----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 8:19 AM
Subject: JPIII: unmitigated rubbish
JPIII... yet another spoiler post.
Spoiler below,
rates 7 on the Holtz scale
Basically, I'd say that JPIII
was to JP what Jaws 3-D was to Jaws: in other words, one of the worse movies
ever made in the history of cinema (IMHO).
"Heavens Gate" is concidered the worst big budget Holywood film. I don't
know what the distant second is. Did you think JP 3 was worse than the second
JP?
While several people on dino-l have made the point that JPIII was "just a
movie", since when does it follow that movies must be cliched, appallingly
scripted and as bland and tedious as JPIII? Same old implausible plot devices
(e.g., exactly what did happen to the two people on the boat at the start of
the film?), same old Fox Mulder-style attempts to explain scientific concepts
using 'mock jargon' (e.g., Grant's scenario that presence of resonating
chamber = hyperintelligence), same old twee storyline about divorced parents
and the all-American family, same old utterly absurd depictions of animal
behaviour. All in all, typical modern Hollywood nonsense.
I'm married with two small children. It was
surprisingly refreshing to have a movie applaud the family instead of mocking
it. I still have no idea where people are saying that this was"darker" than
the first two movies. It was less violent, and carried a strong message about
courage and redemption. Although admittedly not "Casablanca", We thought
it was extremely entertaining and well written.
I also was unimpressed
with the CGI: not only were some of the animals innaccurate (e.g. spinosaur
with lacrimal horns and overly long forelimbs), some of the animation was
genuinely very very bad. If you looked carefully at the three brachiosaurs
which approached the boat (also the ankylosaurs at the riverside), the
animation and rendering were awful - more like WWD than JP! Many of the
animals looked way too glossy for their environments (esp. the dromaeosaurs)
and the tyrannosaur-spinosaur fight scene closeups did not look half as good
as the closeups of the tyrannosaur in the finale sequence of JP.
Yes, some of the CGI was bad, but most of it was very good. Just like
with WDRA.
The spinosaur-tyrannosaur fight owed more to WWF than
anything else I think: at the end the tyrannosaur was literally *thrown*
across the forest
Maybe the paleontological adviser for the film likes
pro wrestling. I haven't seen a fight scene that good since "shrek".
As
with JP, continuity in this film was bad. I won't point out the examples lest
readers think I'm even sadder than I am. And why is it that the so-called
palaeontologists are so remarkably stupid? In marked contrast to little Timmy
in JP - able to recognise individual ornithomimid genera at a thousand paces -
Billie (aka Dave/Paul) was unable to distinguish different spinosauroid taxa
and even Grant got the name wrong (he calls it _Spinosaurus aegypticus_, not
_aegyptiacus_). And yes I am being tongue-in-cheek.
Dr. Sereno, er, Billy
guessed " Suchomimus", a closely related species. That hardly makes him less
intelligent than a ten year old. Perhaps at the time he was remembering that
the sucho fossil that he found in Africa was a sub-adult, and full grown ones
got much bigger. The sail on the JP spinosaur sure didn't seem much bigger
than Suchomimus. I think Dr. Grant was wrong, and Billy hit the species
correctly.
The next event in my cinema calendar is Planet of the Apes. Let's all
pray that Tim Burton doesn't let us down and that, even in the 21st century,
good movies can still be made.
I would suggest seeing "
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon "before another Hollywood redo. At least then
you have a sure chance of seeing at least one great 21st century
film.
Cliff Green
DARREN NAISH
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
Burnaby Building
Burnaby Road email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
Portsmouth UK tel (mobile): 0776 1372651
P01 3QL tel (office): 023 92842244
www.palaeobiology.co.uk