User warned: sexist language. Please don't refer to women as "cows".
I love all the Jurassic Park films. I suppose being objective, they're all quite bad (especially the latter films), but they call to my soul in ways I can't quite articulate. So I got my wife to watch the all with me in a marathon Jurassic funfest one weekend. She spent most of her time rolling her eyes so hard I could hear it, but she seemed to mostly enjoy herself. And no, they're not riddled with plot holes and nonsensical shite, they're talking points dammit. I couldn't list all the stupid stuff if I tried anyway.
Jurassic Park
Obviously the best film of the lot. The dinosaurs feel thrilling, new, dangerous. The cast is good and it scared the shit out of me when I saw it at the cinema.
Notable points;
- Fabulous CGI and special effects, it still holds up 30 years later.
- Geography be damned with a T-Rex paddock simultaneously at road level and yet with a gigantic drainage cliff.
- The T-Rex and Raptors are genuinely scary.
- Only two programmers for the entire park? Nedry and Arnold. Is Arnold even a programmer?
- Toilets by the T-Rex paddock? But why!
- Dr Wu as a normal scientist. Who knew what he would become!
- Alan Grant knows the attacking patterns of raptors from his fossils, Muldoon doesn't even though he's had live animals to study.
- "Shooooooooooot heeerrrrrr"
- Spared no expense, except on programmers.
- Nedry's can of embryos in the mud, I was so sure that would become something I'd see in a sequel, but not yet.
- Jurassic Park would probably have been a raging success if not for Nedry who turned all the fences off.
Lost World
Ramps up the stupid, but it's a fun romp.
Notable points;
- Malcolm as lead? Geoff 'The Plank' Goldblum in full on crap acting mode.
- Token black child bearing zero genetic resemblence in any way to Malcolm. Maybe she's adopted?
- Sarah has an annoying face.
- Sarah the wildlife expert does everything wrong when it comes to wildlife.
- Two T-Rex's! Awwwww yeah.
- Just how tall is the tree the high hide is in?
- The raptors are less scary.
- The T-Rex's are less scary despite being twice as many.
- Gymnastics girl Vs raptors.
- Poor random bloke in San Diego getting chomped.
- Would all have worked out fine if Nick hadn't sabotaged the camp.
Jurassic Park 3
Yes it can get more stupid. Mercenaries who aren't, rich sightseers who aren't, cheques bouncing, new Dinosaur. What a wild ride.
Notable points;
- What eats the blokes on the boat at the start?
- Kid can get down from the tangled parachute but leading lady love interest man can't. Kid could have helped dammit.
- Spinosaurus! Grrrrrr.
- T-Rex relegated to almost comedy bit part, booo. Obvious scene where Spinosaurus kills the Rex.
- Stupid warring parents getting back together plot because he lost 25lbs and looks good again.
- Colourful raptors now.
- Hilariously abrupt ending.
- Low key sad sub plot point with Grant and Ellie no longer together, she's moved on Alan, she has kids of her own now and after you made so much progress in Jurassic Park too.
- Satellite phones in big piles of shite.
- Would all have been fine if Tea Leone hadn't attracted the Spinosaurus by shouting through a mega phone.
Jurassic World
We're a theme park now baby! Idiocy levels ramped right up, but damn we're quick to the action and it's all brilliant nonsense.
Notable points;
- Lady in charge of bleeding edge theme park is young and hot? I refuse to believe it! She should be a grizzled old cow with years of management experience. Expense spared apparently.
- Career lady Claire doesn't do kids, but this needs to change and she must be made to feel bad about not bonding with her nephews.
- Stupid parents divorcing sub plot.
- Mad rides. Driving your own gyropod into the legs of a giant dinosaur, crack on kids!
- The entire fall of the park is Claire's fault. They can't detect the Indominus in the cage so rather than check the tracking chip there and then, see it's still in there and avoid the coming disaster, she rushes off to do it in the car a suitable distance away from the enclosure. Bonus points for whoever decided it was sensible to go into the enclosure before confirming it was definitely empty, looking at you 'Dinosaur behavioural expert' Owen.
