Usually when a franchise gets 5+ sequels at least one is pretty good, but none of the JP sequels have been.
Jurassic World Rebirth spoilers
And this latest one with ScarJo was particularly bad; they took the Star Wars 7-9 approach where they copy and paste scenes from the original movie and weave a slightly different story around them.
Meanwhile the few “new” things they added were thinly veiled shots at the audience “no one is interested in these creatures anymore so we have to invent hybrids”… and the hybrid they created was basically a Rancor from Star Wars.
(Also wtf does the title “rebirth” have anything to do with what happened in the movie? It’s all about collecting dino blood for Pharma research into human heart disease medication. Nothing is “reborn” at all.)
I was gonna nominate the Hellraiser series, but the reboot movie that came out a few years ago was at least watchable.
The first one is the only one I enjoy because it is a good movie.
I like The Lost World because I am a big fan of Goldblum’s sarcastic portrayal of Ian Malcolm. I like 1 scene from 3. Where Grant is dreaming and a raptor looks at him and says “Alan”. That shit was so stupid, it was perfect. It still blows my mind that made it into a movie with the kind of budget and financial expectations Jurassic Park 3 had.
The general premise of Jurassic World had promise. But they ruined it by making up a dinosaur hybrid and just letting it be a monster of the week abomination tear ass-ing through the park in broad day light. What the character of John Hammond did worked because the resulting monsters were based on something that was once real, and because his motivations seemed like something an actual human would try to do with enough hubris and money thinking he was doing something good for humankind. What they turned Dr. Woo and everyone into in Jurassic World was just a mix of incompetence and mustache twirling evil. Which isn’t funny unless its played for camp.
Never bothered with any of the others.
I was disappointed that they didn’t take the chance and do feathered dinosaurs where appropriate in World. Back when Jurrasic Park came out, dinosaurs evolving into birds wasn’t common knowledge and the average person saw them as huge, slow and dumb. The movie did a TON of work of bringing the then-current understanding of dinosaurs into the public consciousness. The new movies could have done the same, but decided to play it safe instead.
Such a missed opportunity! The designers could have gone nuts on feathered designs. And hell, they could still have the “classic” designs around, the movie even features some of the animals from the original island.
Second huge missed opportunity was that the second movie didn’t take place in the ruins of the original park so it could be called “Jurrasic World: The Lost Park”.
Right I really expected the latest movie to have way more feathers. But the story of it was just sooo bad and unmotivated. Lol “We want to study the proteins of a 100% synthetic species for which the entire genome is known. Let’s collect blood.” As if all of biotech simply does not exist. It makes very limited sense imho
Shout out to Jurassic Park 3 which, while terrible in its own way, at least added quills to some of the raptors. At first I thought it strange that only some of them got new design and some of them looked the same as in the first two movies but then it hit me - the ones with the quills were males, while the first two movies had only females!
So yeah, World has zero excuse when even JP3 got some proto-feathers in despite using the same dinos as the first one.
One of the prevailing themes of the original is that these animals are just living their life and they simply don’t belong here 65 million years in the future. They don’t like being kept in zoos, they can’t eat the flora, they’re simply out of place/time. Their violence towards humans is a side effect of their inability to fit in naturally. The T-Rex flips over the Jeep and then starts biting the tires. He doesn’t know what a Jeep is.
In the sequels, they simply want to eat people all the time. Like, I was high when I saw the 5th one, but I’m pretty sure dinosaurs will go out of their way to eat people even when they’re basically on fire. From what I’ve seen of the trailers from the new one, they will flip over a boat and wait for the people to fall out before trying to eat them. It would have made more sense if they said they accidentally fucked up their brains or something and made them ravenous.
Oh, sorry, that’s as long as you don’t hold your hands up. That makes you invisible for some reason.
they accidentally fucked up their brains or something and made them ravenous.
Maybe the dinosaurs used the time machine from Timeline too frequently.
The worst one for me is the sequel book that Crichton actually wrote. The Lost World.
He actually wrote it as a sequel to the movie, not the first book. Bringing back Ian Malcolm (killed in the book, but not the movie) and flipping the ages of the original 2 kids to match the movie.
As a book, it’s not awful, but he kind of sold out by writing it for the inevitable movie adaptation… which then completely ignores the book. 🤬
I really wanted to see the chameleon dinosaurs too! Or, you know, not see them as the case may be!
Bringing back Ian Malcolm
When I read that book as a kid, that confused me so much. I reread the beginning of the book so many times trying to figure out if I had missed a line saying “but it turns out it was his twin who died” or something. I think I had gotten the first book from the library then returned it, else I would have reread it looking for an explanation. No, though; justifying his resurrection was left as an exercise for the reader.
