General Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom News Thread V.1

Mistral wrote:

Tyrant Lizard wrote:

Mistral wrote:

Masrani story arc? What the one they just lazily copied from Hammond?

The only real difference was that he wanted to be Agent Johnson of Die Hard at the end, which ultimately finished him off.

You're just a bucket of sunshine, aren't you?

You can call it copy/paste all you want (quite frankly, most story arcs in cinema can be traced back to a previous source anyways) but denying its existence is just wrong.

Where was I denying it's existence? Just saying it was just recycled together from Hammond rather than actually making effort for new ideas. Why is critisizing JP3 Grant-kid arc fine (which is basically the same as in JP) but saying the same for Masrani/Hammond is not?

You weren't the one denying its existence, but you did respond to my retort in a way that  made it seem like you were disagreeing with my inclusion of Masrani into Spino's list of JW characters with story/character arc.

But to you I ask, what other directions could the Masrani character have taken? The way I see it, there were really only two directions they could have gone with the character.

A) Make him unsympathetic, which wouldn't have resulted in any arc at all.

B) Make him want to atone for what he'd done, thus making him sympathetic and creating a story arc.

Furthermore, most "character arcs" have already been done to death. I hardly think that JP was the first time in any medium that a character didn't like kids, went through something with kids, then grew to appreciate kids. I hardly think JP was the first film to feature a character that made some sort of deadly mistake, and then wanted to atone for it.

The point is that pretty much every story/character arc in any and every medium has been done to death. Criticizing how an arc was implemented is one thing, but criticizing an arc because it's already been done before just hits me as incredibly redundant.

I think a good actor can make a flat character work well, although that's not always the case.

As some of you said before, Masrani did not have a big character arc, but Irrfan Khan's charismatic presence and strong acting made him very likeable and memorable (for us Jurassic fan, at least).

Different is the case for Hoskins, who was played by D'Onofrio with what I think was a great performance (not only in the lines deliveries, but also in the body gestures for example), but that couldn't really save a character that was IMO horribly written.

Owen didn't have an arc, and many actors would have made him a really flat and lifeless character, but Chris Pratt's charisma saved him.

Tyrant Lizard wrote:

Mistral wrote:

Tyrant Lizard wrote:

Mistral wrote:

Masrani story arc? What the one they just lazily copied from Hammond?

The only real difference was that he wanted to be Agent Johnson of Die Hard at the end, which ultimately finished him off.

You're just a bucket of sunshine, aren't you?

You can call it copy/paste all you want (quite frankly, most story arcs in cinema can be traced back to a previous source anyways) but denying its existence is just wrong.

Where was I denying it's existence? Just saying it was just recycled together from Hammond rather than actually making effort for new ideas. Why is critisizing JP3 Grant-kid arc fine (which is basically the same as in JP) but saying the same for Masrani/Hammond is not?

You weren't the one denying its existence, but you did respond to my retort in a way that  made it seem like you were disagreeing with my inclusion of Masrani into Spino's list of JW characters with story/character arc.

But to you I ask, what other directions could the Masrani character have taken? The way I see it, there were really only two directions they could have gone with the character.

A) Make him unsympathetic, which wouldn't have resulted in any arc at all.

B) Make him want to atone for what he'd done, thus making him sympathetic and creating a story arc.

Furthermore, most "character arcs" have already been done to death. I hardly think that JP was the first time in any medium that a character didn't like kids, went through something with kids, then grew to appreciate kids. I hardly think JP was the first film to feature a character that made some sort of deadly mistake, and then wanted to atone for it.

The point is that pretty much every story/character arc in any and every medium has been done to death. Criticizing how an arc was implemented is one thing, but criticizing an arc because it's already been done before just hits me as incredibly redundant.

Most of the story arcs imaginable have already been seen in other films, obviously, but that doesn't mean same story arcs should be recycled within same film series. What is the point? If you end using every same formula over and over again in the sequels it only further emphasis how narrow formula you are dealing with.

If they had made Masrani soulless businessman who didn't care about the park at all and only went there out of necessity, why do you think it would have automatically resulted in no possible arc at all? It's just a matter of writing. Just as would be in bringing people like Malcolm and Grant etc back too without feeling forced. It's all in the writing.

All in all, as I said, I still did like Masrani above all others because of his (well Khan's) on-screen persona and traits, but his story arc was so-so because they didn't want to go too far away from Hammond.

owenpratt wrote:

I think a good actor can make a flat character work well, although that's not always the case.

As some of you said before, Masrani did not have a big character arc, but Irrfan Khan's charismatic presence and strong acting made him very likeable and memorable (for us Jurassic fan, at least).

