Which Jurassic Park sequel is better?

[up_the_hampipe]

Had a debate with a family member at Christmas about which Jurassic Park sequel was better. I said the second one because it was still Spielberg, some memorable death scenes and the T-Rex in San Diego was fun[nb]and stupid, but mostly fun[/nb]. However, he said the third one was much better because of the Spinosaurus and more action packed into a shorter run time.

Sure, it's probably a pointless argument. But what do YOU think?!

[Sam]

There was a thread very recently about this.

I reckon the third is better than second. Damning with faint praise as the 3rd is still a pretty lacklustre affair.

[Old Nehamkin]

The third one is the best because of this bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__UjBbz2PoA

[El Unicornio, mang]

The second one. It has a fair bit of naffness but does have a cool opening and that fantastic set piece with the breaking glass on the truck.

[Thomas]

I'd have to say second, because the typical American family get-parents-back-together plot of the third annoys me. And how many characters die?

Spoiler alert

Four, I read. 1) bloke on boat. 2) few seconds of camcorder footage of this guy. 3) Cooper, with about two lines of dialogue. 4) minor character Udesky, boo hoo.

[close]

Even

Spoiler alert

Billy

[close]

survives his bloodied river escapade. And we get about three seconds

Spoiler alert

of 'oh no Dad's died!' before he emerge from the water

[close]

and triumphant music plays. Spoiler tags there, not sure if necessary.

I've always liked the second, really. Yeah. The second. Feels like a real world, and I like the mottled, rusty colours. Alan's palaeontology lecture is the best part of the third film (well, save for that scene posted by Old Nehamkin). And Billy's gosh at being a dinosaur expert.

'Suchomimus?'
'No, bigger.'
'Baryonyx?'

Pffft.

[up_the_hampipe]

The third one is the best because of this bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__UjBbz2PoA

I'd forgotten about that bit. Big laughs in the cinema when that happened.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Also the second one has the bit with the raptors coming through the long grass, which is pretty creepy.

[up_the_hampipe]

One of my favourite Jurassic Park scenes in the whole trilogy is from the second film, when that man is stalked and killed by a pack of those tiny things. Sorry I can't be arsed to look up the name.

[El Unicornio, mang]

That's the thing with Spielberg, even in his mediocre films you can expect a couple of cool little memorable moments like that. The third one was made by someone else so is lacking that spark, I think, even though the scripts are probably about as good.

[Thomas]

Some of the CGI in the first film really is incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1koa2xAxCAw&t=1m55s

Twenty years on, through the most rapid developments in visual effects, and it's still totally convincing. This alternate score is beautiful, too -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w-58hQ9dLk

[Serge]

Also the second one has the bit with the raptors coming through the long grass, which is pretty creepy.

Oh yes. The bit at around 0.44 in this clip is possibly my favourite shot in any of the three films. I also love it when the ship carrying the T Rex suddenly appears out of the mist at speed about 50 yards away from the dock.

[Hangthebuggers]

A memorable moment in number III was seeing the Spinosaurus just standing there, watching them.... Creeped me out.

[up_the_hampipe]

A memorable moment in number III was seeing the Spinosaurus just standing there, watching them.... Creeped me out.

[VegaLA]

I'm going to go with 3 simply because Sam Neil was on board. I recall being quite gutted that he was not in the second so I did not bother see this one at the cinema.

Sam Neil.

[Benevolent Despot]

I just watched a clip of 3 and it is a film at the start of the last decade's fashion of draining colour from the screen and making everything high contrast. I.e. the depressing look.

The only other criticism I can offer is that I can't remember any of it, because I can't remember any of it.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Actually, I've just remembered that Vince Vaughn is in II, and I don't like him very much. His character is one of those annoying smug hip guys who has lush patter with the ladies, and is unrealistically cool and heroic under pressure. Basically a less good Jeff Goldblum.

imdb give II 6.4 and III 5.8, for what it's worth.

[Glebe]

Second one is pretty poor as I recall, apart from a couple of classic Spielberg tense action scenes. Some very disappointing FX work from ILM too. The third one was watchable, top-notch FX in that one (and yes I know it was made several years later, but that's no guarantee of quality. It's astonishing that the same FX team that astonished with the stuff in Hollow Man can give us the phoney CG Johnny Knoxville head in Men in Black 3. Come on ILM, pull your finger out and show some consistency.).

[biggytitbo]

Some of the CGI in the first film really is incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1koa2xAxCAw&t=1m55s

Twenty years on, through the most rapid developments in visual effects, and it's still totally convincing. This alternate score is beautiful, too -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w-58hQ9dLk

The CGI in the first film is so much better than anything since, not because its technically better, because obviously it isnt, but because Spielberg filmed JP1 without virtual cameras.


CGI camera movement has pretty much ruined action cinema the last 20 years - they destroy any suspension of disbelief and make everything feel like a shrill video game.

[Thomas]

Yeah, I had that with The Hobbit 2: The New Batch the other day. I know you're not really supposed to believe there's a camera in the room with the characters, filming the fiction, but when a camera angle swoops and dives and rolls and hovers fifty feet in the air, all in one incredibly smooth shot, I feel a bit 'ah, so none of this is "real," then.'