I was confused too until I hit the reference to the kids age swap and then I was like “Oh! Sequel to the MOVIE, not the BOOK!”
Sadly, I wasn’t very savvy and there was enough of a time gap that I didn’t catch on.
The chameleon dinosaurs would have been a no-brainer! They were scary as hell in the book and easy to translate to the bog screen. Give 'em a predator-like cloaking vibe, but more obvious. Catch one fading into the treeline, stuff like that.
I think the bog screen is where they’re debuting Swamp Thing, no?
The current Crichton books/sequels written by other authors from outline materials he left behind are so awful.
The one that James Patterson finished about the volcano in Hawaii was pretty awful too.
Alien and Terminator have both had nothing but shit since their second installments.
If you look at only the movies, Star Wars is at least as bad after the original trilogy. Rise of Skywalker is bad enough to make me wonder if there was intentional sabotage going on.
But for my money, the best example of a franchise that starts strong and then turns to absolute garbage in the sequels is Highlander. The original is a classic that was never meant to have a sequel. Then it got a bunch of sequels, the majority of which have been frequently cited as among the worst movies ever made.
- Highlander 2 is a ridiculous betrayal of the original that wanted to be cyberpunk and retconned the immortals to being aliens, which just gets dumber the longer you think about it,
- Highlander 3 is an apology that erases 2, but also negates the original’s ending for no reason other than to do the exact same plot over again… poorly.
- Highlander 4 erases all the movies and instead follows the TV show, killing the hero of the first movie as a poorly realized attempt to pass the torch, butchering the lore of both the movie and the show, and just being so awful that they chose to spend their time and money making deceptive ads with stuff that was never going to be in the movie instead of finishing the movie. Seriously, they released it with unfinished effects shots and missing scenes that were vital to understanding the plot.
- And then there’s Highlander 5, which was a straight to Syfy channel movie that actually makes all the previous ones look good by comparison, Listing everything wrong with it would just be describing the entire movie.
Hell, the anime is the most faithful movie follow up, and it doesn’t have any of the characters, takes place in a post apocalyptic wasteland, and introduces God, destiny, reincarnation, ghosts, druid magic, cyborgs, giant robot spiders, etc.
I give Rise of Skywalker a pass because they were put in an impossible position.
First, Rian Johnson rat fucked them with Last Jedi, painting them into a corner with no villain to speak of, killing Luke, and reducing the size of the Resistance to something that could fit in the Falcon… Like he forgot his part was the middle part.
And then Carrie Fisher died. :( 3rd movie was supposed to be “hers”, just like Force Awakens was Han’s and Last Jedi was Luke’s.
So, not sure what they could have done here. Fisher did die during post production on Last Jedi, so they could have done an edit where Leia dies in space, Luke survives, and then give the 3rd movie to Luke… or… re-cast the role of Leia and do it properly, or as properly as you can do without a major cast member.
I have a dream where they cut out the completely garbage Casino Planet scenes from Last Jedi and use that runtime to finish the movie with the Palpatine reveal. It would’ve made Last Jedi a reasonably better movie, and more importantly given Rise of Skywalker a fucking chance to be decent.
“Add it to the movie so it makes narrative sense or… OR… now bear with me here… OR announce it in Fortnite, a game your key audience, Gen X, does not play.”
Gen Who?
I liked both alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, and I didn’t like anything else after that (Prometheus, Romulus, etc.)
Not sure what is wrong with me.
I don’t think your opinions are that unusual. The first 4 Alien films are all unique in their own way, and if you watch the Assembly Cut then even 3 is a fairly consistent and satisfying experience. It’s really from Prometheus onwards that the major issues started, although I will say that at least Prometheus was still trying to bring something different in its themes and setting (which were unfortunately poorly developed and hampered by the terrible writing). Covenant was just a complete mess suffering from a clear identity crisis and Romulus was soulless nostalgia-bait, as most reboots are.
Resurrection works as a black comedy. I mean the newborn at the end does puppydog eyes and coos at Call.
I can’t agree with you about 3. I just rewatched it and it just didn’t do it for me. It bothers me that 2/3rds of the survivors from Aliens get iced in the opening scene, but I do really like the scene where she bring Bishop online.
Did you watch the Assembly Cut of 3? It’s a more consistent and well-rounded experience, although the film still goes downhill considerably from the moment of
spoiler
Charles Dance’s death. He played by far the most interesting character and the only one with any real development (other than Ripley). As soon as he exits, you’re left with a bunch of nobody criminals who until that point have existed mostly as plot devices.
