Jurassic World [Jurassic Park IV]

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Originally Posted by DerGilga

^
But that is JW biggest flaw. The original Jurassic Park introduced the modern and at that time scientifically accurate depiction of dinosaurs to the public. At that time it was already know that birds evolved from dinosaurs and are in fact dinosaurs. The questions was, if other theropods, t-rex, raptors and co., also had feathers. Now 20 years later the answer is yes, many theropods had feathers.
So instead of doing it again and introducing the now accurate depiction of dinosaurs to the public, it stands still.

Actually, I think Trevorrow is doing a smart thing. If he were to caved in and use the now-accurate feathered dino’s and making Velociraptor a lot smaller like the actual animal, that means he has to retcon the first movie to some extent. That will definitely cause some problems in the story & logic. That method might eliminate the authenticity problem but it will produce a new one. Trevorrow cleverly came up with a smart excuse that the frog DNA in the first movie prevents the dinos from growing feathers all over their bodies like the real-life counterpart. Plus, in JW, there’s a reveal that the scientist have been messing/manipulating the look of not only the I-Rex, but pretty much every dino on the island. Wu actually strongly implied that the scientist intentionally made them look like that saying something like (paraphrasing) “Nothing is natural in this park! If we clone them as they are, they will look completely different (from what people expect them to look like).” We can safely assume that the “completely different”-line partly has something to do with actual dinos having lots of feathers. So Trevorrow actually made a solid excuse for the movie’s dinos without disregarding the latest actual scientific/paleontological discoveries. Again, that’s a smart move IMO.

Originally Posted by DerGilga

You could say Jurassic World isn't about dinosaurs, but about generic monsters....

Well, yes. JW is about genetically engineered animal/monsters. Wu already made that clear as day near the end of the movie.

And actually, that’s a point which already addressed in JP1. Real-life dinosaurs are not lysine-deficient. And they cannot change sex (as far as today’s science claim), yet the dinosaurs in JP1 did it thanks to the frog DNA. In short, they are already "theme-park monsters" since the very beginning (though most of them still have close resemblance to actual dinosaurs). You cannot count Grant’s line in JP1 “They’re just animals” during the Brachiosaurus feeding too strictly either as he said that so that Lex won’t be scared, but deep down he knew that they are genetically-engineered "monsters" (or at least mutated dinosaurs). JP3 solidifies his view of the Jurassic Park dinos where he outright called them monsters and not the real thing.

Originally Posted by DerGilga

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that a certain scene in the movie is a reference to monty python and the holy grail?

I don't think the movie quite went that way, but I could be wrong about this.

[DerGilga]

^
You talking about the explanation inside the movie. But I'm referring to the effect the movie has on the public. While I would be pleasantly surprised, I don't think many got the meta joke at the beginning of the movie, that the first 'dinosaur' foot was in fact a dinosaur foot.

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Originally Posted by DerGilga

^
You talking about the explanation inside the movie. But I'm referring to the effect the movie has on the public.

First: This is the third millenium. People don’t need movies to portray authentic dinos anymore. Nowadays, documentary programs on TV have pretty good budget & CG to tell the authentic stories about dinosaurs (see BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs). Internet is also everywhere now where people can learn the truth in no time at all. JP franchise is no longer the only place where you can see living-breathing dinosaurs. All JP franchise needs to care now is creating a creative, good and believable story to continue the saga.

Second: The public (who are interested) already know that many dinosaurs have feathers. And outside of some who are still uninformed or being in denial, people already accepted that T-Rexes are closely related to nowadays chickens and have feathers covering significant parts of their bodies. Add to that, Wu’s explanation near the end of the movie practically screams “Look everyone, the dinos in this franchise are not authentic, in case you don’t know it yet”. I don’t think open-minded people would be dumb enough to deny feathered dinos proven by actual scientific discovery just because they saw smooth-scaly-skinned dinos in JW.

