Jurassic World Dominion (2022) / Lightyear (2022)
Happy Fourth of July everybody! Hope you all enjoyed the sunshine and the BBQ and the beer and the bikinis!! I saw these two films when they first came out weeks ago and just decided to write about them now, because, well, I was feeling all Americana and stuff. I mean these two installments of tentpoles IP in Hollywood were made, remade and remade again until our eyes fell out of our heads and our brains turned to mush – and then they remade them again!! Isn’t that what America is all about? Bang for your buck? Cheap knockoffs? Getting rich on the saps who buy your products?
So Happy Birthday America! Let’s see what you’ve done!
So Jurassic Park / World have 5, this is their sixth. Lightyear / Toy Story has 4, this is their fifth. So Toy Story is a bit behind, but that’s okay. PIXAR just ruined this franchise before Jurassic Park ruined theirs. That’s pretty impressive actually.
So Lightyear is the movie, as it states in the movie Lightyear, that Andy fell in love with (why we don’t know) Buzz Lightyear and dreamed of having a toy of Buzz for his Birthday or Christmas or whatever it was. Why Andy fell in love with such a horrible character and a horrible movie, we don’t know. Maybe Andy is autistic and we don’t know it? Anyway Andy fell head over heels for this crap and got a Buzz Lightyear toy. Who by the way, “To Infinity and Beyond” is NOT his catchphrase, he only said it with his friend and nobody else, so I dunno how that’s catchphrase.
Also they ruin his arch-enemy Zerg! Turns out Zerg is not even his name and it gets worse, but I’m not about spoilers. Let’s just say Zerg is not a monster or an enemy at all to anyone. So that was a great disappointment, as was the entire film. Oh and guess what – it deals with time travel!! Extra Bonus!! Yaaay! Can every single story from now on have time travel in it? Because I love vomiting!
Let’s move on to Jurassic Park/World number six, before I pop a blood vessel.
Jurassic Park / World number 817, it sure feels like it. Has a very original premise to this franchise. You want to know what it is? You’ll never guess. It’s people trapped in a park full of Dinosaurs!! Wow! I would have never guessed they would go back to that again! Incredible. Talk about lazy writing! Hey guys – anyone have any ideas for the sixth Jurassic Park? Um, how about they get trapped in a park full of unruly dinosaurs? Genius! May I give you a raise my good man! Please!!
It’s like Rocky fighting Apollo Creed again, and again, and again, and again. I mean c’mon! Regurgitated crap that we have seen literally 5 times before, except now the ticket prices are higher. Congrats! Oh and Chris Pratt can control dinosaur brains by raising his hand. How? I dunno. He just says “easy girl” and every dinosaur, even ones who have never seen him before, obey him. If only cavemen knew this trick! It doesn’t even work with dogs – but dinosaurs? Bigger, meaner, more ferocious animals actually listen to “easy girl”!! Who knew! My hamster won’t even care if I raised both hands and both feet! But a dinosaur who is starving and ten times bigger and more powerful then you will totally back off once they hear “easy girl”. Completely understandable.
Let me tell you something true – I was looking forward to seeing the original trio back together, alongside Chris Pratt and Howard. I thought a gripping original story was just understood to exist, but it didn’t. It was the gang’s all here and let’s just say our lines from all the previous films. If any writer got paid for this, it was way too much. They could have taken all the old screenplays and simply spliced them together and it probably would have come out better.
So these are two movies that are what is wrong with Hollywood today. Simple regurgitation and laziness. Keep the IP intact, maybe we’ll get lucky and make a few more. Genius. I don’t think Lightyear 2 is coming, but I’m sure Jurassic Park will be around for a few more years, as long as Spielberg is alive, they will make more. That is what Hollywood is all about these days. Maybe sometimes, a CODA will slip through or a Squid Games will be allowed into the country – but for the most part – it’s all about IP and tentpoles and what can we make a theme park ride about. Scorsese, and Coppola saw the writing on the wall. Disney just wants characters to put into their theme parks where the real money is made. Good, bad, indifferent, it doesn’t matter. Get the character out there so everybody knows about it, then make a rollercoaster about it. Simple.
Enough ranting, I need more Pepto-Bismal. Enjoy your Holiday whatever you do, and see you at the movies.
