#you reading this?

[jurassic-park-incorrect-quotes]

On the scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Jurassic World Dominion?

(This becomes a very long post that goes all over the place, so I apologise. If your attention span is as short as mine, I won’t be offended if you just “too long, didn’t read”)

This is actually quite difficult for me to answer, because I’m easy to please when it comes to films - if I had fun watching it then to me it was a good film. And I had a lot of fun watching Dominion. So I’ll try putting on a logical head for this one.

Spoiler free opinion: 8/10

I’ll go more in depth with my opinion which means I will openly talk about stuff that happened in the film. So serious spoiler warning! (All you asked was to rate the film out of 10 but I guess I’m going full opinion time!)

Ok. I loved this film. Seeing Alan, Ellie and Ian back as main characters was OF COURSE a big part of that. I also loved seeing the dinosaurs in the world, how they were with the humans and other animals. And I liked that the ending was “so yeah. Nothing’s changed from the beginning. Dinosaurs are in our world now so deal with it.” With the exception that the humans and animals were no longer fighting back. The parallel between the beginning where the horses were being used to round up the Paras and the end where they’re a unified herd was great. And I liked Alan’s last look at a little girl playing with a dinosaur. It was him seeing that dinosaurs and man could co exist.

The amount of different dinosaurs was great! And the animatronics were. Top. Notch. That giga animatronic is beautiful. The scene where Maisie is with those workers and they watch the brachiosaurus in solemn silence was really nice actually. I liked the lack of dialogue. You could hear some indistinguishable shouts in the background and Maisie whispers to that one guy about the flare, but the fact you couldn’t hear what any of them were saying was just a nice way of showing what was going on without the brachiosaurus’ majestic moment being sullied by dialogue. It was just a nice gentle moment. I like how the franchise has used brachiosaurus as a symbol of peace amongst humans and dinosaurs since the Sleeping in the Tree scene in the first one. I feel like every time they show a brachiosaurus dying, it symbolises current animosity between the humans and dinosaurs - see: Jurassic World + JW: Fallen Kingdom. So maybe this little scene shows us (foreshadows??) that humans and dinosaurs can find a way to co exist. Maybe I’m thinking way too deeply into this.

Another thing I really liked was the family dynamic between Claire, Owen and Maisie. I felt this was the film where I liked Owen the most (don’t get me wrong, I liked his character a lot in the last two films, unpopular an opinion that is in the fandom). He felt more mature and grown up, less selfish and less quips, and I haven’t seen anyone actually acknowledge that yet. Although, that’s probably due to him being played by Chris Pratt and I understand that separating actor from character can be hard - a post for a different time.

As I was saying, I liked their little family. It was shocking to actually see a Jurassic Park couple stay together from the previous film. A first in the franchise I think! I’ve enjoyed Claire’s story throughout the 3 films, and it hasn’t ever felt forced to me. Trying to make up for treating the dinosaurs as money making attractions rather than the animals they are is a simple but good idea to make her character likeable. Maisie was a little grating at the beginning - girl, they’re literally trying to protect you! You are old enough to understand why they’re not letting you beyond the bridge! - but I could understand why she was fed up. Bet they didn’t even have WiFi in that cabin.

The bad guys were good enough, and they served their purposes. It would’ve been nice to see Dodgson act like book Dodgson though. The nice, friendly Dodgson when he’s welcoming Alan and Ellie to BioSyn, but in truth is cold-hearted and has no qualms about letting his underlings die to progress his company. That way I feel like his death would’ve been much more satisfying (don’t get me wrong I was grinning like a maniac the entire scene. It was still good to see an end to the guy responsible for starting the franchise).

