Jurassic World Dominion Is Everything Wrong with Modern Franchise Filmmaking
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Darren Mooney examines why Jurassic World Dominion embodies everything that's wrong with current modern franchise filmmaking.
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Loved the "origin of a sequel" section, amazing work. I completely agree with you: a sequel should only exist to tell a new story as good or better than the first one
Or at least try to tell something new and original with it.
That does depend if the original intent was to have a continuation.
@@godzilla2k26 I'm fine with someone new that would like to make a sequel because they have a good story to tell in that universe. For example Kevin Smith's He Man Revelation is a sequel to the 80s cartoons
I feel like there was a missed opportunity at the end. You should've ended it with "I've been so and so, and this was an analysis of _insert Jeff Goldblum's quote_"
Anyway, wonderfully done, deserves more attention. Yahtzee says this about games but it's also true about movies; most things aren't made by human beings anymore, emotionless, soulless husks that run on money using algorithms and statistics to calculate what would make most profit, not anything that might push boundaries or make the viewer think or question anything.
I haven't seen Dominion, but your review reflects the same feelings I had after watching the 4th Matrix movie and the Han Solo movie, It's like none of these films were even trying to be better than their originals.
The film makers will cobble something together with minimum effort and expect the name, the famous actors, and the nostalgia of the audience to carry it to success, but they just feel hollow.
3:18 Why the fuck are they making a Hocus Pocus 2!?
It didn't need a sequel and i really doubt fans of the original wanted one.
when a 10 minute video is better than the movie its analyzing
Brilliantly analysed as always Darren! Great editing too!
For me they had all the ingredients and threw them on the stove without a pan or preparation. It could easily have been a Dino Crisis type apocalipsis movie . Dinos taking over the world and humans having to live with that
I wouldn't call it raw cynicism, but whenever I approach a sequel, long-delayed reboot, whatever, the questions that comes to mind are,
"Is this an attempt to make a movie better than the original?" If 'yes,' that's not entirely impossible (look at Ocean's Eleven, the Planet of the Apes reboot, X-Men First Class) but the bar is set really high. It's a simple yes/no question and overwhelmingly often whatever you make ends up forgotten in the long run (even if it makes money).
"Is this a true 'next chapter' that takes the familiar as a means to explore new ideas?" Think Better Call Saul, Bladerunner 2049 or the Samurai Jack revival, these work specifically because they aren't simple re-treads of what came before. The entire fanbase won't 'like' them, but if you do it right there'll be a group of fans who really 'love' them.
In film marketing/press they always try to walk that fine line because admitting to the former will earn you the ire of the same fanbase you're trying to milk, while courting the latter ironically gives you an even further uphill battle.
The weirdest thing is that the tepid retreads are not only commercially viable, they are often more popular than the thing they are trying to poorly clone. Why in the hell should I watch a hollow nothing version of a film that exists to remind me of an original film, when I can just watch that film?
@@UnreasonableOpinions that's because the original had to win people over from scratch. You didn't know how good Jurassic Park is when it first came out so it's success is dampened by that uncertainty
Sequels gain the benefit of a fanbase that's demanding more. If it's not good then that's ok since by then everyone already paid.
You can pull it off a few more times to diminishing results but if all you want is money then that's all you need.
That's not getting into the many many people who try to look for that Easy Button. The surefire formula that brings success. In many cases they aren't so much just milking things as they are really thinking 'check the right boxes and you can make perfection'. It's why many movies feel less like stories and more like mad libs.
What I most hate about the constant entrained cries of 'it's for the fans, not the critics' is that this only leads to more defensive cynicism from films, breaking the scene to promise you that they know Thing In Scene is cliche or stupid haha aren't we cool, instead of having the basic craft to just fix it instead, or the commitment to just do it anyway and harder so the audience gets to play along. It's artless and craftless as the same time.
