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Originally Posted by PanicLord
So things I found disappointing:
* Very little showing of the park being built up into a success, Clare's struggle to make it work, previous successes and failures. This means I have no emotional investment in the park. I want it to fail so I can see the carnage, rather than wanting it to succeed and feeling guilty pleasure when it goes wrong. Also means I don't care about Clare, because while we are told she has devoted her life to the park at the expense of her own life, we don't see or feel it. She should have battled against the creation of something so deliberately violent and been forced to cave in under the onslaught of angry investors.
* No evidence of any human intelligence - not just on the day, but at any time since the original park failed. That IRex should NOT have escaped that easily. There should be AT LEAST double doors, draw bridges, guard towers with effective weapons and well trained guards, moats, bloody great fences etc etc etc. Once the dinosaur is out there should be a swift, skilled, well rehearsed, professionally executed take down plan. And finally, there should be a comprehensive evacuation / safepoint type plan for the visitors, again well drilled. NOT one that just gathers everyone up into one central feeding ground. OF COURSE all these things must fail in order to serve up the fun, BUT they should fail DESPITE careful planning, and the best intentions of intelligent people, NOT because everyone involved is ludicrously stupid.
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As you pointed out, the park did
have to fail, for various reasons, with the major one of course being that it's necessary in order for the fun to ensue.
From a storyline point, though, remember that the whole theme of the series revolves around the idea that "life finds a way"; these are living, wild creatures, and the stupid humans forget that. Stupid humans also don't learn from previous mistakes, hence they weren't better prepared with security. Though, if we're to believe the premise that life finds a way, it ultimately wouldn't matter. Also, though, remember the dino didn't actually escape at first, she just made them think she escaped, which was actually a trick so that...
Remember also Ian Malcom's Chaos Theory- the system was bound to break down at some point.
Claire doesn't care about the animals, or about the humans that much, for that matter (at least at the beginning of the film); to her, it's all about the money, hence the pressure for more terrifying dinos.
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Originally Posted by PanicLord
So in summary, very enjoyable, but almost entirely disposable. Better than JP3, no closer than 2/3 as good as the original or 80% as good as part 2.
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Yeah, I don't think the film will win any Academy Awards, but it is a fun movie, IMO.
As I mentioned previously, I'm a huge fan of Crichton's work, and the tone of the original storyline is much darker than the movies have portrayed. Crichton's viewpoint seems to be that just because technology can bring dinosaurs back to life (for example), doesn't mean we should. The character of Ian Malcom kind of represents Crichton, IMO.
This is also why I disliked the second movie as much as I did. Crichton wrote the screenplay for the first, and aside from a few changes, the storyline followed the book pretty closely, though it left tons out (Crichton said he included about 10-20 percent of the book's content). Some parts of the first book and the second came out in the movie sequels, but they changed too much of it for my taste. If anyone is really interested in the whole story and backstory, I'd recommend reading the books ("Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World"). The humans are also much less stupid in the books.
One glaring omission I found is that they never really developed Dr. Henry Wu's character- he's a major character in the book. I also liked the character of Muldoon, the game warden; I think he was barely mentioned in the film, if at all.
Slightly off-topic, but I once attended a lecture given by paleontologist Jack Horner, who was the technical advisor for the film(s), and the inspiration for Dr. Alan Grant, and was able to meet him afterwards. Seemed like a cool guy.