Alan, Ellie and Ian were damn near perfect in this film and I’m disappointed that we only got the one scene of just the three of them together - a scene that was mainly Ellie and Ian talking plot related stuff while Alan was arguing with a barista (on behalf of all baristas, I apologise. You are my favourite character of the entire franchise Alan. I love you). Don’t get me wrong, I found that really funny, and it fits Alan’s character - see: Alan + Computers in the first film - but I wanted a whole scene of three of them. Maybe they’re discussing something together, and then the conversation escalates to Alan and Ian getting into one of their classic arguments until they realise Ellie’s gone quiet. And she’s just stood watching them like “… you guys done?” And then they split.

And then of course, they needed a second scene of them either:

Traversing the lands, somehow separated from the Jurassic World characters, where they maybe talk about how they never actually did the whole “surviving dinosaur infested jungle” thing together. Alan did it first with just Lex and Tim and then the second time the entirety of JP3, Ellie did it with Muldoon (rip) for a short while, and Ian only really did it in The Lost World, as he was resting up injured since Rexy broke out in the first film. They could come across Rexy, either as a short Dino hunt scene or as maybe just a nostalgic scene (she could be sleeping or something when they come across her and they realise she’s the same one from JP due to her age and scars)

There wouldn’t have been time, but it would’ve been cool if they’d taken the tour with Ian and we get a call back to the three of them in the car, maybe Ian flirting with Ellie a little and Alan is less than impressed. Or maybe it could have been a really nice catching up bit. Ellie telling them about her kids growing up and being in college and what she’s up to. Ian telling them about his own kids, perhaps slipping in something about his daughter Kelly having been with him on Sorna. At least give us a hint as to what Sarah’s up to? Are they still together? Where is she? It would be nice. And then Ian asks Alan what he’s up to and he just says he’s doing what he’s always been doing, and leaves it at that. Again, they could see Rexy while on the tour and like I said before, is just a nice throw back moment. I would say they could go through the lab area and try going in to see it, breaking in, but at that point it would just be ripping scenes from the first one (but man do I love the three of them simultaneously breaking out the seats. They’re so great I love them!)

The throwbacks and references to the old films were really nicely done, I thought! First of all, they didn’t just reference the first film. A lot of “final” films in a franchise do the whole nostalgia awakening thing, but they usually just use stuff from the first one - aka the most well known and liked one. But they didn’t. In fact there was a surprising amount of JP3 references! E.g. Billy’s 3D printed raptor vocal chamber thingy was on Alan’s desk in his tent, and you can’t tell me you didn’t hear Amanda Kirby screaming “BEN?!?!?!” in your head when Claire was hanging in the parachute from the tree. I thought overall, the references were tasteful and not forced in your face. You could say the giga hunting them around the car was directly ripped from Rexy’s after-Gennaro car tossing, but I felt there was enough difference for it to once again be a nice throwback. Actually, I like that scene a whole lot. It’s one of the bits where the film especially feels like a Jurassic Park movie, which to me wasn’t felt all the way through the film (more on that later). I liked how real Maisie was when the giga was chomping down on the bars around her. I didn’t blame her for freezing in terror, and I thought the acting from her in that bit was really good! However I didn’t like the film making me think Ian was going to die. Felt for sure like the film was going to go “haha! The original characters aren’t immortal! Nostalgia won’t save them from being eaten! They’re all in the same boat” but I’m really glad they didn’t do that.

I’m surprised they sidelined Blue for the entire movie! She basically just said “you better get my kid back” and dipped. I think it was for the best, she wouldn’t have fit in with everything else going on. But she was such a big part of Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, and after seeing the raptors in all three JP films as lethal and to be avoided at all costs, it was a big thing to see a raptor/keeper relationship that wasn’t based on mutual hatred (Muldoon and the Big One were totally Owen and Blue’s opposites). Not to mention the toys and other money making products they got from her, it was quite shocking for her to be absent and unmentioned for the majority of the film.