I like to call this phenomena "shit happening on screen". It's a point in a movie or in this case, the entire movie where there's no story or acting happening or anything attempting to resonate with the audience. It's just filler noise on screen. I refused to pay money to see this. Its the same writer who wrote Pacific Rim: Uprising. Talk about a paycheck artist...I'll shit on it when it's on HBO in a few weeks.
Perfectly articulates the issues with the culture of rehashing gems from the past for some quick nostalgia quids. Great video, Darren!
The dinosaur rave was genius too
Really puts in perspective how recent is the prestige that sequels have been endowed, even if we now take it for granted.
An outstanding review as usual, Darren.
In general, civilization seems to have run the numbers with the executives, and decided we can't afford to have popular culture.
“A sequel must be twice as good as the original to even be considered as good.” -Paul hogan
Hogan also said he would only do a sequel if he had a story to tell.
It’s starting to feel like the pioneer trying to scrap and scrape for the last bit of gold left in the Rush.
I'll admit that the fan service here was kind of rampant, and the character development was nigh non-existent. And you're right, all of this does point toward an awful trend of nostalgia as gospel, but I will say this: there was some amount of effort put in. The fan service moments made at least a minimum amount of sense in the plot (Ellie's helicoptering into a dig site nonwithstanding), and the premises of each character's potential growth were interesting enough, even the premise of the movie itself was kinda where the story was heading all this time. What would happen if the dinosaurs got out? Ran amuck in human civilization. I'm not saying that any one aspect was done well, merely competently. That's sadly more than can be said of other franchises these days.
I had the distinct misfortune of watching a double feature of the original and then Dominion. Nothing was more highlighting of how absolutely hollow Dominion is.
All good points, though my love of Alan Grant makes me comment: He and Ellie weren't a couple in Jurassic Park. Malcom asks Grant if they are a couple, to which he awkwardly stumbles through a "Yeah, uh huh, of course!" moment. Definitely weren't together. They clearly loved each other and never said it, and either way they realized they wanted different things so it never happened. As for jumping into each others arms after reuniting, that's just not how Grant works. He's not an emotion-on-his-sleeve kind of man.
Hate to break it to you, but Speilberg said clearly in an interview on the DVD: "Jurassic Park was a simple story about a man who couldn't fully commit to his girlfriend because she wanted then and he didn't."
Its a shame when a Jurrasic Park movie is just so meh and boring. Being full of brain dead action and bad writing makes it boring for me btw. It can literally have explosions every second, and ill fall asleep.
I love how the dinos can almost catch a car, but once you start running on foot? Oh boy, they are always behind ya, like far away. Just keep running, you will make it. Why they were catching up to the car, but they can't easily get a running human you ask? Don't ask. Just watch and eat your popcorn! It's 2022, WATCH AND DONT QUESTION!
You're right. Objectively, the vast majority of movies and shows put out are forgettable, unnecessary, and straight up mediocre. And I've been trying to convince myself for years that the reason I enjoy so many of them is intellectual or conceptual in nature, but maybe the truth has just always been that for me, stuff like this was always more of an endorphin booster?
The moment you can accept that liking bad things is fine and sometimes even good, you'll be so much more free to enjoy things. A thing you enjoyed turning out to be bad or unpopular can't take your positive experience away from you. Only you can take away the fun you're already had.
Realising that the person I'd been playing scissors-paper-critic with for years was just myself was liberating. Learning to enjoy things that are bad frankly makes them more fun , because now I can enjoy them brain-off when I want some exciting noise, or brain-on because they're as much fun to dissect as very good films.
@@UnreasonableOpinions yes, it can be quite liberating to ignore the reasons you like something and just enjoy it without minding its badness. However, the reason this kind of movie exists is because this kind of movie works, meaning people likes this kind of films. Should we gatekeep these movies in an attempt to stop thel from spawning continuously? Should we trust the expressive care of movie-makers?
