Fallen Kingdoms Success Was Down To Bayona, Not Trevorrow

Ratings wise;

The Orphanage recieved a 87% on RT
The Impossible recieved a 81% on RT
A Monster Calls received a 86% on RT

Considering Bayonas reputation I was surprised Fallen Kingdom didn’t receive a much higher score than 51% as it currently sits. Now I wouldn’t generally like to rely on critics ratings alone as they don’t make up the success of the movie and no viewer should be dictated what they should or shouldn’t like, but taking note of the trend in ratings for Bayonas previous films a lot of blame seems to be with Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow.  

Fallen Kingdom was a huge improvement from the previous one - better CGI, use of animatronics, cinematography & style, and even better acting. There is no argument there.

From what I have picked up on, a LOT of what the reviews say from both critics and audience is that Bayona was a worthy addition to the franchise who bought something new with his remarkable direction and style - also thanks to his regular team of award-winning collaborators Bernard Viliplana, Belen Atienza and especially Cinematographer Oscar Faura. The negative criticisms focuses on the script writing/screenplay and storyline plus the pacing of the film.


With this in mind and given Bayonas previous movies all receiving such well received reviews and ratings it just shows you that Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrows script writing were to blame and contributed to the low score it has recieved. We all know the script and character development in Jurassic World was not that great too and suffered the same pacing problem - though a lot of people (like myself) didn’t mind the pacing as it made the movie enjoyable and rewatchable.

Quite simply Trevorrow is bringing the franchise down with his poor script and character development.
Now that Bayona is off and Trevorrow is back writing and directing Jurassic World 3 I’m not sure what to think.
No matter how ‘unique’ they say Jurassic World 3 is we all know what type of movie we are going give get as we’d only look at Jurassic World - which is still a great movie in my opinion, however Fallen Kingdom is and was a major improvement overall.

My personal rating should for each film in the franchise -

Jurassic Park 9/10
Fallen Kingdom 8/10
Jurassic World 7.5/10
The Lost World 6/10
Jurassic Park /// 5/10

I think that the Jurassic movies could use a lot more character and story development. Most characters are so one dimensional. But if I compare JWFK and JW with the previous trilogy I do not see much difference though. Characters in those movies had the same issues the current trilogy has now. Sometimes I think that they want to keep the movie simple for the GA, I dunno though, I am not that well read into the movie industry.

The characters have never been very deep, even going back to original film. I think Trevorrow and Connolly's characters are more cliched, which is were the disparity is - no matter how thin Grant, Ellie, Malcolm or Hammond were, they weren't really stereotypical "Bad Ass Action Guy" or "Uptight Career Woman."

However, I do think Trevorrow and Connolly provided a much improved script this time around, thought I do agree that the film also succeeds in no small part to Bayona's being a much better and more interesting director and stylist than Trevorrow.

Bayona did a incredible job and the script wasn't as bad as people are trying to sell on social media even tho it had its flaws. IMO the main problem with Colin's writing are the stereotypes and the dialogues.

In Jurassic Park and The Lost World, David Koepp knew how to write conversations and you could picture the characters in the real world, almost every line felt natural and it wasn't hard to embrace the heroes and even the villains. In Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom a lot of the characters don't feel like real humans and we often get some really average dialogues. Hopefully he'll improve his writing skills for the next movie.

I honestly don't believe half of the characters in TLW or JP3 each were very good characters either - with the better ones being more exception than rule - and while Owen and Claire don't develop too much in Fallen Kingdom, I felt they had satisfactory arcs in JW and assumed FK was pulling punches to conclude their arcs effectively in JW3.

It's entirely possible Connally could be part of the problem. Trevorrow is writing with a different person for the next film, which could signal creative disagreements or dissatisfaction with Connally.

absolutely. I enjoyed the movie but it is clear Bayona elevated the movie incredibly. Trevorrow's script is what brought it down




Having Bayona back with David Koepp writing would be a dream team

JannToshj wrote:

absolutely. I enjoyed the movie but it is clear Bayona elevated the movie incredibly. Trevorrow's script is what brought it down




Having Bayona back with David Koepp writing would be a dream team

It's not like The Lost World had a flawless script though... apart from Roland, I found some of the main characters not to be handled that well. That's to me another example of a director elevating the movie over a flawed script.

Quote :

It's not like The Lost World had a flawless script though... apart from Roland, I found some of the main characters not to be handled that well. That's to me another example of a director elevating the movie over a flawed script.