Meh. I liked Prometheus and Romulus more than some of the other Alien sequels. People have different tastes/likes.
Alien and Terminator have both had nothing but shit since their second installments.
that’s what i’m saying, Jurassic Park doesn’t even have that. Lost World was okay at best.
Personally, I’d argue that Alien and Terminator weren’t amazing either, and it’s only Aliens and Terminator 2 that were actually great movies. They’re still franchises with one really awesome installment followed by utter trash. And honestly, I think I’d take Jurassic Park 3 and Jurassic World over anything else the Aliens franchise has produced since.
I’m not saying they are definitely worse than the JP franchise, just that they’re close enough that reasonable people could disagree.
Terminator was great, and is harder to properly gauge in the modern context where self fulfilling time loops and robots that look like people are common tropes. At the time, it was a groundbreaking film.
eh i wouldn’t go that far. Alien and Termonator are much better than any Jurassic Park sequels.
They aren’t bad movies, just not great. Better than Lost World, but not so good that I would be lamenting the terrible sequels if it weren’t for the far superior installments.
All I’m saying is that there isn’t a hell of a lot of difference between being disappointed in the terrible sequels that came after the first movie vs the terrible sequels that came after the second movie, especially when you aren’t all that attached to the first movie.
It’s all a matter of perspective anyway. Yes, Jurassic Park never got a good sequel but then it never really needed one. It was a complete story that did not call for any kind of follow up. To me, that makes the sequels less disappointing, because I don’t expect anything more.
Aliens ends with unanswered questions and lots of obvious potential for follow up stories. Star Wars gave us an entire universe full of potential stories to tell, whether it followed directly from the original trilogy or did something new in the same world. That the potential is wasted by making terrible movies makes them so much worse to me.
The modern King Kong films, starting with the Peter Jackson one which was alright when it came out. The rest of them are just straight schlock trash
I liked Kong island precisely for its schlock. Throwing John C Reilly in the mix was wild.
Yeah Skull Island was a bit of a hidden gem. Painful to see what has happened to Western Godzilla - at least Japan is still doing the big man (lizard) justice.
Oh yeah, shin Godzilla and Godzilla -1 are by far my favourites from the last couple years.
I find it fantastic how they manage to make a kong movie or godzilla movie and then go: alright, this is vool and all, but how about this child that is the main focus of the movie? Predator movie? That sounds cool, but how about a child with autism.
Rebirth mostly sucked but t-rex river made it worth the price of admission. The Pratt sequels brought nothing worthwhile to the table.
Edit- I’d argue the resident evil films are contenders for “biggest collection of dogshit” and should have ended at 1, but they kept pumping those out too. $$$.
Resident evil was at least funny bad. The Jurassic park movies are just boring bad.
Even the first RE was bad. You could see the boom Mike in so many scenes!
Here is the list of movie franchises I just don’t bother watching anymore.
- The Terminator
- Alien
- Predator
- Jurassic Park
- The Fast and Furious
- Indiana Jones
- Star Wars (though there is one Tvshow that keeps me)
- The Matrix
- James Bond
- The Pirates of the Caribbean
- Halloween
There aren’t any movie franchises that have more bad entries than Jurassic Park ,but when you factor in TV Shows Star Wars wins.
I really liked the new animated predator movie.
You missed Tremors. First 2 movies were great, 3 was okay, but 4 on is straight to DVD nonsense. I remember buying 4 a while after it came out and being pretty disappointed in how far the series had fallen. They had a SciFi TV show too for like a season but iirc they actually released the episodes out of order and so the show never made sense chronologically
I don’t remember which it was but I remember being delighted by the Tremors Prequel/Sequel that took place in the old west. Tremors was always schlock, though. The first two movies just happened to punch above their weight IMO.
I have only seen the first two. It sucks it went to hell. I loved the first two tremors.
On a strange sidenote, I saw the bacon brothers band live. Kevin Bacon actually pitched the song to the movie producers called under Paradise, Which they did not accept as the theme of the movie.
It was a good song
I appreciate how you listed The Matrix twice.
“Whoa. Déjà vu.”
lol…
Edited.
No, no, you were right listing The Matrix twice is absolutely correct.
… sad but true
I still think Jurassic Park takes the cake here. I can’t speak to F&F or Halloween, but most of those franchises have at least one good sequel. The Matrix sequels aren’t great but in my opinion they’re better than JP’s. JP also has an edge with volume.
when just movies, yeah
eh star wars shows hit more often than JP sequels do. Clone Wars, Madalorian, Andor are all good.
