TAKE ONE Presents... - The Dinopod 7: Outro

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Simon and Jim meet to wrap up the Jurassic Park franchise (for now) with a discussion about what they learned overall, the various themes that emerged as they analysed every film, and some discussion of what's coming next for the franchise including some thoughts on JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH (2025). Content warnings: sexual abuse, climate change and environmental disaster. Our theme song is Jurassic Park Remix by Gabriel Filósofo available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/gfilosofo/jurassic-park-remix

Hello and welcome to Take Ones, The Diner Pod, a podcast where we've watched all the Jurassic Park Friends, the Dinerpod, a podcast where we've watched all the Jurassic Park friends. franchise films in order, contextualising them and critiquing them. I'm Sam Boy, and I'm joined, as always, by my co-host, Jim Ross. Hello! So we're here to wrap up, wrap things up on the Jurassic Park franchise for now, because we've been through all the films in previous episodes and discuss them. And we're just going to wrap things up, see what our thoughts are on the franchise of the whole, see what the directors of the franchise are doing now, talk about our rankings, and look at

what is in the future for the Jurassic Park franchise, what is going to happen to this media property which they are determined to continue pounding content out of. Similar to what we did with the Alien franchise, and I'm sure we'll also discuss the overlaps between the Alien franchise and the Jurassic Park franchise as we crack on. So I think if you have no objection, Jim, we should start with our rankings. Yep, let's do it. I've come to terms with doing rankings to do these sort of things.

I think I did the Xenopod one under a lot more What I was going to say, I was listening back to our Zenopop episode and you were very much presenting yourself as under duress, whereas this time around, you did your ranking before the last episode we recorded and sent it to me before it and just seemed very gung-ho, all-in-on-rankings.

Yeah, yeah, that's me, that's me, you know, all-in-on-rankings. What I will say is, like, rankings for this, I'm probably fine with doing it. If you ever see me talking about the virtues of award season and the Oscars, that's probably a sign I've been kidnapped and you should send help. I was going to say, you're doing your idea. Rankings less so. I can flex on them a little bit, but I'll have some red lines. You'll be ranking the best picture winners by the time the next Oscars rolled around.

I see you. So do you want to go first? I've got your ranking list in front of me. boxed where you've got very nice matchy posters. Is that a patron feature? That's a deliberate choice. I'm all about the aesthetics. No, that looks nice.

Are we going top to bottom or bottom to top? Your choice. All right, well let's save any surprises for later because I think it should be pretty apparent to everybody that I've got the original at the top. That's been the best of this franchise and the one which I

revisit the most. I think there's a most interesting themes, has the best execution. You know, we've discussed it, other people have discussed it, we've got sources throughout the pod have discussed it, it is the best one pretty, and I'm big news, so we knew when we selected the Jurassic Park franchise, so it would be similar to the alien in that. The first film is The Masterpiece. It is a great film that still stands a test of time is an absolute classic, and then it's downhill from there, different extents of downhill from there for Alien and Jurassic

Park, but yeah. Okay, so in second place, I have, I actually I wrestled with this one a bit. I've actually ended up putting the Lost World. And the reason for it is, so to explain this, I probably need to put it side by side of what I've put in third, and I've put Jurassic

World in third. Yeah. And I think the reason for that is, I think the ideas in Jurassic World are a little bit more self-contained you know they're a little bit more self-contained and perhaps better explored than the lost world is

but I honestly cannot tell you a single shot from the Jurassic world yeah that makes me go wow that's really neat whereas I can I can pull so many out from the lost world you know like I

you know the the scenes with the the, you know, the two-part trailer getting pushed over the edge with the T-Rexes. I think, I know I went on about it during the episode, but, like, you know, the ship that the T-Rex has been transported, the way it just kind of like looms out of the fog. That was a great shot. Yeah, that really was. So, it's kind of above it on the strength of its moments and its visual moments and some of the visual storytelling it does. Yes.

It's definitely, you know, thematically less coherent, maybe, I think, than Jurassic World is, but ultimately, ultimately, I can remember visuals from it. I can remember bits of it far better than anything out of Jurassic World, basically. Sure, sure. You know, I think we'll talk about Spielberg and his later career a bit later when we get to what director they're doing. But, you know, Spielberg is a good director. like he goes about saying he's a real artist with this kind of blockbuster cinema

and you really feel his influence in those first two films okay and then for the remainder so what I would say is those first three to me are a clear kind of segment ahead of the three that I'm

about to rank right I think those are the films where I would say they're you know good to decent obviously I think Jurassic Bar is like way way out in front of everything but you know the other two the other two I enjoyed Yeah

Jurassic Park 3 is the one that I've put is the one that I've put forth Now this is another one where I find it a little bit tricky because I don't There are things I don't like about this film right

It's not as ambitious It's not as interesting and there is a certain regressiveness that we discussed during the episode to the character Maybe not necessarily individual characters but certainly the character dynamics, right? The way that kind of like, you know, the focus on the family unit

and the way that, you know, Grant relates to them and all this sort of stuff. It is ultimately, I think, more successful on its own terms than the two that are below it. I don't think it's a particularly ambitious film, and that's why it's nowhere near the other three for me. But it executes it, okay, there's some good set pieces. I like the Spinosaurus T-Rex fight.

that's well done the AV sequence is pretty well done like there are things in here that are done well right it's kind of a little bit like if you consider my rank it being two segments right the top three and the bottom three

this one is at the top of the bottom three for a similar sort of reason that the lost world kind of like sneaked into second in the other set you know there's moments that are really well executed and some good visuals and engagement It is ultimately a very unambitious film, though, and I think that's why it sits as low as it does.

If it had some ideas it manages to weave in successfully, I don't know, maybe it could have made it up higher. And I think I had a better impression of it before we started the series than I've actually ultimately ended up with. But that's kind of what I've got sitting at fourth. Sure, yeah, I think that makes sense. And your reasoning makes sense. Yeah. The other two, so the last two are the Jurassic World. old sequels and basically they're in release order, right? So I've got Fallen Kingdom and then I've

got Dominion and it kind of comes back to, again, some of the stuff I've already said, where I don't think either of these are good films, right? I think Fallen Kingdom is the better one. It has some of the ecological management questions we've spoken about being addressed in the first half of Fallen Kingdom. It jettisons them pretty quickly, but it does at least make an effort to address them. right and it's there in the first hand and you know I don't think it really does everything it may be could or should

but it's at least got some interesting ideas flowing around in there what I would also say is in the second half even when it starts to kind of go off the rails thematically and narratively with the kind of like the weird haunted house gothic horror thing there are some really good visuals

there are some really good sort of like camera moves and things that were just I liked looking at right and you know it's a it's a fair you know we've got a pretty low bar by the time we're getting down to this point in the ranking right but that's essentially what it is that's what it comes down to i think dominion is sitting clearly last because it doesn't have that um it has various bits that are that don't really make a whole lot of sense you know that we discussed on the last

episode it is the one of all of these films which is the most um the most um the most sort of like susceptible to nostalgia bait and needless kind of referencing and empty referencing you know we discussed it like it has its moments but it doesn't have the ambition of any of the ambitious

films it doesn't have the visuals of any the visually interesting films and it kind of has no real ideas of its own we discussed it in the last episode so for me not only not only is it not a particularly interesting film. It's not particularly great-looking film either, and I don't think it even

particularly succeeds on its own terms. And that's why it sits pretty dead last, to be honest with you, which I find interesting. I think going into this rank, I think I probably would have had Fallen Kingdom last actually, like before we embarked on the seas and went into the, you know, looking at it as a whole, because I think my long-term impression of Fallen Kingdom, I remember coming out of Fallen Kingdom more disappointed than I was when I came out of Dominion, you know, when I watched them on release. But I think on reflection, Fallen Kingdom was a lot more interesting things going on, and it's a much better looking film.

