The second film is really baffling. Just a weird film, politically, ethically, morally etc
So the billionaires company is going into receivership and the board wanting to generate profits approves a team to go and catch dinosaurs from a second resort island they were making so they can put them in a zoo and charge money. And like I get that’s ethically wrought with some issues but it’s really not that evil by big business standards. These guys didn’t make the dinosaur and it would be cool to seem a dinosaur in a zoo.
So Ian Malcolm (backed by the original billionaire) gets sent with a team of scientists and environmentalists to stop them/rescue another person there. But it’s like the dinosaurs aren’t indigenous to the island, they’re genetically engineered creations displacing whatever rare fauna and flora was on that isolated island in the first place.
The company has hired a big game hunter whose meant to be sinister and really wants to kill a T-Rex, but Peter Posthelwaite plays him outright heroically, he even has an arc where he becomes disillusioned with killing animals. He’s basically stoic, pragmatic and always correct. The “good guys” sabotage the dinosaur catching operation leading to dozens of humans getting killed. Even then the “bad guys” capture them and could have killed them or simply just leave them to fend for themselves, they put their differences aside so they can all escape together.
And then in this life or death situation of a forced march to the sea through raptor territory, Vince Vaughan’s character still sabotages Peter Posthelwaite’s ammunition to pursue his own environmentalist agenda. I mean at that point he didn’t know it would be used against a T-Rex at a crucial moment, instead he might have killed them all had the guy not been able to shoot a raptor or something in self defence. Like it would make sense if he was being portrayed as an unreasonable hippy environmentalist but the film thinks he’s cool and good.
IIRC the book was better in that regard: there the poacher team were just like a pair of random dipshits who wanted to sell a baby T. Rex and get rich quick and the research expedition was some trust fund baby paleontologist’s ill-advised pet project. Like a lot of the same pieces are there, but they actually fit together in a way that makes sense instead of what genuinely seems like a bunch of changes to make even more things to sell as toys.
The Lost World is such a bizarre and worse movie. It has the production values and some very cool set pieces that give it the excitement a JP movie should have, but, as you laid it out, in the service of a much crappier storyline and annoying characters.
Also, Spielberg sometimes likes to have soyface point-at-the-screen moments in his movies. The t. rex terrorizing San Diego is one such moment, and the nuclear blasted refrigerator in Crystal Skull is another such moment. Truly, the duality of man can be seen in his occasionally extremely baffling film-making decisions.
As a kid watching it I didn’t realize the steep drop off in quality, because as you say high production dinosaur set pieces that I thought was cool. Also I had a bunch of cool action figures with nets and stuff for catching dinosaurs. But it’s so worse.
But then it also weighs into the at the time current debate in palaeontological circles about whether a T-Rex would care for it’s offspring taking a definitive stance on yes, which is kind of neat, but then back to trash like completely unnecessary San Diego part.
I still like it more than 3 even though Sam Neil comes back for that.
The second film is really baffling. Just a weird film, politically, ethically, morally etc
So the billionaires company is going into receivership and the board wanting to generate profits approves a team to go and catch dinosaurs from a second resort island they were making so they can put them in a zoo and charge money. And like I get that’s ethically wrought with some issues but it’s really not that evil by big business standards. These guys didn’t make the dinosaur and it would be cool to seem a dinosaur in a zoo.
So Ian Malcolm (backed by the original billionaire) gets sent with a team of scientists and environmentalists to stop them/rescue another person there. But it’s like the dinosaurs aren’t indigenous to the island, they’re genetically engineered creations displacing whatever rare fauna and flora was on that isolated island in the first place.
The company has hired a big game hunter whose meant to be sinister and really wants to kill a T-Rex, but Peter Posthelwaite plays him outright heroically, he even has an arc where he becomes disillusioned with killing animals. He’s basically stoic, pragmatic and always correct. The “good guys” sabotage the dinosaur catching operation leading to dozens of humans getting killed. Even then the “bad guys” capture them and could have killed them or simply just leave them to fend for themselves, they put their differences aside so they can all escape together.
And then in this life or death situation of a forced march to the sea through raptor territory, Vince Vaughan’s character still sabotages Peter Posthelwaite’s ammunition to pursue his own environmentalist agenda. I mean at that point he didn’t know it would be used against a T-Rex at a crucial moment, instead he might have killed them all had the guy not been able to shoot a raptor or something in self defence. Like it would make sense if he was being portrayed as an unreasonable hippy environmentalist but the film thinks he’s cool and good.
IIRC the book was better in that regard: there the poacher team were just like a pair of random dipshits who wanted to sell a baby T. Rex and get rich quick and the research expedition was some trust fund baby paleontologist’s ill-advised pet project. Like a lot of the same pieces are there, but they actually fit together in a way that makes sense instead of what genuinely seems like a bunch of changes to make even more things to sell as toys.
The Lost World is such a bizarre and worse movie. It has the production values and some very cool set pieces that give it the excitement a JP movie should have, but, as you laid it out, in the service of a much crappier storyline and annoying characters.
Also, Spielberg sometimes likes to have soyface point-at-the-screen moments in his movies. The t. rex terrorizing San Diego is one such moment, and the nuclear blasted refrigerator in Crystal Skull is another such moment. Truly, the duality of man can be seen in his occasionally extremely baffling film-making decisions.
As a kid watching it I didn’t realize the steep drop off in quality, because as you say high production dinosaur set pieces that I thought was cool. Also I had a bunch of cool action figures with nets and stuff for catching dinosaurs. But it’s so worse.
But then it also weighs into the at the time current debate in palaeontological circles about whether a T-Rex would care for it’s offspring taking a definitive stance on yes, which is kind of neat, but then back to trash like completely unnecessary San Diego part.
I still like it more than 3 even though Sam Neil comes back for that.
The “Godzilla” part of the movie is so bad and doesn’t make sense. The lost world is basically two separate movies
It truly is a centrist film. Perhaps environmentalists an big game hunters can be both good guys with valid points?