Third: JW actually encourages people to find out themselves the truth about dinosaurs. So you don’t have to worry about the kids who watched JW. If they’re interested in dinos, they can (and will) find out the truth themselves (thank the internet). Heck, back during the time JP1 was released, I still found many books out there which said that Sauropods are cold-blooded and lived mostly in swamps . But shortly after, I know that the theory was proven false.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

The greatest thing about feathered dinosaurs is that it validates Chicken Park!

[Akito Kinomoto]

The thing that makes the Tyrannosaurus in the first film an animal VS the Indominus Rex in this film a monster, is how, for the most part, the former is still behaving like an animal. It's territorial, but not out for blood. When you put aside the ability to change its sex, it's pretty close to what we think the animal would be like (aside from outrunning a jeep, but w/e). The Indominus Rex, OTOH, does not occur in nature; the 'we've never made natural animals' line is BS. It has a grab bag of powers and behavior, but by far its greatest asset is its intelligence. As far as I know, no 'smart' (Orca, Wolves, Raptors), terrestrial predator has ever grown to super therapod-like size (Utahraptor comes close, but that's only somewhere near 20ft). I have to wonder if there's some compatibility problem with terrestrial size and intelligence.

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Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

The thing that makes the Tyrannosaurus in the first film an animal VS the Indominus Rex in this film a monster, is how, for the most part, the former is still behaving like an animal. It's territorial, but not out for blood. When you put aside the ability to change its sex, it's pretty close to what we think the animal would be like (aside from outrunning a jeep, but w/e). The Indominus Rex, OTOH, does not occur in nature;....

Well, yeah, that’s the point of the whole movie. T-Rex and co still behave closely like the ancient animals they represent, while I-Rex is specifically created and designed to be this smart and powerful super-predator unlike anything else. Add to that, Owen himself already addressed and implied that I-Rex is bored, jaded and most probably stressed & depressed for being locked all her life and after she ate her sister, she only ever interact with the feeding tool. Can you imagine being so smart and so powerful yet also being locked and unable to do what you are meant to do (killing and devouring) for so long? Of course the I-Rex went crazy, broke free of her containment and did some crazy killings akin to a serial killer running loose. You see, it’s the smart animals that have the capacity to become psychotic, and I-Rex is one big proof of that.

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

the 'we've never made natural animals' line is BS.

If I may ask, what’s so BS about it? The first JP clearly stated that they use frog DNA to complete the code. That in itself made all the dinos in Jurassic Park not natural from the beginning anyway you look at it. They might have 90% appearance and behaviour of real dinos, but they’re actually new species.

In fact, if we want to go further, the very concept of "cloned animals" are not natural even if the clones perfectly captured the animal it cloned from.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Well, yeah, that’s the point of the whole movie. T-Rex and co still behave closely like the ancient animals they represent, while I-Rex is specifically created and designed to be this smart and powerful super-predator unlike anything else. Add to that, Owen himself already addressed and implied that I-Rex is bored, jaded and most probably stressed & depressed for being locked all her life and after she ate her sister, she only ever interact with the feeding tool. Can you imagine being so smart and so powerful yet also being locked and unable to do what you are meant to do (killing and devouring) for so long? Of course the I-Rex went crazy, broke free of her containment and did some crazy killings akin to a serial killer running loose. You see, it’s the smart animals that have the capacity to become psychotic, and I-Rex is one big proof of that.

I said I don't agree with the insinuation of the rest of the dinosaurs being 'monsters.' I know what the justification is for the I-Rex being a monster and made the distinction; whether they actually make it feel menacing is a different story.

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

If I may ask, what’s so BS about it? The first JP clearly stated that they use frog DNA to complete the code. That in itself made all the dinos in Jurassic Park not natural from the beginning anyway you look at it. They might have 90% appearance and behaviour of real dinos, but they’re actually new species.

In fact, if we want to go further, the very concept of "cloned animals" are not natural even if the clones perfectly captured the animal it cloned from.