I liked how they had Rexy win against the Giga, honestly! She had to win, because she is the Queen of Jurassic Park, obviously. But this jester prancing about in her court was bigger than her and a lot younger than her. Rexy was there from the beginning and she’s been in a few tough fights! The Big One gave Rexy iconic scars but she was young and had a massive advantage at that time. When she was up against the Indominous, she was fairly old and almost didn’t make it. And then with the Giga, she had been through and suffered a lot, and she was even older. Yet she still got a bit of damage in there. I was about to throw hands when they made it look like she had been killed. I liked that the Therizinosaurus got some hits in before Rexy got up to finish the giga off. It was a good way of killing the Giga without taking the moment away from the franchise’s most iconic dinosaur, even when the odds were against her. In true Rexy fashion, as seen with Blue, that one Carno and now the Therizinosaurus, she gave her assisting Dino a nod and let them go. I just hope that Alan, Ellie and Ian saw the end of that fight, I don’t want them thinking Rexy died. And she’s got family now? She’s not the only T-Rex any more?? Good stuff. She’s the Matriarch of that little family for sure.

Now for some things that brought down my opinion to an 8/10.

The characters should’ve all met up a lot sooner, I felt. Just as you were settling into the story of the Jurassic World characters, it would cut to scenes of the OG 3 and you were immediately sucked into it. So when it cut back you had to try and focus on them while trying not to wish it would go back to Alan, Ellie and Ian. If they’d met up sooner, you’d be able to focus on the Jurassic World characters’ stories as well as get more OG 3 content.

The plot line with Maisie and her mum. I did like it and found it interesting. But honestly it felt like I was watching a different film entirely. It didn’t feel like I was watching a Jurassic Park film, just another SciFi. I mean, I get that if they can clone dinosaurs from incomplete dna, then they can do it with humans, and I liked how they tied in “filling the gaps in the genome sequence” thing. But there was something about that plot line. I don’t know.

Disappointed we didn’t get any information on some of the other main characters from past films. When we saw Barry again, we got to see quick pictures of Vivian and Lowery, which was nice, but. How about Sarah Harding? Or maybe Zach and Gray? Or most of all, Timmy and Lex? Couldn’t they have asked Ariana if she didn’t mind putting down the paintbrush to do a small cameo? And I’m sure Joe Mazzelo would have loved to have at least done a scene. He still put Jurassic Park pictures and stuff on his Social Media. He’s still an actor! Timmy and Lex were iconic. And Claire could’ve at least had a line or something where she tells Owen that she was talking to her sister on the phone and that the boys are doing ok. But I am at least grateful we got our original 3 back.

The film kind of forgot that Alan was a beacon of survival in the franchise. His knowledge of dinosaurs helped them survive in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park ///. “We look for your son… in the direction he’s going” - Mr Udeski, 2001, gone but not forgotten. You stick with Alan, you do as he says, you live to tell the tale. It would’ve been great to have a “what do we do?” scene where they all just turn and look expectantly at Alan. Instead, he was just kind of there to do… not a lot of Dino related stuff to be honest. Ellie told him to get the locust, so he did, He could’ve tested Maisie’s knowledge of dinosaurs when they were just the three of them, like he did with Timmy. Or he could’ve had a scene to himself, a moment to remind the audience who the original Main Character was from the first film. I just love Alan so much, he needs the recognition he deserves!

They never found out what Dodgson did. They never found out that he hired Nedry. Imagine a scene where the OG 3 find that out and absolutely tear him a new one between the three of them. Alan, Ellie and Ian went through way too much in this franchise for them not to get the chance to verbally eviscerate Dodgson for his greed and desire to be ahead in the genetics race. That, along with them tweaking his character to be more like his book self, would just make it perfect. I’d eat it up. His “Dennis Nedry sends his regards” Dilo death was chef’s kiss though. I’d keep all that for sure!

I don’t know if it was just me but… there weren’t that many kills. The most we got was the breakout in Malta. BioSyn was full of Red Shirt employees! But they just got sent home? Did I miss a massacre or was this film just really merciful? Maybe it’s because the group was full of main characters from the pat films so they couldn’t kill off anyone there. So like, have some characters of note amongst the BioSyn workers and University students who get eaten! It just surprised me how so few people died in the final film of the Jurassic Park franchise.

