Tag: Jurassic Park movies

An Afternoon in ‘Jurassic World’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

A man and a woman take cover behind a spherical vehicle, while various dinosaurs run from an erupting volcano.

I had a yen today to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It was the fourth film in the series, and it’s one of my favorites. It’s very refreshing to see a lot of rich fat-heads choking on their hubris. The world needs more of that in real life.

Fallen Kingdom, like all the others in the series, is a parable. “There was once a man, or group of them, who thought he could do absolutely anything…” We know where this is going–to the Land of Nothing Works. Just a couple of minutes into the film, we see an elevator door that doesn’t work. It’s telling us what to expect.

And it’s not just the machines that fall down on the job. The shambles, the disaster, is caused entirely by Real Smart People blinded by their own reflections in the mirror. But we know from history that most of the really stupid things done by the human race–Original Sin, in fact–are done by idiots who think they’re geniuses.

Our world already has too much of that.

 

‘Jurassic World: Dominion’… Three Cheers!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

30+ Jurassic World: Dominion HD Wallpapers and Backgrounds

Well, we love this movie! Really, all you have to do is provide a lot of realistic dinosaurs, and not go overboard with the human characters, and you’re home free. Dominion does all that and a bit more. I’m already looking forward to the next one! (Dinosaurs break loose, descend on Davos, gobble up the self-anointed elites right down to the last Rolex…)

Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum are back in their original roles–and I do enjoy listening to Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) philosophize. In between chase scenes, he has the best lines in the script. I admit they probably could have done with shorter or fewer chase scenes. Or else let the dinos catch up to famous liberals and eat them. Stand up and cheer: like when the T. rex devours the sleazy lawyer in the first movie.

The theme of the story is the same Jurassic Park theme that’s been up there for us all long: scientific hubris kills. This time out we have a Big Science screw-up that threatens to wipe out human life altogether. Gee… does that sound kind of familiar? The difference between the movie and real life is that in the movie it’s Big Tech that’s going to make us extinct, and in real life it’s “gain of function” research perpetrated by Big Government. Although there’s so much overlap between the two, the distinction may not be as important as I thought.

There are a great many “quotes” from other dinosaur movies; which, if you are into dinosaur movies (like I am!), you’ll have a lot of fun spotting. Movies like The Valley of Gwangi, The Land Unknown, the original Jurassic Park, King Kong–see how many you can spot.

So many dinosaur discoveries are being made today that it’s difficult to keep up. I recognized most of the dinosaurs in Dominion, but not all of then. Every now and then I had a “What the hell was that?” moment. But that’s a small criticism.

You knew I’d dig this movie, didn’t you?

What We’re Gonna Do This Afternoon

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

T Rex Dinosaur, Downton City Street Stock Illustration - Illustration of danger, downtown: 64131823

Time for some fun! We had to buy it, they weren’t offering rentals–but gee wiz, we’ve worked hard! We deserve a treat.

We’re going to watch Jurassic World: Dominion. We love all the Jurassic Park movies. We are told there are giant locusts in it. I love giant locusts! What movie would not be even better with giant locusts in it? Would’ve pepped up The Third Man a bit. I might’ve watched The Sound of Music if it had had giant locusts in it.

I read two reviews. The guy who hated this movie really hated it. He is probably a jurassophobe. (Colleges, take note: here’s a whole new Bad Person category for you.) The woman who liked it really liked it.

I suppose we could watch some Great Work Of Cinematic Art, intended to impart to us a respectably gloomy view of life. But we’ve got the nooze for that, don’t we? There is a Giganotosaurus in Dominion. We wish a few would show up at the World Economic Forum. They need a Triceratops scattering their chairs to Kingdom Come.

Tune in tomorrow to see how we liked the movie.

 

Back to Jurassic Park!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

So there’s a new Jurassic Park movie coming out, I’ve seen the trailer–and I’m hooked! But really the hook was set in 1993 (good grief, 30 years ago!) with the first Jurassic Park–which we’re going to watch again this afternoon.
I have just blown 20 minutes trying to turn my computer back on–which is one of the lessons Michael Crichton tried to teach when he wrote Jurassic Park. All those high-tech safety and security systems aren’t worth a damn when they rely on human beings never to forget anything, never to click the wrong key, never to try something cute. God made us fallible. Did He ever make us fallible! You’d think that would breed humility. But then Jurassic Park is about hubris, not humility. Homer would’ve understood it instantly.

How wonderful would it be to see a dinosaur? I’ve been fascinated by dinosaurs since I first learned how to read. Of all God’s creations, these speak most powerfully to me. Imagine the size and strength! Try–in vain, probably–to imagine what it must have been like to be a dinosaur.