If we can split hairs over a small technicality, animals with polycephaly are something else entirely. There's also a practical difference between injecting an apple with grape to alter its taste VS making a vine that grows apples.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

If we can split hairs over a small technicality, animals with polycephaly are something else entirely. There's also a practical difference between injecting an apple with grape to alter its taste VS making a vine that grows apples.

Natural polycephaly does not occur due to someone messing around with the animal’s DNA code. That’s why polycephaly is still a natural condition. Polycephaly is basically a severe case of conjointed twins where a single egg is fertilized but then splits into two separate embryos and each embryo sharing a sac and placenta, not DNA manipulation. Is it unusual and irregular? Yes, but still natural condition. And polycephalic animals are not considered different species from their normal kinds, just like people who are conjoint-twins are still humans.

Now let’s see if a significant parts of your entire DNA-code got replaced with parts of monkey’s DNA. Scientifically-speaking, can you still be called human? Any biologists here who can answer that?

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Natural polycephaly does not occur due to someone messing around with the animal’s DNA code. That’s why polycephaly is still a natural condition. Polycephaly is basically a severe case of conjointed twins where a single egg is fertilized but then splits into two separate embryos and each embryo sharing a sac and placenta, not DNA manipulation. Is it unusual and irregular? Yes, but still natural condition. And polycephalic animals are not considered different species from their normal kinds, just like people who are conjoint-twins are still humans.

Now let’s see if a significant parts of your entire DNA-code got replaced with parts of monkey’s DNA. Scientifically-speaking, can you still be called human? Any biologists here who can answer that?

Guesstimating to fill gaps in a puzzle =/= creating an entirely new puzzle. Differentiate please.

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Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

Guesstimating to fill gaps in a puzzle =/= creating an entirely new puzzle. Differentiate please.

Just imagine when the day comes where humans are extinct and filled the dinos’ shoes. And then after dozens of thousands or millions of years, a new intelligent lifeforms excavate our remains and amber-trapped mosquitos that have our blood and somehow able to extract our incomplete DNA code and want to clone us. They then have to use whatever fitting animal available at the time to fill the gaps in the puzzle (could be a futuristic monkey or something). Will you call the result a natural human?

And like I said, the action of cloning itself is already not natural, so I don’t think we should even bother arguing about the “naturality” of cloning in the first place. If you don’t think so then let’s agree to disagree.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Just imagine when the day comes where humans are extinct and filled the dinos’ shoes. And then after dozens of thousands or millions of years, a new intelligent lifeforms excavate our remains and amber-trapped mosquitos that have our blood and somehow able to extract our incomplete DNA code and want to clone us. They then have to use whatever fitting animal available at the time to fill the gaps in the puzzle (could be a futuristic monkey or something). Will you call the result a natural human?

And like I said, the action of cloning itself is already not natural, so I don’t think we should even bother arguing about the “naturality” of cloning in the first place. If you don’t think so then let’s agree to disagree.

Wrong question. Are they trying to make a homo sapien or are they trying to make a neander sapien 9000? It's the difference between trying to imagine a saber tooth cat VS trying to imagine a total chimera.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

Wrong question. Are they trying to make a homo sapien or are they trying to make a neander sapien 9000? It's the difference between trying to imagine a saber tooth cat VS trying to imagine a total chimera.

