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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?

#81

Post by zamadatix »

nicce wrote: post #68
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 thought that it still isn’t really known? Is is one common theory, but we have just probabilities to play with.

Descartes would like a word as well, I'm sure. The big difference in the impact theory story is it's the first time we had enough evidence about any of the possibilities that widespread consensus (but not universal agreement it is the sole possible cause) was reached. Prior to that we weren't really sure if we'd even be able to get to that level about it. At least if the theory is replaced it'll be about something we see even clearer evidence of instead of "I dunno, could possibly have been...".

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#82

Post by Rodeoclash »

echelon wrote: post #75
mpalmer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This applies to most modern scripts. Writers/studios have largely decided people don't care about detailed, reasoned-out worlds with unspoken "show-don't-tell" internal logic. Are they wrong? I shudder to consider. Shows like Better Call Saul and Andor are the most recent high-profile counter-examples. So detailed and lived-in, because the writers wanted to ask interesting questions: How does the Empire do what it do…

> unspoken "show-don't-tell" internal logic This is another axis separate or orthogonal to worldbuilding. Recent Marvel and Disney films, the Jurassic Park and Star Wars sequels, and most Godzilla / Kong slop doesn't build believable worlds. The writers don't spend any time writing the universe that the story takes place in. Lord of the Rings (the theatrical film trilogy), Game of Thrones (save for the last seasons),…

In my opinion that's what makes Villeneuve's so great. For example, I think almost any other director would have had an info dump about what Mentat's are in the Dune universe, motivations and they they are important. Instead in Villeneuve's version, you simply see the results. For those watching the film without the context you simply chalk it up to a weird and wonderful way that the universe works. For those that have read the book, you get to do the information dump about Mentat's on your poor unexpecting wife who's watching the film with you.

This embodies show don't tell and it works amazingly.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#83

Post by adastra22 »

nicce wrote: post #68
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 thought that it still isn’t really known? Is is one common theory, but we have just probabilities to play with.

It'll be settled when the generation of researchers who fought over it retire/die off. The short TL;DR is that the guy who came up with the asteroid theory knew basically nothing about paleontology and paleoclimate, was way outside of his depth (he was a physicist that worked on the Manhattan project). He then made some pretty wild claims given the evidence that was available. When criticized by people who actually knew the field, he would personally attack them and drive public support against them as dinosaurs in a field of dinosaur research.

Then the Chicxulub crater was found and dated to basically the exact same time as the K-T extinction event to within experimental error. So I guess the asshole was right?

Except science doesn't work by smoking guns, as appealing as that would be. There are a lot of contradictory evidence. Better instruments and more careful data collection shows that in some places the fossil record stops prior to the impact layer. Also the fossils are of animals you would expect of an extinction event already ongoing. Oh, and coincidentally right before the Chicxulub impact India hit the continent of Asia and the Deccan Traps started spewing CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere in volumes that put human-caused climate change to shame. The ocean was acidifying and ecosystems collapsing. Is it really fair to say an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs, when they were already on the way out?

IMHO the current best theory is the "one-two punch" that the Deccan traps eruptions basically put every large species on extinction watch, then the asteroid impact happened and finished the job. But it has become so political within that research community that people just aren't rational about the evidence, on either side.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#84

Post by atq2119 »

bombcar wrote: post #73
optimalsolver wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lord of the Rings doesn't dwell on the day-to-day details of how the various kingdoms functioned, and yet it's still a great story.

The book and movie didn’t (and was better for it - The Annualized Return of The Kings Fields would be dry reading) but Tolkien clearly did (both in his notes and in his thoughts). If I want these people to live here and go to the bar here, where would they have to work, and what kind of work would it entail? “Real world” stories don’t need to dwell on it much because you can just use history and real life - if you ba…

> The book [...] didn’t

You mean the book that has a 40(?)-page chapter in which characters you never hear from before or afterwards describe what's happening in their home lands didn't go into the day-to-day? :)

Lord of the Rings (the book) is obsessed with this kind of detail to the point that many people find it difficult to read.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#85

Post by echelon »

Rodeoclash wrote: post #82
echelon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unspoken "show-don't-tell" internal logic This is another axis separate or orthogonal to worldbuilding. Recent Marvel and Disney films, the Jurassic Park and Star Wars sequels, and most Godzilla / Kong slop doesn't build believable worlds. The writers don't spend any time writing the universe that the story takes place in. Lord of the Rings (the theatrical film trilogy), Game of Thrones (save for the last seasons),…

In my opinion that's what makes Villeneuve's so great. For example, I think almost any other director would have had an info dump about what Mentat's are in the Dune universe, motivations and they they are important. Instead in Villeneuve's version, you simply see the results. For those watching the film without the context you simply chalk it up to a weird and wonderful way that the universe works. For those that ha…

> This embodies show don't tell and it works amazingly.

That's not "show, don't tell". That's "you need the companion book".

A masterclass in "Show, don't tell" is the intro to Pixar's "Up". If you haven't seen it, you absolutely must.

"Show, don't tell" isn't stuff that is lost on the uninitiated. It's stuff that is masterfully communicated without the need for corny expository dialogue.

Villeneuve's mentats are like an adult joke in a kid film.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#86

Post by bombcar »

atq2119 wrote: post #84
bombcar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book and movie didn’t (and was better for it - The Annualized Return of The Kings Fields would be dry reading) but Tolkien clearly did (both in his notes and in his thoughts). If I want these people to live here and go to the bar here, where would they have to work, and what kind of work would it entail? “Real world” stories don’t need to dwell on it much because you can just use history and real life - if you ba…

> The book [...] didn’t You mean the book that has a 40(?)-page chapter in which characters you never hear from before or afterwards describe what's happening in their home lands didn't go into the day-to-day? :) Lord of the Rings (the book) is obsessed with this kind of detail to the point that many people find it difficult to read.

Most people get tripped up in the descriptions of flora and landscapes or the poetry; The Council of Elrond is one of the easier parts and moves along quickly.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#87

Post by mr_toad »

nicce wrote: post #68
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 thought that it still isn’t really known? Is is one common theory, but we have just probabilities to play with.

I think the majority of palaeontologists now accept the idea. Alternative ideas get disproportionate attention in popular articles.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#88

Post by imgabe »

FWIW I though Rebirth was pretty good. At least, it was a step up from the nadir of Dominion, which was an awful mess. Rebirth got back to the basics of Jurassic movies - people go to a place with dinosaurs and everything goes wrong. It's also a heist movie of sorts, which is a different spin on the usual disaster movie trope the others use.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#89

Post by OJFord »

deadbabe wrote: post #69
OJFord wrote: post #40

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.

How about a World War 2 flick where Nazis breed dinosaurs to fight in the war?

It's not meaningfully different than JP is it - it's scientists recreate dinosaurs cohabiting with us in the modern world - that's the type that I meant.
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