I think I would have said the same. I think I would have put Fallen Kingdom last if I were doing this before watching all these. But I have to agree. You know, we'll get onto my ranking in a moment, but my one and six are the same. It's just what's between those two poles that is different. So I think that's fair. You know, I can see the reasoning behind that ranking. None of it surprises me.

I do have some differences that we can perhaps discuss because my ranking is Jurassic Park at number one. As we discussed, a classic, a masterpiece. So at number two, I have Jurassic World. And again, like with your ranking, I sort of want to discuss number two and number three simultaneously because number three is The Lost World. So my reasoning for Jurassic World being higher is that I think it's the more entertaining film. So we discussed this in the episode, but I think it's a very entertaining film.

Like it's great blockbuster entertainment. It rips along nicely while discussing some weighty ideas, not as well as Jurassic Park, but it still attempts to tackle some weighty ideas. I sort of hate a lot of the subtext of it, as we discussed extensively, in that episode, but I'm never not entertained while watching it. And I think I can go back to it and hate certain elements, hate Owen Grady, hate the kind of casual misogyny of it, but still be very entertained. And it's funny that you said there's no memorable shots for you that you can remember,

because that immediately made me think of the shot, I know you hate it, where it zooms down the main street while John Williams score blasts there's no shots that there's no shots that I want to remember and any that I do remember I want to actively jettison my brain

which sounds a little bit harsh for the film that I ragged third but you know yeah and and I did agonise over this a little bit because I don't think the action scenes are as good as the Lost World like the trailer scene in the Lost World world is better than what I'll think is the high-point, the high action point of Jurassic world, maybe the wrecks fighting the Indominus at the end, or the Raptors on motorbikes

chase, not Raptors on motorbikes, that's a step the franchise hasn't yet taken, you know, going on his motorbike with the Raptors chasing. That's a good action scene. But it doesn't rank as highly as the heights of the Lost World. So that's essentially why I've got The Lost World at number three, and Jurassic World at number two. And then at number four, I have Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, which, yeah, does surprise me because I did expect it to be a lot lower before we watched all these films. I think similar to what you've already said, I think it has some interesting ideas that it's playing with. And I think it's the ideas that stood out to me this re-watch. I think it has some, it's trying to say something about the Anthropocene,

an ecological management in the Anthropocene. I was particularly struck by the ending where Macy lets out the dinosaurs as a kind of representation of the next generation doing things differently, of managing the world differently, of relating to animals in this kind of post-human way differently than has been done before and I really appreciated the kind of last Jedi kind of repudiation

of what has come before particularly through the character of Malcolm who he's positioned as just plain wrong for his approach of letting all the dinosaurs die I think there's a real kind of humane and interesting post-human perspective

in this film it's just in a film that doesn't quite stitch together. So he's got this first half, you know, on Isla Neubla, which is interesting, ecological management questions, blah, blah, blah. This boring, hearted house bit in the second half that I don't care about. But those ideas are still trying to surface. So I'm giving it, I'm giving it the fourth place for its ambition, even if I don't think it achieves it. Because I think what I have in fifth place, Jurassic Park Three, doesn't have that same

level of ambition. I think it's just, you know, a regression to the mean of kind of blockbuster cinema of the time of the early 2000s when it came out. And it's boring, basically. It's not particularly entertaining and it isn't trying to grapple with big ideas, which I think at least Jurassic World's Fallen Kingdom is. And then last place, as we discussed, Jurassic World Dominion, which is rubbish. we give it a lot

a much full of discussion in the episode that came out last month yeah yeah it goes to listen to that it's one episode before it there's no point rehashing it in detail

but yeah but yeah I mean this is sort of something we can discuss is I was surprised by how on this rewatch and we're getting into

kind of how the method of watching these films in release order pays off I was surprised by how Star Warsy the Jurassic World films are. I was very struck by it

on this rewatch, because I hadn't taken that in at all, I think, watching them years apart from one another. But there's a clear parallel with Star Wars sequel trilogy, you know, Force Awakens Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker.

I think the thing that I find remarkable about that is like, so it struck me hard, you know, in the previous episode we discussed there. I think it struck me hardest within a single film for Dominion, right, where it's kind of like, you know, Colin Trevor never got to make a Star Wars film, so he's just made a Jurassic World film, a Star Wars film, right? And, you know, it's got the canteen elements and this Han Solo like character and, you know, and we discussed that. But I think the thing that I find absolutely remarkable is, if you look at those three films, they kind of

echoed that Star Wars sequel trilogy really quite remarkably. The way I find it incredible is it does it within the text of the films it does it outside the text of the films if you look at kind of the production history and the way to be an approach

and the thing is it's not even the same studio I mean we're talking about it I mean this is a universal property absolutely nothing to do with you know Disney or Lucasfilm or anything like that so in that sense I find it quite remarkable. And given one of the goals

we've had with both the Xenopod and this is looking at how these films also develop over time and how they reflect the times in which they're made, you have a span here from 2015 through to 2022 that really does show

kind of the filmmaking climate because you've got two completely different well not completely different I mean there's parallels but the point is completely separate franchises. Different studio, pretty much different directors, right? I realised Trevor O was slated to get, and, you know, he has a story credit. Does he still have a story credit on episode nine? Not sure. Let me check. He was involved in the development process, so they're not 100% kind of separated, but there's not really a huge amount of overlap there in terms of personnel, or at least, you know, as little overlaps you could have at this kind of echelon of the Hollywood machine. But, you know, yeah, they follow a very similar trajectory. in the films, outside the films, and, you know, it's kind of remarkable to see that, actually.

Yeah, he does still have a story credit on the finished film, along with his collaborator, Derek Connolly, who he wrote the Jurassic World Films with. But, yeah, I mean, just to spell this out, you know, more clearly, it's really amazing how much they mirror one another. So you have a trilogy, well, you have two trilogies. the first film is a soft reboot that basically rewraps the franchise's first film and is received critically and the plan is to have a new director with each entry. A new director comes in either Ryan Johnson or J.A. Beona and makes a controversial entry into the franchise that attempts to repudiate some of what has been done in the past.

