User blog comment:Daniel large/The Lost World Jurassic park Vs. Jurassic park 3/@comment-1791057-20130121202313

First off, I'd like to point out how sick I am of the JP///vsTLW stuff. It's getting as bad as as the Spino/Rex arguments.

Personally I feel like JP/// was inadequate for a number of both inside and outside causes. Within the realm of the film, and what could have been helped by the film makers is the lack of an adequate and worthy script, They threw out the one they had 5 weeks prior to filming and this had a very big effect IMO. Next common complaint is the lack of emotion that is so accustomed with John Williams' music. With JP///, Davis merely sounds as if he is going through the motions to make the score rather than putting his heart and soul into it. And one personal irk I have is when Grant says his "You probably won't get off this island alive" line, there's a kind of 'DUN DUN DUN" floury to the music that sounds somewhat unprofessional IMO. In my opinion, JP/// had a chance to introduce some of the science that was present in the LW novel, such as discovering (and maybe even foreshadowing of- in case of future installments) diseases, malformations, and the same kind of production troubles as the line in the novel verse did, but failed monumentally at it. They didn't take advantage of the situation at hand and didn't use the JP/// Facility scenes to what they could have. Sure, we get some nice shots of rotted fetuses and stalled machines, but what do they really tell us. They just seem to leave the audience kinda wanting. Another thing to notice is the large abundance of dinosaur shots while lacking in extenuated "wowing" moments. The audience is dulled to seeing dinosaurs appear in the movie by the end. They're just everywhere. Now, I'm not complaining that there shouldn't be dinosaurs in the movie, Jurassic Park is a dinosaur franchise, but they don't need to appear nearly every ten minutes. I gets almost annoying and by the time the Ceratosaurus comes out of the trees to sniff the poo covered characters, the audience is leaning in their seats thinking, "Wow, another dinosaur... got anything new?"

My next complaint is a biggey for me. People that have talked JP/// with me always know I like to bring this one up. My biggest complaint isn't the scripting, the acting, the score, or even Spino v. Rex. My complaint is against the setting. It doesn't take a genius to see that the foliage on Sorna has changed between TLW and JP///. Now the great minds behind the Encyclopedia have proposed that this is due to difference in location on the island itself. Even with this, I must confess myself disappointed in the sets. A majority of what is supposed to be jungle scenes was actually filmed on sound stages with the trees and such moved around to make the jungle appear different. However, this shows blatantly to me. The jungle, unlike it's on location appearance in JP and TLW, seems built for ease of human travel. There's a significant lack of undergrowth that is very noticeable and in the previous films. Examples include Ellie's break for the Maintenance shed where she has to climb over branches and jump through puddles or in TLW where the trek back to the trailers after finding Sarah includes having to climb over fallen logs and such things as saplings. There's a significant lack of saplings to be seen in the JP/// jungle. Now maybe I sound picky, and maybe I am, but from a franchise where the smallest of details have made the biggest of difference between what looks realistic and what doesn't, I'd expect more. The jungle itself doesn't present itself as a threat to me. I don't know if it has to do with a lot of the film taking place in daylight in contrast to the previous, but in Jurassic Park, while the trees are indeed more sparse, and some of it lacks the very undergrowth I complain for, it has to be remembered that this is a Park setting. Therefore, it will look a bit nicer than the dirty, dingy, fern ridden, coniferous jungle we find in TLW. The jungle in TLW presents itself to me as literal to its name. It looks like a world lost to time. Something that screams that you, as a human, are not in control here and that the jungle and it's prehistoric inhabitants are letting you be here. This is even echoed in the Workers Village. The jungle has literally grown over the radio equipment. It's taking back what once belonged to it. JP/// doesn't have this feel. The jungle is there, but it doesn't present itself as a threat. You don't feel like another Dieter could happen where you take ten steps away from the group and suddenly you have no idea where you are.

I feel like what we don't see is just as important as what we do. The shadows, and the darkness that takes away finer details also adds a sense of mysteriousness into the mix and that mysteriousness is one of the things I love about the movie. How you don't know what may be trudging through that shadowy forest, or what horrors may be lurking in that derelict building. It extends the dangerous feel from more than the "local" fauna itself; it's that feeling that the very setting isn't your home. That you, as a human, are very out of place here. I think this is easily expressed from the moment that Hammond's team sets foot on the island. They're trudging along a shallow creek, so very far from civilization, and suddenly they here thundering footfalls, and groaning. They have no idea what it is, only that it's "something big". The audience is made to think that it could be a coming at them, but what a wonderful surprise it is for both audience and the characters to see a beautiful herd of gigantic Stegosaurus to pass before you. It tells you that not only is there deadly beauty here, there is also mysterious beauty as well. And when things do go to hell, you find that the forest, which has already set itself up to be dangerous, can become an antagonist itself with Dieter getting himself lost inside it.

TLW is darker, and edgier. It's easily my favorite film in the franchise, just because it just has so much depth. I mean, when critics say a movie has depth, I don't really get it, but with TLW I can practically feel it. There's just so much there and watching it you feel like what's there and what you feel the first time is barely any of it. There's just so much of the movie I could swim in it. It's got no clear cut antagonists, nor clear cut protagonists, the sets are amazing in that what you see on film feels like it's not even half of what's actually there. Watching the movie, it's the little things that make the biggest impact, and make you think "wow, they actually included that!" The locations are so mysterious and the whole Sorna just kinda screams "You have left the Earth you know behind and have entered the world of dinosaurs". It reminds me of those old dinosaur documentaries I used to watch as a little kid, the ones that featured the old, mossy, coniferous, fern ridden world. A world that looks like it was standing in time. A lost world.

Next, the CGI. Yep, I'm gonna rant on the CGI. The thing is, it's too smooth. Too fluid. Too textured. In my opinion, the CGI in in JP/// suffers from the same fault that CGI has been suffering of through this entire century. It's too danged perfect. I feel like it's too clean and even often lacks the blurred effect that affects real life objects or having a blur effect when the real life object doesn't, causing inconsistency. In the first two films they're rendered as defined as they need to be to match their surroundings. In Jurassic Park ///, it's almost as if they were attempting to use the best CGI they could, however this action causes the CGI to become too clear and noticeable. With the first two, if you didn't know any better, you really wouldn't think twice in believing that you're looking at an image of an actual dinosaur. But with the way the CGI, not even just the dinosaurs, looks against their surroundings, it looks, well... fake.

My final reason as to why I don't think JP/// was as well made as the others comes from an outside effect. Kenner, who was known for taking on franchises of a darker nature (notably Aliens and Predator) was taken over by Hasbro, whose licences are from more kid-friendly franchises (Star Wars). The effect they had on the merchandise is noticeable. Their sculpts are far less accurate and lack the imaginative play-ability that was common among Kenner products. At the same time, no vehicles were released, and very few play-sets, unlike Kenner. All in all, I don't think the change in merchandiser can be ignored in it's effect it had on JP///.

And that's all I've got to say about that.