Mind you, I was taken in by Gravity, and a lot of that is pure CGI. But space doesn't really have anywhere to ground a camera, unlike Hobbity caves and castles.

[biggytitbo]

Yeah Jackson is by far the worse offender, the camera whizzing about in all sorts of impossible directions. It ruined the second 2 Rings films (the first one is more restrained and all the better for it) and made King Kong unwatchable for me.

[Old Nehamkin]

It's astonishing that the same FX team that astonished with the stuff in Hollow Man can give us the phoney CG Johnny Knoxville head in Men in Black 3. Come on ILM, pull your finger out and show some consistency.).

That was Men in Black 2, cuh. Incidentally, Men in Black 3 is actually pretty watchable with some surprisingly good performances, but that's another discussion for another thread.

[biggytitbo]

That was Men in Black 2, cuh. Incidentally, Men in Black 3 is actually pretty watchable with some surprisingly good performances, but that's another discussion for another thread.

Very similar to Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon too.

[Glebe]

That was Men in Black 2, cuh. Incidentally, Men in Black 3 is actually pretty watchable with some surprisingly good performances, but that's another discussion for another thread.

D'oh, yeah, of course. Yes MIB3 at least tries to do something different and has a bit of an emotional kick. Still lacking something though, and in fact it doesn't really feel like an MIB film.

[Serge]

My favourite part of III is the quick shot of the pteranodon emerging from the mist on the bridge (at about 30 seconds into this clip). Unfortunately, watching that has just reminded me that Téa Leoni is in III, which is why it could never be better than II for me.

[Old Nehamkin]

RE: The Hobbit vs. LOTR- Yeah, from memory the Middle Earth of Fellowship of the Ring feels much more... earthy. It feels more like somewhere you could actually go to and walk around in. Distinctly live-actiony. I can't remember much of the second and third ones, but The Hobbit films do so much of that whizzing cgi camera stuff that it often feels like a theme park ride and the whole world of the film ends up coming across as sort of unreal.

[Replies From View]

Seems bizarre to me that Jackson wouldn't want to keep the worlds consistent.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

The CGI in the first film is so much better than anything since, not because its technically better, because obviously it isnt, but because Spielberg filmed JP1 without virtual cameras.


CGI camera movement has pretty much ruined action cinema the last 20 years - they destroy any suspension of disbelief and make everything feel like a shrill video game.

Agreed.  But it's also worth noting a few other things about JP1:  Firstly, they dinosaurs were animated by stop motion animators using stop motion skeleton things, whose movements were then tracked in the computer - which means they were using people who already knew how to make things look heavy.  A lot of films afterwards didn't do this.

Secondly, because their mindset is still in stop motion (that's how JP1 was originally going to be done until Spielberg saw a test midway through production), there's actually a lot less  CGI in the film than you might think.  Pretty much every close-up is either puppet or animatronic, it's only where the dinosaurs are doing things that you couldn't do with either of those that it's actually CGI, such as running.

Finally, like you say, the camera is always natural, which makes a massive difference.  But also the fact that dinosaur skin is supposed to be dry and leathery means it was much more within the realm of CGI at the time.  Water, fur, and the complexities of human movement (or anything we'd actually recognise from real life) was still well beyond them.

[Pepotamo1985]

CGI camera movement has pretty much ruined action cinema the last 20 years - they destroy any suspension of disbelief and make everything feel like a shrill video game.

Jurassic Park the First also had more than its fair share of animatronics and dazzling 'analogue' effects, which means it will always look immeasurably better than a strictly digital counterpart.

I've been wanting to start a thread about this for some time, but never got round to it - anyway, is it just me, or does CGI generally age terribly? And is this because the technology is improving at such a rate that what was legitimately once mind blowing is rendered visually redundant ever more quickly, or did it always look a bit/a lot rubbish?

Special effects dating with alacrity is nothing new, of course (I mean, just think of all those rubbish monsters and aliens from 50s B-Movies, eh?), but I ask because whenever I've rewatched films from a few years ago, the CGI has almost invariably looked absolutely terrible - and there's a strong correlation between how grandiose the FX are, and how gunk they look. The cityscapes and sprawling environments of Zodiac (2007) look perfectly realistic (unless you specifically know what to look for and where), whereas pretty much the entirety of the SW prequels are unwatchable (and not just because of the plots/scripts/acting).

Similarly, modern films which rely on FX often look absolutely horrendous too - I'm thinking The Thing prequel (which, to add insult to injury, was originally FXed using animatronics etc. and then the effects had CGI layered on top of them for absolutely no fucking reason at all).

[El Unicornio, mang]

I think CGI in live action films should only be used to subtly enhance things, or to render static objects like skyscrapers. When they make CGI people/animals/monsters, I always think it looks bad alongside real actors. No matter how much effort and detail they put into making it look real, something about it always looks off.

[Replies From View]

And is this because the technology is improving at such a rate that what was legitimately once mind blowing is rendered visually redundant ever more quickly, or did it always look a bit/a lot rubbish?

It always looked like that - it's not a retrospect thing.