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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?

#411

Post by sdenton4 »

fwip wrote: post #401
CobaltFire wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say, thats like someone saying anything I write is an allegory for my career (military). It may be informed by it, but its not an allegory beyond the fact that it shaped me.

Sure, the same way LotR is not an allegory for WW1, but it's difficult to miss the connections, whether Tolkien intentionally placed them there, or simply because those themes were something he felt deeply about.

In both cases the artists were, as one would say, working through some stuff...

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#412

Post by MillironX »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #369

Good films are hard to make, that's why. The article sort of skips over this, but there aren't a lot of Spielbergs out there. Most big-budget movies are lame, and intentionally so. Hollywood is about making money, not good films. Most of the highest-rated films of the last 20 years are action films. Not because they had good characters, writing and acting. But because they were exciting. Sometimes they accidentally h…

The article does go into this.

> But what sets Spielberg apart from Hammond, what sets Jurassic Park apart from it’s imitators—and why the film industry now paradoxically needs Spielberg after he helped to weaken it—is that Spielberg had the discipline.

I would say that's the crux of the argument: the reason there are no good dinosaur films is that there are no people with Spielberg's discipline to make them.

One can try to blame studio interference, investors, streaming, the latest political trend, etc, or even Spielberg himself for why there are no disciplined producers left in Hollywood, but that's not what the article was about.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#414

Post by haiku2077 »

gota wrote: post #380
gdbsjjdn wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As something of an Alien fangirl 3 and 4 are more failures from a production standpoint than from a creative one. If you look at all the rejected pitches for Alien 3 there's a lot of interesting ideas which were never explored and a lot of studio fuckery in the final cut. I don't think the Fincher cut is amazing but I think it proves that there could be another excellent Alien movie. Alien: Resurrection is plotted te…

Edit: as check wikipedia to see what he has worked on I see there is a section about a controversy and I realize the parent post may mean something about a moral characteristic of Joss Whedon, not his capability as a creator. > Joss Whedon, who arguably shouldn't speak at all Please argue. Isn't he a succesfull writer/director/showrunner? Seems like he is one of the people able to "making the archetypes of blockbuste…

Joss Whedon's style of character writing is arguably the basis for modern "quippy" dialog where any serious moment has to be balanced with comedy or sarcasm.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#415

Post by qingcharles »

ep103 wrote: post #383
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #369

Good films are hard to make, that's why. The article sort of skips over this, but there aren't a lot of Spielbergs out there. Most big-budget movies are lame, and intentionally so. Hollywood is about making money, not good films. Most of the highest-rated films of the last 20 years are action films. Not because they had good characters, writing and acting. But because they were exciting. Sometimes they accidentally h…

Yeah, I'm not in the movie industry or anything, but it seems to me like if one was so inclined, they could put together a list of all of the things that have to be done well in order to make a fantastic movie. If we ignored all of the things that aren't obvious in the end product, like market research and staff salaries, etc, I think it would probably look something like: * Plot * Well written * Inherent meaning * I…

The script is the cheapest part, but also where the most damage is dealt. The higher-ups always want to meddle with the script to feel some control for the money they are spending. Changing some character or plot point. And the damage just runs downhill from the script like a cartoon snowball building up size.

(Even the cheapest "indies" these days are running to hundreds of thousands of dollars and someone is paying that, and that someone wants to change something)

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#416

Post by auntienomen »

rkomorn wrote: post #250
iamsaitam wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the hate that the last seasons get are mainly due to people's expectations of how the several arcs should "wrap up". I have yet to read any compelling argument or point of view why the last seasons were terrible. They were rushed, but that doesn't equate to bad.

For me, it was the appearance of plot armor (starting with the end of season 5) that ruined the show. Up to that point, you had a sense that anyone could die, no matter how important. Seasons 6+ are full of meh tropes like last-second reversals, people popping out of water when they evidently should've drowned, the impossibly bullshit "blind girl kills trained assassin" moment, the WWE style end of the walkers, etc.…

Yeah, it was bad. And then they really betrayed the story by trying to graft a happy ending on.

