|
Lotta people complaining about : -CGI -Child actors -Hollywood blockbusters -Scientifically inaccurate dinosaurs ...in the Jurassic Park thread.
|
#
¿
Nov 26, 2014 20:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:53 |
|
|
Jurassic Park III is basically Galaxy Quest. It's about Sam Neill, the artist, coming to terms with the fact that he will forever be known as 'the jurassic park guy'. The only trouble with this premise is that it's based on the idea that Jurassic Park is somehow a disreputable film. They compensate by having him literally roped into a mercenary sequel, but that leads into some unfortunate 'ha ha it's bad on purpose' humor. The thing is, though, that this is absolutely no different from The Lost World. They just replaced Jeff Goldblum's wry detachment with Sam Neill's Orson Welles/Alec Guinness contempt for the material. There's also, I suppose, a difference in the basic joke: Goldblum is begged into participating in the fiasco by a sad old director who wants to make something socially responsible. Neill, on the other hand, is only on it for the money and a quick vacation - and then can't back out once he's contractually obligated. That all sets a cynical tone that most people can't get past, but the joke is ultimately on the cynics. Like, the villain of the film is basically the embodiment of cynicism.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
Pycckuu posted:That was the dumbest movie trailer I've ever seen. It's like they are trying to cash in on that Sharknado demographic. You realize what all those SyFy mockbuster shark movies are riffing on, right?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2014 03:27
|
|
|
D-Pad posted:That sounds like one of those things that got left in when a plot line got taken out in case they get another sequel. In Jurassic World we have another company running the park. It's possible they had already taken over by JP3 but were under the radar and just dumping dinos on the island. PriorMarcus is mistaken; the Spinosaurus was created by InGen, but wasn't officially listed because it was a failed experimental project or something.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2014 04:26
|
|
|
Nobody's considered the possibility that the raptors have trained Chris Pratt to ride a motorcycle.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2014 08:20
|
|
|
Just Offscreen posted:Also SMG, could you go into a little more how the Spinosaurus from 3 represents cynicism? I can sort of see that, seeing how it literally killed the defining representation of the previous films in the T-Rex, is there anything else? The big thing that Jurassic Park III introduces is really the creepy genetics lab, with little deformed dinosaurs floating in tanks. That whole sequence is in there because it reflects Grant's incredible disdain for genetic engineering (read: blockbuster movies). As noted earlier, the Spinosaur is an experimental dinosaur that Hammond apparently rejected from appearing in Jurassic Park (for being too violent or whatever). It's this status as a reject that associates it with the deformed monsters in the tank, and to Grant. It's played for laughs, but still pretty brutal and horrific that the man eaten by it is reduced to a pile of poo poo - an escalation from the toilet death in part 1, and the dude getting stepped on like a piece of dogshit in part 2. That leads to the joke with the satellite phone. In a very literal way, their ticket to freedom lies inside this monster that Grant calls an abomination. And it's ultimately what reconnects him with Ellie after they drifted apart. That's naturally connected with the scene where Grant 'talks to' the raptors, and the more general theme of learning to appreciate bad movies.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2014 08:24
|
|
|
Just Offscreen posted:So the whole film is ultimately about acceptance? "Where do you think they're going?" "I don't know. Maybe just looking for new nesting grounds. It's a whole new world for them."