Now for some miscellaneous things I couldn’t write a paragraph on:

I liked Alan and Ellie with Maisie. It was nice to see 2 characters from the very beginning, who had seen everything throughout the franchise, with a character who was not only new, but only just starting her life really. Thinking about it, Maisie was quite lucky! She got parents in her first film, and grandparents in her second! Nice. It would’ve been good to see Alan have a moment with her, maybe bringing back the whole “Alan isn’t good with kids but hey, he’s trying!”

Barry. Is. Back! And it was great to see him. Was very scared they were going to kill him off, although death by raptor would’ve been fitting. Sorry you never got to say goodbye to Delta, Barry. :(

Where did Zia go??? She was in the one scene at the beginning and then disappeared. Glad to see my boy Franklin again, shame we didn’t get to see his bestie Zia though.

Pleasantly surprised they let Dodgson’s protégée guy live. I was prepared to say goodbye as soon as we met him. He was prime Red Shirt material.

I liked how they branched out from just Dinosaurs! Of course Pterasaurs have been in for a while, and there was the Mosasaurus, but seeing the cute little Diictodon (took me back to Primeval with Sid and Nancy) in Malta was nice, and the Dimetrodon drowning itself to do a JP3 Spinosaurus reference was cool too! (Although I was a little disappointed it wasn’t an actual Spino. I know there’s no way a Spino would fit in those mines, and it did defy everything by killing a T-Rex, but I did love it. The roar, the design… it was cool).

Carno/Allo team up (Think it was an Allo)! Literally looked at each other like “it’s you and me against the world” before eating people left right and centre. Hope they’re doing ok.

Speaking of, I want to just gently hold the baby Carno. Even if it bites me. Dinosaur King taught me the Carnotaurus love!

I also want a Dimorphodon to sit on my arm like a parrot so we can also stare at strangers walking past like an old pirate in a tavern.

Alan triangulating around Beta with Owen and Maisie was great. You could see the respect he has for the creature, the fear he has for it, and the amazement that he’s helping control a Velociraptor all at the same time. Like, he’s seen the intelligence of these creatures and he’s seen them kill. He’s studied them and their habits. And now he has a measure of control over one. I just really liked that. This is just me as a Muldoon fan, but he could’ve slipped in a line like “Robert would be turning in his grave if he knew we were trying to save this thing” but hey it’s not too big of a deal.

I reckon, if they did want to confirm that kid from the first film was Owen, they could’ve done it in the same scene. When Alan was saying that they now know Raptors went straight for the throat instead of gutting, Owen could’ve said something about how he didn’t need to traumatise him with the raptor claw fossil when he was a kid. Would’ve put Owen in the Alan Grant Fanclub right next to Eric and Timmy, who he quotes - “I read your book” - and would explain how he got the job at Jurassic World in the first place. A tough navy guy who’s interest in Velociraptors means he knows stuff about them too. It just works.

I was kind of disappointed when Owen showed up and scared off those Dilos, kind of felt like “ok, there you go, years of wanting the dilophosaurus back and now you’ve had your scene. Shove off.” So I thought, hey, we’ve seen them again after all these years (not just a hologram), I am happy! Just hearing those little chirrups filled my heart right up. Shame they’ve only ever claimed Dennis. But I thought too soon! Very satisfying that the dinosaur that killed the guy he hired also came for him too. Just a shame we never saw a body or anything like that.

I’m actually surprised how happy I was to see Wu get a good ending. He was never a bad guy per se, but you did sort of think that if he died, he’d deserve it. Or I did, anyway. So to see how run down and exhausted he was, as well as how much he wanted to do something good with his work, it was really nice to see him fix one of his mistakes. That bit where he was celebrating in the end, throwing his hands up in excitement and relief? I was happy for him. Hope he got to retire somewhere nice and peaceful.

