Jurassic World Weariness

Hey, Universal!  Come here for a minute.

Have a seat, please.

Relax. 

Uncle Jeff needs to have a talk with you.

You know I've been there for you. I have been a Dinosaur kid my whole life. Seeing dinosaurs brought to life on the big screen in the Jurassic Park/ World films have always been high moments of my theater going experience.

I am in no way a tough audience for these movies.

Even the ones that were kind of a mess had enough awe inspiring dino-moments to make them worth multiple, cheer filled, viewings. (Glances at The Lost World.)

So, Universal, I need to tell you something, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart:

Thank you, for all you have done in the prehistoric cinema department...

and you REALLY need to stop now.

You had a fantastic conclusion with Dominion bringing together the cast of two sets of films to close things out full circle. It was a perfect way to end, before setting out in new and exciting dino-directions.

But no, you had to keep going.

You brought in some great actors, Scarlet Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey all brought realism to their characters and the story, as did the entire Delgado family. (And Xavier.) They demonstrated growth through their character arcs.

(*Pats Universal on the head.*)

You did bring some of those awe inspiring moments that the franchise is famous for, such as a paleontologist bursting with uncontrolled joy when encountering a heard of enormous sauropods. 

But there was FAR too much baggage left over from previous outings. 

Come on! You are Universal! The makers of the greatest monster movie franchises on the planet. If you want to make monster movies, focus on that and you will be untouchable.

With that background, there is NO REASON to throw all these mutant, creature feature leftovers into this franchise.

Honestly, the winged raptors looked goofily physically impossible.

While the big thing at the end just looked stupid. 

And I know "in story" they're supposed to be the rejects, but your movie going public is here to see cool dinosaur stuff. If you're going to make monsters, focus on that. 

You're trying too hard.  

Are you all right? Do you want to talk about it?

Or do you need to lie down for a while?

Also, my movie making friend. There was FAR too many things going on in this film. 

You had the genetics story, the mercenary story and the lost family story. 

I know we need extra people for the carnivores to eat, (and some of those moments did make me cheer *Pats Universal on the head again*) but there were snippets of back story for everyone that could have made a much more engaging story if they were more than mere snippets.

Seriously, Universal, when its ME complaining that you need more depth for the humans in the dinosaur film, you screwed up catastrophically. 

Maybe take a few years to think about that before starting over.

I mean, even the cool scenes had some serious issues.

And, again, this is me talking here. 

I've been cheering along with you, suspending belief while you make up your own rules for genetics, paleontology and biology in general for over thirty years. 

(Sometimes all three. Yes, I am still complaining between those cheers about the pteranodon teeth and everything about the dilophosaurus.) 

Not to mention ignoring that no one on the world you created was complaining about the giant mounds of dino-turds that must be all over Earth, now joined by their massive corpses in this installment.

Yes, the swimming spinosaurs forming a symbiotic relationship with the mosasaur for the boat chase was cool. But it was also one of the many times in the set up where the need for the characters to be extra stupid to advance the plot took me out of the moment.

Let's recap the evidence, for your own good:

Exabit A- Experienced mercenaries travelled to a dinosaur filled island with exactly one...

ONE! 

neurotoxin dart shooting gun as defense, when most of the creatures there were not their targets for the blood draws.

Exhibit B- The "highly trained " mercenary using that weapon could not hit the FORTY FOOT LONG DINOSAURS swimming right next to them with automatic fire.

Exhibit C- When a dart miraculously hit a spinosaur, it didn't work.

Bonus Exhibit- The otherwise competent Captain of the boat, when presented with an entire empty beach to ground his craft on to escape the deep water needing creature- aimed right for the huge rocks. 

These films used to run on moments of awe mixed in with the thrills. 

Returning to the  "Paleontologist sees sauropods" moment -that was about the only one... and you messed that up too. 

The first problem with the scene is the kids were not there for it. Yes, having children threatened by the dinosaurs is a staple of the films since the beginning and adds drama. But they also need to be part of the awe inspiring moments for balance, and to represent all of us dino-kids getting excited. This story was a nearly unending pile of therapy inducing trauma for those girls. 

The baby protoceratops doesn't count. 

(Sorry "baby aquilops," even though she looked more like a protoceratops... you know, Dolores. 

We can chat about your need to use lesser known names and then still make them look like commonly known animals another time.) 

Dolores didn't count because- by the rules you set up in this movie- when the already traumatized little girl brings her home, Dolores will shortly die, compounding that already considerable trauma.

The second problem was no matter how much you bend the science, and no matter how much the dinosaur loving little boy that lives in my head wants to believe, I can't stay in the movie when an entire herd of over fifty foot tall (twice the correct height by the way) titanosauruses were hiding in a four foot tall cornfield.

And what the heck were those fins on their backs? 

Now you're just doing things to annoy me again.

Are you acting out on purpose? Did someone make you create this movie?

I know it isn't completely your fault as expectations continue to rise...

But you did hire the guy who made the Godzilla movie with barely any Godzilla in it. 

Lastly, congratulations on finally getting the famous "tyrannosaurus chases the inflatable raft down the river" from the first novel into one of these. 

(*Pats Universal on the head, once more*)  

Yes, the scene was full of suspense, action and thrills. 

Yes, the tyrannosaur looked alive, terrifying, and awesome. 

Yet, my franchise milking friend, you couldn't stick the landing. 

In the middle of all the chaos, the arguably largest land carnivore to ever exist on Earth picked up the raft in jaws capable of applying about  10,000 pounds of force across over a mouthfull of up to six inch serrated teeth...

And did ZERO DAMAGE to an inflatable raft.

Sorry, Universal, you even lost MY usually unbreakable suspension of disbelief after that.

And I was already fighting to maintain it ever since the story opened with an air duct DESIGNED to prevent debris from entering a clean room shorting out the entire island's security system when a Snickers wrapper got sucked into it. That was only one single element of the vast quantity of stupid on everyone's parts to get where the action needed to start. 

Next time, just begin the movie where you want to, then tell us all what happened in some throw away dialogue. 

You'll save time and money, and we'll all have a better experience.

I was concerned when Jonathan Bailey wore a Friends hat to a premier as a tribute to the almost completely unlikeable Ross Geller. The frequency Ross got paleontology wrong on that show was an astounding generator of personal rants. I should have taken it as a warning, since during Bailey's big introduction scene in the museum he misidentified a mosasaur and Quetzalcoatlus as "dinosaurs." The latter was done while pointing to a completely different pterosaur. Then again, the ones on the island didn't look right either, but like I said, I have been with you all the way and accepting (with varied amounts of grumbling) stuff like that, as long as it all looked as cool as it usually does. 

(*Pat Pat Pat*)

Chin up Universal. You know you can make both good dinosaur and good monster flicks.

Focus on doing one of them at a time in the future, and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Just a thought- Try to prioritize story before franchise. 

I'm sure we'll all be happier.

And you did get one thing perfectly accurate in this film...

A company deciding to keep failed, dangerous, cloned dinosaurs alive because then they're still R&D depreciable capital instead of straight expenses is 100% accurate.

(*Pats Universal on the head one last time.)