Jurassic World (Summer Movie Series) — S&A155

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2 responses to “Jurassic World (Summer Movie Series) — S&A155”

1. 

   Michael Poteet

   June 25, 2015

   I enjoyed your conversation about JURASSIC WORLD. You make me think some if it is more subtle than I thought (comparing the I-Rex and the younger kid, for example – huh.)

   I may lose some pop culture cred to admit it, but I’ve never seen the two sequels, but I have fond memories of JURASSIC PARK, and JURASSIC WORLD delivered a similar thrill ride. I don’t think it’s quite the thematic heavy-hitter that JURASSIC PARK was, but, as I tried to get at it my SFC review (http://bit.ly/1Byo9nf), that may be because it’s theme is more nuanced. It’s no longer enough to say, “Don’t mess with Mother Nature.” Now, 20 years on, we have to say, “Since you’ve already messed with Mother Nature, be darn sure you take responsibility for it.”

   Agree with you about Giacchino, although he does a trick here that he does in his STAR TREK scores: he takes original melodies and inverts them. I don’t have enough technical musical vocabulary to describe it, but I know he’s doing it. And it’s cool. I thought this score has some especially strong action cues.

   I haven’t gathered all my thoughts on MAD MAX, but it seems to me the cinematic equivalent of icon-gazing. Not saying it was a religious experience, but it seem like the way to appreciate it was to look at and contemplate its many arreesting images, treating them as vehicles through which ideas and inspiration flow. I liked it a lot.

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2. 

   ProfessorAlan

   June 27, 2015

   To me, the strength of the movie was the filmmaker’s understanding of the type of film he was making, and his wrestling through the type of film he was making. This was a big, splashy, tentpole movie, a sequel to one of the biggest, splashiest tentpole movies ever. And the movie recognizes that fact, playing with both Jaws imagery and “jumping the shark” imagery, bringing the characters back literally to Jurassic Park, which is too old-fashioned to attract customers. The new park, the new dinosaurs, the new blockbusters have to be bigger, crazy, more dangerous to attract the same crowd. The premise of the movie is the premise of the filmmaker making the movie. I love that type of meta-narrative.

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