Can you believe this film cuts out TellTale’s Jurassic Park: The Game from being canon? Because I know Rexy crushed that can. Unless Dodgson hired someone to make an old Barbasol can look like it had been buried in mud, he must have recovered it when Jurassic World was being built. How he managed to sneak in and get it i don’t know. And why he’d go through the effort of recovering it when the embryos inside are useless. He’s sentimental I guess. I can understand that. Really added to his death scene.

I liked how it ended. There’s enough there to make another film if they wanted to, but also, it’s a really nice way to end it all. It all ties back to stuff talked about in the first film. I love it.

And one last thing before this whole thing is finally posted: it’s been 29 years since Jurassic Park was released. Despite being a couple in the first one, Alan and Ellie never kissed - cause, you know. They were stuck on an island with dinosaurs killing people all over the place, they didn’t have time to kiss (not looking at you Claire and Owen. People being attacked and killed by pterasaurs everywhere, not a good time to be making out). I think that’s why there’s a slew of people who are adamant Alan and Ellie were never a couple, somehow ignoring the whole “Ellie wants kids but Alan doesn’t” thing throughout the film. Strange running theme to have between two characters who are just friends right? Anyway, our hopes were dashed by Jurassic Park /// annoyingly following book canon. So thank you, Jurassic World: Dominion, for giving us that Alan x Ellie kiss we’ve been waiting for since 1993. And it happened when they were nice and safe away from dinosaurs. In the cinema I was in, someone literally said “it’s about time!” When she kissed him. Cause yeah, it was. Alan and Ellie are canon, y’all.

8/10 overall

Great film (in my opinion)

[the-metelatubbies]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL ANYONE IT IS OPPOSITE DAY

[ohheyitsjustbear]

Who are your tumblr crushes?

All of my moots 😂

I can't start tagging them nonners cos then they'd knoooooooow!

[soracities]

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

[pedro-pascal]

ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP (2019)

[beaft]

my mum forbade me to say anything to my dad about the top surgery thing, and it's just hit me how funny it would be if i got it done and didn't tell him and just waited for him to notice. i mean, what's he gonna say? "didn't you used to have tits?"

[cadaverkeys]

You guys rlly don't realise how much knowledge is still not committed to the internet. I find books all the time with stuff that is impossible to find through a search engine- most people do not put their magnum opus research online for free and the more niche a skill is the less likely you are to have people who will leak those books online. (Nevermind all the books written prior to the internet that have knowledge that is not considered "relevant" enough to digitise).

Whenever people say that we r growing up with all the world's knowledge at our fingertips...it's not necessarily true. Is the amount of knowledge online potentially infinite? Yes. Is it all knowledge? No. You will be surprised at the niche things you can discover at a local archive or library.

[wintercorrybriea]

[dendrochronologies]

maya angelou saying the funniest thing anyone has ever said about editing, which i can never let myself forget EVER AGAIN [x]

[shoomlah]

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

[ursulaklegay]

its so scary to put yourself out there but a SINGLE message saying "hi i loved what you made it touched me in some way" makes it all worth it 10000%

[gummygoblinn]

My favorite thing about “the bride and the ugly ass groom” tweet is that it is very indicative of their real relationship.

[atissi]

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

[thottybrucewayne]

I hate that the "Gen Alpha can't read." conversation so much because people are taking this as a chance to call children stupid and their parents monsters instead of having a very real discussion about how the education system is flawed by design, covid fucked up everything socialization wise, these parents having little access to child care and more work hours leads them to lean on things like tablets and phones to watch their kids more and more, teachers are more overworked and underpaid than ever leading to them leaving the profession in droves and that's only like the surface level issues. There's a myriad of factors at play here, not just that "The kids are spoiled screen-addicted brats with no imagination and their parents are childish spoiled millennials who just let coco melon handle everything."

[m3djed]

"he would not fucking say that" but you ever be looking at fanart and suddenly its "he would not fucking have abs"

[beaft]

google help me