#even for a Jurassic World movie

[swan2swan]

The biggest problem with Dominion is the dichotomy of Maisie's plotline with regards to motherhood, and the way both plots revolve around it from wholly opposite perspectives while never actually clashing.

Her plot starts off simply enough: she's angsting about not being a real person, Claire's trying to protect her, and Maisie spits at her with the "You're not my mother!" line right before she's kidnapped.

This is a classic Finding Nemo setup, which Claire takes to with gusto: she calls on favors, slips into seedy markets, fights a crime boss, eludes raptors, jumps out of a plane, and crawls through a forest to get the girl she calls her daughter back. Most stories would show this as a trial: ye olde "GASP! My parents love me!" story.

But the fact that Claire has no obligation to bring Maisie back is never challenged. Soyona doesn't bother with asking or playing the role of the tempting serpent instilling doubt; the closest the movie comes to that is Franklin giving her the "I told you this would happen" speech. It's all taken for granted, which is...okay, because we have already established who Claire is, but that's not the problem.

The problem comes with the other half of the story: Maisie mopes to Wu about how she's just a close, and Wu immediately points out how no, she was conceived and carried in a human womb just like everyone else! And he calls Charlotte "your mother".

And Maisie goes "Is that my mother?"

And when she meets Ellie, Dr. Sattler is somehow fully aware of who Maisie's REAL MOTHER, the one who created her and who she looks like, is, and gushes about how great of a eugen--person she was. Every single time Maisie talks about "her mother" with the people around her, the word is referring to Charlotte Lockwood, the woman who birthed her.

Meanwhile, that Claire woman is crawling into a slimy pond to get away from a twenty-foot-tall Kreugersaurus because she wants to get Maisie away from kidnappers.

Of course, Maisie runs back to her and yells "Those are my parents!", but there's still something missing there. Claire's side of the story is all about her powering through, risking her life time and time again to track down her daughter...but there's never really a moment between them later. Maisie even posits the "So I was just an experiment to her..." plotline that has been seen before, but even that's immediately refuted.

The movie's not wrong for avoiding the cliches and the oft-used tropes of foster motherhood, but it doesn't really break any new ground, either. Obviously, people can have more than one mom, but there's something of an imbalanced focus on Charlotte as Maisie's mother in the Maisie and Jurassic Park plotline, while Claire in the Jurassic World plotline is doing all the expected Mom Stuff.

I can't wholly express what's bothering me about it, maybe I'm overthinking it, but it...doesn't quite sit right with me.

[un-pearable]

people in the archaeology subreddit digging up the corpse of indiana jones again for the annual discourse. somehow seem to have forget the most important scene in the film if you’re critiquing his status as an academic

[sans-joke-book]

So, to kick off the spookiest time of the year, I want to present a 2-sentence horror story:

The year is 2031, and the trailer for the 5th Sonic movie just dropped. Blaze and Silver both appear on screen, and when Silver opens his mouth to speak...

he has the voice of Chris Pratt.

[ineffablejaymee]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT HOW HAVE I NEVER NOTICED IT BEFORE

THIS IS THE OG NOVEL REFERENCE

SHE READ IT IN THE BOOK

COOL

[reginaldubel]

red n blue

[dearinglovebot]

so much talk about fallen kingdom lacks not just media literacy but basic comprehension of the text that it kind of boggles my mind

“it’s a bad idea to bring dinosaurs to the mainland” yeah. that’s why it wasn’t their plan. they were going to put them on a non-volcanic uninhabited island and leave them alone forever after that.

“the main characters are villains for taking dinosaurs to the mainland” the villains did that. without any help from the main characters. the main characters were only involved with BLUE specifically. to get her tracking marker (claire) then lure her back (owen) and make sure she survived transport (zia). they are completely irrelevant to catching the rest of the dinosaurs. they’d already caught most of them before they arrived. every dinosaur except blue was caught without them

“it was stupid to release the dinosaurs onto the mainland” that’s why none of the adults did it. even when tempted. they all decided dinosaurs weren’t worth human lives. but maisie is 9/10 without rational decision making skills so yeah a kid might make an impulsive decision like that. young kids are kind of dumb and irrational

[idle-compy]

jwcc movie trailer spoilers !!

omg they're talking ab their time on the island :') i don't remember this happening in the series tho. do yall think this happened during the time skip??