I have no idea
God my comment is kind of stupid
Dinosaur EDM made this video better than JW:Dominion
So with this movie; I noticed a lot of people online complaining about negative reviews/reactions saying that Dominion is "for the fans not the critics". Which is bizarre for me because I never thought of ANY of the Jurassic movies as having "a fandom" like the MCU or the Wizarding World movies do.
I'm a fan of the originial Jurassic Park (and the book!) and I think Dominion was a hot mess... I don't know which kind of fans were they talking about.
That's the norm now for any franchise film. "It's for the fans" to shield it from criticism of being a not so great movie. Which is dumb that people get so angry over it too, because a movie doesn't have to be necessarily "good" to still be fun to watch.
It gives people nervous that they might like a bad thing a mental out of having to do the trivial work of decoupling their mild experiences from their personality. Too many people are just too fragile to accept that they can enjoy a thing that is bad, instead of accepting it and finding fun.
@@arkheavyindutries My copy of the book is so worn out from when I was a kid that there's pages that will fall out if you're not careful, I still have my original VHS tapes of the first two movies, they were watched SO MANY TIMES (especially the first) that the labels are considerably scraped. I absolutely hated jurassic world and haven't bothered seeing this one as I figured it would continue the same formula of CG chase scenes and callbacks to the first movies, apparently people like us aren't considered "fans" these days.
"For the fans" just means they know there's people out there willing to lower their standards as far as they have to to accept anything belonging to the franchise.
I am so tired of the excuse that you have to turn your brain off to enjoy something
Especially when the first part of the franchise was kind of thought-provoking. I'm not saying Jurassic Park was high art or anything, but it is definately one of the smarter blockbusters of the last thirty years.
@@ThierryVerhoeven definitely, it was very character driven and ironically a very human story
Dinosaurs are in that film for like 15 minutes tops and it manages to be that effective
It was just a perfect trifecta of well-written, well directed, and well cast
The first film the ONLY good film in the series?! - I disagree somewhat...
I loved The Lost World as much as the first film (perhaps because the first two films were indeed pretty loose adaptions of the books), while I also quite enjoyed the first of the World films - all in, indeed it's been an uneven series, but it doesn't have just one bright spark! 🤔😯😀🤘
It's almost impressive how much they botched that Alan and Ellie reunion. It seemed to me that he writers were aiming for that scene in The Force Awakens in which Han and Leia see each other for the first time in years. But everything that worked in that scene is completeley lacking here.
I guess the main problem would be that the very first scene they have together bluntly signals right away that there are no obstacles for them to become a couple again and so by the end of the movie that just happens. Why not just develop that little subplot throughout the movie? Like, have Alan ask Ellie how her husband is doing, and have her awkwardly reply that he's fine, they're fine, everything's fine. And then later on they might reflect on when they were working together and were something of a couple and perhaps how that fell apart. And then in a moment of crisis, like I don't know maybe after almost being eaten by dinosaurs, Ellie could have something of a breakdown and admit that she and her husband are getting divorced. And Alan could comfort her and admit that that he never settled down like she did because he never found anyone that could match up to her. Just a simple moment of honestly that would unexpectedly open a door for both of them.
To be fair, I don't know if any of this would be good. I guess most of it would depend on the dialogue and the performances. But at least it would be something...
Sequels should be taxed. Seriously. With every sequel/reboot/remake on top, the taxt gets larger and larger. The income of this tax is used to fund new IPs.
Jurassic Park and the Lost World (yes even the lost world has a lot of great flourishes by Spielberg) are such great and iconic films. Makes me wish they stopped there :/
Nah, Rise of Skywalker and Jurassic World are the fucking Godfather compared to this shit.
On point as always, Darren.
The tragedy of the modern blockbuster isn't the cynicism intrinsic to the enterprise, it's how often it freaking works. "You liked this thing? Here, have it again." Change is scary, I guess.
