"...the man crying behind the T. Rex paddock on Sunday was not me."

February 5, 2015 3:43 PM

Jurassic World has an official website, complete with safety tips, details on accommodations, webcams, and viewing times. Your adventure awaits.
posted by phunniemee (103 comments total)

I hope InvitrogenLife Technologies paid promotional fees to be all that colored-liquid lab footage. (Pretty good pipetting technique for movie science, though.)
posted by maryr at 3:50 PM on February 5, 2015

What does bungee jumping have to do with dinosaurs? Nothing, except that it's totally awesome.

So many LOLs. Well done, folks.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:52 PM on February 5, 2015

OMG, there's a Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville! Meetup?
posted by maryr at 3:54 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

So the story here is that after the (in-world, historical) debacles and numerous devourings of people involved in creating huge prehistoric predators and then building an amusement park around them, the idiots in this fictional world decided that the only real problem was that they hadn't played God in sufficiently daring ways, specifically in the sense of genetically engineering absurdly dangerous and novel animals and then building an even bigger amusement park around them? Am I getting that right?
posted by clockzero at 3:57 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I see they spared no expense.
posted by ckape at 4:00 PM on February 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

So the story here is that after the (in-world, historical) debacles and numerous devourings of people involved in creating huge prehistoric predators and then building an amusement park around them, the idiots in this fictional world decided that the only real problem was that they hadn't played God in sufficiently daring ways, specifically in the sense of genetically engineering absurdly dangerous and novel animals and then building an even bigger amusement park around them? Am I getting that right?

You find this unbelievable? Do you remember the mortgage crisis? Or the 2nd Iraq War? Idiots abound.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:01 PM on February 5, 2015 [20 favorites]

You can apply to be an Isla Nublar veterinarian through the Masrani corp website.
Everything about this is the best thing about this.
posted by phunniemee at 4:02 PM on February 5, 2015

I'm not sure Isla Nublar vetrinarian is all it's cracked up to be.
posted by ckape at 4:06 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Blond dude, you gonna eat that sandwich or what?
posted by maryr at 4:07 PM on February 5, 2015

Those other times affected other people. Everybody else wants dinosaurs and think it won't affect them.

Dinosaur cloning as metaphor for energy usage/climate change, there's your silly free think piece idea for the week.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:09 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

leotrotsky: So the story here is that after the (in-world, historical) debacles and numerous devourings of people involved in creating huge prehistoric predators and then building an amusement park around them, the idiots in this fictional world decided that the only real problem was that they hadn't played God in sufficiently daring ways, specifically in the sense of genetically engineering absurdly dangerous and novel animals and then building an even bigger amusement park around them? Am I getting that right?

I think this is a fairly realistic premise. People have short memories.

However, there are still no feathers. This will not stand.
posted by brundlefly at 4:09 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

ckape: I'm not sure Isla Nublar vetrinarian is all it's cracked up to be.

That's one big pile of shit.
posted by brundlefly at 4:10 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I hope the velociraptor page explains that they're ACTUALLY utahraptors and were misidentified originally and somehow they kept using the name.
posted by ckape at 4:12 PM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]

So the steak house menu is inexplicably a PDF that downloads which is brilliant attention to detail.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:13 PM on February 5, 2015 [41 favorites]

That's one big pile of shit.

Dino...droppings? Droppings?
posted by phunniemee at 4:14 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

Spoiler alert: the mysterious, overhyped new "dinosaur" turns out to be a caveman. In a misguided nod to science, the caveman wears a feather boa at all times. The next movie will be an Avengers-style crossover, Ice Age 5: Jurassic Planet of the Apes.
posted by oulipian at 4:16 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

You find this unbelievable? Do you remember the mortgage crisis? Or the 2nd Iraq War? Idiots abound.

What I find unbelievable is the idea that audiences wouldn't be wondering why, in the Jurassic World world, people keep genetically engineering organisms that are basically giant killing machines, time after time after time, even though lots of people get horribly devoured on every occasion, and also building theme parks around the killing machines. I mean, without denying anything about the gratuitous catastrophe that was the 2nd Iraq war, the US government didn't try to build a fucking theme park in Iraq while waging the war.
posted by clockzero at 4:19 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hollywood has really nailed the "looks terrible" and "I'm in" Venn diagram overlap.
posted by phaedon at 4:20 PM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

MCMikeNamara: So the steak house menu is inexplicably a PDF that downloads which is brilliant attention to detail.

