Media Blog Project 2: "Jurassic World"

             For my second media blog project, I chose to do option #4, a media product review on the newest movie in the Jurassic Park films, “Jurassic World.” I decided on Jurassic World because its new and I liked the movie. I had high hopes for the film and thankfully, it did not disappoint. Here is a small clip of some of the beautiful CG work the film crew did and the official trailer.
      The first "Jurassic Park" was made in 1993 and was directed by the very famous Steven Spielberg, who was also an executive producer on the latest movie, "Jurassic World" as well. The 1993 film was groundbreaking for many reasons. It was by far the most advanced movie, in terms of special effects or props, of its day. Not only did it have great action scenes, but it also broke almost every record the box office had, including first day/night sales. The original movie featured Sam Neill and Laura Dern as the main characters, as well as two young kids. All of "Jurassic Park's" records have long been broken, but the movie makers are probably very happy to see the newest installment in the series, "Jurassic World" shattered almost every record once again. I believe the success of this film had a lot to do with the original, and that many remakes of older movies have done very well at the box office as of late.

                The film was directed by Colin Trevorrow, who has also been announced as the director of Star Wars: Episode IX. Yes, I said Episode IX. He has very little on his resume, but I think Jurassic World spoke for itself. One the movies main actors is Chris Pratt, who was on Parks and Recreation and Guardians of the Galaxy. He does a good job of bringing some comedy to the movie, for without him, the only comical part was the young boy’s haircut.

                The movie starts with a "stereotypical suburb" family, whose kids are sent off to visit their aunt, who works at the Jurassic Theme Park. The kids arrive to find an aunt (Bryce DallasHoward) who doesn’t have the time to kick it, so she sends them on their own. After dealing with the boys, the aunt visits with the dinosaur behavior expert (Chris Pratt) near the new indominus rex pen. They notice that the dinosaur is missing so Chris Pratt’s character, Owen, heads inside to take a look. The dinosaur wasn’t missing, for it used one of its hybrid-dino powers to make himself undetectable. It breaks out of the poorly secured pen and begins his rampage. Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, Claire, realizes she is responsible for her nephews, so she asks Owen to help her get them.

                According to businessinsider.com, Jurassic World is the only movie to make $500 million in its first weekend. It did pretty well at the box office and I’m sure Netflix will make another large fortune off of it. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 22. Variety.com claims they sold almost  three million units in the first week alone. 

                This movie was similar to the other “Jurassic” movies, but it also had its differences, for in this movie people are everywhere. In the first movie it was a handful of people, but not in Jurassic World, so there is a bit more chaos and action. Although this movie was really good, it did have inconsistencies from the original story line. It seemed like they picked and chose what they wanted to keep and didn’t want to keep. There was no park that ever opened up in the past movies, so for them to start twenty years down the road like they had the park up the whole time, didn’t fit in my opinion. Some of the stereotypes that one may notice is the role Chris Pratt plays, which is the tough-cool guy role. The children in the movie definitely reflect the styles of the youth today. The teenage kid, played by Nick Robinson, is the stereotypical teen, who has way better things to do with his time than go to some theme park. 

                This movie is important for us to see what dinosaurs may have been like. It does reflect that our movie industry lacks good ideas, for we are remaking buttloads of old movies. This movie had a large target audience. From middle aged people, who loved the original, to young kids, who get to experience what I did back in 1994, they will enjoy this movie. Although I'm sure it doesn’t do very well among 50+. However, it's main audience was most likely people of my age group, 26-40 because they would have seen the original, probably liked it and would've likely wanted to take their kids to it. Parents want their kids to like the same stuff they did as a kid, and this movie is a great way for that to happen. 

                The movie’s strengths are the CG work and story line. The CG was flawless, in my opinion, for it had bright colors and daytime footage, unlike its predecessor. I loved that they added more dinosaurs like the huge aquatic one, but it did have fails also. The "t-rex-headed" flying dinosaur was poorly designed, in my opinion. Its biggest weakness is the casting for the youngest kid. This is a good movie and I think it comes close to the original, but I still like the original a little better. I think the movie is very memorable and it has already announced sequels, so I think it will stick around for years to come. Many critics disagree with my review though like Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern, who blurts “Mr. Pratt’s charm is no match for the crude filmmaking or the stupid plot that keeps him running around in a constant state of artificial animation.” There will always be those who don’t enjoy movies like this. Here is his actual review. Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post states "The set pieces, admittedly, are impressive, especially when the benighted Indominus stomps her way to freedom, crushing, impaling and of course eating 

everything in her path."Her review is a little kinder, but overall, the critics were pretty harsh on this 

record breaking film that also did great in DVD and Blu-ray sales.

            
                Here is a link to some tweets about "Jurassic World." The movie did a great job of bringing their brand to life. Instead of making just a boring Facebook page, they made what looked to be the page of an actual Jurassic Theme Park. It is very interactive and is very original. It has maps, schedules, and even "fresh baked churro's" advertised on the site, which gives a very real feel to it. I think we'll see more movies use these unorthodox methods because of its success. Although I don’t use social media ever, I did get the opinions of others on the movie, young and old. Honestly, nobody I know disliked it. My mother, 51, and my sister, 13, both loved it, and my mom hates everything. Yeah, there may have been some parts of the story that could have done better, but that doesn’t make it a terrible movie. I own the movie and would pay another eight bucks at the movie theater to see its sequel.

                Overall, I would recommend this movie to anyone, for it is a good waste of a couple hours. I did learn that the Jurassic Park series dropped the ball on the velociraptor though. Not so fun fact: velociraptors were the size of chickens, but boy does there name sound scary. The Utahraptor is the really scuurrrry one.