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2014 21:03
|
|
|
Rewatching Juras/i/ /ark because of recent discussion, it holds up rather well. It's a minor film, but there's a reason the opening scene is of a shady boat tour. The film's less about InGen than it is about Dino-Soar, and it's reflected in the really meat-and-potatoes storytelling. The cinematography is no great shakes, but it's functional, and the story's not without its charm. Anyone deigning to rewatch it should keep an eye out for fog and cages as recurring motifs, the theme of herbivores coexisting peacefully while 'carnivores are always at eachother's throats', the ambiguity of communication, relationships in size (the Spinosaur treats the T-Rex as the Raptors treat the people), and the aforementioned message of acceptance where people come to terms with their lot in life. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Dec 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 07:34
|
|
|
Timby posted:What the gently caress is this. A Jurassic Park logo that's been defaced is a much better title than just calling it Jurassic Park 3. Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5xcVxkTZzM SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Dec 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 19:44
|
|
|
The scene in Juras/i/ /ark where they find a raptor victim's video camera, and the fact that one of the characters is a photographer, makes it clear that it was just a half-decade too early to be found-footage like it should have been.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2014 09:02
|
|
|
IMB posted:The worst part of TLW was: The big theme of the movie, taken from the book, is that it's impossible to observe nature without interacting with it. This is comically exaggerated in the film because it's a comedy, but the point is that the environmentalists are dumb for trying to preserve a state of nature that doesn't exist. That's tied in with the theme of "artificial" family units (Malcolm with his adopted daughter, the transgendered T-Rex and his mate, Roland and Ayjay) - as a contrast to Hammond being betrayed by his nephew. The artificiality reaches a peak at the end of the film, when it just turns batshit and Malcolm is driving around in the car from Last Action Hero, quipping one-liners amid references to Godzilla and (probably) Speed 2: Cruise Control.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2014 22:45
|
|
|
Stahlgeist posted:I don't recall it ever being said that she was adopted in the movie. Malcolm says in the first movie that he has a number of children with different mothers, and I'm sure he mentions her mother at some point in The Lost World. It's left unspoken, the same way Roland and Ayjay are "best friends". She could be adopted or like a stepdaughter, or whatever.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 01:35
|
|
|
Canonically? In the film, he just refers to 'her mother', and nothing is stated one way or the other.AdmiralViscen posted:Don't expect another SMG post for 48 hours. ?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 03:43
|
|
|
Wandle Cax posted:The actual content of a film is entirely irrelevant to SMG's analysis. There's nothing in the film about this. People are making things up based exclusively on a joke the character tells in a different film four years previous. Meanwhile, in reality, Spielberg has two adopted kids: Theo and Mikaela. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Dec 5, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 06:32
|
|
|
LaughMyselfTo posted:No, the daughter character delivered the line. In JPII. I thought I kinda respected SMG and the forums were dogpiling him for actually caring to analyze movies, but holy poo poo, here I am telling him to rewatch a movie he's making claims about. Wait, I thought people were talking about the line in JP1 where he says he's always "on the lookout for a future ex-Mrs. Malcolm." The line in Lost World is "you like to have kids, you just don’t want to be with them, do you?" That's "have", not "make". Kelly is talking about how Malcolm thinks she's already perfect, amazing, and inspirational - so, in his view, she doesn't need guidance. She's not talking about how much her dad likes to gently caress. The character is twelve years old. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Dec 5, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 07:07
|
|
|
Wandle Cax posted:Good lord. She's talking about how he, her biological father, is not around that much. There is nothing in the movie to even imply that she's adopted, and plenty of evidence that she is his daughter, which is what anyone would naturally assume anyway, given the lack of evidence to the contrary. A character in the film comments on how there's zero family resemblance. Because she's black and he's Jeff Goldblum. Also, the exact lines: Malcolm: You’re your own person, and you always have been. You don’t need a parent, you just need someone to pay the rent and try to keep up with you until you take over the world. You amaze me. You’re my inspiration. Kelly: You like to have kids, you just don’t want to be with them, do you? She's not talking about genetics. She's talking about the 'you're my inspiration' bullshit. That's why these lines are written together in a script. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Dec 5, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 07:23