I watched "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2" for the first time recently, and thought, "What the hell did I just watch?" Was this sequel really a strange commentary on the fear of coming out as gay, housed in the same film where teenagers get boiled in a swimming pool, and Rottweilers have doll masks on? I... I think it was. Then I looked at the critical response and was reminded why corporate boards have such creative control. Sigh.
Love your Letterboxd reviews by the way. Slainte.
Darren would you ever consider doing an in the frame on the peaky blinders?
As a culture dies, it seeks to capitalise on nostalgia but is uninterested in or ignorant of, its source material.
I disagree
I don't think it's ignorance so much as dismissal. There's endless pieces of the old films in these films, far too many to have been made without extreme attention to detail. But these are all the meaningless trappings of the films, devices that served a purpose in the film divorced from the purpose and propped up on sticks. All of the heart, the narrative core, the themes and ideas, they're torn out. It's a taxidermied film, and no amount of gloss on the fur of stupid hat prop continuity will convince anyone that it's still alive when we can see the seams and the stuffing.
...well, there it is.
We really are running headlong into the creative vacuum depicted in ready player one. A society increasingly unwilling or unable to create new icons and instead just recycling and remixing existing cultural icons and throwing them together haphazardly.
It's strange that film was simultaneously an exercise in nostalgia bait and a warning about where that could lead.
More like it celebrated it because the main character's nostalgia is the thing that "saves the day".
💯💯💯
Ready Player One wasn’t a movie. It was a warning of things to come
I honestly had no idea about that scene from the new Ghostbusters. That's so stupid.
You mean Ghostbusters afterlife
@@animezilla4486 Yeah, it's the new Ghostbusters movie :p
I would argue that modern sequels aren't designed to be good films, they're content. More of the same. The producers want the same thing as before simply because it was liked, it can't be original or outside the box because that could risk the cash flow. Its just content to fill in gaps the previous stories have yet to fill, yes dramatic things may happen but it mustn't have depth... that's not content.
Modern Sequels aren’t designed to be good films, they’re content.
💯💯💯💯💯 SPOT ON.
Still… The Dark Knight is awesome
Great to watch a movie review where the author concentrates more on the subject matter and less in projecting himself as an all knowing philosopher of cinema.
Believe me, this is *VERY* rare.
and yes, totally agree with the closing statement, "this [movie] is a big pile of shit". I had the misfortune of watching it in cinema with family so I couldn't leave early.
Snyder's Justice League is worse than Joss's
I'd say they're about equally bad. At least the Joss Whedon version has the decency to end after two hours. The Zack Snyder version is only getting started by that time...
This is a great essay combined with excellent visuals. I can tell both Darren and Omar put great care into it, well done!
Do I detect an Irish accent in the reviewer.? Somweone please let me know. I'm Irish myself and I feel like I'm hearing something lol
Darren is indeed Irish.
JW:Dominion, 'member berries, the movie.
You don't seem to understand the purpose of the American film industry. It's not to tell compelling stories or break new ground. It's to pump cash out of people's pockets and into the bank accounts of wealthy corporate entities. Anytime you get a movie that tells a compelling story worthy of attention, that's not by design but by happenstance. Directors like Spielberg may want to make compelling movies, but the studios want money first and sacrifice everything to that end.
I’d like to go back in time and find the idiot who came up with the notion that you need your original cast to springboard your new cast into action. Unless a sequel is about a character, then you shouldn’t see the old cast ever again or it just strains credulity.
Die Hard points this out perfectly when in the second film, McClaine says “how can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?”. That’s why I applaud efforts luke 28 Weeks Later… or even though it was an awful film, the premise behind US Marshals was excellent! Take the cast from the Fugitive who can realistically have further adventures and follow them!
Had the new Star Wars films started with a clean slate, divorced from the OT and Prequels, with not even a single recurring character, it would probably have been a 3rd coming for the franchise. Instead we got the diametric opposite to the point where, in 30 years time in the story, not a single new spaceship design or droid model or alien species came into being! That’s just lazy and dumb and the exact reason why those films will never have the impact the original had.