- Assistant lady suffers protracted and unnecessary death.
- They didn't want to kill the Indominus because they had $36mil invested in it, even when it becomes apparent it's munching its way through multiple billions of dollars of dinosaurs, fences, swat teams and law suits.
- I can absolutely fly a helicopter, oh whoops.
- T-Rex relegated to helpful saviour, shares meaningful glance with semi-pet raptor.
- Nonsensical plot about military raptors. Not one iota of that makes sense, I can't even.
- Colourful raptors see, fuck you plain brown raptors from Jurassic Park.
- Raptors definitely not scary. Raptors becoming a touch comedic if anything.
- Moasaur wins the best Dino competition.
- Brief scene in the old Jurassic Park lobby. Will we get Nedry's mud can? No we won't.
- Look it's Dr Wu! Only now he's one step away from cackling mad scientist.
- Would all have been fine if Claire hadn't been rubbish.
Fallen Kingdom
Here we go lads, the finale (for now), let's double down on all the idiotic nonsense from Jurassic World.
Notable points;
- Hey it's Malcolm, but he has a beard now.
- Failed head of Jurassic World Claire now runs a charity for dinosaurs or something.
- Military raptors are still a thing apparently.
- Hilarious computer nerd character and feisty girl vet who wears painfully trendy clothes, how fresh.
- Pet Raptor. Raptors officially not scary anymore.
- Sad Brachiosaurus that goes 'Mooooo' as the smoke consumes her on the jetty. My wife got legit sad at this bit.
- With the eyes of the world on the collapsing Dino island, a large team of bad lads have no issues gaining access and stealing all the dinosaurs.
- That bloke sure likes teeth.
- Dinosaurs for sale! Let's start the bidding, do I hear £20? Who'll give me £25? Hilariously low sale prices.
- Serious Dinocrisis vibes, this is not a bad thing.
- Clone child.
- It's Dr Wu again, only this time he has transitioned fully to evil genius.
- Dinosaurs loose in the woods.
- Would all have been fine if Owen hadn't let the dinosaurs all out.
I think the only take away is that people are the real problem and that raptors love to jump on bigger dinosaurs. With any luck and the character arc Wu is apparently on, people will become the actual dinosaurs for the next installment. Apocalypse human/Dino hybrids, let's go.
Jurassic Park
Obviously the best film of the lot. The dinosaurs feel thrilling, new, dangerous. The cast is good and it scared the shit out of me when I saw it at the cinema.
Notable points;
- Fabulous CGI and special effects, it still holds up 30 years later.
- Geography be damned with a T-Rex paddock simultaneously at road level and yet with a gigantic drainage cliff.
- The T-Rex and Raptors are genuinely scary.
- Only two programmers for the entire park? Nedry and Arnold. Is Arnold even a programmer?
- Toilets by the T-Rex paddock? But why!
- Dr Wu as a normal scientist. Who knew what he would become!
- Alan Grant knows the attacking patterns of raptors from his fossils, Muldoon doesn't even though he's had live animals to study.
- "Shooooooooooot heeerrrrrr"
- Spared no expense, except on programmers.
- Nedry's can of embryos in the mud, I was so sure that would become something I'd see in a sequel, but not yet.
- Jurassic Park would probably have been a raging success if not for Nedry who turned all the fences off.
Lost World
Ramps up the stupid, but it's a fun romp.
Notable points;
- Malcolm as lead? Geoff 'The Plank' Goldblum in full on crap acting mode.
- Token black child bearing zero genetic resemblence in any way to Malcolm. Maybe she's adopted?
- Sarah has an annoying face.
- Sarah the wildlife expert does everything wrong when it comes to wildlife.
- Two T-Rex's! Awwwww yeah.
- Just how tall is the tree the high hide is in?
- The raptors are less scary.
- The T-Rex's are less scary despite being twice as many.
- Gymnastics girl Vs raptors.
- Poor random bloke in San Diego getting chomped.
- Would all have worked out fine if Nick hadn't sabotaged the camp.