|
|
|
Wandle Cax posted:Do you really not know how genetics works or it this is just some kind of weird joke. Also her comment is in response to his bullshit explanation about why he's not around her much. Also "have kids" generally refers to biologically having kids unless specified otherwise. Carry on twisting the text of the film to fit your fascinating reading though. The film does specify otherwise, and that is 'how genetics works'. It's not impossible for Jeff Goldblum to have a kid who looks like Vanessa Lee Chester, but very unlikely. Spielberg included a line in the film to draw attention to this unlikelihood.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 08:32
|
|
|
It's explicitly stated. He likes having someone who'll amaze and inspire him. Malcolm loves his daughter, and they do spend time together, but he has a very 'hands-off' parenting style. He's not a generic deadbeat dad. Hopefully people realize that this whole family drama is a metaphor for the larger dinosaur story (and vice-versa). Hammond is an absent father who lets the dinosaurs grow up 'naturally', 'paying the rent and trying to keep up with them until they take over the world.' Hammond likes having dinosaurs, but he doesn't like being with them - and he didn't have sex with a parasaurolophus. Malcolm clearly states that he tried being an authority figure in Kelly's life, but felt he was terribly bad at it. So he let Kelly's mother take over. This is a basic metaphor for Site B, where Hammond is letting 'mother nature' take control of Jurassic Park. It's the basic premise of the film.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 09:53
|
|
|
PriorMarcus posted:I don't see why she has to be adopted for that incredibly obvious reading to work? Unless you're just uncomfortable with her being black? I didn't say she has to be adopted. She could be from a different relationship. As in the first film, race and class are important. The first scene of Jurassic Park is a black man dying in a horrific workplace accident. Hammond profits off of Dominican mining operations and walks around in plantation clothes. Jurassic Park itself uses an 'African' font to look 'primitive', when the font was actually created in Germany. The Malcolm character's response to this was all "white men suck, leave nature be". And that's where we're at when this film starts: with Malcolm seeing his attempt at 'building a family' as a failed experiment. And that basic language - 'experiment' - is a weird choice for a generic fatherhood story, but fits fine alongside all the weirder family units on display. The film's all about artifice and how there's no such thing as a nature. If anything, it's simply more interesting on a character level if Malcolm feels he doesn't belong partly because - even though he loves her - he's not Kelly's 'natural' father. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Dec 5, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 11:36
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:I'm just going to go ahead and keep thinking that they cast a black girl because they liked her and thought she was right for the part and then threw in that line about there being no family resemblance because they know people are morons and would be distracted by it. David Koepp's script specifies that Kelly is African-American.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 17:30
|
|
|
Nipplebox posted:I doubt Spielberg would have called attention to the lack of "family resemblance" if he believed in race erasure. Spielberg has actually talked about adoption at length. On Larry King live, he's said that racism is obviously a real thing, but that adoption has created a sort of race-neutral zone in the specific context of his family unit. If adoption were 'universalized', he says, then racism would cease to exist. And that's exactly what we see in Lost World: it's refreshingly free of the typical Harry Potter "you're not my real dad!" shenanigans, but people looking at the family from the outside see Kelly's race as an elephant in the room. That happens in the film. Even if you discount the adoption aspect there, Sarah absolutely steps in as a mother figure for Kelly by the end. Same diff.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
Dinosaurs are only onscreen in Jurassic Park for about 15 minutes. The film is mostly about a group of scientists and intellectuals sitting around engaging in philosophical debate.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2014 02:04
|
|
|
