So, we went to a matinee instead and here are some things we fixated on.
Claire, the female protagonist, wears HEELS the WHOLE MOVIE even when running from dinosaurs and walking through the jungle and they are not sensible kitten heels, they are teetery spiked tall things. Ben is worried the actress will have ongoing pain for the rest of her life. He also was annoyed that the dinos had tracking devices, but no one knew where they were at any given time unless they were told to find them.
What other DNA is in that thing? It had thumbs and a long memory and was devious and enjoyed killing for the sake of watching prey fall. I call human. Owen even says, "That thing out there? That's no dinosaur." I also think the next movie will have some kind of hybrids, like Dwayne Johnson size and up dudes with scales and spikes. Because-what good is a scientific application if it can't make you rich? Since the theme park experience was becoming dull and since many tourists were made into snacks, I foresee no more entertainment value in the science. Nothing generates revenue quite like war and religion and the age of dinos fossils fly in the face of Biblical teachings, so military it is! (Just take a peek at a church with two 'campuses' within a half hour of me and probably you, Daystar.)
Plus, in the lab at the end-spines in sci-fi blue glowing tanks. Human...ish spines. I bet that's the weak point, our puny spines can't hold up a skull covered in spikes and filled with jaggedy teeth. Women routinely get backaches from hauling around boobs all day.
Back to the plot:
I don't think pterosaurs would eat humans. I think they ate fish and besides, chubby white tourists would be way too heavy, even for a 12 foot wingspanned critter to lift. Take into consideration that they probably also had hollow bones (like birds!) and they would weigh about as much as a dog. But, I do think they could peck a hole right in your face and probably kill you after they landed on you since their faces were basically 1/2 dagger. The question is-would they see humans as edible? (I am seeing where some had wing spans of 30 feet and weighed 550 pounds. Shit! That's HUGE. Spoiler Alert: none are that size in the movie.)
I had no problems at all with
The raptors and I rex have a chat, which first was just confusing as the I rex was raised in isolation, but then it came out that she had raptor DNA as well in that mix, so...just like all humans can speak to all other humans via genes, so can raptors. Or, maybe I am being too high thinking. I imagine my father's dog, Butterbean, could 'chat' with other dogs even though he's being raised in doggie isolation. The raptors and I rex are the only females in the movie to speak face to face, but as they are obviously discussing
I did like that they explained the dinosaurs appearance being not at all like dinos actually looked as human interference-they were patched together using what would look good and fill in the gaps. That explains why none of them have feathers when it's been decided that practically all of them did, even T rex. I won't go into the science of how just some cuttlefish genes in the soup could not attribute to the skin of the resulting animal changing colors like a cuttlefish. But I am totally behind the whole 'regular dinos are dull, let's make something cooler!" mentality and also riding baby triceratopses around the petting zoo. I am all over that! I hope while they were ramping up dino coolness, they also did something about those boring giraffes and monkeys at the poor folks zoos for those of us who can't zip off to Costa Rica.
I loved that the hero was the T rex from the original park. What is a T rex's life span? (I looked, 30 years!) Also, liked the plug for Ian Malcolm's book all in the movie, the many nods to the original JP and that the boss fight included a raptor riding a T rex into battle with the I Rex, who changed scale at whim and was ultimately eaten ON THE PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY by a (freakishly oversized) masosaur. Which means it could have hopped out and snacked on people at any point and didn't making it the single best-behaved meat eater in the entire four movie franchise AND the book. Good on you, masosaur! I am just assuming the cuttlefish DNA did not kick in and the I rex and masosaur did not chat a bit and swim off together. And make babies.
In all, despite our massive misgivings into the actual science of the movie (which is why I have tried and failed several times to write about... UGH...Interstellar) it IS a good monster movie and granted, I have never listed all the reasons my favorite X-Men could not do this or that with their humany bodies, including have boobs that size with such tiny waists, not to mention have the ability to phase through solid objects, make playing cards into tiny bombs, pop out some claws or, you know, FLY. Plus, in Sharknado 2, Wil Wheaton (and his wife) gets eaten by a shark on an airplane that is actively flying in the sky.
So I really can enjoy a movie for the sake of the movie and suspend my beliefs for a while. The main gripes in this movie are not the sci-fi bits, but what didn't have to happen that made me go HUH. The heels, the 20 year old engine with 20 year old gas and spark plugs and oil and coolant cranking and then rolling away on tires that had not gone flat or dry rotted and the belts did not snap, the high-traction plexiglass (that's sarcasm there) gyrosphere not leaving any sort of mark or getting any sort of mark from rolling around on the poop, grass and rock covered plains filled with dinos and you can't tell me some little shit hasn't tried playing bumper cars with the dinosaurs. No WAY that thing would not be on a track. And the fact that the boys had VIP access wrist bands, but were waiting in lines. And right now at Disney World you can track your party via their wrist bands on your phone. How were the boys lost for half the movie? Did no one at the park have the park app?
It's a fun movie and the layout of the theme park is awesome, it's totally believable as a space and you can go look at the park cams. It did miss that initial OOMPH of the first movie, coming up over the rise with Alan and Ellie and there were motherfucking DINOSAURS just WALKING AROUND. That was my Star Wars moment, the moment when you totally totally believe, "This is really happening!" Gray opening the window to his balcony, much like this movie, just didn't pack the same punch, though it was pretty to see.