Scathing and so on the money!
Movies/series these days are focused on reminding us of their better predecessors, not because of the original property's success necessarily, but because for most of us, our lives were less depressing then.
They're trying to remind each viewer of feelings they had when they weren't dealing with a global pandemic, a new foreign war, record gas prices, another housing market dumpster fire, etc.
These movies are aiming for the same effect you get from watching Looney Toons on Saturday morning, while eating a bowl of lucky charms in your pajamas.
Omar, you are a gem. Thank you for that dinosaur EDM scene 😂
i just tryd to watch it and found myself skipping allot of it. the action scenes created for tension were annoying more than anything. but it was just so stupid. at least the 1st movie all though full of shit too put forth a interesting premise with the known science at the time. but this movie is just sooooooooooo stupid, even the the avg 8 yo with a my first dinosaur book would be taken a back. the featherless, hairless, scaly raptor running around in the snow was next lvl idiocy. somebody should send the writers a blue planet box set because the understanding of biology and what animals that live in a cold climate have to do to stay alive is non existent. deff the dumbest movie i had the misfortune of watching 2022 so far but im sure with the quality of current writing rooms in hollyweird im sure they can top it.
Maybe this movie could have been good if it had been set later in time. If the world had been almost completely destroyed because of the dino outbreak and you had a small group of people trying to fix it? I don't know, there could have been potential, right?
dominion was utterly preoccupied with callbacks, cameos and references to focus on telling its own story, kind of the same way marvel and star wars films are today Constantly self aware, self referential, utterly dependent on previous sequels and shows.
Colin Trevorrow made a terrible movie? Am I really supposed to act shocked? Jurassic World movies are basically this generation's Bayformers.
Darren, if you think Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein isn't better than the OG wolfman......why I outta 😂
Love your videos Darren
Especially, when they cover the business side of Hollywood
Growing up during Star Wars original run I completely agree, sequels suck now and are just cash grabs not storytelling .
"The one good film in the franchise"
I know it's true but when you sat it out loud like that... opf!
So if 'Statler' is getting back together with Grant... what will happen to Waldorf? 😜
Making a great sequel or adaptation really does come down to understanding the language and joy of the original product
Excellent and insightful. Thanks for watching the trash so I don't have to.
Darragh Mooney defo Irish. Cool to hear on mainstram stuff., Hiii Darraggh!
I think it's telling that I've seen 3 reviews and only now know that the protagonists of the first film are present
The only thing I'm nostalgic for is the quality of those original films, not their content...
"Thank goodness they didn't make any more Jaws sequels"
I have some bad news for you....
11:18OUCH:_Stupid:
8:33 I actually thought that was kind of funny, however I get the point.
Thats why I loved every second Top Gun Maverick!
its also a good sequal needs to tell a new and diffrent story that the orginal didn't
Day 28 asking Yahtzee to review Monster Train
🦖🦖🦖
Really enjoyed this video. Thank you! ps Beautifully and persuasively edited.
Same. It’s fantastic and so well made.
I agree with the vid 100%. However, it is, as ever, not all doom and gloom.
No Time To Die was absolutely stuffed with fan service but also managed to make it's own story.
The John Wick movies are surprisingly good sequels.
I suppose you gotta enjoy the good art done with art in mind and enjoy the less thoughtfully crafted movies for what they are.
I'm drunk, yer mans Irish isnt he?
That was harsh! Bravo!
Your commentary is stellar as always, Darren! Insightful and funny whilst still being informative. Your views on modern cinema and the blockbuster trends never cease to make me smile or shake my head in righteous contempt. Keep being awesome!
It’s peak corporate filmmaking. Corporations hate risk and love guarantees, they rig every gamble and bargain they come across.
Great analysis, totally on point, and so hilarious 😂 I've just come across your videos & am now binging them all. More content please!
There's a pretty big mistake in this video at 2:44 when you included Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey in the reel where you indicate sequels that surpassed the originals.
door de bomen zie je het bos niet meer.