The raptors stowing away on the boat would be a reference to the end of the original Jurassic Park novel, where the raptors attempt exactly that, and it's revealed that some smaller dinosaurs have already escaped the island this way (and are now skulking around the jungle attacking livestock, like chupacabras). In the Lost World movie, the boat scene would be setting up a similar 'the end... Or is it???' sort of stinger.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2014 22:13
|
|
|
computer parts posted:practical effects can look worse than CGI - having a camera strapped to a model ship in Interstellar was annoying, while everything that happened in the Black Hole was at least visually mesmerizing. CGI can't fix bad filmmaking, and it won't really make a good film worse. People are big sooky babies about Thing 2011 when the practical effects were directly painted-over and so look pretty much identical to what they were 'supposed to be'. The lighting is exactly the same, the shot compositions are the same, etc. CGI is different, because it's a different medium, but people aren't complaining about a philosophical difference of that sort. To claim that the removal of the practical effects is the sole deciding factor is to claim that all other aspects of the film were essentially perfect. The good qualities folks attribute to Thing 1982 have little to do with the type of effects used, and everything to do with it being a completely different story told by a completely different director. But John Carpenter's specific talents are hard to elucidate, so (lack of) CGI is a nice, tangible detail to glom onto. It makes a dumb opinion 'objective': movies from the 1950s absolutely, objectively, did not have CGI, so they are objectively different. So, you can praise them thoughtlessly. I could claim, for example, that every movie ever released in 3D is bad because 3D is always bad. You can't question that claim, because I've created a simple tautology.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2014 11:38
|
|
|
The failure of the park is not that the animals escaped. The failure is illustrated in the scene with the dying triceratops. The animals are not monsters, but they also aren't dinosaurs. You can't bring dinosaurs back - even if you did, the atmosphere is wrong and the plant life is wrong. So, the basic premise of the park is flawed.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 30, 2015 20:00
|
|
|
The trick to Jurassic Park is that it's basically Spielberg doing an Alien film. The similarities are too many to count, but the crucial point is in the uncanny resemblance between the velociraptors and the 'xenomorph'. As W.J.T. Mitchell points out (in The Last Dinosaur Book), Alien is really about a paleontological expedition into a fossil cave. And you can extrapolate from there: they find a perfectly-preserved insect in a transparent 'egg'. This insect, weirdly, gives birth to the rapacious, man-sized creature that stalks the protagonists.... "The alien’s form of life is (just, merely, simply) life, life as such: it is not so much a particular species as the essence of what it means to be a species, to be a creature, a natural being – it is Nature incarnate or sublimed, a nightmare embodiment of the natural realm understood as utterly subordinate to, utterly exhausted by, the twinned Darwinian drives to survive and reproduce." -Stephen Mulhall It's in that sense that 'life finds a way'. But it's not the only sense. Jurassic Park obviously differs from Alien since it ends with a T-Rex bursting in to eat the aliens. The T-Rex's status as 'the good killer dinosaur' is the enigma of the entire film - a question tackled (to various degrees of success) in kaiju films like the Gamera remakes (Guardian Of The Universe and Advent Of Legion), Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, and both American Godzilla films. All these films contain explicit references to both Jurassic Park and Alien - with the 'aliens' invariably in the role of the bad guy. You can step back and look at the scene where Lex gets sneezed on by a diseased brachiosaurus, and the subtly linked scene where Nedry is spat on by the dilophosaur. The 'veggiesauruses' are both afflicted with illnesses, while the dilophosaur evokes the image of a venomous serpent. The punchline to the sneeze is when Tim yells 'God bless you!' - which is fairly important, given earlier jokes like "God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs..." SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Mar 31, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2015 13:28
|