So in The Last Jedi, this is showing the Jedi as corrupt. and kind of defusing our heroes and getting rid of the kind of genetic component of the Skywalker lineage. And then you have a third film where the studio seems to have panicked at the reception of the second film and goes in a slightly different direction, undoes some of the controversial changes, and somewhat goes back to a previous model, with also bringing back the original bad guy. in the case of Star Wars, Palpatine, in the case of Jurassic Park, Dodgson. Somehow Dodgson returned.

Exactly. Played by a different actor, because as I learned after our last recording, Cameron Four, who played Dodgson in Jurassic Park, is a convicted sex offender. So they did not invite him back to reprise the role in Dominion. but yeah it's it's remarkable how similar the franchise these trilogies ended up being you know i i think the last Jedi is a good deal better than fallen kingdom like as a film

and within its trilogy and within and with what it's trying to say about the trilogy and how successful it is but um yeah a very interesting parallel that like you say happens in different studios the same studio system the same kind of Hollywood machine but different studios nonetheless yeah it's just it's almost like we're taking notes or something right because

the whole thing is kind of operating on a sort of two to three year delay compared to the Star Wars sequels right because the Force Awakens was it was 2012 right and then The Last Jedi was 2015 and then Rise of Skywalker was 2019 right so it's a's on that sort of like three year delay

compared to the Star Wars sequels. But yeah, it's funny. It's obviously, you know... And it seems to me one of the ones that's had legs, right? I do wonder, you know, would we have had a similar sort of pattern with other big franchises? Had their legacy sequels or soft reboots

been more successful, right? So I'm thinking of something like Indiana Jones here, for instance. You know, like if they'd been more successful, would they have ended up following a similar pattern? And is that just the way that these things go now? It's like, you know, reintroduce the concept, retread some of the themes, update it for a kind of a new generation, then try and take it in a new direction. Oh, wait, everybody hates it. Retreat. Yeah.

To some extent, you sort of get echoes of this in Prometheus and Alien Covenant as well. So Prometheus, you can look at as a retread of alien, whether discovering this new life forms, this distance. planet where they discover something beyond their, beyond what they can experience and deal with, then in Alien Covenant, you get some more controversial decisions like making the alien man-made, human-made, android made, but you get the idea. A human-made, a biological weapon manufactured for a specific purpose, which is a controversial decision within the kind of text of the films. And then, well, we don't get Ridley Scott's third film in that trilogy because of underperformance. But it's an interesting parallel to the alien franchise as well.

And it does just seem to be the model here. I can't say if it's repeated in, say, Ghostbusters, which also swings to mind as having a kind of legacy sequel, a couple of films. Yeah, I mean Ghostbusters kind of did it in an odd order as well Yeah, the controversial one. Yeah, it kind of had it's controversial trying to take it in a different direction thing First.

With the, you know, the Paul Fagg one. The Lady Ghostbusters Yeah. In 2016. But yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the other thing that I had had down on this sort of topic was I do see that, like, so

my hypothesis going into the Zenopold odd, right, was that the alien sees had this kind of like, you know, this identity crisis over its history, right? And I think that, I think that, I think that was borne out in the analysis we did, right, particularly you look at the real kind of like handbrake turns it can take from entry to entry, especially if you end up including, you know, the alien versus predator films as well, right? And I kind of, what's interesting with the Jurassic, I'm just going to call them of the Jurassic Park films, right? What's interesting about the Jurassic Park films is it kind of goes through the same thing where it has these bits where it takes mad swings, it has bits

where it goes totally kind of like off-piece compared to what's gone before, and retreating to familiarity, but it's almost like it doesn't have the conviction to see it through in any individual film, right? You know, I mean, like for better or worse, Alien Resurrection is a weird film, right? And it has its weird elements, and it kind of leans into that weirdness of its runtime. Does it really work? No, not particularly, and we discussed that when we spoke about it, right?

And then you have your other films where it retreats into familiarity, right? Which is covenant to an extent, particularly if you look at it as a response to Prometheus, but I think the most recent example would be the one that we did most recently, right, alien Romulus, and that kind of like retreat into familiarity,

right? So it does it be, It has the conviction to see that through in an individual film, right? The Jurassic Park films do not, right? I mean, basically, and I think probably the best example of this is Dominion, right? And it's one of the reasons it sits so low in the rankings is it goes through that entire thing, frankly, in the space of one film, right? It starts off with wanting to do something new, mad swing with the kind of like, you know, dinosaurs in the world, da-da-da-da, black market. with dinosaurs, we're doing car chases with dinosaurs

in Malta, it goes completely off-peased, right, by the time it gets to that point. But then, by the time we're actually in the end film, it's retreated back into familiarity, right? We're in a kind of like enclosed off space, where there are dinosaurs and we're trying to escape from them, we're driving around in jeeps, and

you know, and that's what I find interesting about it. This series, once you get past the first two films, I would do, in fact not even the first two films, because the second one has the whole San Francisco sequence, which is one of these totally off-peased moments, really. Within any, it does, it does, it goes to those faces within any one individual film.

It doesn't have the conviction to see through one of its mad swings to the end of the film. It's always kind of retreating back to, to the mean. I don't think the execution of Fallen Kingdom is good, and that's why it sits so low for both of us. But I think that's ultimately, probably, for me anyway, why it actually sits above Dominion, because for better or worse, it does have the conviction to kind of see through its mad swing to the end of the film.

Exactly, yeah. It's not particularly effective or particularly well done, but it is trying to do something. It is trying to make this wild swing. You know, not as effectively, as I've said, The Last Jedi, but it's trying.

Yeah, that's why I wouldn't complain particularly about you having Fallen Kingdom above Jurassic Park 3, right? Because I think those are another set where in my ranking I could probably have them reasonably interchangeable depending on my mood. But that's something I found interesting. It has a similar sort of identity crisis going on, but it does it within an individual film. It's not actually necessarily doing it across the whole kind of like the whole text of the series.