Eh, I already said that they “want to clone us”. By that I mean they want to clone actual humans today, not mutants. But of course they can’t because they don’t have our complete DNA code. Whatever they’ll produce by mixing our code with other animal’s code will not be the clone of actual humans we see today. And that’s the twist in JP franchise: all the dinos that we see from the beginning are not actual clones of dinos from the past, but modified creatures to fill a theme park (thank you, frog DNA). If we want to see actual dinos, we need to either make a clone from the “perfect” dino DNA code or create a time machine and went back to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what they make since whatever they produce via cloning will not be a natural thing which is the point and core of my argument.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Eh, I already said that they “want to clone us”. By that I mean they want to clone actual humans today, not mutants. But of course they can’t because they don’t have our complete DNA code. Whatever they’ll produce by mixing our code with other animal’s code will not be the clone of actual humans we see today. And that’s the twist in JP franchise: all the dinos that we see from the beginning are not actual clones of dinos from the past, but modified creatures to fill a theme park (thank you, frog DNA). If we want to see actual dinos, we need to either make a clone from the “perfect” dino DNA code or create a time machine and went back to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what they make since whatever they produce via cloning will not be a natural thing which is the point and core of my argument.

The only thing Frog DNA changed is the capacity to change sex. Many of the dinosaur depictions in the franchise already resemble what scientists think they look like anyway with a few exceptions. I guess you're suggesting the IRL people go back to the drawing board? Not buying it. We can only guess how extinct species look, but that isn't the same as deliberately sticking a mastodon skull onto a giant sloth skeleton. I simply made the distinction of calling the I-Rex a monster and unnatural, but my actual criticism of it is the monster kinda sucks.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

The only thing Frog DNA changed is the capacity to change sex. Many of the dinosaur depictions in the franchise already resemble what scientists think they look like anyway with a few exceptions. I guess you're suggesting the IRL people go back to the drawing board? Not buying it. We can only guess how extinct species look, but that isn't the same as deliberately sticking a mastodon skull onto a giant sloth skeleton. I simply made the distinction of calling the I-Rex a monster and unnatural, but my actual criticism of it is the monster kinda sucks.

Ok, so you think I-Rex sucks, nobody will argue with that since it depends on personal opinion.

But Wu’s remark that they’ve never made something natural in the park is true since cloning itself is not natural. Yet you call it BS. If you want a natural dinosaur, you'd have to find one that's still alive today or make a time machine and bring back some from the past, not through imperfect cloning like they've done in JP .

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

The only thing Frog DNA changed is the capacity to change sex. Many of the dinosaur depictions in the franchise already resemble what scientists think they look like anyway with a few exceptions. I guess you're suggesting the IRL people go back to the drawing board? Not buying it. We can only guess how extinct species look, but that isn't the same as deliberately sticking a mastodon skull onto a giant sloth skeleton. I simply made the distinction of calling the I-Rex a monster and unnatural, but my actual criticism of it is the monster kinda sucks.

new species have been declare with difference. genetically they are a different species.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

This is too hilarious to be ignored :

Images

Zookeepers re-enacting the "raptor whisperer"-scene in JW

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

So....anyone else wanna try with your pets?

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

That second set with the emu or ostrich is good, and kinda the most accurate modern version, lol.

[Akito Kinomoto]

^ Wolves or primates would be better candidates for taming intelligence though

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

yeah, but they don't quite look the part.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

This article from io9 also made me chuckle a bit. The criticism about the movie is somewhat fair though:

Spoiler for This review include spoilers of the JW ending:

How would you summarize the plot of Jurassic World?

Well, it’s about one rich person’s attempt to continue the legacy of another rich person by having dinosaurs eat the middle class.

What?

Oh, and to teach one business-oriented woman that her life running a multimillion dollar operation utilizing the most advanced genetics research in the world is completely worthless without children.

Wait, what?

Which part wasn’t clear?

Any of it.

Okay. So you remember how in the first Jurassic Park movie the dinosaurs got loose and killed a bunch of people?

Yes...

Well, it was a tragedy. And we know this because when Bryce Dallas Howard, playing the childless, joyless woman in charge of the new park, sees Jake Johnson in a Jurassic Park shirt he got on eBay, and she chides him for his horrible taste in wearing an icon of such a tragedy.

Wait a second…

Keep in mind that Howard is running Jurassic World, which is exactly like Jurassic Park except bigger and exponentially more dangerous to the people inside it. It also uses the exact same T.Rex skull logo as the original Jurassic Park. So literally the only difference between the two is that one was named “Park” and the other was named “World.” And yet the Jurassic Park t-shirt is supposed to be the epitome of bad taste.