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:Yep, the chaos of superficially simple things interacting at a certain scale being an insurmountable and undefeatable force is the point of the book. All of the chapter pages in the original pressing even slowly built a complex fractal and had a related quote about how LITTLE TINGS gently caress UP IN UNPREDICTABLE WAYS THAT MAGNIFY AND ALMOST SEEM TO COOPERATE TO RUIN YOUR poo poo. "There are dimensions of how [dinosaurs] interact with their environs which are not only unknown to us, but which we are not even aware of. And there are many "unknown knowns" in our perception of [dinosaurs]: all the anthropocentric prejudices that spontaneously colour and bias our study of them. The most unsettling aspect of such phenomena is the disturbance in yet another type of knowledge, in what the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan called "knowledge in the real": the "instinctual" knowledge that regulates animal and plant activity. This can run amok. When winter is too warm, plants and animals misread the hot weather in February as the signal that spring has began and start to behave accordingly, thus not only rendering themselves vulnerable to late onslaughts of cold, but also perturbing the rhythm of natural reproduction. [...] We pride ourselves for living in a society in which we freely decide about things that matter. However, we are constantly in the position of having to decide about matters that will fundamentally affect our lives, but without a proper foundation in knowledge. This is frustrating: although we know that it all depends on us, we cannot predict the consequences of our acts. We are not impotent but - quite the contrary - omnipotent, without being able to determine the scope of our powers. While we cannot gain full mastery over our biosphere, it is in our power to derail it, to disturb its balance so that it will run amok, swiping us away in the process." -Zizek, on bees and colony collapse disorder
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2015 18:27
|
|
|
porfiria posted:Well yeah, but it's kind of unclear up that the point, and even then the exchange is kind of odd. It's something like. It's the same ambiguity as in the original Star Wars. Luke: So, what do you think of her, Han? Han: I'm tryin' not to, kid. Luke: Good. Han: Still, she's got a lot of spirit. I don't know, whaddya think? You think a princess and a guy like me... Luke: No. Although that's written like a comedy scene, Hamil plays it the same way. The 'no' is more of a command than an opinion.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2015 21:39
|
|
|
Mr. Flunchy posted:She wants kids, he doesn't. It's not rocket science guys. Malcolm seems to understand it as well. But I certainly DON'T understand - is Grant in a relationship with (in the book) one of his students, or not? "Maltby's solution is to insist that this scene provided an exemplary case of how Casablanca 'deliberately constructs itself in such a way as to offer distinct and alternative sources of pleasure to two people sitting next to each other in the same cinema,' i.e. that it 'could play to both 'innocent' and 'sophisticated' audiences alike.' While, at the level of its surface narrative line, the film can be constructed by the spectator as obeying the strictest moral codes, it simultaneously offers to the 'sophisticated' enough clues to construct an alternative, sexually much more daring narrative line. This strategy is more complex than it may appear: precisely BECAUSE you knew that you are as it were 'covered' or 'absolved from guilty impulses' by the official story line, you are allowed to indulge in dirty fantasies - you know that these fantasies are not 'for serious,' that they do not count in the eyes of the big Other... So our only correction to Maltby would be that we do not need two spectators sitting next to each other: one and the same spectator, split in itself, is sufficient." -Zizek, "Shostakovich in Casablanca"
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2015 22:55
|
|
|
The REAL Goobusters posted:I thought that scene was fine. Jurassic park was never the most high art/cinema. It's gonna be fine guys. Jurassic Park is the most high art/cinema.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2015 01:27
|
|
|
feedmyleg posted:While I agree for the most part, a lot of the action in the scene felt like moving for movements sake, and wasn't motivated by anything other than "we want this scene to feel more active and dynamic," whereas Grant moving from car to car was full of purpose and character building moments. I was going to do a post on it (still might), but I agree: everything is really stagey in a way that doesn't really seem like it's warranted. Not only are the characters bickering like the divorcees in JP3 after only one date(!), but they're doing highly dramatic things like placing him at the top of the staircase, having him turn his back on her and walk to the literal other end of the building. He's fidgeting with tools, complete with dubbed-in socket wrench sound effects while he talks. It's overblown. Spielberg would likely have done the same scene as a single take, maybe with some insert shots edited in. Contrast that preview with this shot: https://youtu.be/QFm0AHMO4bk?t=1m21s That's all one shot, and it's subtle. Watch it twice, and keep your eye on Ellie, Ian, and the other background characters. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Apr 10, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2015 19:23
|
|
|
It's less 'sexism versus feminism' and more like '1970s sexism versus Whedon's 1990s sexism'.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2015 19:34