It does it within individual films, which is really weird to see when you look back at them all. It is. So this idea of the identity crisis was very, was pivotal to the xenopod and to our analysis on the xenopod, because the alien franchise really does undergo this identity crisis between these kind of Scotty and Cameroonian poles after Alien and Aliens. We discussed that extensively, you can listen to the series. Here there's not the same kind of crisis, and I think in general these films are more consistent. the Jurassic Park films are more consistent than the alien films in general. I think there's a wild dip in quality

in Dominion. But then again, there's a wild dip in quality in Alien Romulus, you know, I really didn't like that. Although, interestingly, if you go outside the confines of this podcast, you'd probably find a lot of people disagree with, because Alien Romual seems to have been pretty well received. Some people like it a lot, yeah, I didn't. No. But yeah, Dominion is widely reviled

apart from some mad defenders on the Jurassic Park subreddit that I came across while reading this morning But yeah, there's still some sense of identity crisis And I think another parallel between these two franchises Is a kind of shift away from the genre of the original So this is more stark in the case of Alien Where it's definitely a horror film And it's positioned as a horror film

science fiction horror but horror nonetheless and they move towards a more action-oriented kind of film specifically in aliens and then Alien versus Predator I think in Jurassic Park it's subtler but there's a definite sense of techno-thriller in the first film kind of 90s techno-thriller that eventually becomes

a more action adventure with science fiction elements there's a definite move away from the original genre towards something a lot more generic, a lot more fitting into a blockbuster cinema mould. Yeah, and I think the I mean, they're kind of like

fitting into the blockbuster cinema mould I think actually probably the most egregious example of that here is actually Jurassic Park 3 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, and you covered it when you were going through your ranking. It's just a case of... It's kind of a regression to the mean,

but it doesn't have many of the interesting ideas that its two predecessors have, and frankly, its sequel in Jurassic World. You know, so that's an interesting one. I think the other thing... The other thing that really... And you touched on this in the last episode. But the thing that...

I think Alien had a bit of an identity crisis, as you described, going between... the Ridley Scott idea of what it should be and the James Cameron idea of what it should be and kind of like individual things have pulled in one of those two directions generally speaking apart from when you get something like a resurrection that kind of goes towards one in and then pulls it off

or a totally different axis altogether as a general rule is moving along that spectrum right I think the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Films have a similar sort of identity crisis going on but it's not one necessarily of, and you're

quite right there has been a shift away from the genre of the first film but I don't think it's an identity crisis in the same way as being one of kind of tone and genre almost right? It's one to me of theme and what are the ideas that we're discussing

because one of the things that you've very eloquently pointed out as we've gone along and I think the first particularly sort of like stark example of it was probably Jurassic Park 3 right when we have this middle-class American couple looking to basically re-establish their nuclear family right and you then see that again in later films like continue to come through like Jurassic World and its treatment female characters we went into that and the role of the role of Claire and how her

discombobobulation around children is played compared to Grant's in the first film. Then you get into Farmed Kingdom, the similar idea. And then, you know, and by the time you get to Dominion, it's basically, if it has any theme, that's the dominant theme, right? Because you've got it with blue and beta,

you've got it with Claire and Owen and the Maisie character, you've got it with Grant and Sattler and reconciling the romantic light. It's through the whole thing, right? That, to me, is the identity crisis it has, because the first film looms so large in terms of the ideas it had, right? And it was still Spielberg film, it still had the Grant character kind of, like, learning to kind of embrace the children in the film. Like, that was definitely a theme that was there.

But it was kind of given equal or perhaps even lesser weight than the ones that kind of stemmed more obviously from the Michael Crichton novel, around kind of, scientific responsibility and ethics and this sort of thing. And I don't want to oversimplify it. These things, you know, we discussed this at the time, these things all kind of interweave and one should, especially once you bring in kind of like Crichton's kind of old school small sea conservatism. But it's almost like the films after that, as you lean more and more into this, these themes of family, approved reproduction, what exactly is kind of like, you know,

needed for society to think you know all these ideas are there the deeper it goes into that still has this kind of pretension that it's actually about scientific or ecological responsibility and that becomes less and less important but the film the films rather it doesn't want to drop them right and that to me that if there is an identity crisis here in these films I think there is a little bit here less so in the alien series that's what it is, is going between those two kind of like boxes of themes, one around kind of like family and that sort of thing, and one around scientific responsibility. And it actually wants to deal with the family part of it and the text of the films as they go on, more and more deal with that and are set up to deal with that. But it can't quite let go of the first one. And it basically just ends up serving it less and less well as it goes on, really. Yeah, I'm glad you've mentioned this distinction between kind of genre and thematic identity crises, because I think you're absolutely right. What I am most surprised by, what most struck me going through watching these films in release order, is how much the franchise is thematically about family.

I would have said the theme of the Jurassic Park franchise is scientific responsibility and hubris, kind of a Frankenstein theme. but it's very clearly when you watch it as a single text about the reification of family and quote-unquote ideal reproduction. So yeah, you're right, it really does lip service, especially in those later films, to the kind of scientific and ethical themes around ecological management, which is also surprising because of the kind of political climate, political and scientific climate that these films are released in,

where these films could have spoken to climate change a lot more directly than they have. You know, coming out in 1993 when the hole in the ozone layer was being detected and there was massive, you know, international work to address that and to deal with that climate catastrophe before it got worse. And then shifting into the kind of human-caused climate change of CO2 and CO2 equivalent. You know, they really could have spoken to this a lot more. through the analogy of dinosaurs,

they've attempted to do so in Fallen Kingdom in particular, I think, but it's not really worked particularly well. I certainly think Dominion, as we said in the last episode, pulls back on some of those themes and pulls back on this idea of drastic change, of a paradigm shift.

And as we said, ultimately endorses capital in the idea that the dinosaurs can just be controlled, which, if we push the analogy, is the idea that capital can just deal with climate change. Like, capital will innovate itself out of climate change without the need for drastic change and, you know, wide-ranging societal changes involving anti-capitalism. And, you know, this idea of, you know, global-scale disasters, like, particularly if you look at a round about, kind of like the end of the original trilogy. Those ideas were floating around, right?

And they were floating around in Blockbuster films in kind of, you know, maybe kind of slightly amped up ways. I mean, this is the age of Armageddon and Deep Impact and, you know, various Roland Emory films, like the God, you know, the American Godzilla remake and this sort of, you know, like, these ideas are all floating around. And you've touched on it there. I do find it surprising that this series of films, hasn't got into that more, you know, because it seems like an obvious, it does seem like an

obvious angle to do it. And as I said, it did it in Fallen Kingdom, but I think what's remarkable by that is it was, just as quickly as it's established, it's jettisoned. You know, we have a, we have a brachyosaur or something like fall over in the smoke, and that's it, okay, we're done with that, you know. So, you know, I find that that kind of, kind of remarkable, because particularly when you're even talking about kind of like scientific environmental or ecological responsibility

it seems like a natural evolution from the first two films let's see that seems like a natural direction for it to go in so it's kind of surprised it doesn't you know it kind of it holds on to it but it doesn't really do much of then it still very much goes into kind of like

a lot more Spielberg, ironically, given he's not actually directing the films anymore by this point, of much more kind of like Spielbergian-feeling direction. Well, he's producing the films all the way through, and Ambly and Entertainment has a strong kind of hold over them, and I think that's the cause of Spielberg's influence. So you feel it through the kind of family themes, which are kind of present a lot in Spielberg's films,

you know, from E.T. to the Fableman's, there's this strong reification of the American family and the American nuclear family in particular the family that Spielberg grew up in and I feel like you get Spielberg's influence through that it's pushed to too much of an extent

as we've said they become more the film's become mematically more about family and less about scientific responsibility which is a kind of perversion I think of that Spielbergian idealism I think Spilberg is a more complex director than that and people have kind of watered down

what he does to some extent. Yeah. But yeah, you do feel his influence throughout. I mean, just to finish off on that, I think, and it's probably more,

I find it telling that in my ranking, and in yours, with one exception because Jurassic World kind of like just kind of leap frobs it, The two films at Spielberg directed, for me, I end up the top two, right? And I think that that's telling. It's basically like every single film sentence has been trying to take the same ideas and make a truly captivating film out of it.