You'll also notice that the steakhouse is called "Winston's", which I assume is a salute to the late great Stan Winston.
posted by brundlefly at 4:20 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

And after I wrote that, I immediately had to investigate the "no US-built, war-based theme park in Iraq during the war itself" claim just to be sure, because I guess it's actually not so far outside the realm of possibility, is it? God, what a surreal era that was.
posted by clockzero at 4:22 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Winston's is surprisingly affordable for a theme park steakhouse.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:23 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

You guys know that InGen had everyone involved in the first series of island fiascos locked in an NDA stranglehold, right?

The public doesn't know.
posted by phunniemee at 4:24 PM on February 5, 2015 [13 favorites]

clockzero: What I find unbelievable is the idea that audiences wouldn't be wondering why, in the Jurassic World world, people keep genetically engineering organisms that are basically giant killing machines, time after time after time, even though lots of people get horribly devoured on every occasion, and also building theme parks around the killing machines.

Except it wasn't really time after time. Dinosaurs were cloned once for a single theme park. When it went wrong only a few people were involved and it was kept quiet. Nobody in the outside world knew anything about it until that T. rex got all cracked out and went on its San Diego rampage at the end of The Lost World. As far as the public is concerned it was one big fuck-up over two decades ago.
posted by brundlefly at 4:25 PM on February 5, 2015

(Well, the initial cloning attempt was over two decades ago. The San Diego thing was 1997.)
posted by brundlefly at 4:25 PM on February 5, 2015

And there's no such thing as bad PR. I bet there's a big graphic about the San Diego mishap by the T. Rex paddock overlook.
posted by localroger at 4:28 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also a statue memorializing screenwriter David Koepp.
posted by brundlefly at 4:33 PM on February 5, 2015

So, on the Winston's Steakhouse menu, why do the prices for the appetizers and salads have 2 numbers separated by a slash? For example, the fried calimari are 8/10, and the Caesar salad is 8/16. Perhaps someone who isn't an unsophisticated yokel knows about this sort of thing.
posted by Daddy-O at 4:35 PM on February 5, 2015

Spoiler alert: the mysterious, overhyped new "dinosaur" turns out to be a caveman.

After Kirk Cameron's numerous recent hit films, I refuse to believe this movie won't feature a caveman riding a dinosaur. Hint: Kirk's the caveman!
posted by ennui.bz at 4:36 PM on February 5, 2015

app/entree
lunch/dinner
Allosaurus/T. Rex
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:38 PM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]

why do the prices for the appetizers and salads have 2 numbers separated by a slash?

App size/Entree size

Or as might be more appropriate

Compy size/dilophosaurus size
posted by phunniemee at 4:39 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

The thing that's confusing me about the menu is why doesn't it have cutesy dinosaur-themed entree names.
posted by ckape at 4:41 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

We have giant parks built around killing machines. They're called zoos. Every year, there's some mishap where the tigers or polar bears maul or even kill someone, usually someone who did something very stupid. That doesn't cause any sort of outcry to close the places down. Can't see how Jurassic Park would be any different.
posted by honestcoyote at 4:43 PM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

You guys know that InGen had everyone involved in the first series of island fiascos locked in an NDA stranglehold, right?

The public doesn't know.

Except it wasn't really time after time. Dinosaurs were cloned once for a single theme park. When it went wrong only a few people were involved and it was kept quiet. Nobody in the outside world knew anything about it until that T. rex got all cracked out and went on its San Diego rampage at the end of The Lost World. As far as the public is concerned it was one big fuck-up over two decades ago.

I admit that I had not considered the possibility that the outside world had not heard the news about the dinosaur murder island.
posted by clockzero at 4:44 PM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]

So the story here is that after the (in-world, historical) debacles and numerous devourings of people involved in creating huge prehistoric predators and then building an amusement park around them, the idiots in this fictional world decided that the only real problem was that they hadn't played God in sufficiently daring ways, specifically in the sense of genetically engineering absurdly dangerous and novel animals and then building an even bigger amusement park around them? Am I getting that right?