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:A female character being unemotional according to a whiny dude who also thinks he can talk to velociraptors and can't hold eye contact for a short business conversation: the film itself is sexist Exactly. The only way to redeem the scene is to understand that Pratt is in the wrong here. His extreme self-awareness (such he literally explains that the dinosaurs are a metaphor for his relationships with women) is a mask for whatever the real issue is. The subtext seems to be that he wants to gently caress a velociraptor.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2015 20:20
|
|
|
Deakul posted:What do you mean by this? First, it should not be a question of whether Joss Whedon - the mere human person who shits in a toilet - ' is actually a feminist' or simply lusts after kung-fu girls. That reduces everything to a futile search for secret clues about an old dude's ability to maintain an erection, and has nothing to do with feminism. Instead of fighting sexism, that is only fighting 'a sexist' (who may not even exist). It's a waste of everyone's time. Second, it should not be a question of the kung-fu girls themselves should exist in media or not. That puts all the emphasis on the rudimentary plot content and distracts everyone from the actual ideological critique. And to do so is, again, not feminist. The kung-fu girls already exist, they're not going to unexist, and they're a fact to be interpreted. The actual question is what sort of feminism is being promoted, unwittingly or not. And it's just a very basic type of American-style liberal feminism.  The Whedon ideology is easily summarized by this 'campaign ad' where he jokingly claims Mitt Romney will bring about a zombie apocalypse. This mustn't be dismissed as meaningless lolrandomness. Whedon is, after all, a professional writer of 'politically charged' genre fiction. The ad ends with the image above. Pay attention to the sequence of the subtle rhetorical shifts: Whedon warns of the threat posed by dangerous subhuman poors, then alleges that Romney is bad because he "already" sees the poor as dangerous subhumans, then says that Romney and his followers are themselves a bunch of dangerous subhumans. This all amounts to a plea for liberal tolerance. Whedon boasts that he tolerates the poor single mothers, while Romney does not. But Whedon fears that these poor single mothers will pass a certain threshold and become intolerably poor. They'll become violent, perhaps terrorists. They'll riot. This is why he makes the final shift and says Conservatives are the true subhuman: because their intolerance is the ultimate intolerable behaviour - the greatest threat to the smooth functioning of the system. Unless we tolerate poors today, placate them with charity, they will rise up and murder us tomorrow. Note how the point about reproductive rights is linked to the nightmare scenario of a woman being attacked by her own child - both of them made into the abject homeless who are a burden on us all. 'Feminist' Whedon is, first, unable to recognize that poor women already are reduced to intolerable, disgusting, inhumans every day as an effect of poverty. Then, he is not able to reduce himself to a fellow zombie out of solidarity. For a guy who wrote like a thousand hours of vampire drama, he misses the point badly: "It is clear that in classical Hollywood, the couple of vampires and zombies designates class struggle. Vampires are rich, they live among us. Zombies are the poor, living dead, ugly, stupid, attacking from outside." -Zizek Whedon's feminism has certain unspoken limitations. It does not extend to 'intolerable' women - those who are ugly and stupid, belonging to the outgroup... Think of the zombie girl in Cabin In The Woods, who is thoughtlessly killed. Think of the army of zombie drones from the future, that threaten the Earth in Avengers. They get nuked. In the case of this Jurassic Park thing, the 'tell' is that Whedon immediately assumes Pratt is in the right, and skips the most basic question: if Pratt is so smart, and is in a nice equal relationship with the raptors, why is he still working for the corporation that exploits them? SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Apr 11, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2015 07:41
|
|
|
Deakul posted:This is an interesting point but it sounds like you went off on a bizarre tangent about nothing pertaining to sexism. It has everything to do with dinosaurs, and sexism. Fundamentally, Jurassic World is about people who saw the first Jurassic Park and missed the point completely. "Life will find a way, so why don't we let life find a way in this state-of-the-art Innovation Center brought to you by Samsung?" Pratt's character is working to ensure the smooth functioning of the park systems according to the latest management styles, and Chastain's talk about 'assets' is ridiculously gauche and outdated. Look at her suit! She should be wearing flip-flops, or a turtleneck. In other words, Pratt's point of view is hegemonic. His 'relationship' is a more sophisticated, almost invisible, system of control that goes well beyond what Chastain is attempting. Chastain is the dorky outsider who threatens the harmony and balance of the corporate park. This is indistinguishable from what Whedon was saying with the zombies: we need to have a relationship with the poors, lest they 'chimp out' and become intolerable. Note how domesticated the raptors in Pratt's crew are, while the original 'wild' raptors have likely all been killed. They're decaffeinated velociraptors, and that's tolerance in a nutshell. Save the cute animals, who behave acceptably. So: if Pratt's character and Joss Whedon have the same politics, what is the disagreement? Simply, it's that Pratt is treating this specific woman inappropriately in a way that reveals the underlying sexism of Whedon's liberal position. