Let me set the scene for you: a brilliant scientist working on a project manages to create an enhanced edition of something or other. It is smarter, faster, deadlier, whatever. It inevitably escapes control, and the protagonist must work with the first edition of that something (or IS the first edition) to destroy the new one, lest it run loose and threaten millions of lives.
Based on the trailer, this is basically the plot of Jurassic World. It is also the plot of the following:
- Alien: Resurrection
- Star Trek: Nemesis
- Godzilla (2014)
- Godzilla vs. Biollante (all the Godzilla films if we’re honest, but a few more directly)
- Carnosaur 2
- Carnosaur 3
- Robocop 2
- Terminator 2
- At this point I got bored but I figure if you could search a database of movie pitches for the phrase “has to team up with” then you’d get about a 75% hit rate on what I’m talking about here
The whole list is a stack of science fiction sequels. Just like Jurassic World. They all boil down to “they made one like in the first movie, but WORSE, and now they have to team up (see, there’s that phrase again) beat it!” It smacks of being out of ideas. Now, that’s not to say they don’t then use it to astonishing effect: Terminator 2 in particular stands out as a classic on that list. But they still started with what is now an ancient sequel trope.
So what we’ve seen in the JW trailer is that JW is now opened, a brilliant geneticist now running the park has decided to create a new hybrid of some sort that’s super smart and is going to threaten everyone unless Chris Pratt builds a motorcycle gang out of Velociraptors to go take it down blah blah. And I just can’t manage to think it won’t also be ass. Why? Because nothing they show in the trailer looks like it’s aiming for anything other than a common action sequel. As cool as the Jurassic Park novel and first film was, they look like they’ve crammed into it one of the old “welp i’m out of ideas” ideas.
It’s not like I’m giving it shit for being an action movie. I like action movies: they have their place and their purpose and can be wonderful things. Just, come on. Challenge us. I know I’ve said I was disappointed by Pacific Rim, but that was mostly because it didn’t take itself seriously enough. It was a modern take on the old monster movie action style and it did an incredible job with that. So why do I get the impression that
And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they couldn’t afford to hire someone good with trailers to show off anything other than eye candy and the Raptor Biker Gang shit, and it turns out there’s a lot of deep characterization and plot building in between the overbearing CGI shots of hahaha sorry, I can’t keep a straight face anymore. This is going to be ass. It sure will be popular though. Yeah, you knew the whole story going into it and nothing was a surprise, but damn did you see that? Velociraptors!
It’s guaranteed to make billions.