Different is the case for Hoskins, who was played by D'Onofrio with what I think was a great performance (not only in the lines deliveries, but also in the body gestures for example), but that couldn't really save a character that was IMO horribly written.

Owen didn't have an arc, and many actors would have made him a really flat and lifeless character, but Chris Pratt's charisma saved him.

I watched JW yesterday and I hated some scenes with Owen. I hate his sarcastic tone and also the way he talks like full of himself or thinking he knows all.

Sometimes I really found him annoying, even more than Hoskins.

And it was so funny to  see him talk about how InGen thinks they own the animals but latter is like "get away from MY animals" 

Yeah no, they really need to fix his character and make him less flat.

Well at least Jake Johnson is not returning, thank god. I mean he's a fine actor but that character of his was god awful with his cringe worthy "jokes" and "sarcasm" and "references". Even the lame Kirby tomfoolery was better. The only reason JP3 ranks overall lower at the comedy side is because of Barney and that scene with feces.

Spinosaur4.4 wrote:

owenpratt wrote:

I think a good actor can make a flat character work well, although that's not always the case.

As some of you said before, Masrani did not have a big character arc, but Irrfan Khan's charismatic presence and strong acting made him very likeable and memorable (for us Jurassic fan, at least).

Different is the case for Hoskins, who was played by D'Onofrio with what I think was a great performance (not only in the lines deliveries, but also in the body gestures for example), but that couldn't really save a character that was IMO horribly written.

Owen didn't have an arc, and many actors would have made him a really flat and lifeless character, but Chris Pratt's charisma saved him.

I watched JW yesterday and I hated some scenes with Owen. I hate his sarcastic tone and also the way he talks like full of himself or thinking he knows all.

Sometimes I really found him annoying, even more than Hoskins.

And it was so funny to  see him talk about how InGen thinks they own the animals but latter is like "get away from MY animals" 

Yeah no, they really need to fix his character and make him less flat.

Owen is the character I worry most about. Like others have already mentioned, his character had no arc throughout the whole of JW. He was just "cool raptor guy". What worries me more is that, if an arc for his character is actually introduced in JW2, will Chris Pratt have the chops to pull it off? He's charismatic, sure, but that can only take you so far.

I suppose that's why I'm hoping that Claire ends up taking the reigns in JW2 and Owen is somewhat relegated. I trust Trevorrow and Connoly's handling of the character more, and I trust Bryce Dallas Howard more as an actor.

Tyrant Lizard wrote:

Spinosaur4.4 wrote:

owenpratt wrote:

I think a good actor can make a flat character work well, although that's not always the case.

As some of you said before, Masrani did not have a big character arc, but Irrfan Khan's charismatic presence and strong acting made him very likeable and memorable (for us Jurassic fan, at least).

Different is the case for Hoskins, who was played by D'Onofrio with what I think was a great performance (not only in the lines deliveries, but also in the body gestures for example), but that couldn't really save a character that was IMO horribly written.

Owen didn't have an arc, and many actors would have made him a really flat and lifeless character, but Chris Pratt's charisma saved him.

I watched JW yesterday and I hated some scenes with Owen. I hate his sarcastic tone and also the way he talks like full of himself or thinking he knows all.

Sometimes I really found him annoying, even more than Hoskins.

And it was so funny to  see him talk about how InGen thinks they own the animals but latter is like "get away from MY animals" 

Yeah no, they really need to fix his character and make him less flat.

Owen is the character I worry most about. Like others have already mentioned, his character had no arc throughout the whole of JW. He was just "cool raptor guy". What worries me more is that, if an arc for his character is actually introduced in JW2, will Chris Pratt have the chops to pull it off? He's charismatic, sure, but that can only take you so far.

I suppose that's why I'm hoping that Claire ends up taking the reigns in JW2 and Owen is somewhat relegated. I trust Trevorrow and Connoly's handling of the character more, and I trust Bryce Dallas Howard more as an actor.

 True. I agree 100% with that. That's why I rather see Claire as the main character than Owen. 

But I still hope Owen get's development. Or he'll be just a generic "cool raptor guy".

Anyway, more set pics!

https://twitter.com/mrdazjames/status/841003529405894657


IMO this is a mansion. Maybe from Geraldine's character, maybe Hammond's or even the JW2 villain's mansion.

Spinosaur4.4 wrote:

I just hope Colin wrote well the characters, not that mess that was JW (aside from Claire and Zach's arc). Derek wrote Skull Island characters and guess what? Everyone is saying most are flat.