Is there some kind of metaphor you could use to help me understand this?

Yeah. If you assume Jurassic Park is the Titanic, Jurassic World is like someone coming along, building a new boat called the Mega-Titanic, sailing it along the exact same sea route, and getting weirdly judge-y any time mentions the original Titanic in anything other than hushed, reverent tones.

How is Jurassic World more dangerous than Jurassic Park?

Well, at its most basic, it’s still full of dinosaurs, at least half of whom want to eat all the tourists. That’s not great.

Of course.

Jurassic World decides to up the ante by creating a new dinosaur hybrid called the Indominus Rex, which they have designed to be the World’s Greatest Killing Machine in order to attract more tourists to the park. The fact that the Indominus Rex will only eat all these new tourists escaped them completely.

Why is the Indominus so amazing?

It’s like a bigger, smarter Tyrannosaurus Rex. It can change color like a chameleon, it can somehow hide its infrared body temperature, it’s smart enough to not only remember where a tracking device was implanted in its body as a wee dinosaur but also 1) figure out what it was for and 2) claw it out of its own body, but only after it escapes from its pen. Also, it can talk to other dinosaurs.

Why would the Park — sorry, World — do this?

Early on Howard says that people are bored with regular old dinosaurs, and want something bigger and scarier. Then the movie shows that Jurassic World is jam-packed with tourists who seem 100% content to see all the regular old dinosaurs, because dinosaurs are awesome.

Obviously. Can you bring this back to your Titanic metaphor?

The makers of Mega-Titanic, worried that its passengers might be finding the ride a bit boring, have created a sentient iceberg with heat-seeking missiles to add “spice” to the voyage.

Yikes.

Yeah. So essentially, they’ve made a dinosaur version of the Predator.

That… actually sounds awesome.

It pretty much is. If you don’t mind that the Indominus Rex is smarter than all the human characters in the movie put together, you’re in for a solid time.

The characters can’t be that stupid, can they?

They can and are.

Do you have examples?

Do I! Well, let’s begin with the fact that besides making yet another park full of killer dinosaurs, and then genetically engineering bigger, more efficient killer dinosaurs, the park — sorry, the World seemingly employs absolutely zero zoologists or structural engineers. This is a problem if you want to make sure the dinosaurs 1) do not escape and 2) have been content enough in captivity that if they do escape, they don’t spend all their time trying to kill as many park attendees as possible.

Really? They don’t have anyone?

Well, they have Chris Pratt, a Navy guy who has been hired to… train group of velociraptors… for… maybe military purposes, even though Pratt seems aghast whenever someone mentions using them for military purposes. Anyway, he moonlights as the sole animal behaviorist and final arbiter of dinosaur enclosure adequacy, which we know because the rich guy who owns Jurassic World, upon seeing the Indominus for the first time — wants Pratt to check it out. Pratt immediately sees that everything is screwed, and if the Indominus ever gets out, it’s going to kill everybody.

Why does Pratt know so much about dinosaur behavior?

It’s all those dinosaur classes the Navy makes its recruits take. Anyways, then the Indominus gets out.

Obviously.

And the stupidity continues. Despite the abject lesson the first Jurassic Park provided, the employees of Jurassic World are somehow completely unprepared for a dinosaur getting loose. Oh, they have a team of soldiers who suit up to subdue rogue dinos, but they’re basically armed with tasers while, again, they’re fighting Predator-saurus. As for the park itself, like all amusement parks, they’ve hired teens at minimum wage and given them a binder of instructions for emergencies. To return to the Titanic metaphor, this is like the Mega-Titanic, knowing full well what happened to the first ship, issuing binders to its staff instead of lifeboats.

What else?