Except The Book of Bobba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ashoka and The Acolytte were all trash…
FWIW Prey, the predator sequel from a couple years ago, and Alien Romulus were both pretty good.
I have heard that a lot, but was skeptical, so I eventually watched it. Prey was a lot better than all the other Predator sequels but I did not love it. I had a hard time swallowing how she became the biggest warrior around.
Alien Romulus, I will take your word for it. I am just done with the franchise
Prey was straight ass imo. They had a good idea and made something bad out of it.
Why do they keep making them? People watch them. Rebirth has passed $800m at the box office.
Why do people watch them? IDK, dinosaurs are cool? I agree it was a bad, unoriginal film. I still watched it and apparently you did too. I knew it would be bad and watched it anyway because I know I like a cheesy, “bad” film on occasion. Why did you watch it?
And it was supposed to be a “soft reboot” of the franchise, so viewers can forget about the one about grasshoppers instead of dinosaurs. So maybe that was supposed to be the “Rebirth” of it all.
Why do they keep making them?
that’s not what i asked, I understand why they keep making them.
Why do people watch them? IDK, dinosaurs are cool?
also not what i asked. I agree dinosaurs are cool.
Why did you watch it?
why does it matter? I thought it had a chance of being good. Now that I know it’s bad I will not watch it again.
edit: lol, out here on a high horse having a conversation with yourself, and you downvote me for calling you out on it.
Just seeing this now. I didn’t downvote you, bud. My instance has downvotes disabled. Get outta your reddit mindset, I was trying to drive conversation!
I was driving at “well, you watched it? Why? And why would they anything differently if folks like you and I keep watching them?”
But all good, I’ll tag your username so I don’t reply to your posts in the future and you don’t have to be concerned about my non-existent downvotes that don’t mean anything on Lemmy anyway.
yeah, you were driving at a conversation has been had many times before and has no bearing on my post. we all know hollywood is all about the money, let’s move on.
the question here is, is Jurassic Park the worst of them all? and your post did not contribute to that conversation at all.
and yes, votes mean something, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. they affect the visibility of posts, which is why i downvote low effort and off topic comments such as yours.
Too bad for you I’m on an instance that disables downvotes. Can’t give 'em, can’t see 'em.
Lost World is a worthy sequel to 1 but yeah, after that its all awful
I rewatched it recently, loved it as a kid. Watching it as an adult though… Not as good as I remember. I actually love all the fake tech and gadgets, but as an adult the movie is clearly made to sell new toys. The gymnastic bars scene is just bad.
I guess I’ll have to rewatch that one, been a long time.
I swear my taste in films isn’t always so shallow. I like films to have good moral messages and a good story. But sometimes, I also just wanna see cool things on screen. Sometimes, I just wanna see dinosaurs on the big screen.
If you want to see an entry into the Jurassic franchise that actually has a good story, check out the animated series Camp Cretacous and its sequel Chaos Theory
I agree, sometimes you just want pasific rim. Giant monsters fighting giant robots, to a kick arse sound track.
After the first JP, the rest are just cool dinosaurs on screen.
Jurassic World was okay…Fallen Kingdom was awful and The one with fucking locusts was the biggest waste of returning talent in an IP that I have ever seen
Sam Neil is understandable because I think he knows he’s “the guy from Jurassic Park” and it was an easy paycheck, Jeff Goldblum, sure, because he knows he’s Jeff Goldblum and no one will ever really hate him, but it’s crazy to me that Laura Dern came back for that script. I hope the paycheck was worth it because… wow.
Which is wild, that he’s “the guy from JP”. I checked his filmography and he has been in at least one movie per year since 1984.
In The Mouth of Madness is the best of the ones I’ve seen. Also one of my fave John Carpenter films.
True. Check out Event Horizon if you’ve not seen it yet and like Mouth of Madness. It’s another Sam Neil-led horror movie and one of the best in the genre IMO.
Matrix says Hi
Man I do not get this one. It seems a very popular online opinion to shit on the Matrix sequels, but I love them.
2 and 3 isn’t as good but it’s not bad either? At least they ended the story. JP doesn’t even need a sequel and they got like a shit tons.
I would say they aren’t as bad as Jurassic Park. Also Jurassic Park has Matrix beat with volume.
Hey now, The Matrix Resurrections finally redeems aspects of The Matrix Revolutions. Progress! 😅
There are more than a few stinkers when you go down the line Alien sequels, especially if you count the Alien VS Predator films.