To be honest I didn't mind how JW and K:SL were written. They are action movies and most people do go to see them for the dinosaurs and Kong. They need to be likable but not necessarily super in depth characters. JP and TLW definitely had the most character development but not every character was in depth as Grant and Hammond.

So for me when I go to watch JW2 I'm not going to be too worried about how the characters are written because at least it will have plenty of dino action but if it does have great written characters than that's fantastic.

I disagree. JP needs a lot character development. It's important to make characters likeable and sympathetic. JP is a sci fi movie first, not just an adventure.


Crichton characters were well developed, we need to keep that.

I want characters that sound real, like real people, not fictional or robotic.

To be totally honest, I really don't think any of JP films had characters that were overly "developed". Sure, the characters in the first two films may have been more realistic, but that doesn't necessarily imply development.

Okay then, just make them like Masrani, Claire, Ian, Grant...Beliveable characters with personalities and we get to know what they want/think.

The JP novels were definitely more sci-fi thriller than the JP films which IMO are mostly about the adventure. That's the reason I love the films more.

Character development in the movies IMO isn't 100% necessary for every character. Characters like Wu very much need more character development but those like Owen are just meant to be likable fun characters.

We don't necessarily need characters with development, but at least characters with charisma and personality. I actually enjoyed most of the Kong characters because they felt like they had personality, despite not having development. In Godzilla14 the characters were not only without development, but also really flat and didn't have personality.

I'm just going to say it again because I feel its so important. Most important characters are the dinosaurs. They can make Owen and Claire the most amazing characters but implementing the Dinosaurs incorrectly will destroy the film. They really started doing so in Jurassic World, making really stupid decisions with the dinosaurs, and hope we dont see that again.

The dinosaurs should be the vocal point of discussion of course, but I strongly believe their on screen presence should be limited to important scenes rather than over exploited. What you don't see can be as important as what you see, if not more. I don't want big dumb action movie again, I want intelligent scifi adventure.

And certainly in this age and day when they do everything with over glorified CGI, there's no sense of wonder with effects anymore, so why over exploit them? Sure they may use animatronics/puppetry for the very smallest degree just so that they can claim to have used them to please off some fans, but it's just so much easier not to bother at all and render everything in post-production nice and tidily. It's what the producers will be screaming all the time, post-prod post-prod post-prod.

Sometimes I feel bad for loving Jaws and Jurassic Park. They are both amazing entities, but at the same time I feel they affected things perhaps too much with public consensus. Jaws, for much further making sharks seem like mindless man slaughtering beasts, and JP for not only painting stereotypical image of dinosaurs that's still stuck to people's minds 25 years later even though science has moved on, but also essentially launching the CGI revolution in films. Now, 90's after JP was still the golden age of movie effects as far as I'm concerned as numerous other techniques besides CGI were still being utilized due to necessity, but it got out of hand eventually when CGI just became easier solution. Special effects have become stale, in most places of usage anyway.

Mistral wrote:

The dinosaurs should be the vocal point of discussion of course, but I strongly believe their on screen presence should be limited to important scenes rather than over exploited. What you don't see can be as important as what you see, if not more. I don't want big dumb action movie again, I want intelligent scifi adventure.

I very much agree! To me, and to clarify, even meaningful mention of the dinosaurs by the human characters can count very much for their presence without being directly on screen.

How do you "incorrectly" implement a dinosaur?

And here I was thinking it was entirely subjective xD

Tyrant Lizard wrote:

How do you "incorrectly" implement a dinosaur?

And here I was thinking it was entirely subjective xD

Everything here is.

Mistral wrote:

Tyrant Lizard wrote:

How do you "incorrectly" implement a dinosaur?

And here I was thinking it was entirely subjective xD

Everything here is.

Using terms like "correctly" and "incorrectly" certainly don't imply that.

Meh. Semantics....

Well obviously this is my interpretation of how dinosaurs should be used on screen within the franchise. As for examples:

Ted Bundy. . . er I mean JP/// Spinosaur
Ed Gacy . . . whoops did it again, I mean murdering for fun Indominus Rex
Weaponized, military trained Raptor teams
Blue and Rexy giving one another a nod at the end of JW

Basically taking them from a natural/animal stand point to some weird, overly intelligent freaky serial killer creatures just doesnt fit into the first two films in the franchise.

Personally the only animal behaviour I bought as realistic in both JP3 and JW was with the Pterosaurus, everything else was either cartoon rabbit or godzilla monster wannabe. At least TLW played it fairly straight, even if some of the Rexy stuff was far stretched. The compys and raptors and herbivores all went real

Dr. Wu wrote:

The JP novels were definitely more sci-fi thriller than the JP films which IMO are mostly about the adventure. That's the reason I love the films more.