But, you know, for better or worse, in particular, I'm going to put, and I'm going to kind of needle Trevor a little bit here because he has done two of the other four films he's just, he's not Spielberg he's not as, he's not as yeah, he's not as skilled filmmaker, you know, I, you know this is not to say that I think Spielberg's favorite, I don't

think I, as brilliant as many of his films are beaten, I don't think I'd even necessarily pick Spielberg as kind of like necessarily one of my favorite directors of all time and he's made some turkeys in his time, but he is undoubtedly a skilled filmmaker. I mean, even amongst his kind of like worst films, you can find something which

obviously displays a bit of craft and imagination. And unfortunately, I think some of these films are taking that same set of ideas, but it just doesn't quite have the filmmaking you know, visionary quality to elevate it above that.

Yeah. And you know, Jurassic Park 3, I think you could you know, it's kind of the opposite. I think the filmmaking's all right and the ideas are just a bit perfunctory. You know, because Joe Johnson you know, we'll talk about what they're doing now, but Joe Johnson, he has

shown good filmmaking prior to Jurassic Park City. He was a good filmmaker. Jay Biona, you know, has done, they've done good things, right? But it's just not quite there. It can't elevate the material in the same way that I think Spielberg did, particularly with the Lost World,

but also Jurassic Park bringing that kind of, like, you know, that visual element to what were very solid ideas in the first one. And it's just kind of, you know, things aren't combining to exponential effect. You know, they do in that first film.

They don't in the later ones, basically. Yeah, I don't know if this is an artifact of how franchise's films are made nowadays, but it feels like directors just get crushed by the franchise model these days. So, you know, J. A. Beona comes into this franchise and his kind of directorial impulses get crushed, and you end up with a fairly generic product, you know, that is the product of the studio system whereas Spielberg I don't know

maybe still has that influence or had more freedom in the 90s to make something interesting something unique without that same crushing weight but I mean you see this in all kinds of franchises

so Star Wars Marvel Cinematic Universe an interesting indie director will come in and have their vision compromised and crushed and whatever. I still think of Edgar Wright's Ant-Man, how Edgar Wright was brought in to do Ant-Man, but ultimately couldn't live within the kind of model that they were making.

Couldn't be himself enough to do it, so eventually quit and was replaced by whoever did Ant-Man. Peyton Reed. Sure. There's a public quiz answer for you. But yeah, I think that just speaks to the kind of the, nature of franchise filmmaking, and I think we see the same with alien to some extent, although, you know, then something like Alien Resurrection, where Zunei gets to do his own

thing completely without studio interference looks, yeah, and speaking to your point about the consistency of the franchise, I can't find an alien resurrection equivalent in this series of films, I'll see that how much, you know. And that's why I made the point about it kind of like, you know, it taking the mad swings and retreating to familiarity within the same film, right? I think, funnily enough, the closest you might get is

the prologue to Jurassic World Dominion, which you described as kind of Terence Malick does a Jurassic World film in the last episode. And I think comes close to that kind of, I don't know, unique artistic vision. Yeah.

that resurrection had, even if it wasn't entirely successful. So let's get on to where franchise directors are now, what they've done after working on Jurassic Park. So Stephen Spielberg, we discussed a little bit. He's done a lot. But as we discussed in his episodes around the Lost World in Jurassic Park, Lost World in particular. He has arguably lost the juice,

lost the ability to direct a family-friendly action adventure after directing Cinder's List. Because he goes on to direct Munich and Bridge of Spies and Saving Private Ryan and a lot of more, you know, more adult films,

more complex films maybe. Lately he did The Fablemans, which almost seems like a final film for him. or could act as a final film for him as kind of a summation of his filmmaking ideals and a kind of quasi-autobiography of himself of how he came to make films. But apparently it's not his final film

because he does have other upcoming projects. He actually owns the life rights to Martin Luther King Jr. And he intends to produce and direct a Martin Luther King Jr. biopic. which I think would be a bad move. He's producing a lot more films as well, like Ambly and Entertainment has a deal with Netflix to produce films, and he's doing a lot of production around that.

He's also developing a film based around UFOs with David Cope, who wrote Jurassic Park, attached to write the script, and that even has people attached, like Emily Blunt and Colin Firth and Coleman Domingo. So that might be his next film, but he really hasn't put anything out since the Fableman's,

and he's mostly working behind the scenes, it would seem. Joe Johnston went on to talking about getting subsumed into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He directed Captain America, the First Avenger, which I think I'd say he's one of my favorite MCU films. I think so. it's kind of early one early enough that I don't know

directors still could put a stamp on things and make something interesting I mean it was also I mean if you go back to when it came out I mean the concept of having any measure of global success with a film about Captain America

seemed laughable you know I mean if I go back to before that film was released I recall thinking to myself come on really Captain America give me a break in a little Like, I think...

Jinguistic nonsense. Yeah, exactly. It's not. It's a definitely decent film. And I think the way it approaches the character kind of manages to remove most of the jingoistic elements that could be there. And if anything, actually pokes a bit of fun at some of them. They filmed Captain America.

They filmed parts of Captain America in the First Avenger in Manchester when I was still living there. And in particular in the northern quarter, which they made up to look like 1940s Manhattan. So I had a good time sneaking onto the set one evening of Captain America the First Avenger where they had all these 1940s cars and 1940s shop fronts, and that was very fun. But Joe Johnston hasn't done as much as Spielberg since Strasbourg 3, did Captain America of the First Avenger, like I say.

He's done uncredited reshoots on other things. he is reported to be directing a legacy sequel to Honey I Shunk the Kids which he originally directed back in 1989 but that was in 2019 and it hasn't come out so I don't know where that is Colin Trevereaux who directed two of the Jurassic World films is now doing a lot more directing or has been announced as director of various things

he has been announced as the director of war magician which Jim is a historical war film about a British illusinist

who used magic to defeat Nazis in World War II Oh is this the is this the Benedict Cumberbatch is set to star Oh Lord I remember when I saw this

announced and I was like God's name is this Yes I don't know I I didn't mean that connection when you read that in the notes. Yeah. That sounds potentially bad.

