Why is Hacker News talking about dinosaur films?
Why are there no good dinosaur films?
91–100 of 485 posts
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#92Because 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.
We just had an animated movie about animals[1] with zero dialog win an Oscar. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(2024_film)
No mention of any Oscar at your link, not that that's really important. I think you should read my 'for adults' as precluding animations/cartoons, not to say that Flow isn't aimed at adults or that's childish or anything, just that that's what I meant - in that format of course you can do it and I'm sure there's been loads, no doubt an adult can (re) watch and enjoy A Land Before Time too; I assume TFA was also thinking of 'live action' films.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#93The 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…
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…
Andor succeeded despite the bureaucracy porn. Good stories are universal. You need to care about the protagonists.
The exposition is important, but doesn’t drive success. The best example of that is the original Star Wars. Contrast Star Wars to Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress — which inspired many aspects of Star Wars. Essentially the same story with different framing. Both are still excellent films.
Shitty sequels or in-universe works focus on the exposition. The Book of Boba Fett is probably the best example of this. Watching some dude slow walk through the desert to waste my time and engage in some inane plot that made no sense made me actively not give a fuck and turn it off. Cool universe. Bad TV.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#94The 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 movie, with a trippy premise and loads of fun. The second was a subversion of the first: the Terminator is the good guy! And that worked too. But after that, where else can you go?
And, of course, they never even bothered to make sequels to The Matrix.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#95> Brusatte writes that while a Tyrannasaur could indeed run quite fast, adults couldn’t move as quickly as their young. Therefore, an adult wouldn't be able to speed up enough to match the horsepower of a Jeep like it does as it trails Ian Malcolm and Ellie Sattler in Spielberg's film.
I like how we go right straight to a guy who can tell us the precise feet per second that an adult T-Rex can run, but then just omit that information.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
until it's dis-proven, or until it is proven. we have plenty of evidence of the movement of plates. we know where subduction zones are. what does it take to prove a theory if not repeatable tests/observations?
the large body of corroborating evidence (and ability to be dis-proven) is what makes it a theory but we can't "prove" plate tectonics, because we can't directly observe what's going on the earth's crust over a period of millions of years in scientific nomenclature, a theory is a very robust thing indeed vs. the vernacular, where it isn't, e.g. "I have a theory that my cat vomits behind the couch after I give him ice…
> we can't directly observe what's going on the earth's crust over a period of millions of years
Depends what you mean by “observe”. The parallel lines of reversing magnetic polarity that are embedded in the sea floor on either side of the great rifts are observations that demand explanation.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#97Earlier 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.
A book is different. Part of the appeal is that sort of attention to detail. It definitely filters people who can deal with it.
My dad was a literature nerd. He loved Tolstoy. Personally, I’d rather be tortured by the Czars secret police than suffer through that. :)
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#98A 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…
What sort of tension is derived from watching a bunch of plant-eaters on the plains? The creature feature is what audiences want -- the T-Rex 'objects in mirror are closer than they appear' chase scene is iconic. As is that roar. Heck, so are the grossly mis-sized velociraptors. When they're in the kitchen with the kids, watching those animals be nervous of all things -- the entire scene is a treat.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#99I still cannot understand how good movies with dinosaurs are so rare. There are dozens of great movies with zombies, and the concept is very simple: people running from the infected. Why running from dinosaurs is different?
I think this is a great question! There are also many good vampire movies.
All I can think of is that zombies and vampires are so deeply engrained in our stories that they are merely part of the setting and the real movie is about something else. It's like saying why are there so many movies set in New York?
If this theory is correct, then it also explains why we can have lots of alien invasion movies but only a couple of good Alien movies.
Re: Why are there no good dinosaur films?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
We just had an animated movie about animals[1] with zero dialog win an Oscar. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(2024_film)
No mention of any Oscar at your link, not that that's really important. I think you should read my 'for adults' as precluding animations/cartoons, not to say that Flow isn't aimed at adults or that's childish or anything, just that that's what I meant - in that format of course you can do it and I'm sure there's been loads, no doubt an adult can (re) watch and enjoy A Land Before Time too; I assume TFA was also think…
Mid-way down:
> ... At the 97th Academy Awards, Flow won Best Animated Feature and was also nominated for Best International Feature Film as Latvia's submission ...
I've seen the movie and I'd say it's enjoyable for kids and adults.