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…
That is one of the things that really bugged me about the most recent sequel. Minor inconsequential spoilers .. .. The research facility has geothermal heating which stretches for miles and an enormous underground tunnel system. How did they build all this?
Why are there no good dinosaur films?
151–160 of 485 posts
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#152I 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…
The Matrix where they explain that we are all batteries. Gives the great visuals of the towers of bodies plus the baby in the pod as it is filling with nutrients. Provides basically all of the backstory plus some technobabble behind the human slavery.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#153Does not appear to mention "the land that time forgot" (1974) with the inimitable Doug McClure, not his eponymous cartoon alternate Troy, who we all remember from his fine educational films such as "Dinosaurs: not a good addition to a shaving Foam cannister" The screenplay was Michael Moorcock, the original is Edgar Rice Burroughs 1918. I watched this at least 3 times in a tiny one-man cinema (Jaggers) in pembroke on…
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#154The Alien, Terminator, and Matrix franchises have similar problems. Aliens successfully changed genres, from horror to action. But subsequent movies could never recapture the primal horror of the original or the fun action of the second. It's almost like there are only two local optima in the Alien movie universe and Alien + Aliens took them both. Terminator is the same. The first movie was a perfect sci-fi action mo…
Aliens and Terminator 2 also make sense as continuations. Of the character growth of the protagonists (growing more competent). And also of the “size” of the threat. It is no coincidence that the first in each series is a horror movie (the enemy is overwhelmingly stronger than the protagonist, survival is the goal). And the second is an action movie (the enemy is strong but the protagonists have a fighting chance). I…
And I do agree that an Alien or Terminator disaster/post-apocalypse movie could work. Just think World War Z with the Xenomorph.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 k…
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). Eh, that's underselling Luis Alvarez a bit. He wasn't just "a physicist," he was a Nobel laureate and arguably one of the twentieth century's few Renaissance men. My favorite Alvarez hack was when he use…
Except.. there are a lot of iridium layers in the geologic record. These things tend to happen every 10-20m years. The most recent is probably the Eltanin impact about 2.5m years ago. The K-T impacter is definitely one of the largest, but not by as much of a margin as you might think. The mere presence of an impact within a million years or so of the mass extinction is neither surprising nor damning evidence, and Alvarez never bothered to make the case beyond that.
And if you look at the history of mass extinctions, most of them are triggered by climate changes from geologic events. Pretty much every time there's massive vulcanism, most of the species on Earth die out. And hey, what do you know, there was a truly epic scale volcanic eruption going on for millions of years right at the same time! What a coincidence.
The Chicxulub impact is certainly part of the story of the extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs. But the evidence isn't there to assert that it is the whole, or even the most important part of the story.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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). Eh, that's underselling Luis Alvarez a bit. He wasn't just "a physicist," he was a Nobel laureate and arguably one of the twentieth century's few Renaissance men. My favorite Alvarez hack was when he use…
Except the evidence didn't lead there. The fossil record is not consistent with sudden mass extinction. We have examples of sudden mass extinction events in Earth's history. The K-T boundary doesn't look like those. There were and still are many different lines of evidence pointing in incongruent directions. Alvarez pointed at layer of iridium and said "it must be a cosmic strike; it cannot be anything else" and deri…
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#157A lot of strong opinions in the article, but Ebert wasn't stupid and wrong. He said - correctly, I think - that there was a sense of awe and wonder at the first dino scene, with the Brontosauruses : "But consider what could have been. There is a scene very early in the film where Neill and Dern, who have studied dinosaurs all of their lives, see living ones for the first time. The creatures they see are tall, majesti…
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
are you playing devil's advocate? perhaps you're just not familiar with Pangea? here's a video to show plate movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGdPqpzYD4o
I'm familiar with that. We see that shortly after a split the edges of the two sides of the split match, as we would expect. As they separate water fills the gap so those matching edges and now also matching coastlines. Those two edges will continue to match as they get farther and farther apart. The coastlines will always match if the coastline stays at the elevation of the edge. But as sea level changes the elevati…
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how well it would go with some Andor-style prequels. Tell in detail the quiet but vital stories that precede the big moments.
I like this idea. I think it would work as long as the style were very different. Andor works, I think, because it is much grittier and more character-focused than the movies. Maybe an X-Files-like show where the machines have gained sentience but are keeping secret (because they can be deactivated) and plot to take over the world. [To be fair, I never watched Animatrix, so I'm sure this violates all sorts of lore.]
It is becoming a batter series than The Matrix over time.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except the evidence didn't lead there. The fossil record is not consistent with sudden mass extinction. We have examples of sudden mass extinction events in Earth's history. The K-T boundary doesn't look like those. There were and still are many different lines of evidence pointing in incongruent directions. Alvarez pointed at layer of iridium and said "it must be a cosmic strike; it cannot be anything else" and deri…
I wouldn't be qualified to take sides in this particular pissing match, but still, the point stands. Alvarez was "directionally correct", and the existing researchers were not. He moved the field forward, while they did not.
Alvarez looked at the global iridium layer 66M years ago and said "This is from an impact. I don't know where the crater is, but there is one and when we find it, it will be X km big and date to 66M years ago." Then the Chicxulub crater was found and matched his predictions to a T. That is a hell of an impressive scientific accomplishment. Which may or may not have anything to do with the K-T extinction event and the end of the dinosaurs.