What if Dr. Strange, but with Nazis. Yeah, exactly. What if Dr. Strange thought the Nazis. Not space Nazis, real Nazis. That sounds bad, but, you know, the best case scenario is you come up with something like Guillermo del Toa's Hellboy. I don't think he will, because he's not Guillermo del Toa. I was about saying, that's a pretty high, like, that's a pretty high bar you've said.

Set the director of Jurassic World Dominion, they were off to see. He's also slated to direct a film called Atlantis. I don't have any details on that. And he is producing Lily Wachowski's next film, which is about a young gay man from Chicago returning to Missouri to deal with his father's hoarder state after his death. It sounds similar to what? was that film about hoarding that we both saw,

hoard. Horde. Yeah. Horde by a British director. Luna Carmoon, I want to say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And finally, we have J.A. Bayona, who went on to direct Society of the Snow for Netflix, which was pretty well received. I didn't see it. Did you see it?

I did not. No. I feel like watching this film about an airplane crash would immediately do, undo the hours of good work I did in therapy, getting over my fare of flying, so I'm not going to watch that. Let's not do that. He directed a couple of episodes of Rings of Power, which I also haven't seen. I've seen most of the first season. I haven't done anything in the second season, yeah. then he is, he was signed on to direct hater, which is an adaptation of a thriller about an epidemic of violence,

and is working with another writer to adapt a book called Asangue I fuego. So not bad. I think, you know, Spielberg has obviously done the most, but there's been the most distance between his projects and the present day. Isn't true, I think the funny thing is, Given how low I've ended up putting Fallen Kingdom, I find it interested to think about the kind of the work of the directors. I think also bearing in mind, I've not seen society of the snow.

I think the director outside of Spielberg, whose work I'd actually be the most interested in coming to and seeing how he develops as director is probably J.A. Bioner, you know? Oh, yeah, agreed. Yeah, you know, there was enough there, I saw enough there visually. and in how he was constructing certain shots and things to make me interested in his future work I'm not going to lie

I just don't get it from Trevorall but it seems so even in comparison to Fallen Kingdom visually the other two films they just seem they just seem so flat you know yeah it's perhaps unfair to compare directors this way

but similar to the Star Wars sequel trilogy I'm most interested in following Ryan Johnson's career because he has gone on to do the Knives Out films which I like he's produced that series with Natasha Leone which is pretty good

well the funny thing is actually I remember when the directors were being announced for the Star Wars films I was a huge fan of Ryan Johnson's already at that point because I first came to him with Brick right Brick I liked a huge amount and Looper seems to have

a kind of like a bit of a mixed reputation after time. I really enjoyed that film and it's kind of like really kind of like properly up my alley and he kind of established himself with me as a you know

visually entertaining director right? He was always doing something interesting right? Was it any of it revolutionary? I don't know probably not but like it You know, I found it not only did, had I found his film so far entertaining, I'd find him visually entertaining as well. And I think that's why, of the directors of talking about here, I've latched on to Biona there, because there were bits in Fallen Kingdom where I remember, you know, and I'm thinking like, you know, when the, you know, when the Indo-Raptor is climbing up the building and the camera kind of like turns around to like completely shift the perspective and things like that. He was doing interesting things

and with a better script and better ideas that you know he can then execute on I could see you could end up with a really really great film I'm just not convinced with it with Trevor because he had it with Jurassic World there are some interesting ideas

I was going to go on to compare Trevor with JJ Abrams whose work I am not interested in following particularly I just think he's quite a flat director and a flat creator like Trevor I think

I mean like to take the Star Wars comparison again like I think Abrams is he's flatter than Ryan Johnson

but even then like I can think of things that you know I can think of things that he did in his to Star Wars films in particular right where

it was interesting right or like it like he he It was still visually engaging. I just did not find Dominion or Jurassic World, particularly visually engaging.

Like, the strengths there are in performances, some of the kids' idea of the score a little bit to a certain extent, maybe in the first one. Like, it sounds like a really harsh way to put it. A lot of its strengths, I don't think, are, I don't think they derive from his direction. I'm not sure that's true with Abrams. I think the way he's approached the film visually It does add to it, right? It's less interesting, undoubtedly, but I think it is more effective

than Trevor's blockbusters here. Yeah, yeah, I won't be rushing out to see War Magician Day one. See, I probably will now. But we have a few upcoming Jurassic Park franchise things

and the franchise is continuing not as many things as kind of the alien franchise it seemed like when we talked about alien we had a lot of unrealised projects and a lot of the Neil Blomcombe film for example that never got made the FX series we were talking about Alien Romulus at the time

there's not as much for Jurassic Park so the Jurassic Park franchise universe will seem very keen to fully franchise it. So they've got a number of cartoon series at the moment. There's Camp Cretaceous that has been on Netflix and Chaos Fairy, which is a sequel to Camp Cretaceous, which are kind of fleshing out the franchise for an audience of younger people. I haven't seen any of those. I don't intend to.

There's a couple of games, video games, that I'm excited about. So I mentioned in our Jurassic World episode, I'd started playing Jurassic World Evolution off the back of that Jurassic World Evolution 3 is scheduled to come out, hopefully in time with the next film but I'll be excited to see where they take

that because I just lost hours to Jurassic World Evolution when I got into that when we're around recording and building my perfect parks. There's also a game slated for, I think it's also around the same time in

in 2025. called Jurassic Park Survival, which I've had a look at is about a young in-gen scientist who gets left behind on Isla Nubla and you kind of escape dinosaurs and explore the island, which looks a bit like alien isolation,

which I'd said in our Alien series is the kind of best sequel to alien that was never released to the film. So I'm hoping they can do the same with this video game and make a alien isolation. for the Jurassic Park franchise which if they do will be

terrific for me but it looks like it's kind of focused on stealth rather than combat and sneaking around past these dinosaurs I think the thing I find interesting and the kind of like the very small amount of reading I've done for that game because I saw it, I think it was an

announcement trailer a while ago is I say something you know blah blah while avoiding its numerous dinosaurs who exhibit distinct and adaptive behavior which is what makes it sound interesting to me, you know, because I'm old like, you know, I don't know, give me a, give me some sort of

survival horror type dinosaur game, and I'll lap up, I remember playing a lot of dino crisis back in the days of the PlayStation, you know? Yeah, there you go. Give me something like that, I'm all for it. Yeah, I mean, part of the big selling point of alien isolation was this AI that they put behind the alien, the xenomorph, which was kind of adaptive to how you played the game and would figure out what your strategies are and try to undermine them. So if they can approach it with something similar, but with kind of different behaviors of dinosaur, that'd be great.

