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Why are there no good dinosaur films?

briannazigler.substack.com

421–430 of 485 posts

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most genre defining solarpunk media we have right now comes from pharma television commercials pitching antidepressants. Which I think is quite cyberpunk.

So not the yoghurt commercial then? https://youtu.be/z-Ng5ZvrDm4?si=FfRDccxr6aOqumQ9 Which commercial are you thinking about?

Tbh they all blend together into a homogenous mass of cynical corporate messaging to me. Feel-good visuals for you to associate with product.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#422

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…

There's a Terminator tv-show from 2008 that was pretty good. It's about John as teenager, going to high school and dealing with that while fleeing a Terminator that's been sent back. But I agree with your overall premise, if it isnt about John or Sarah in "the present", then it's pretty boring.

I really wish this series had kept on going. I felt it had promise

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#423
post #418

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 complete…

Had never heard this take. What a great write up. Thank you!

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#425
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why your answer concentrates on the VFX so much. Of course those were critical to pull off Jurassic Park, but the movie is good because of everything else (story, writing, acting, kids notwithstanding, etc).

> kids notwithstanding I thought the kids were some of the least annoying in film. As a means to drive the plot, kids doing the complete opposite of what you ask sounds relatable.

I wasn't talking about the writing of the children, but the acting. Kids are nearly always bad, the kids in JP were better than average, but of course they're working across from the likes of Goldblum and Laura Dern.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#426
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why your answer concentrates on the VFX so much. Of course those were critical to pull off Jurassic Park, but the movie is good because of everything else (story, writing, acting, kids notwithstanding, etc).

Because that's the reality that the "Avatar kids" grow up in. Think of it as a form of generational fashion: you're biased to like the things you grew up with.

To restate what you're saying to make sure I understand, you're saying that kids that grew up during the Avatar era (gen alpha/Z) are biased to prioritize VFX when watching a movie and my generation (millennial) is biased to enjoy things like plot, acting, etc?

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#427

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…

They are not extinct. There are a few making noises in the trees in my backyard now, and I dined on some dino-meat today!

omnom gonna get me some Kentucky Fried Dinosaur!

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#428

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. 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…

> I really feel for the Wachoskis. They couldn't not do a sequel, but they had nowhere to go--The Matrix was already perfect. I remember that at the time of the (non-existent ;-) ) sequels, being disappointed with these "sequels", fans wrote summaries of screenplays how a (good) sequel to Matrix might look like. Basically all of them were much better than the official sequel attempt (because such fans really cared),…

Perhaps it exposed how much of the Matrix was really iterated from Ghost in the Machine, Metropolis, Dark City, Strange Days, John Woo action scenes, etc.

It's a talent to recognize good ideas and combine them into a new and fresh story. It's another to tell an original story.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#429
post #418

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 complete…

I think it’s the best story out of the James Cameron filmography. I certainly enjoy many of his other films, but there’s a depth to Terminator that’s absent from his other works.

Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?

#430

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…

Thank god for indie films.
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