Character development in the movies IMO isn't 100% necessary for every character. Characters like Wu very much need more character development but those like Owen are just meant to be likable fun characters.

I kind of agree with this, to a point anyways.

Fact is that there's only so much ground a film can cover in a two hour runtime. If every character were fully developed with a backstory and character arc in place, the film would either need to be extended to a pretty massive degree, or the dinosaur screentime would have to be significantly cut down on.

People might attempt to cite the first two films in order to counter my argument, but when you really look at it, the characters in JP and TLW didn't have much in terms of character development either. Certainly the characters in the first two films were more realistically written (which I agree is needed for JW2), but the development of said characters wasn't anything to write home about. Quite frankly, I believe both JP3 and JW had more actual character development than TLW.

Basically, people are mistaking realism for character arc/development.

The amount of development that people are proposing here would likely result in an overlong film (that is, if you don't want to cut down on the dinosaur screentime). There has to be a proper balance. The amount of character development throughout all four of the films has been fine for what these films are. The trick is to write the characters well enough and realistically enough to imply depth, even if there isn't much, which is what the first film was able to do well.

As far as the dinosaurs go, it's whatever serves the story best. I'd take interesting narrative with somewhat anthropomorphic animals over a bland narrative with realistic animals any day.

If Trevorrow's vision requires a more anthropomorphic take on the dinosaurs, then so be it. I'd rather he stick to his guns then compromise his vision for the sake of "realism".

Spiegel wrote:

I'm just going to say it again because I feel its so important. Most important characters are the dinosaurs. They can make Owen and Claire the most amazing characters but implementing the Dinosaurs incorrectly will destroy the film. They really started doing so in Jurassic World, making really stupid decisions with the dinosaurs, and hope we dont see that again.

They wouldn't exist in JP franchise if Wu didn't create them. 

Just kidding, by the way. I agree that the dinosaurs are the most important thing in this franchise. 

Anyway, about development, you guys might not want characters to have an arc, but I surely want at least Wu developed. He's a priority IMO. And I'm not going to get what I want, I know.


By the way, Main Street confirmed in JW2?

https://twitter.com/JurassicOutpost/status/841389584927858689

If there was still any doubt? Looks like confirmation we will be returning to Nublar & seeing Main st. again if these set photos are anything to go by :

https://twitter.com/JurassicOutpost/status/841389584927858689

Personal opinion? Just my opinion guys. But honestly I think the story could go better than a return to Nublar. Also you'll be out three-four major predators on Nublar.

No one to feed the Mosasaur in 3 years? Dead
Indominus? Dead
Blue is the only surviving Raptor
The Pteranodons were likely put down due to not having anywhere to contain them after the aviary breakout

Sickle_Claw wrote:

Personal opinion? Just my opinion guys. But honestly I think the story could go better than a return to Nublar. Also you'll be out three-four major predators on Nublar.

No one to feed the Mosasaur in 3 years? Dead
Indominus? Dead
Blue is the only surviving Raptor
The Pteranodons were likely put down due to not having anywhere to contain them after the aviary breakout

Also likely that Rexy is dead, considering her age and the injuries she sustained.

I think the return to Nublar will be brief, no more than half of the film, most likely the first half before events take place somewhere on the mainland. I think they go back to save & retrieve something or somethings? Remember the domain name registered last year "Isla Nublar Rescue Mission".

dance2nite wrote:

I think the return to Nublar will be brief, no more than half of the film, most likely the first half before events take place somewhere on the mainland. I think they go back to save & retrieve something or somethings? Remember the domain name registered last year "Isla Nublar Rescue Mission".

The person who said Rexy was dead? Probably. Its been 3 years if this film follows the trend of it being real-time...

also I do think that the rescue mission or whatever is to get Blue. What else? Wu took all the embryos... Nothing else is really worth retrieving.

Sickle_Claw wrote:

The person who said Rexy was dead? Probably. Its been 3 years if this film follows the trend of it being real-time...

also I do think that the rescue mission or whatever is to get Blue. What else? Wu took all the embryos... Nothing else is really worth retrieving.

But how could Blue have survived? She's all alone, unless there's somehow still a wild raptor population, even then why would she be accepted into the pack?

I wonder why they will return to Nublar. Something must be there. Blue isn't the only thing they would be after for. At least I hope.

Ugh I was hoping to never see that project of a raptor again. That means tame raptors again. Ugh.