Jurassic World Reconsidered

      JURASSIC WORLD was first-rate in nearly every way except for story structure.

      This thread is for the examination of ideas for improving the movie.

     I will amend and clarify my past assertion that screenwriters are the first and all-important members of a production.

     Skilled screenwriters are usually, but not always, skilled STORY CREATORS. Good story creators are not necessarily able to produce great screenplays.

     The best possible story is of first importance.

     To me, JW is an excellent example of where so many screenplays of different movies go wrong. It all stems from a failure to realize that there are a hundred ways to skin a cat and there are, at the least, BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of ways to structure any particular story.

     In the case of JW, what the movie should have been was quite obvious. It should have been about many different sorts of dinosaurs suddenly breaking out among the thousands of people throughout a themepark. There was a great problem with this in that the movie could not depict or even suggest that seven year-olds and their mothers were being torn apart and eaten. The thinking seems to have run "It should be about lots of dinos after thousands of screaming people, but we can't suggest children are diced, so we'll have to return to the two kids chased by a TRex, only this rex will be a little bigger." It should have gone "Needs to be many dinos and thousands of people. But we can't even suggest that a bunch of kids are crunched-up. We'll have to keep sifting through the billions and billions of possibilities and find a few that are what it needs to be. Then, we'll choose the best of those."

      The movie needed to protect kids and mothers while providing plenty of other, less sympathetic fodder.

      There also needed to be a more sensible cause for the dino break-out.

      It needed to up the ante in almost every way.

      I have a few thoughts. I will confess now that it would involve upping the production budget.

       SPOILERS SPOILERS

      What about a WestWorld sort of vibe with anthro robots adapted from military use? Not as robust as combat units. Given a young, kid friendly appearance. Only in this case they are the park staff operating the rides, shops and kiosks, maintainance, security, housekeeping.... The movie with it's floating displays and advanced genetic modification seems set at least 10years in the future. It could be vaguely hinted that they could go haywire against people. When the time comes they go into autonomous mode and follow their programming. They must protect human life beginning with the most valuable, the children, then the mothers, then the fathers if they can(one or two dads could buy it helping the bots protect their families), and anyone else if there aren't more valuable people around. There could be a moment where the bots go to diagnostic and maintainance center set above the rest of the park because they learn from observation. Without comment there could be bots looking down at humans in their containment areas who are looking down at dinos in their pens. A bot could "malfunction" and revert to military programming and go on the hunt with weapons forbidden to civil bots.

     There also needs to be a good supply of unsympathetic munchies. How bout a big pitch to thousands of investors from around the world for billions to fund next wave genetic modification. The island is a great haven for tax cheating and questionable military experiments so these investors and their ladyfriends are questionable. They could demand that the bots guard them and use children as their shields.

     tsall fer now

      It's said that after a major crash, the airline's business will increase.

      Partly because of increased brand awareness from all the news reports, and partly from a subconcious desire to be associated with something big and dangerous.

     I don't know much about that, just tossing it out there. Corporate culture.

        The breakout.

        The JW film breakout didn't work for me. The main protaganists should seem as smart or smarter than I am at all times. She lives on her cell, but physically goes back to control center? Dude enters the pen before confirmation to get an even better look at claw marks? For most of the crises it was just the one rex lumbering along. They did a good job of having it come out of nowhere, but it's still enormous.

       Everything is going along, routine, then bam, then rise of the Jurassic. Every kind of predatory dino crawls and jumps out of it's cage.

      How? there's the old standby, hubris of believing they have a perfect security system that malfunctions, there're earthquake, tsunami, volcano....

     How 'bout all of the above? A meteor strike, Yucatan style, off the coast of the island. Dormant volcano is triggered, fault line is shaken, tsunami comes in and floods everything with aquatic creatures getting everywhere, most systems fail....

      Bots, large crowds, multiple disasters, many different dinos....

      Wouldn't be cheap.

       I know next to nothing about Hollywood accounting. I often suspect that Hollywood accountants understand even less than I do.

       They claim that ULTRON production, with all that different stuff going on, was 150 million. They claim that TOMORROWLAND, with fog and lots of converstions in vehicles and in front of display screens, was even more expensive than ULTRON. 

        The stars of the show, the dinos.

        The IRex was a great concept, but I felt like it should feature even more.

        All of the dinos are Gmodified. Run with that concept.

        The IRex is the next wave, but all the predatory dinos have been enhanced for greater intelligence so that they can be trained and controlled. This has the unexpected result of them wanting to hunt to learn to be better predators, like a cat or sea otter playing with it's food, instead of for food.

       Also, the IRex would have little military value. Easy target. Lots of small, smart, and quick little dinos, 1 1/2/to 4 ft tall, running around like GREMLINS. They could even want tho train the raptors to hunt the smaller ones as clean-up after battles.

      All more expensive. This is the Jurassic franchise. Imax3D. 50 million more for great FX that greatly enhances the story will almost certainly earn back it's money. If ever they are going to swing for the fences....

     I know that it earned 1.5 billion reported. This is just how I roll.

       characters.

     We have Corp Chick and Dude.

     Up the ante over JP. Instead of two or three, small groups of 4 or five. A group of investors, control room staff, asset control mercenaries, bots and families, dinos.... A few seconds is spent at the beginning introducing the personality types of at least a couple from each group.

     Chick is busy and stuff but doesn't have sister fuss at her just friendly call, no stuff outside the park, kids aren't too bothered she isn't going, no heavy family drama. intro with boss flying helicopter.

     Denofrio in charge of control room and betraying to military contracters.

     Each group has member who has Han Solo moment and some groups have those who are unexpectedly ratty.

     Asset Control like intro of squad in Aliens. Each has personality. Commander is silent kick-ass with Chinese/S.Korean/Japanese name.

     Two nephews and three nieces. eldest is 12-13. Only child. He's a good looking kid with a masculine haircut, but he has problems. His pet tarantula died, his mom and dad are dating the same bar bouncer, bad friends are trying to get him into disco music.... He's quietly bothered and was never really in charge of anything. His cousin is 12 year old girl, little self involved. Their cousin is stand-in for JG of JP. She is worried about toothy creatures and knows about JP. At some point she lamentingly points out that she has been right about everything. Boy 10 is brother of self involved chick loves dinos and also has a masculine haircut. Girl 9 is sister of worried girl and brave and energetic. They stay together as group.

     The rogue bot reverts to military program. Looks like ride attendant but has personality of a combat Marine Sargent. Runs riot through park has encounter with each group. Causes almost as much havoc as it is a help. Jumps on a raptor and does bot on dino ride.

     edit: The heavy weapons vault is damaged and blocked. Most of the crisis near sunset or at night.

      That's as far as I'll go with this reconsideration. Anyone else have thoughts?

Hi.

You should have said "O hai" for optimal effect.