Jurassic Park III & Expectations

[JuntMonkey]

Every once in a while I'll see somebody say how horrible Jurassic Park III is. Look at these three statements:

A) You are of at least mild intelligence.

B) You saw Jurassic Park III of your own free will.

C) You were disappointed by or hated Jurassic Park III.

A, B, and C cannot all be logically true of the same person.

If you're illogical: what did you expect? There aren't many people who would still want to see III after seeing Lost World. If you're one of those people, obviously you just wanted to see III for the dinosaur special effects. Right? Who would see III expecting a good film in the standard sense?

Did you think it would be another "brilliant" movie with moral parables, chaos theory, man-playing-God, and the dangers of uncontrolled science like the first one? Did you want there to be another heart-warming message about learning to accept fatherhood?

Jurassic Park III is perfect for what it is - a fun movie where you get to see dinosaurs running around doing crazy things. They pull out all the special-effects stops by doing the water and flying sequences that they wanted to do all along. The movie is much better than II because it's dropped the pretense of trying to be a "film" (for lack of a better term) and for the aforementioned sequences. It's arguably better than the first for the same reasons.

Roger Ebert gave it 3 stars (same he gave to the first), and said essentially what I said in the last paragraph.

[rothko]

A, B, and C can very easily be true. i find it hard to believe that you don't know that and you must simply be displaying some humour.

[JuntMonkey]

[ QUOTE ]
A, B, and C can very easily be true. i find it hard to believe that you don't know that and you must simply be displaying some humour.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will change B to "You saw Jurassic Park III of your own free will and expected to like it."

You know going into JP3 that it's going to be a bare-bones story that's just a cheap excuse to get the characters back on the island. The reason you're seeing it is to see CGI and animatronic dinosaurs, which JP3 clearly delivers on far better than its predecessors.

If you hate that type of movie in general that's fine, but then you wouldn't have gone in expecting to like it and would therefore be exempt. Obviously there are always a few exceptions, but the fact that such a large subset of people consciously went to see JP3 and hated it shows a massive level of idiocy.

[Nez477]

I liked Jurassic Park 1&2 for various reasons. One was groundbreaking, pretty sweet plot, enjoyable throughout. 2 had more comedy, was cheesy, yes, but I still thought they did a good job creating some interest in the storyline and whatnot.

Three was just dinosaur eyecandy ridiculousness.

I like 1&2, saw 3 opening weekend expecting to like it and be entertained, and I was neither. The dinosaur interactions were boring, I didn't care about any of the dumb characters (Sam Neil's especially), and in general just wanted the dinosoars to eat them all in the first 5 minutes.

I wasn't entertained or interested in 3. But I liked the first two.

[rothko]

[ QUOTE ]
I liked Jurassic Park 1&2 for various reasons. One was groundbreaking, pretty sweet plot, enjoyable throughout. 2 had more comedy, was cheesy, yes, but I still thought they did a good job creating some interest in the storyline and whatnot.

Three was just dinosaur eyecandy ridiculousness.

I like 1&2, saw 3 opening weekend expecting to like it and be entertained, and I was neither. The dinosaur interactions were boring, I didn't care about any of the dumb characters (Sam Neil's especially), and in general just wanted the dinosoars to eat them all in the first 5 minutes.

I wasn't entertained or interested in 3. But I liked the first two.

[/ QUOTE ]

that's simply illogical and impossible.

[Blarg]

Not a fan of anything but the dinosaurs in these, but the dinos are great.

[PokerFox]

[ QUOTE ]
Roger Ebert gave it 3 stars (same he gave to the first), and said essentially what I said in the last paragraph.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you believe this before Roger Ebert told you? Honest question.

[diebitter]

Yah, I went into JP3 with no real expectations except to be reasonably entertained, and it did what it said on the tin. I think sequels by different directors are sometimes expected to abysmal and whether or not they are doesn't seem to come into play, they are just branded that way.

JP3 is a good example of such a thing. It's a fine movie, and I'd be happy to see a 4 sometime soon.

I still think JP is the best one (and JP2, apart from some really terrific sequences with the 2 T-Rexes, is a bit of a dud).


Having said that, there was a time when being a sequel guaranteed being really sucky...and we had plenty of lousy sequels....Jaws sequels started it I think, and pretty much any comedy movie sequel typically was rank.

[JuntMonkey]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I liked Jurassic Park 1&2 for various reasons. One was groundbreaking, pretty sweet plot, enjoyable throughout. 2 had more comedy, was cheesy, yes, but I still thought they did a good job creating some interest in the storyline and whatnot.

Three was just dinosaur eyecandy ridiculousness.

I like 1&2, saw 3 opening weekend expecting to like it and be entertained, and I was neither. The dinosaur interactions were boring, I didn't care about any of the dumb characters (Sam Neil's especially), and in general just wanted the dinosoars to eat them all in the first 5 minutes.

I wasn't entertained or interested in 3. But I liked the first two.

[/ QUOTE ]

that's simply illogical and impossible.

[/ QUOTE ]

[JuntMonkey]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Roger Ebert gave it 3 stars (same he gave to the first), and said essentially what I said in the last paragraph.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you believe this before Roger Ebert told you? Honest question.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't remember. I saw III by myself on the morning it came out in July of 2001 and liked it, I don't know if I had read the review yet.

I realized at some point that the first one really isn't that great and that people endowing it with "classic" status were going too far. And I hate Spielberg's kids and the trite emotional parts.