience that sense of awe and wonder again. Maybe in another few generations when the original JP falls out of the cultural consciousness.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#34

Post by ender341341 »

conductr wrote: post #22

My son is a dinosaur enthusiast to say the least. At some point, well into his accumulation of Dino facts we read an old book I had as a kid (mid 80s) and the book says all kinds of weird stuff I forget but abruptly ends with “they went extinct and we may never know how” and my son (age 4 at the time) is at a loss for words, “it was a asteroid dad, what dummy wrote this book?” For weeks he’d randomly look at me, “hey…

I started school in the 90s and mostly remember it as "we're pretty sure it was a meteor but it's really hard to know for sure", but looks like 1980 was when it was first seriously theorized.

Its definitely one of those things where every once in a while I'll be reading about some historical figure and remember that they'd never been able to hear of dinosaurs.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#35

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

masfuerte wrote: post #14
throaway5454 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brachiosaurus I think. Brontosaurus was originally thought to be a separate species from Apatosaurus but later revealed to be the same.

Weirdly this is about the fifth time I've read this in the last couple of months and it's out-of-date. Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus are divorced and living as separate species again.

But this alienated Pluto so much that it refuses to be a planet and is out hiding in the Oort cloud again.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#36

Post by xhkkffbf »

LeftHandPath wrote: post #27

The other thing that differentiates Spielberg's original work from all that's followed is the way it explored the details. From the sourcing of the amber, to the need to have paleontologists, botanists, and lawyers check Hammond's work, to the inclement weather, to the social interactions and workplace frustrations of the staff -- it all felt like much more of a living, breathing park than any of the renderings since…

Let's be fair. This was all Michael Crichton. It's in the original book. He worked through the details. Spielberg just didn't delete them.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#37

Post by csours »

I adore the opening shots of Jurassic Park.

If you recall, the opening scene has a dinosaur being transferred from a container to a pen. If you haven't seen it for a while, you might remember seeing the attack. I know I did.

But go back and watch it, you might be surprised.

===

Also, I challenge you to find a better technical exposition scene than Mr. DNA. Seriously, if you can think of a better technical exposition scene, I'd love to know it.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#38

Post by vel0city »

conductr wrote: post #22

My son is a dinosaur enthusiast to say the least. At some point, well into his accumulation of Dino facts we read an old book I had as a kid (mid 80s) and the book says all kinds of weird stuff I forget but abruptly ends with “they went extinct and we may never know how” and my son (age 4 at the time) is at a loss for words, “it was a asteroid dad, what dummy wrote this book?” For weeks he’d randomly look at me, “hey…

It might be more complicated than that. While the Chicxulub impact probably played a big role in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, there are potentially other sources of why it was as bad as it was. The eruption of the Deccan Traps may have also played an important part in the mass extinction event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#39

Post by [deleted] »

vel0city wrote: post #38
conductr wrote: post #22

My son is a dinosaur enthusiast to say the least. At some point, well into his accumulation of Dino facts we read an old book I had as a kid (mid 80s) and the book says all kinds of weird stuff I forget but abruptly ends with “they went extinct and we may never know how” and my son (age 4 at the time) is at a loss for words, “it was a asteroid dad, what dummy wrote this book?” For weeks he’d randomly look at me, “hey…

It might be more complicated than that. While the Chicxulub impact probably played a big role in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, there are potentially other sources of why it was as bad as it was. The eruption of the Deccan Traps may have also played an important part in the mass extinction event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...

[deleted]

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#40

Post by OJFord »

Because there's only one story to tell, for adults, and it's the Jurassic Park (et al.) story.

You can't tell a period story for adults, with dinosaurs birthed normally and no modern science, because then it's not a 'talkie', and we're about a century past it being possible to have the budget for a state of the art dinosaur-prop film with no dialogue.

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