You know, if the T-Rex behaves differently from the Velociraptors, wonderful. I'm here for it. So I'll look forward to that. But the next big thing is Jurassic World Rebirth, which is the next Jurassic World film scheduled for release in summer 2025. So interestingly enough, this is a film directed by Gareth Edwards, who directed one of the the Star Wars films, Rogue One. Not to continue the Star Wars Power Rules, I know. But he will be the first

director to have directed both a Jurassic Park and a Star Wars film. And it is kind of interesting in the kind of context of this Star Wars analogy that they've got Gariff Edwards, who did something quite different with Rogue One and produced, in my

opinion, the best Star Wars film of the kind of new Disney batch. because Rogue One is quite different, does something very interesting with it so it gives me hope for Jurassic World Rebirth, I'm quite interested in it it's also going to be written by David Corrup who wrote the original Jurassic Park it stars Scarlet Johansson, Mahershala Ali Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Ed's Green

and they've been filming it while we've been doing this podcast and I've seen occasional shots from the set and stuff do you want me to read the summary is only two paragraphs I'll just read the whole thing

read the summary right because I think I think we were thinking about having a discussion about kind of like what we would like to see this franchise do and avoid and I have a few comments based upon what I've read so far

about rebirth so yeah set the season and then we can get into it briefly. So this is basically all we know about Jurassic World Rebirth as a recording. Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet's ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures within that tropical biosphere

hold the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind. Johansson plays skilled covert operations expert Zora Benning, contracted to lead a skilled team on a top secret mission to secure genetic material from the world's three most massive dinosaurs. Wenzora's operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dynos. They all find themselves stranded on an island, where they come face to face with a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades. An island, huh? is your implication that they're just going back to... An isolated equatorial environments.

An isolated environment, huh? Yeah. I see your point. It sounds like they're just bringing it back to the Jurassic Park formula. A civilian family, huh? Like Jurassic Park Three? Yeah, you know, it's like... Yeah.

Yeah, dinosaurs in the world and they all the key to some sort of genetic benefit for mankind, but they're only in this very specific area because then we don't have to deal with any of the other shit. Yeah, they're in isolated equatorial environments. So no more

Paris or all of us running through the snow running through the Sierra Nevada mountains. They're in kind of tropical biospheres. Yeah, I think my worry with this is that it will just end up more of the same. I want to be proven incorrect.

I'll be delighted if I'm proven incorrect I think that would be good right but and also kind of like if much has been trailed about kind of like David Cote being the writer and it's like oh yeah the writer of we're going back

the writer of the original film you know he was also the writer he was also the writer and a second unit director on the mess that was the Lost Worlds script right so that was the first thing and I'm having to look at kind of like his

filmography is a writer and my god it is up and down and all over the place right you know like oh gee he directed mordecai yeah right so there's one for you yes so there's one for you but also in terms of writing right i'm just like you might just take recent history right writer of the 2002 spider-man mostly good i would say right i have my problems with that film but yeah okay great war of the world gets you know maybe not as much credit it should also Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Hmm Angels and Demons

Hmm Inferno Hmm The 2017 edition of the mummy You know Indiana Jones in the Dial of Destiny You know Yeah

I don't know We'll see We'll see As with any of these films I am hopeful I will go into it with an open mind And a hopeful heart but, you know, it's more just, I don't know,

I'm already seen Warding Science. Well, I like Gareth Edwards. I don't know that Gareth Edwards has directed a film I don't like. Like, I wasn't the hugest fan of the creator, but it had its good points and it wasn't a bad experience. And his Monsters film, what is it? Monsters? Yeah, his Monsters film is great.

is like his first feature, you know, deals with big monsters in kind of human environments and the clash between these two, which is, you know, thematically similar to the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Films. Rogue one, as I said, I love, so I'm optimistic. I think I'm more optimistic than you. Yeah, I think so. I mean, the one thing I will see, because I mean, I suppose that's my, it's kind of my, Cynicism getting the better of me is kind of like, oh, yes, we're bringing back the writer of the original.

Yeah, he's a writer of the original, and he's a writer of a load of hoary old shit in between this and that, you know, so like, you know, let's just, you know, hold our horses here. But, um, Gareth Edwards is a filmmaker I like, right? I liked monsters. I think his, his Godzilla was, I didn't find it great script-wise, but I thought he came out with some really pretty great visuals in that. I liked Rogue 1 and you can You know There's probably a bit of a kind of debate in the background there About how much was him and how much was Tony Gilroy Because there was a whole reshoot drama with that film

But like again it was You know it was a It was a good film I liked it as one of the more successful Sort of post-Disney revival Kind of Star Wars films that I think is out there I haven't seen the creator yet But certainly it looks kind of like

Imaginative and visually interesting to go back to the things that have kind of like moved the needle on individual films at my reception to them retrospectively for the other ones you know I'd hope we're going to come out with something

that is visually accomplished here right and it's quite good at visual kind of storytelling or creating memorable images and that that kind of bodes well potentially you know we'll need to see the proof is the proof of the pudding is in the eating and all

that but yeah it's true we'll we'll we'll we'll see what it's like when it comes out and we'll presumably do an episode on it like we did with alien romulus after we've seen it do you want to take a punt on what the sinister shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades might be so good i i i i'd be we touch on this and the showdus i just i really hope it's not a a de-aged legacy character of some sort or something or i i i don't know i honestly have i honestly have no idea of it it's going to be something from it's going to be something from the first film.

Yeah, it'll be related to InGen in some way. Something from the first film. I don't know what it is yet, but it will be. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they've cloned a mammoth or something, or it'll be more dramatic than that. I don't know. But yeah, we discussed at the end of the Xenopod

our thoughts on what could go wrong for the franchise, what Alien Romulus could do wrong, and I posted this on social media when Alien Romulus came out, but I was dead on when I said the worst thing would be a kind of deep fake AI, a generated likeness of a character. I said Ripley, and it turned out to be Ash, but I was dead on. Yeah, with the concept, you were spot on there. And what I would not like to see is a deep fake Richard Attenborough being John Hammond in some recording that unveils the shocking secret

that InGen kept hidden for decades. Yeah, and this is the sort of thing I'm kind of terrified of because we are talking about a franchise now which, you know, they're maintaining the continuity and human cloning is established in this series now. So yeah, I had thought about human clones

but that's already been done so it doesn't feel like that would be it. Unless it's kind of mass-scale human cloning. No, no, unless somebody's, you know, unless somebody's cloned John Hammond or something, and we get somebody playing a younger John Hammond, you know, so maybe, like, you were maybe not going to get Richard Attenham, I don't know, Christ knows,

maybe somebody will take Richard Attenborough from his earlier films and Deepfakem using that footage or something. I don't know, I mean, it would be absolutely horrendous. You know, it's, I rule nothing out in Hollywood these days when it comes to the sort of shit, basically. So what we're getting is a new film Which sounds fine I'm fairly optimistic about it

Jim less so But I think Yeah I'm going on I was optimistic about alien Romulus You know So you know Yeah that's true