[weallpartyatybcpatricksfuneral]

my full time job is encouraging people to read the jurassic park books

[negligentbabysitters]

Rewatching Jurassic Park with these fuckers who kept arguing between watching the first one or the second one because "no I already watched the first one you won't die if you miss the first one it's not like it's so important to watch them in order" "but I wanna watch the first one I havent watched it yet it's better to watch it in order" I was on "watch it in order" team btw anyway it turns out she didn't even watch the first Jurassic Park, she watched Jurassic World and that entire argument that was basically the run time of the whole movie was pointless and we watched Jurassic Park.

[swan2swan]

Jurassic World + Disabilities and Limb Difference

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

re: ur tags about there being a good movie in jw you're so right and there's so many things they could've done that would've been soo much more interesting :')) i weep for the lost potential in the jw franchise

s a m e

there was so much potential there and it honestly makes me sad that we never got to see it because theres so many talented creatives who could have really shined with it.

and then instead, all the interesting ideas in the first jurassic world movie were sidelined to make a movie that feels intended to just be "bigger" than the original. honestly the way they describe the plan for the indominus seems like a blueprint for jurassic worlds priorities.

and then the second movie was half a lost world remake and then its just dinosaur mansion movie. but again it has really interesting ideas like the evil dinosaur auction. and the directing and cinematography in the second movie really shines in points like claires reintroduction mimicking hers in the first movie and all the more overt horror scenes. but the writing just fails it all.

i havent even seen the third one but i imagine its the exact same where so many people are doing their jobs so goddamn well and are being let down by writing that either sidelines or fucks up any interesting ideas.

[phantomskeep]

I'm so sad because I work on ships and my hitch is over the summer. This means I'm going to not only miss the fucking Barbie movie, the new Spiderman, fucking ASTEROID CITY, elementals, flash, Indiana Jones, TMNT, and finally the goddamn ladybug and chat noir movie. I'm so sad this is a great year for movies and I'm going to be stuck in the middle of the Atlantic for all of it༼⁠;⁠´⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠۝ ⁠༎ຶ⁠༽

I'll be with y'all in spirit and in spirit only :')))

[bringbackthepornbots]

the film does a "friendly aww-shucks grandpa" whitewash with Hammond so convincingly that i'm compelled to point out he isn't materially changed from the villainous Hammond in the book.

he is still into unbridled capitalism, he's still willing to ignore and outright deny the scientists he hired, he's still totally willing to fuck over the paleontologist's dig (and steal their champagne!) for a snazzy entrance, he still chooses to risk the lives of his grandchildren (and dozens of other people) to have them experience his untested dino-park in the middle of a goddamn hurricane.

almost every choice he makes is selfish, short-sighted, and goes against the advice of the experts who he hired to give him advice.

he has amazing PR and a friendly smile but my god

My favorite detail about Jurassic Park is that it has a baked-in justification for any and all retcons it might need to make due to paleontology advancing forwards.

Because there is not a single dinosaur that has ever appeared in Jurassic Park.

Not one. Not in the books. Not in the movies. Not ever.

"Now what John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park was to create genetically engineered theme park monsters." ~Alan Grant

Grant says that in a moment of cynicism. It's part of his arc for the film. But it's not inaccurate. What Jurassic Park has, what it's always had since the very first novel, are "Mostly Dinosaurs".

"And since the DNA is so old, it's full of holes! Now, that's where our geneticists take over!" ~Mr. DNA

It's impossible to recover a fully intact gene sequence from an ancient amber mosquito. Cloning a pure dinosaur would have been completely impossible, and so the park filled in the gene sequence with whatever works. Frog. Lizard. Bird. Whatever they need to get the result they are trying to get.

Every single dinosaur is a chimeric beast made up of mostly dinosaur and a bunch of other stuff that some scientists thought would achieve the appropriate dinosaur-like result.

"Nothing in Jurassic World is natural! We have always filled gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. And if the genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different." ~Dr. Henry Wu

Which, from a writing perspective, is fucking genius. Because now you have a preset excuse for each and every plot hole your movie has.

Like. Why don't the raptors have feathers? Because of the chimera DNA.

Why do dilophosaurs spit venom? Because of the chimera DNA.

Why do T-Rexes have movement based vision? Oh, they don't. But Rexy does. Because of her chimera DNA.

Why is the Spinosaurus so fucking big? Because of the chimera DNA.

Why are the velociraptors mislabeled? Because Hammond's a dipshit.

Like. I've always marveled at the way Jurassic Park started out by giving itself a blanket excuse to be wrong about every single thing it ever said about the central attraction of its franchise. It's honestly beautiful, and allows the series a degree of immortality well into the era where we know better about its animals.

[weaselle]

i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

[xecat]

right i gotta watch more horror movies . or movies that are technically horror (<- uses halloween as an excuse and reason to catch up on stuff ive never seen before )