The only ending that makes any sense is "Everyone dies, the bad guys win, the end". It's right there in the story's motto: Winter is coming.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#417

Post by WorldMaker »

dylan604 wrote: post #66
WorldMaker wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the religious side, I know several megachurches in my city got directly infected by Ken Ham [1] himself. (A person to which I have negative respect, including his massive wastes of state tax incentives that affect my own tax dollars.) One of his schticks was the the "Earth is only 6000 years old because the bible says so". I spent a lot of time in High School (private, years after the public school incident above)…

> "Were you there?" Was he there when the Red Sea parted, or is he only using one source for evidence? Noah's Ark? Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's salt pillar wife? No, then it's not proven. Even back then, that was my equally lame retort, but it tended to make someone take a pause when they (if) they realized the limb they were standing one wasn't very strong

The programmed response back was "No, but God was there and he wrote the bible through his prophets." If I tried to get into the arguments that the bible was fallible they'd weasel out of it. Biblical literalism is the hill they all want to die on, for better and much worse for society.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#418

Post by mlsu »

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…

Imho the first Terminator movie is way more than simple scifi action. It's a a reflection on Vietnam. Structurally, it's closer to a slasher/horror flick -- the action sequences are tense, tight, gritty, sparse. The main characters are completely helpless and totally undermatched by the monster. Reese is torn apart by PTSD and Sarah Connor goes through this immense psychological trauma during the film and is completely transformed by it.

The character of Reese in particular is very well crafted. A homeless Vietnam vet that you might find in LA in the early eighties. Totally paranoid, totally disconnected/alienated from "modern" society, equipped for a time and place that is totally disconnected from the world he is dumped into. There is a dialogue about institutional failure woven throughout the film: the cops (I'll point out: Arnold executes an entire police station full of cops in this film! Can you imagine that on screen today?) and especially the psychiatrist. Totally incapable of dealing with the demon that haunts the main characters.

There is a dialogue about heroism -- John Connor is apparently a hero, but none of the characters actually feel heroic, they're all just terrified, haunted, and helpless. There is this incredibly "important" thing (the war) but none of the characters actually feel it that way, nor does society. The portrayal of LA -- the cops, the gritty alleyways, the nightclub, the crappy motels... it's LA as experienced by a Vietnam vet.

The first Terminator movie stands head and shoulders above all others in the franchise. It's a truly incredible film and far underrated critically, I really recommend re-watching it with this in mind.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#419

Post by maxsilver »

GMoromisato wrote: post #130
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the "real" world could have been another simulation after Neo "used the force" in the squiddies in the tunnels - when he then passes out and ends up mentally in the train station thing. Idea being that even those who thought they'd escaped, were still actually within the Matrix. (And Inception hadn't been made back then)

That would have been a way better explanation than what we got. In fact, I don't think I ever understood how Neo could control the machines in the real world. I like introducing the uncertainty of what is or is not real (like Inception). That could turn it into a paranoid thriller like some Philip K. Dick stories.

> In fact, I don't think I ever understood how Neo could control the machines in the real world.

In fairness to the Wachowskis, they do literally explain this in the movie, in literal dialog, in the third Matrix film.

---

Neo: "Tell me how I stopped four Sentinels by thinking it"

Oracle: "The power of the One extends beyond this world. It reaches from here (i.e., the digital matrix) all the way back to where it came from (i.e., in the real world).

Neo: "Where?"

Oracle: "The Source. That's what you felt when you touched those Sentinels"

The sentinels are networked (in the real world) and Neo has god-like access (superuser). Superuser works inside the matrix, but it also works on anything connected to the Matrix or networked to the matrix (like the Sentinels are, like most of the machines are).

---

Most people just tune out the dialogue about philosophy in these films, and then complain that nothing was explained. (when like, most of it was explained, folks just got bored and stopped listening)

That's fine in Matrix 1, because Matrix 1 works as a film even if you ignore the philosophy dialogue. Matrix 2, 3, and 4 are pretty good too, but they only work if you are also paying attention to all the philosophy dialog.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#420

Post by slg »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #205
slg wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I really feel for the Wachoskis. They couldn't not do a sequel, but they had nowhere to go--The Matrix was already perfect. That is why the 4th is the best of the three sequels, it is specifically about this. Although I agree it still can't match the first movie.

The 4th is a disgrace. It completely defiles the legacy of the Matrix. I've never seen more people leave a cinema before. I wish I'd left too.

People were disappointed because they wanted just another rehash of The Matrix, but why do that when The Matrix already exists? The more interesting idea is to explore why people wanted another rehash of The Matrix, so the movie is about that instead.
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