You were all watching woke.

  • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I mean in a lot of ways it was otherwise too. The film misses almost no opportunity to show how, if able to operate without regulation, a capitalist will recklessly endanger all human life in pursuit of establishing their money machine

    • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Honestly I don’t think it did a good job articulating that because it kind of gets lost in the “wow cool dino!” over-your-head spectacle and in amongst the hi-tech sci-fi stuff. Like I can’t remember the book too clearly but I do remember it kind of lavishing on how cheaply made everything was and how it was falling apart even before the park opened and how shortsighted and naive the park designers were.

      The movie kind of just established some of the “doing it wrong” stuff InGen did in building the park as conventions of its worldbuilding, like how they were relying on “cool hi-tech gadgets” that were fragile and needed electricity instead of just hiring a zoo engineer to tell them “yeah just make like a ditch and some concrete earthworks high enough that the large, mundane animal can’t just reach out or something, don’t waste money and power on a fragile little electric fence for no reason.”

      • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        IDK I just rewatched a few weeks ago and it’s hard to imagine them ringing the bell any louder. Every scene in the first act em references the fact that Hammond is reckless, cutting corners with safety and the park is cheaply made. Like the entire reason the scientists are there is because investors are spooked at how sloppy it all is.

        • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          They did make him way too quaint and charming instead of casting/directing him as a sleezy dipshit, and it’s way too easy to sympathize with him after the whole “I just wanted everyone to see cool dinos and be happy” dialogue.

        • CriticalOtaku [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          Honestly I prefer Hammond as a well meaning grandpa.

          Hammond in the film is kinda a stand-in for Spielberg himself, the entire flea circus monologue is Spielberg lamenting about his role in the entertainment industry and whether he did more harm than good in it.

          To me it just reinforces that the problems with Jurassic Park were systemic. It was doomed to fail no matter how well meaning the creator. The problem isn’t the individuals, it’s capitalism.

      • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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        2 months ago

        In the movie I remember hearing “we spared no expense” a lot

        …but the downfall was ultimately caused by a critically important employee struggling to get a pay raise

  • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    The original is one of the best action movies of the 90s. It’s such a tight movie, no wasted time. Both the practical and digital effects hold up really well.

    • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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      2 months ago

      Isn’t Asian scientist more racist than woke? Especially, ahem, when they can blame the Chinese for something terrible that came out of a lab…

  • ComradeMonotreme [she/her, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    The second film is really baffling. Just a weird film, politically, ethically, morally etc

    So the billionaires company is going into receivership and the board wanting to generate profits approves a team to go and catch dinosaurs from a second resort island they were making so they can put them in a zoo and charge money. And like I get that’s ethically wrought with some issues but it’s really not that evil by big business standards. These guys didn’t make the dinosaur and it would be cool to seem a dinosaur in a zoo.

    So Ian Malcolm (backed by the original billionaire) gets sent with a team of scientists and environmentalists to stop them/rescue another person there. But it’s like the dinosaurs aren’t indigenous to the island, they’re genetically engineered creations displacing whatever rare fauna and flora was on that isolated island in the first place.

    The company has hired a big game hunter whose meant to be sinister and really wants to kill a T-Rex, but Peter Posthelwaite plays him outright heroically, he even has an arc where he becomes disillusioned with killing animals. He’s basically stoic, pragmatic and always correct. The “good guys” sabotage the dinosaur catching operation leading to dozens of humans getting killed. Even then the “bad guys” capture them and could have killed them or simply just leave them to fend for themselves, they put their differences aside so they can all escape together.

    And then in this life or death situation of a forced march to the sea through raptor territory, Vince Vaughan’s character still sabotages Peter Posthelwaite’s ammunition to pursue his own environmentalist agenda. I mean at that point he didn’t know it would be used against a T-Rex at a crucial moment, instead he might have killed them all had the guy not been able to shoot a raptor or something in self defence. Like it would make sense if he was being portrayed as an unreasonable hippy environmentalist but the film thinks he’s cool and good.

    • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      IIRC the book was better in that regard: there the poacher team were just like a pair of random dipshits who wanted to sell a baby T. Rex and get rich quick and the research expedition was some trust fund baby paleontologist’s ill-advised pet project. Like a lot of the same pieces are there, but they actually fit together in a way that makes sense instead of what genuinely seems like a bunch of changes to make even more things to sell as toys.

    • neo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      The Lost World is such a bizarre and worse movie. It has the production values and some very cool set pieces that give it the excitement a JP movie should have, but, as you laid it out, in the service of a much crappier storyline and annoying characters.

      Also, Spielberg sometimes likes to have soyface point-at-the-screen moments in his movies. The t. rex terrorizing San Diego is one such moment, and the nuclear blasted refrigerator in Crystal Skull is another such moment. Truly, the duality of man can be seen in his occasionally extremely baffling film-making decisions.

      • ComradeMonotreme [she/her, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        As a kid watching it I didn’t realize the steep drop off in quality, because as you say high production dinosaur set pieces that I thought was cool. Also I had a bunch of cool action figures with nets and stuff for catching dinosaurs. But it’s so worse.

        But then it also weighs into the at the time current debate in palaeontological circles about whether a T-Rex would care for it’s offspring taking a definitive stance on yes, which is kind of neat, but then back to trash like completely unnecessary San Diego part.

        I still like it more than 3 even though Sam Neil comes back for that.

  • Thallo [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago
    I know this is a joke but...

    The movie is about hubris and upsetting the natural order and the problems that causes. If bringing back the dinos is portrayed as a bad thing, then certainly transing them is also seems as bad and unnatural