NOT OT -- A bit on "Jurassic Park/Jurassic World" and the Psycho/Hitchcock universe.
On my personal list of favorites, "Jurassic Park" was my favorite movie of 1993 for quite some years. But I eventually dropped it a space -- I have come to have greater love and affection for DePalma's "Carlito's Way" of the same year.
Jurrassic made my list for its various dinosaur attack sequences -- the first T-Rex scene most of all(notice how Goldblum's run from the T-Rex mimics Grant running from the crop duster). But also the raptors through the kitchen at the end, and the "surprise" death of the Nasty Nedry(a "nice" little dinosaur reveals its killer reality -- too late for Fat Nedry to react).
But there was much NOT to like about "Jurassic Park." It was from the director of Jaws, and nearly 20 years of superstar power seemed to drain Steve of the instinct to "keep the pressure on and the characters interesting." Which had been the case with Jaws but not with Jurassic Park, which seemed way too slow to start (hello, The Birds), rather uninteresting between dino attacks, and downright perfunctory in its climax(oh, the movie's over? OK, we'll go home.)
I grudgingly gave JP my Best of '93 vote, dropped it down for Carlito's Way...and much preferred the second JP(The Lost World) with Spielberg again at the helm, much more action, at least two great suspense sequences...and a fun Godzilla finale through the streets of San Diego.
But The Lost World came out in the glorious film year of 1997, and had no chance against my favorite, LA Confidential, or Jackie Brown, or Face Off, or Grosse Pointe Blank or, yes,, Titanic.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Spielberg stopped directing the JPs after 1 and 2. He had hated what Universal did to the "Jaws" franchise(with Spielberg didn't own), but he owned the JP franchise and he made sure to have quality control on JP 3(where William H. Macy dissed Spielberg as he had dissed Hitchcock while making Van Sant's Psycho -- and found his movie career stalling.)
We got Jurassic WORLD(dig the new name), what, 14 years later, and I saw it and it was OK -- with that great Rube Goldberg kill of the woman on her cell phone but -- well,....
...I'm too old for this now, aren't I?
Uh, not necessarily. I dutifully trooped off to see the new Jurassic World in the belief that it at least traces backwards to Spielberg and 1993, and then back to Jaws and 1975, and even back to the Hitchcock of The Birds(his "Godzilla" movie) and Psycho....
...and Psycho. And Psycho for a very specific reason, which is:
In Crichton's novel of Jurassic Park, the dinosaur kills were much more savage and gory. The raptors in the book felt rather like the Aliens of the Scott and Cameron films -- hard-R rated killing machines.
But Spielberg(still family friendly, not making Saving Private Ryan yet) rather "PG-ed" the killings in Jurassic Park. A few folks get eaten, but it is quick, generally bloodless , and generally off screen.
In fact, I would say that Spielberg's template for the kills in Jurassic Park -- and its sequels -- are almost all: Arbogast on the floor of the foyer as Mother jumps down on him and the killing is below the frame. That's how Nedry gets it in the jeep; that's how the hunter Muldoon gets it in the woods("Clever girl," he says of the raptor who has tricked him and jumps on him.) That's how some guys get it in Jurassic Word I(Vincent D'Onofrio) and the new one(about three of them.)
Call it the Arbogast Non-Violent Violent Finish Off shot.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
Now that's not the ONLY way folks get killed in Jurassic movies. We have the lawyer getting grabbed off the toilet in the first one, a sympathetic character getting fought over, ripped in half like a piece of bacon and gobbled down, by TWO t-rexes in the second one, and the Cell Phone Girl Death in the last one.
But still, the gore is low level, the fun is high level, and that's OK by me. Spielberg did make sure to put kids in the center of these adventures, and not to kill them off. They are Horror Movies For Kids.
---
This new one became a Parlor Game for me: various scenes and killings are borrowed from the first films. Indeed, the horrible Two T-Rex eating of a sympathetic character in JP 2 is here restaged with a really BAD character...and much more satisfying.
Also satisfying: the trailers don't show this(MINOR SPOILER) but Jurassic World 2 elects to get the surviving dinos and everybody else off the Big Volanic Island by the end of Act One -- and the story shifts to a gigantic Super Mansion(slight shades of the Psycho house, but more like Harry Potter) so that the dinos can break out and climb roofs and staircases and generally give us: Jurassic World: The Haunted House. The surviving dinos are made subject to an auction of the Richest Villains in the World ("Very Endangered Species") and go for multi-millions as our heroes try to rescue them.
It plays OK until one realizes how silly it all is. Interesting: the Very Old Billionaire who owns the mansion estate is: James Cromwell, a key player in LA Confidential 21 years ago, and now very old -- but it was great to see him. And also fun to see Jeff Goldblum cameo -- he remains the most interesting actor in ANY of the Jurassic films.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
That said: Chris Pratt still gets my vote as the Best Chris in Movies right now. He has accessible features and a funny personality that make him a star when some of the other Chris's out there aren't cutting it(those would be Chris Evans, Chris Pine, and even the well built and very starry Chris Hemsworth. In short -- the funny guy will out.)
And Opie's daughter(Bryce Dallas Howard): weird how much she looks like a perfected female version of her famous father. When he had hair. A lot of sex appeal(she sweats a lot in these Jurassic Films.) But she's been given no chance to shine AS a star, I wonder if she ever will.
"Jurassic World 2" is perhaps the Summer Movie Guilty Pleasure for me. It ties backwards not only to Spielberg, Hitchcock, Jaws, The Birds, and Psycho, but to my Favorite Movie of 1953 -- The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. THAT movie gets THAT vote because it was the seminal great rampaging monster movie of my childhood -- with great effects by Ray Harryhausen and a great narrative drive: He's Coming...He's Working His Way down the Eastern Coast, he's sinking fishing boats and toppling lighthouses and eating sweetie-pie old scientists in diving bells, and nobody believes this one guy saw him(shades of Hitchcock) ..until He(A Giant Something-Rex0 finally rises out of the East River and lays waste to NYC.
When I -- too old now -- watch the dinos on parade in Jurassic World -- I think back to MY Jurassic World -- the Beast of 20,000 Fathoms -- and I make a meeting of the minds with new generations.
BUT...there is one catch to the new Jurassic World, a disturbing one, and I will mark it MAJOR SPOILER and mark it as my next post:
MAJOR SPOILER
MAJOR SPOILER
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
MAJOR SPOILER
MAJOR SPOILER
At the end of Jurassic World 2, a young girl(with some secrets of her own I won't spoil) cannot take the sight of eleven different dinosaur species being "given the gas" to kill them and make them extinct -- so she saves them, releases them to the North American hills near the mansion.
With -- I think -- the implicit consent of Chris and Opie's Daughter.
Which leads to final shots of dinosaurs poised to start Eating All of Civilization. A giant water beast opens its jaws to ingest some surfers. And a deadly raptor suddenly appears over the suburban landscape of ET.
It has been suggested that Jurassic World will now go the way of Planet of the Apes: with the dinos killing everybody and taking over the world. (See also: The Birds.) Jeff Goldblum gets a line I've heard before, I think: "The dinosaurs were here before us...and they may be here after us."
But maybe they'll be stopped and re-caged.
See you in three years. I guess.
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