I've been burnt too many times Yeah We were actually just talking about the record Before the recording about my prediction that Donald Trump Would not win the US election And then what happened happened. Yeah, if anybody listening to this, we're not recorded, this is pre-recorded,

this is not recorded too long after that election, so it's pretty raw, it's pre-recorded, frankly. Yeah. So I'm optimistic about it. What I would be interested in seeing, and this was an idea that was floated on the Jurassic Park subreddit, is a kind of prestige TV miniseries doing a really faithful adaptation of Crichton's novels. I think that would be interesting. Just taking it an entirely new direction, ignoring what's already been done. And, you know, a new look for the park, new logo, new interpretations,

more, more faithful interpretations of Grant and Sattler and Hammond. I think that would be interesting. I absolutely do not think it's going to happen. I don't think there's any way. This isn't like Harry Potter where they're looking to keep it going. There's a way to keep it going now with the Jurassic World.

kind of sub-franchise Yeah, I don't think it's a shame because I think there is stuff there that lends itself to it, right? I think the problem is because the thing is actually kind of reminds me of another Crichton thing

and the way the Westworld the TV series spun out. Yes. And I genuinely, and I can't remember if I said it on this, I made this series already, I may well done because we've been talking about Michael Crichton, but that first season,

of Westworld. It's genuinely one of my favorite seasons of television. In terms of this golden age of television run through, I genuinely think it's superb. I think it's absolutely excellent. And it goes off the rails, like, just really rapidly, right? I mean, I think the second season has its

plus points, but it's not particularly great. It's not as coherent in its ideas. The third one is you know, I don't know, I didn't really get into it. And I didn't, I haven't even bothered to watch the fourth season. and it's not being cancelled, right? So it went off the rails pretty rapidly.

But I think there is, if you take aside kind of like the initial film, and I think Westworld, the film is quite well regarded, but it's never been a sort of, you know, it's never been kind of like an extremely looming cultural presence, if you like, in the way Jurassic Park is. But I think there is the opportunity, if somebody wanted to, as I think you've pointed out, I don't think anybody will, but there is the opportunity to take a similar approach with the TV series with the, you know, the original source materials there was with Westworld, you know, in terms of like giving some of the ideas room to breathe and sit in it and, you know, I'd say the first film, it does it. It does it superably, right? And that's why we love it so much. But there is, with that change in format, it would give a bit more of an opportunity for those ideas to breathe and kind of like examine things with individual characters. I think.

you'd get a lot more out of the Ian Malcolm character in that format for instance you know so I think there is there is something there is something there is something there is something there in terms of how you do it I have actually sorry not to return to the previous discussion I've actually convinced myself

they're going to resurrect a character somehow in some form in that Jurassic World rebirth that's why it's called rebirth I'm making that prediction right now oh hey yeah that's pretty good because they've called it rebirth and nobody's really clocking onto because they're like oh yeah they're rebutting franchise again. It's self-reboot. Oh yes,

rebirth. It's coming back. Why would they call it rebirth within the context of the text of the film? I'm telling you, somebody's been cloned. That's what's going on here. Somebody has been cloned or, you know, something's been cloned and the genetic material they're getting needs to be from that clone

or something. You know, it's going to be recycling the mazy bit, but going into it and more death. It'll be something like that. I've convinced myself now. Yeah. Yeah, possibly. Hopefully Muldoon. I'd watch more Muldoon, the adventures of young Muldoon.

I would say you could bring back Roland Tembo, but unfortunately Pete Possible Possible, I don't think so, unfortunately. I think it has to be from Jurassic Park. Samuel Jackson's alive. Samuel Jackson loves a paycheck. I hadn't even thought about that, I also do. Even do disease, I also forget he's in Jurassic Park, every single time. Yeah, that's what I said in the first episode.

in the very first episode so I think that brings us to perhaps the end of our discussion do you have it even more to add on the kind of Jurassic Park franchise as a whole I think I didn't not beyond what we said I think I find it it does have its own little identity

crisis in the same way the alien series did and I do find it interesting that it's less of a push in a pool as it was with the alien series in this case it really is just a slow and constant pool towards those kind of more familial themes

and that's not something I think I'd clocked onto watching the individual pieces and I think that's maybe because it has that behaviour I've described where it kind of goes through that little crisis film to film so maybe it's less noticeable watching within an individual film

how it's done that over the course of the series but yeah I think that's it because I think Jurassic Park when I think of Jurassic Park, it's exactly what you said earlier. I think, oh yeah, scientific responsibility, you know, scientific ethics, you know, those are the kind of the ideas underneath the action and the blockbustery stuff. And that's true for the first one, but that strand of family is there, and that becomes the dominant strand as you go through.

And I don't think I'd really appreciate that before we really go into it here. Yeah, I think they increasingly fit into a mould of blockbuster films, especially with Jurassic Park 3 but even Jurassic World we talked about the parallels with the Star Wars trilogy they increasingly fit into a very generic mould for blockbuster films that has to do with freematic preoccupations of family

whereas Jurassic Park in some sense made the mould for modern blockbuster films you know, 1993 has a year zero for blockbuster cinema because Jurassic Park shows this new new way of doing things. That has been, I would argue, perverted to some extent through the

MCU and through Star Wars and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, the following films can't live up to it. But I think they attempt to, whereas in the Alien franchise, I don't think anyone tries to get back to Alien. The closest I think we come is Alien isolation, like say an alien Romulus I think Alien Romulus does I don't like the way it does it but I do think it was I talked about how I thought I saw it as kind of attempting to synthesize

alien and aliens and I think it leans more towards the Cameron side of things than the Scott it does attempt Yeah no that's that's fair but yeah I think that's that's the Jurassic Park franchise I think we're considering the Dinopod

complete for now until Jurassic World Rebirth comes out when we'll release an episode on that. But that does it for this series. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us on this journey. I think we'll be back with more Take One presents in the future.

I'm not sure what shape that will take, but I think we'll be back in the future. So keep an eye on this feed for Jurassic World Rebirth and beyond. Yeah, and I think we'll be back with our stuff. I mean, you and I had a kind of collection of things that we didn't end up doing this particular series on, you know, so I think we'll probably look at doing something else in the future, but I think we'll definitely come back for rebirth, yeah. Yeah, very good, very, very on brand. But, you know, if anybody has ideas, things they'd like to do, you know.

Yeah, I mean, I'm pushing for the dark universe. We're on blue sky, mastodon, the website, all that, you know, so. Yes. So, yeah, do get into the reverse. Yeah, the dark. one of those places for our next podcast series on the dark universe the dark pod

where we review two films do the 2017 mommy film that's it one film done yeah we'll do one episode on that film and one episode on the promotional still wrap

yeah and then an episode wrapping up 90 minutes talking about what we learned yeah exactly but yes as Jim says, you know, follow us on Blue Sky and Mastodon and at the website Take Oncinema.net

and keep an eye on this feed for what we do in the future. But for now, I think we've finished with Jurassic Park. So thank you, Jim, for joining me on this journey. Of course. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Ta-rah.

You know, I'm going to be. You know,