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Apr 11, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2015 18:43
|
|
|
Whedon is just the kind of average dude who thinks it's clever to call Prometheus "Promeaningless" while simultaneously bemoaning that his crappy Alien movie was everyone else's fault. I wouldn't get too worked up over him. (Prometheus, as it happens, uses a ton of Jurassic Park references 100% correctly - and it's radically feminist.) But the real point of comparison with Jurassic World would be Elysium. Elysium is precisely what this Jurassic World is - this utopian Disneyland where everything is perfect - so the fundamental question is "what's the catch?" Who made all this stuff? Where are the action figures and hats manufactured? What do they do with the garbage?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 12, 2015 01:44
|
|
|
K. Waste posted:As opposed to Alien: Resurrection, which also significantly references Jurassic Park, but squanders the possibility of telling the story of an intrepid young woman who finds out that a feminist icon has been genetically re-engineered by a faceless corporation to be part rape-monster. Yeop. Alien Resurrection reminds me of nothing so much as Steve Shaviro's analysis of Splice, where he notes that the film is grimly anti-apocalyptic because: "rather than moralistically warning against the dangers of experimentation beyond socially acceptable limits, Splice suggests that such experimentation itself works to return to and reinforce those limits, so that it is inherently disappointing. Indeed, we are never imaginative enough." -Shaviro, "Splice" The question is, with the cloning technology that's apparently available in Alien 4, why build a Ripley? And once she exists, imbued with superpowers, why does she use them to do nothing but restage the last two films in a way that seems increasingly strained and desperate? I'm talking about leading a crew of wisecracking mercs, nuking all the bad aliens, and so-on. All this familiar stuff serves to distract from the simple fact that the 'good' mercenaries have helped kidnap and enslave a group of random people, who are turned into aliens. In a very straightforward way, the aliens in the film represent these rebellious poors who - like Whedon's "Zomneys" - have been pushed past that certain threshold, and have become too intolerable to exist. So: while Ripley 'forgives' the mercenaries, she ensures that the aliens are cleansed from the Earth. The radical Elysium-style solution - Ripley allying with the drones against all the bad humans - is completely foreclosed. Her threat to the proto-Firefly idiots amounts to violent snark. And that brings us back to Jurassic World, because - as with Splice - Pratt's character is a "science-superstar ... with boho-hipster sensibilities and a rebellious streak", a "living, walking embodiment of a sort of nerd chic, that has become one of the myths of contemporary society [...] always arguing with their corporate overlords, who want to see something profitable now; whereas they demand creative freedom in their research, which they unconvincingly claim will pay off for the company in the long run. We are given a familiar opposition — Creatives vs. The Man, or entrepreneurial initiative vs. corporate/bureaucratic fossilization — which will be thoroughly deconstructed in the course of the film." Of course, we actually get this imagery of Pratt allying with the velociraptors. But we should be very careful in interpreting that fact: does the alliance with the raptors represent a sort of radically new egalitarian community, or is it the spectacle of pseudo-revolution?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 13, 2015 01:16
|
|
|
The animals in Jurassic Park are dinosaurs, technically, that also bear little resemblance to their prehistoric counterparts. Although he was trying to be as authentic as possible, the only way Hammond could possibly confirm that he 'got things right' was by cross-referencing with fossil records. He could make some guesses based on existing animals (like frogs), and maybe take some inspiration from paleoart, but the skeletons are really all he'd have to go on. From the book "All Yesterdays", here's a paleoartist's rendering of an animal, based on its fossilized skeleton:  This animal is a type of bird, known as a 'swan'.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 13, 2015 22:46