Well, there’s the new owner of Jurassic World, who almost has his helicopter pilot’s license, is clearly demonstrated being mediocre at helicopter-flying at best, who chooses to fly the park’s only big-ass gun to fight the Indominus and crashes to a fiery death almost immediately. There’s the weird Private Military Corporation guy played by Vincent D’Onofrio, who somehow decides the Indominus rampaging through the amusement park is the perfect time to use Pratt’s team of velociraptors for a mission, despite the fact that the only person who knows anything about the raptors is Pratt, who tells him that his hold on them is tenuous at best. There’s the two kids who, when they are told of an emergency in the park full of dinosaurs that’s a new version of the park where people were massacred by dinosaurs, decide to leave the confines of the park to explore outside. And then there’s Bryce Dallas Howard, who’s the biggest idiot of all, because she doesn’t realize the magic over her own ovaries.

Why do you keep saying this?

Because in a movie that almost completely eschews character development — not the worst choice, given character development takes away from the hot dinosaur-murdering action — the one real arc is for Howard’s character, who is so professionally minded that she won’t take off work when her own nephews come to visit, and doesn’t even know their ages, and is scolded by other characters for this. Literally, Bryce’s sister, played by the infinitely-better-than-this Judy Greer, essentially tells her that she can’t possibly have empathy for another human being until she has children — which is a matter of “when,” despite Bryce’’s claims to the contrary.

Is it really that bad?

Look, it’s not as overt as Judy Greer screaming “YOU ARE A WORTHLESS HARPY UNTIL YOU REPRODUCE,” but again, Howard’s character has the sole arc in the movie — from skilled, capable, business executive and shell of a person to a woman who finally learns the satisfaction of caring for children.

Gross. Is this what Joss Whedon was saying when he called Jurassic World kind of sexist?

Not really. He was referring to this clip, in which Pratt’s badass was all cool and natural and sexxxy, and calling out Howard’s exec for being uptight. It’s a pretty tired cliché, but to be fair Pratt’s character is such an alpha male in the movie he literally refers to himself as an “alpha male,” so that swaggering dickery is part of his character. (Actually, if he wasn’t played by the intrinsically charming Pratt, the character would be almost wholly insufferable.) Whedon’s not really wrong, but in terms of sexism, I’d say the “motherhood = validity” is a much bigger problem in World.

If it’s so crappy, why is the movie making so much money?

Uh, in a word,@#$%ing dinosaurs. As it turns out, dinosaurs are still pretty awesome. You can roll your eyes at all the character interaction you want, but Jurassic World delivers when it features those characters running for their lives from dinosaurs and/or being eaten. Plus, Chris Pratt leads a team of velociraptors for a bit! Isn’t that awesome?

It does sound pretty awesome!

Of course, it’s another terrible idea, because as soon as the raptors meet the Indominus, the Indominus asks them the partner up, and they immediately join forces to kill all the humans.

The Indominus asks them?

Yup.

Like, in… dinosaur language?

Yup. He’s part raptor, apparently.

I’m not 100% certain this scientifically holds up.

I’m sure it’ll all make sense when you’re a mother.

Ugh.

But then someone shoots a velociraptor with a rocket launcher, and by god that’s kind of awesome too.

So how do they finally defeat the Indominus Rex?

Let me just say that the Indominus is defeated by Jurassic Park.

Huh?

The one surviving velociraptor backed up Chris Pratt and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the dino-star of the first movie, to bring down the Indominus.

And in Titanic terms?

The Mega-Titanic and the iceberg that sank the original Titanic team up to fight the new sentient, missile-firing iceberg.

Okay, so what’s next after Jurassic World?

Seeing as Jurassic World the park was a much bigger, more public tragedy than Jurassic Park, I assume… someone makes an even bigger version, and no one learns anything. Perhaps they’ll go the Super Mario route — Jurassic Galaxy, anyone?

Are you talking about dinosaurs in spacesuits?

Maybe.

I’m in.

Yeah, me too.