I know, I know. I’m old enough now to forget dinosaurs and just watch movies about failing relationships and sinks full of dirty dishes.

Not a chance, kimosabe! Not a chance.

‘Jurassic World 2, Fallen Kingdom’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) - IMDb

Dinosaurs indoors–not recommended!

Just for the halibut yesterday, a soothing brain-soak, we watched Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom. I mean, c’mon–these special effects are the berries.

Ah! But that’s not what I noticed yesterday. Something I hadn’t quite picked up on in earlier viewings:

The sheer and boiling lawlessness of the whole depraved enterprise.

Yes, lawlessness. An absence of law. A famine for hearing the law. An absence of obedience. We don’t actually get dinosaurs, but this is the kind of world you get when there’s no law. You get vikings, bikers, the Wild West. Concentration camps. Science labs where they study how to make diseases much worse than they naturally are. Mad Max.

And can it be we’re building such a world, as we speak? Is this what Portland, Oregon, is all about? And San Francisco. And the killing fields of Chicago and New York. And you turn on the TV nooze and they’re lying to you.

First you break God’s law, then man’s. Local laws, state and federal laws, international law. Seems to be where this age is headed.

We pray, O Lord! Thy Kingdom come. Soon, please!

 

Movie Review, ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

See the source image

We rented Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom this weekend, and it was everything we wanted from it. We weren’t looking for Shakespearean soliloquies.

So what we got were dinosaurs, and plenty of ’em, including some nice ones that haven’t been seen in the earlier Jurassic Park movies: a very nice Carnotaurus, and of course a new genetically-engineered man-made not-natural dinosaur that looks like New Jersey’s own Dryptosaurus. Three cheers! Plus the Mosasaur as big as your average township: surfers beware.

As usual, there are bad guys trying to exploit the dinosaurs, good guys trying to stop them, and the dinosaurs get loose and everything goes all pear-shaped, fanabla… I really don’t want to hit you with any spoilers, so suffice it to say that Fallen Kingdom offers a lot of the original Jurassic Park motifs, plus a couple of brand-new ones, at least one of which is just spectacular and you wonder why no one ever did it before. This is a dinosaur chase scene like none you’ve ever seen. Patty wound up dreaming she was being chased by an alligator, and I got kicked a dozen times before I could wake her up.

There are critics who want to put the whole Jurassic Park franchise out to pasture, they’re tired of these dinosaurs, the story line’s always the same, blah-blah. Bunch of spoil-sports. Sure, there are downright silly moments in any Jurassic Park movie–especially JP No. 2, The Lost World, which boasts a virtual dictionary of silly moments–but we don’t watch these movies in search of whatever it is that some of these critics are searching for. We watch ’em for dinosaurs, we get dinosaurs, the bad guys get what’s coming to them, the story line suggests yet another sequel, and we come away satisfied. What’s not to like?

Here We Go Again! Jurassic World 2

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Suddenly the supermarket’s full of Jurassic World 2 tie-ins to Cheetos and Doritos, which means the movie’s coming out, and here’s the trailer.

I am a total sucker for Jurassic Park movies. I shrug off the cliches. I tolerate the illusion of dinosaurs as big as Liechtenstein. And is that Carcharodon megalodon moving in on all those surfers? You’d think a couple of humans would be only the equivalent of two or three Doritos, to a shark that makes “Jaws” look like a guppy. Sheesh, “You’re gonna need a bigger ocean…”

At the very least, these movies provide escape, take my mind off things. They might even give me an idea or two that I can use in my books. Inspiration, of a kind. So of course I’ll want to see it! And eventually I will. But I just can’t be going to a movie theater, dropping $25 just to see a movie, and sitting through a dozen previews and several commercials before anything good happens.

‘Jurassic World’: a Comment

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of jurassic world

I watch Jurassic Park movies because I love to see dinosaurs. I also appreciate them as a form of escape: cooling my brain down for a bit.

So we watched Jurassic World today, and grooved on the special effects. Even if their Mosasaur is as big as the Chrysler Building, it’s still way cool.

But the thing is, these movies have something important to say. And that is… At some level, we modern people know we’re whistling Dixie, playing with dynamite, and totally full of self-delusion, thinking we’re in control, we’ve got it covered–and then the dinosaurs get loose. These movies, and others like them, would not be made if we did not know that.

And yet we act as if we know nothing at all. We keep on playing with fire. Ooh-ooh, genetic modification! Ooh-ooh, brain implants! And so on–no end to the folly. Professing ourselves to be wise, we become fools (Romans 1).

We do keep God busy, don’t we? Busy diverting us from self-annihilation.