|
|
|
Xenomrph posted:I think it looks silly because aesthetically I prefer the scaly reptilian creatures of my childhood, not because I'm a closet homophobe. The only "aura" surrounding T. rex is a kind of nostalgia for the good old days of "feudal" capitalism, when companies were identified with individual "giants" (like Spielberg himself) who were capable of great evil and great good. The raptors, by contrast, represent the new stage of postmodern capitalism, of "downsizing," flexibility, rapid strike forces, teamwork, adaptability, steep learning curves, and (not incidentally) gender confusion. From the opening scene of Jurassic Park, the raptors are presented as "clever girls" who are "figuring things out" and hatching plots (along with unauthorized eggs) to prepare for their eventual takeover. The male hysteria and anxiety about impotence that shadow [Bringing Up Baby] are on full display in Jurassic Park. -WJT Mitchell, "The Last Dinosaur Book" Contemporary, postmodern dinosaurs are multicolored, striped, spotted, and festooned with gay plumage, as befits an age of multiculturalism and sexual multiplicity. The modern (1900-1960) dinosaur was a uniform, monotonous gray-green color that served to unite perfectly the savage, organic, reptilian skin and the modern armored military vehicle. The lean, mean fighting machine had to be green because war is a state of nature, and camouflage is a natural adaptation. -WJT Mitchell, "The Last Dinosaur Book" SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Apr 14, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 19:01
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:53 |
|
|
The understanding of what the raptors represent is key to Pratt's characterization. As a raptor trainer, he is not an anticapitalist by any means. His 'rebelliousness' is that of new breed of liberal capitalist who values exactly that sort of openness, collaboration, flexibility, creativity, and so-on as a way to generate profits while also being 'socially responsible'. His conflict with Bryce Dallas-Howard (who is, apparently, not Jessica Chastain) in that short clip has already clearly set up the main conflict of the film, where she will be associated with the i-rex. The battle of the domesticated raptors versus the freakishly altered rex is already overly familiar. It's the basic conflict between Iron Man and Iron Monger in the very first Marvel film - a battle over which management style will determine the future of the corporation. Going back further, this is the basic conflict in the original Tron. Iron Monger and Sark are clumsy, immoral 'giants' fighting small teams of liberal do-gooder hackers. In Jurassic Park, Nedry's hacking - on behalf of a rival corporation - is precisely what unleashes the dinosaurs that ruin Hammond's dream. The raptors display their intelligence by testing the fences for weaknesses. They cravenly kill eachother to survive. They can open doors...  Nedry defies the authority of the sign, which has been rendered impotent. "It is not enough to say that the birds [in Hitchcock's The Birds] are part of the natural set-up of reality. It is rather as if a foreign dimension intrudes, that literally tears apart reality. We humans are not naturally born into reality. In order for us to act as normal people who interact with other people who live in the space of social reality, many things should happen. Like, we should be properly installed within the symbolic order and so on. When this our proper dwelling within a symbolic space is disturbed, reality disintegrates."  It's a recurring theme. "At first, we even don’t perceive it as a bird - as if some stain appeared within the frame. When a fantasy object, something imagined, an object from inner space, enters our ordinary realty, the texture of reality is twisted, distorted. This is how desire inscribes itself into reality: by distorting it. Desire is a wound of reality. The art of cinema consists in arousing desire, to play with desire. But, at the same time, keeping it at a safe distance, domesticating it, rendering it palpable." -Zizek, "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema" It's Ellie and the children's 'good hacking' that contains the raptors - the women and children restore the power, lock the doors, reassert boundaries and so-on. But what if we lose the anticapitalist point? What happens if we simply reject Nedry's 'impure' greed and not the capitalist system itself? As satirized in the original Robocop (the ED-209 is, of course, a robotic tyrannosaur), what we are seeing in Jurassic World is a pseudo-opposition between the good and bad capitalists. The only hope is in the hints that the conflict will eventually transition to the 'old park', where we will see the re-emergence of the undomesticated raptors and original, scarred t-rex. These will, naturally, serve as counterpoints to the 'unnaturally' domesticated raptors and 'unnaturally' mutated i-rex - and also serve as representations of Pratt and Howards' character growth.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 21:19
|
|