Great video as always, anyone know the name of the song in the background? kinda sounds like fly me to the moon.
Spot on!
I think everything you said was correct but I went into this with expecting it to prime take the piss out of with a mate bullshit and I was happy it in that regard it's very mockable I laughed out loud when three separate chrachter did the hand thing
but you know what I appreciate doesn't threatened another one at the end I know we will be get one but hopefully they won't be a rush
That opening clip was class!
Damn, I feel like going to the movie theater is getting harder with this bad movies. Thanks for the analysis of this movie and to use to make a point about bad sequels.
That shot of the can was only to allow for a potential sequel. Not bury it. And if any of you saw the movie when it came out you’d know Jurassic Park isn’t on some level above other movies. It’s got some fun moments and it’s got some absolutely awful ones. All movies are like this. Everyone just seems to want to believe whatever came before was better. In about 15 years, Dominion will be a classic alongside the original.
NOBODY is going to remember Dominion
The only reason to watch Dominion is for the child actress who plays the clone girl, Isabella Sermon. She gives the best performance
$$$$$$. Fandoms are suckers.
well put mr mooney very well put
Thanks mate, it's been great listening to your argumentation. Very well put
7:47 then you'd have just said it was cheap fanservice and forced and rushed.
I honestly felt quite heartbroken that this film turned out to be so terrible. I was incredibly excited for it because of the return of the original 3 from the first film. They were my comfort film heroes when I was younger and couldn't wait to see them again. I literally went through the 5 stages of grief with the reception of this film
Despite the critics reception the film was a box office hit
@@animezilla4486 If you can just exert the tiny mental effort of accepting that you're allowed to like things that are bad, you won't have to play farcical games of scissors-paper-critic any more and can stop looking ridiculous.
@@UnreasonableOpinions you just projected a lot of things onto them with no basis.
@@mc_kublai Anyone fool enough to declare takings as some kind of checkmate to critical review is plenty to work with, son.
Escapist! More Darren Mooney and more truly honest takes on films such as this! This man is on to something and I will financially subscribe for as long as possible if he's at the helm of this production! I already subscribe for Yahtzee, but I will pay again for more of this!
Darren is around for the long haul.
So sequels are to focused on recreating then creating
I would also call this symptomatic of corporate driven media.
Exactly
It’s also corporate greed
@@chasehedges6775 greed is always a problem when corporations are involved.
@@Canadamus_Prime 💯💯💯
🙏💯
This video should have been made for the new matrix movie, they literally just copied the first one
06:05 - An obstacle he needs to overcome to be "worthy" of HER? Really? Note that he chose not to.
I like it but I also don't give a crap about the small stuff or how well a story is and how well it fits together. All I care about is fun.
It's why I like bad movies and bad video games.
I do hate some bad movies though like Bloodrayne.
Bad movies are also much better to watch with friends. I'd hate watching a very good movie with a roomful of drunk people because they'd be talking over the good bits, but getting drunk and cheering as a group at the dumbest moments in bad films is an experience you just can't get from decent films.
I think this comes down to "cinema as a ride" as Scorsese put it. Movies and cinema are not really the same medium anymore. People want a spectacle on the big screen and care little about logic, plausibility, originality or quality like back in the time when movies still were a thing.
Evil Dead 2 is in no way a “sequel” to the first one. It’s a remake. That is all.
Fuck no, I loved that movie. Unironically My fave of the year so far.
Good for you
I think it's the only movie I've watched this year and I did like it.
@@animezilla4486 Amazing contribution. Do you feel good about yourself for making this otherwise completely useless comment?
@@Gamesta100 have you seen the top gun Maverick sequel
@@SuperReddragon90 what do you mean I thought Dominion was an okay film myself
I don't care what others thought, Terminator: Genisys was good, an enjoyable film that I'll always be happy to watch again.
Scream is my favorite franchise, though I haven't seen the new one.