Compared to the mess that is FK's script it's pretty much flawless. No insufferable characters (Franklin, Zia,..), pacing is a million times better, Ian's & Sarah's relationship actually feels more believeable and they talk more like actual adults, better villains and also characters from both sides that actually fall more into the grey area and victims from all sides not just cartoon villains getting eaten, not countless deux ex dinosaur moments, dinosaurs actually feel like animals and are not used as props for moneyshots, feels like an actual JP film, not way too much forced comedy at the expense of suspense, as a whole a much less forced plot.

And regarding Connolly, you know the guy that wrote Kong Skull Island and Monstertrucks, you'd have to be insane to let him anywhere near the franchise. That really just shows that Universal does not care about plot or anything they just want some fast and easy money.

TLW script over FK script for sure but both Spielberg & Bayona elevated both films with what they had to work with, both scripts had flaws & plot holes & are far from perfect. TLW worked better than FK though for the reasons mentioned above, doesn't mean FK is a bad film though, far from it, it is high level entertainment for today's modern day cinema.

Yeah, but did you forget David Koepp wrote also Indy 4?
No way FK is worse than Indy 4.

Connolly wrote Safety Not Guaranteed, which won an award for best screenplay.

My point is, we worship too much the past to the point we remember them to be flawless while they were really not.
Also, those points about TLW you mentioned are fair (well, some of them), but at least Trevorrow brings much more original and brave ideas, and some of them were well executed to me on a deep level.

owenpratt wrote:

Yeah, but did you forget David Koepp wrote also Indy 4?
No way FK is worse than Indy 4.

Connolly wrote Safety Not Guaranteed, which won an award for best screenplay.

My point is, we worship too much the past to the point we remember them to be flawless while they were really not.
Also, those points about TLW you mentioned are fair (well, some of them), but at least Trevorrow brings much more original and brave ideas, and some of them were well executed to me on a deep level.

I’m sure we would all give Colin Trevorrow some credit for trying.
Though David Koepp is a more established successful screen writer.
If we were to focus on his work for both Jurassic Park and The Lost World you just know Jurassic World 3 would be a slight improvement when it comes to the screenwriting, rather than have Trevorrow and Connolly writing back.

[quote="JurassicJ"]

owenpratt wrote:

Yeah, but did you forget David Koepp wrote also Indy 4?
No way FK is worse than Indy 4.

Connolly wrote Safety Not Guaranteed, which won an award for best screenplay.

My point is, we worship too much the past to the point we remember them to be flawless while they were really not.
Also, those points about TLW you mentioned are fair (well, some of them), but at least Trevorrow brings much more original and brave ideas, and some of them were well executed to me on a deep level.

I’m sure we would all give Colin Trevorrow some credit for trying.
Though David Koepp is a more established successful screen writer.
If we were to focus on his work for both Jurassic Park and The Lost World you just know Jurassic World 3 would be a slight improvement when it comes to the screenwriting, rather than have Trevorrow and Connolly back writing in my opinion.

I still think that the lack of competition via other dinosaur movies is the main cause. Let's face it, other then Godzilla and his cinematic universe, what other competition does this franchise have? You could argue Disney/Pixar's The Good Dinosaur, but that was mainly piggybacking of JW's success and nothing else.

I agree. All the critics called out the writing and some of the characters and surprise, Trevorrow was responsible for the writing of the script.

I don't think Trevorrow is that good in writing, to be honest. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I can't speak about the writing without pointing this out.

owenpratt wrote:

Yeah, but did you forget David Koepp wrote also Indy 4?
No way FK is worse than Indy 4.

Connolly wrote Safety Not Guaranteed, which won an award for best screenplay.

My point is, we worship too much the past to the point we remember them to be flawless while they were really not.
Also, those points about TLW you mentioned are fair (well, some of them), but at least Trevorrow brings much more original and brave ideas, and some of them were well executed to me on a deep level.

Oh please that means next to nothing when virtually every other script he has written has received mixed to negative reviews. If anything it just shows that he can maybe write a small film but that he is rather useless when it comes to big blockbusters (and it's even more ridiculous when he didn't even do his homework by watching all the previous films in the franchise).

The stupid dinosaurs for warfare plot is Spielberg's fault (still don't get why nobody has the guts to tell him that's a horrible idea) so you can't credit Trevorrow for that. He really isn't that original when he uses the T-rex for pure fanservice and writes too many copied scenes from the older films into FK.
And btw people complaining about FK (also all those outside of this forum) are not just worshipping the old things because they were flawless but modern day blockbusters are becoming more and more sterile with unnecessary humor with FK being a victim of this as well. Many people are noticing it and pointing out that the older films had a more unique identity and were simply better made.