Jurassic Park 3
Yes it can get more stupid. Mercenaries who aren't, rich sightseers who aren't, cheques bouncing, new Dinosaur. What a wild ride.
Notable points;
- What eats the blokes on the boat at the start?
- Kid can get down from the tangled parachute but leading lady love interest man can't. Kid could have helped dammit.
- Spinosaurus! Grrrrrr.
- T-Rex relegated to almost comedy bit part, booo. Obvious scene where Spinosaurus kills the Rex.
- Stupid warring parents getting back together plot because he lost 25lbs and looks good again.
- Colourful raptors now.
- Hilariously abrupt ending.
- Low key sad sub plot point with Grant and Ellie no longer together, she's moved on Alan, she has kids of her own now and after you made so much progress in Jurassic Park too.
- Satellite phones in big piles of shite.
- Would all have been fine if Tea Leone hadn't attracted the Spinosaurus by shouting through a mega phone.
Jurassic World
We're a theme park now baby! Idiocy levels ramped right up, but damn we're quick to the action and it's all brilliant nonsense.
Notable points;
- Lady in charge of bleeding edge theme park is young and hot? I refuse to believe it! She should be a grizzled old cow with years of management experience. Expense spared apparently.
- Career lady Claire doesn't do kids, but this needs to change and she must be made to feel bad about not bonding with her nephews.
- Stupid parents divorcing sub plot.
- Mad rides. Driving your own gyropod into the legs of a giant dinosaur, crack on kids!
- The entire fall of the park is Claire's fault. They can't detect the Indominus in the cage so rather than check the tracking chip there and then, see it's still in there and avoid the coming disaster, she rushes off to do it in the car a suitable distance away from the enclosure. Bonus points for whoever decided it was sensible to go into the enclosure before confirming it was definitely empty, looking at you 'Dinosaur behavioural expert' Owen.
- Assistant lady suffers protracted and unnecessary death.
- They didn't want to kill the Indominus because they had $36mil invested in it, even when it becomes apparent it's munching its way through multiple billions of dollars of dinosaurs, fences, swat teams and law suits.
- I can absolutely fly a helicopter, oh whoops.
- T-Rex relegated to helpful saviour, shares meaningful glance with semi-pet raptor.
- Nonsensical plot about military raptors. Not one iota of that makes sense, I can't even.
- Colourful raptors see, fuck you plain brown raptors from Jurassic Park.
- Raptors definitely not scary. Raptors becoming a touch comedic if anything.
- Moasaur wins the best Dino competition.
- Brief scene in the old Jurassic Park lobby. Will we get Nedry's mud can? No we won't.
- Look it's Dr Wu! Only now he's one step away from cackling mad scientist.
- Would all have been fine if Claire hadn't been rubbish.
Fallen Kingdom
Here we go lads, the finale (for now), let's double down on all the idiotic nonsense from Jurassic World.
Notable points;
- Hey it's Malcolm, but he has a beard now.
- Failed head of Jurassic World Claire now runs a charity for dinosaurs or something.
- Military raptors are still a thing apparently.
- Hilarious computer nerd character and feisty girl vet who wears painfully trendy clothes, how fresh.
- Pet Raptor. Raptors officially not scary anymore.
- Sad Brachiosaurus that goes 'Mooooo' as the smoke consumes her on the jetty. My wife got legit sad at this bit.
- With the eyes of the world on the collapsing Dino island, a large team of bad lads have no issues gaining access and stealing all the dinosaurs.
- That bloke sure likes teeth.
- Dinosaurs for sale! Let's start the bidding, do I hear £20? Who'll give me £25? Hilariously low sale prices.
- Serious Dinocrisis vibes, this is not a bad thing.
- Clone child.
- It's Dr Wu again, only this time he has transitioned fully to evil genius.
- Dinosaurs loose in the woods.
- Would all have been fine if Owen hadn't let the dinosaurs all out.
I think the only take away is that people are the real problem and that raptors love to jump on bigger dinosaurs. With any luck and the character arc Wu is apparently on, people will become the actual dinosaurs for the next installment. Apocalypse human/Dino hybrids, let's go.