Why are there no good dinosaur films? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#331

Post by biofox » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:16 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #94

The 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…

Similarly, in the Star Trek universe, the original films captured all of the local optima:

Wrath of Khan - Star Trek does a Shakespearian tragedy.

The Voyage Home - Star Trek does a family-friendly time-travel romp.

The Undiscovered Country - Star Trek does political allegory.

And just like The Matrix, later films do not exist.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#332

Post by munksbeer » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #117

bartread wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And, of course, they never even bothered to make sequels to The Matrix. Like you, this is the reality I choose to inhabit. The Matrix was an incredible film, still stands as an incredible film, but that sequel tease at the end? Should have been a tease, or perhaps a prompt, for the viewer’s imagination only. There are no sequels to The Matrix.

I really feel for the Wachoskis. They couldn't not do a sequel, but they had nowhere to go--The Matrix was already perfect. They couldn't recapture the key reveal of the Matrix. It would be like doing a sequel to "The Sixth Sense"--tag line: "He's Still Dead". And without that, it's just another action movie except "bullet time" is no longer innovative. Their solution was to go deeper into the mythology and the large…

> It would be like doing a sequel to "The Sixth Sense"--tag line: "He's Still Dead"

What's this?

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#333

Post by vel0city » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

IAmBroom wrote: post #330

vel0city wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Sure, but if a cancer patient gets shot, "he was already sick" isn't a legal defense.

Which one is the gun and which one is the cancer in this scenario? Would the cancer patient survived the gun shot if they weren't already weakened from cancer treatments and disease progression? Would they have survived the cancer if they didn't experience the trauma of the gunshot wound?

I don't think we definitively have the answers to that question IRT what killed the dinosaurs.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#334

Post by wmeredith » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #328

ggambetta wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, the highway chase in the first non-existent sequel is pretty epic.

The moment when he picks them up off the mid-explosion truck gives me chills every time. The build-up is so good.

Except diesel doesn't explode like that. (I don't know what's wrong with me that I can't just enjoy movies.)

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#335

Post by pavlov » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

biofox wrote: post #331

GMoromisato wrote: post #94

The 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…

Similarly, in the Star Trek universe, the original films captured all of the local optima: Wrath of Khan - Star Trek does a Shakespearian tragedy. The Voyage Home - Star Trek does a family-friendly time-travel romp. The Undiscovered Country - Star Trek does political allegory. And just like The Matrix, later films do not exist.

As a big fan of “The Motion Picture”, I would argue that “2001 with Spock” is a local optimum for a movie too.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#336

Post by IAmBroom » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #189

I have a simpler answer- the bad ones make money. All of the Jurassic World movies have topped $1B. Rebirth has been out 5 days and is already at $300M, twice its budget. While movies are art, they are primarily an entertainment product, especially when they cost $65-200M to make. Jurassic World is selling really well, so they aren’t going to change the product to produce “better” art. It is interesting that Jurassic…

"65" is live action+CGI, and really borrows nothing whatsoever from JW.

It "only" returned about 150% of its cost, and was pretty forgettable, alas. So your point about not getting traction may stand.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#337

Post by Jackim » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #320

Jurassic Park and Jurassic World are overall very solid as a whole, so the entire premise of this article is null.

The article speaks extensively about both of those movies.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#338

Post by IAmBroom » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

card_zero wrote: post #299

wasabi991011 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Found a source of others are interested: https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/fixational-eye-movement...

You shame me into making the effort to quote from the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Dueling_Neuros... > Beyond simple line-detecting neurons, [David] Hubel and [Torsten] Wiesel also discovered neurons that love to track motion. Some of these neurons got all excited for up/down motion, others buzzed for left/right movement, and still others for diagonal action. And it turned out that these motion…

If you've never seen the optical illusion, it is stunning.

You stare at the center (unmoving) dot in a moving field. The field remains; the dot fades away - and POPS back the second your eyes move.

Your unconscious, constant "jiggling" of your eyes is called saccadal movement. Without it, only moving things would be visible - which is true for frogs.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#339

Post by biofox » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #335

biofox wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, in the Star Trek universe, the original films captured all of the local optima: Wrath of Khan - Star Trek does a Shakespearian tragedy. The Voyage Home - Star Trek does a family-friendly time-travel romp. The Undiscovered Country - Star Trek does political allegory. And just like The Matrix, later films do not exist.

As a big fan of “The Motion Picture”, I would argue that “2001 with Spock” is a local optimum for a movie too.

Agreed! Skipped it, as it's one that divides the fandom, but it hits all of the notes for a slow, cerebral, sci-fi thriller.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#340

Post by IAmBroom » Tue, Jul 08, 2025, 2:25 PM UTC

tmtvl wrote: post #238

Sharlin wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Obligatory nitpick that they indeed never died out and we did grow up alongside them. And even back then, most dinosaurs weren’t giants. But I’m not sure that a movie featuring only, say, dinos smaller than an elephant, or a tiger, would work. People want to see the charismatic gigafauna.)

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds is technically a dinosaur film.

Thread winner.

Let's go home.