Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub I just saw it. Theatre packed.... Great beginning thanks to Disney monorail and Disney MagicBands AND ending with 2 dinosaurs biting at each other's necks....Why am I on train at DL looking for tin foil lava flow????Haha
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Jurassic World was just not a good movie but danged if the kid in me didn't drag me to the theatre because dinosaurs.>> I don't really care if it is any good or not. I want to see it anyway. Dinosaurs.
Originally Posted By leemac It was a real mixed bag for me. The setpieces were very good although nothing on the scale on the original T-Rex encounter and Raptors in the kitchen from JP1 and the Mercedes truck and trailer off the cliff in JP2. The gyroscopes were probably the best. I liked the InGen/JW conflict - even if it was a little obvious. Chris Pratt continues to show that he is a natural born movie star even if there wasn't enough of his self-deprecating humor in it. The bad stuff was bad though - terrible dialog except for the monologues (clearly from Jaffa and Silver who did the last two Planet of the Apes movies - they can pontificate with the best). The two boys were cliched and pointless. Ron Howard's daughter still can't act even (and Joss Whedon was right when he said it was a misogynistic script). A lot of dead space even once Indominus Rex had escaped. Everyone was just too one-dimensional - even Pratt whose character was closer to Vaughn's in the second one than Grant from JP1. No-one like Hammond or Malcolm. No grey at all.
Originally Posted By ecdc Concur w/ leemac. >>Then I would blame ILM.<< This goes far beyond ILM. Most CGI today isn't as good for two key reasons: 1) It's used as a lazy ends instead of a means and 2) It's used to amp up action in ways that seem unnatural to the human eye. How often have movies shown a character jumping on the back of a CGI creature or falling out of the sky or some other thing and it just looks...wrong. We all have an intuitive sense of how humans subject to gravitational forces—and other laws of physics—should look, and nowadays CGI bends those rules to their detriment. It gives so many movies today an almost cartoonish quality. Ironically, the movies with the most technology end up looking the most fake.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>This goes far beyond ILM. Most CGI today isn't as good for two key reasons: 1) It's used as a lazy ends instead of a means and 2) It's used to amp up action in ways that seem unnatural to the human eye. How often have movies shown a character jumping on the back of a CGI creature or falling out of the sky or some other thing and it just looks...wrong. We all have an intuitive sense of how humans subject to gravitational forces—and other laws of physics—should look, and nowadays CGI bends those rules to their detriment. It gives so many movies today an almost cartoonish quality. Ironically, the movies with the most technology end up looking the most fake.<<< Unfortunately that is so true. That's why I'm so glad that JJ Abrams is handling SW7. Of course it will have a lot of CGI, but he uses it only when really necessary. I hadn't high hopes for JW, but I'm still looking forward to see it. JP is a classic and I even expect JP2 to be better than JW. Your's and leemac's comment show that my assumption might be right.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I read an interesting article a couple weeks ago based on the JW trailer, all about how modern CGI films look fake because they rely on the same tricks over and over, and basically that it's a victim of it's own success. The original JP only used CGI when they had no other option, often relying on puppets or the audience's imagination to fill it in. The longer we look at a CGI character, the less real it becomes A similar approach of hiding something scary from view has been used countless times in the past. When AFI was making their "top 100" lists a while back, "man" from Bambi ranked toward the top of the villain list, largely because he was never shown onscreen. You never knew where he was or what he looked like, and it spread a wider message of humanity rather than just a single person. Although this technique can also be overused (especially in a monster movie, where you really just want to see the monster) there's a lot to be said for using some restraint every now and then
Originally Posted By dagobert I don't get the whole CGI special effects thing. You always read that CGI is cheaper compared to "real" effects, but the movies with many CGI effects are usually the ones that cost the most to make. I'm definitely not against CGI. The first Avenger movie, one of my favourites, uses a lot of CGI. The whole battle at the end is CGI and it looks so real. JW on the other hand, at least judging from the trailers, looks partly fake.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip What made "Signs" so terrifying for me the first time I saw it was that you never really got a good look at the aliens.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 And one of the great things about the original Alien was that it had several stages in its first 3 or 4 appearances; baby (popping out of John Hurt's stomach), "toddler," "adolescent" and adult. It kept growing and getting bigger and badder, so that you not only didn't know when it was going to pop out, you didn't know what it was going to look like when it did (at least until it got to adult stage and stayed there). Now of course we all know what the basic "Alien" look is, but watching the original movie the first time, it was really cool (and scary) not to know.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >> it was really cool (and scary) not to know<< Yep. And in Jurassic Park, the scariest dinosaurs are revealed very slowly, horror movie style. The not-seeing is always scarier than the seeing.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 And even once you've seen them, a good director will keep them scary by slowly revealing things they can do that you didn't realize at first. I think I saw the original JP on opening day, with a typically boisterous Brooklyn crowd. Remember the first time the raptors jumped on the table? There was a couple sitting next to me... Woman: Oh #*$&@#!! That kind can JUMP!! Man: Awww, HELL no!!
Originally Posted By leemac <<JP is a classic and I even expect JP2 to be better than JW. >> Beyond the Mercedes trailer scene JW is better than JP2. That whole nonsense in San Diego at the end was truly awful. It wasn't close enough to Crichton's original book. Koepp did a far better job with the original. Spielberg miscast the nephew role - Arliss Howard was terrible. That said - Joe Mazzello and Ariana Richards were a zillion times better than the brothers in JW.
Originally Posted By leemac <<And even once you've seen them, a good director will keep them scary by slowly revealing things they can do that you didn't realize at first.>> Colin Trevorrow did a largely poor job with the "reveals". There was no real sense of suspense or even peril. A lot of JP's classic T. Rex scene was the darkness and rain but Trevorrow should have done much better with I. Rex. As I said the attack of the gyroscope was definitely the best of the bunch. There were some AA dinos but not enough. The slaughter on the plain scene with the physical dino was very touching despite the overacting of Howard. There wasn't enough of that.
Originally Posted By leemac <<I think I saw the original JP on opening day, with a typically boisterous Brooklyn crowd.>> I'm pretty skittish when it comes to movies (don't watch horror or anything close to it at all) and I was sat in the very front row of a large screen for JP - it made me jump all the time. It was a great cinematic experience. Batman may have created the summer popcorn flick but it wasn't really until JP that we all bought into the concept of tentpoles. It just worked.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Batman may have created the summer popcorn flick<< I think that's generally credited to Jaws.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>it wasn't really until JP that we all bought into the concept of tentpoles<< Star Wars? Indiana Jones? Back to the Future? James Bond? Alien? Friday the 13th?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros This actually popped into my head this afternoon, and I was originally thinking that we have the LOTR trilogy to thank for the current state of Hollywood. But the more I thought about it, it seemed like Jurassic Park really began the trend JP seemed to be the first to take a popular book and turn it into the big multi-film franchise that is so common today. Yes, Batman was an established character and even James Bond originated in a novel, but JP seemed to be the one that got it all in the current zeitgeist. Add in all of those sequels and various synergy that followed, and it really seemed to be the start of something new Then again, perhaps it goes back farther. Although it didn't spawn any sequels "popular new novel turned into blockbuster" sure seems to describe Gone with the Wind pretty well...
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Everything repeats in Hollywood. It's likely that whatever flick was big when we each hit a certain age is the one that will seem to us the one that "started it all."
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I haven't seen JW. if I like the newish theatre I plan to see Inside Out at, I may. Sounds like it's fun, even if not as good as it could have been.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<I think that's generally credited to Jaws.>> Agreed. I read Benchley's book in anticipation of the film, that's how hyped it was in the media. And the lines were unbelievably long to get into the theaters right after opening. I cannot recall another film prior to Jaws doing this well at the summer box.