Dude how long have you even lived in the world? Stuff like this is literally what happens everywhere every day in real reality.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:45 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

We have giant parks built around killing machines. They're called zoos. Every year, there's some mishap where the tigers or polar bears maul or even kill someone, usually someone who did something very stupid. That doesn't cause any sort of outcry to close the places down. Can't see how Jurassic Park would be any different.

I am unable to believe that you can't see how Jurassic Park is "any different" from zoos.

And I have to say, I'm a little surprised that nobody else wonders why continuously rebuilding Dino-Monster Murderland -- bigger and, unaccountably, with more murdery dinosaurs -- seems like a sensible thing to do in this fictive context.
posted by clockzero at 4:47 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

What I find unbelievable is the idea that audiences wouldn't be wondering why, in the Jurassic World world, people keep genetically engineering organisms that are basically giant killing machines, time after time after time, even though lots of people get horribly devoured on every occasion, and also building theme parks around the killing machines.

You know that carnival that comes to town every year? Well this year it came with a ride called the Mixer. The man said "Keep your head and arms inside the mixer at all times." But Bill Jr., he was a daredevil, just like his old man. He was leaning out saying, "Hey everybody! Look at me, look at me!" POW! He was decapitated. They found his head over by the snowcone concession. A few days after that, I open up the mail and there's a pamphlet in there, from Pueblo, Colorado. And it's addressed to Bill Jr. And it's entitled, "Do you know what Steven Spielberg is doing to our soil?"
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:49 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

They do address the feathers. In the picky hotel package reviews. Hmmm. "My only regret is that Hammond, et al had to cut corners with the amphibian DNA viz a viz hybridization. You don't need to be a birder to know that dinosaurs were feathered."

The reviews for the fancy VIP package are too real: "My room felt like an attempt at luxury, not the real thing. We've stayed at hotels all over the world and it's a stretch to call this a four-star resort. The mattress was too firm." 2 STARS
posted by sonmi at 4:50 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Dude how long have you even lived in the world? Stuff like this [nb: creating dino-monsters and building a theme park on a tropical island around them] is literally what happens everywhere every day in real reality.

I think you might be...exaggerating somewhat.
posted by clockzero at 4:51 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

continuously rebuilding Dino-Monster Murderland -- bigger and, unaccountably, with more murdery dinosaurs

See, the way that you say this makes this sound like a bad thing but so far all I'm hearing is: "awesome things, now with more awesome."
posted by phunniemee at 4:51 PM on February 5, 2015 [11 favorites]

It's a Chrichton-verse. Those realities defining feature is People Make Bad Choices With 'Science'.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:52 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

On the menu, the price/other price numbers vary pretty widely, from X/1.25X all the way up to X/3X, so I'm not sure about the explanations above. Maybe the variance is explained by the fact that it's a work of fiction and maybe someone was careless with the numbers since it isn't real money or food.
posted by Daddy-O at 4:52 PM on February 5, 2015

They need an "intelligent-design" type getting gutted by a raptor. Pretty please, Hollywood?
posted by Renoroc at 4:53 PM on February 5, 2015

Oh yes, "bigger and more murdery [for profit]" plays right into Crichton's wheelhouse.
posted by phunniemee at 4:54 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

[Judy Greer purring "RUN" intensifies]
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:02 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

See, the way that you say this makes this sound like a bad thing but so far all I'm hearing is: "awesome things, now with more awesome."

And hey, all of their dinosaurs are heritage, heirloom, and/or artisanal varieties! They are awesome at winning at life by being awesome!
posted by clockzero at 5:03 PM on February 5, 2015

Winston's reminds me an awful lot of Albert's.
posted by localroger at 5:31 PM on February 5, 2015

So the story here is that after the (in-world, historical) debacles and numerous devourings of people involved in creating huge prehistoric predators and then building an amusement park around them, the idiots in this fictional world decided that the only real problem was that they hadn't played God in sufficiently daring ways, specifically in the sense of genetically engineering absurdly dangerous and novel animals and then building an even bigger amusement park around them? Am I getting that right?

Yes.

If Dinosaur Murder World was something that existed for reals, I'd be booking my tickets right now and looking forward to riding in the gondola while wearing a dinosaur hat. After all, not everyone gets eaten and that rampage was a long time ago and I'm sure they've worked out the safety issues by now.
posted by betweenthebars at 5:32 PM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]

It's more believable that an actual park would be open to the public than the alternative, where people would see what happened in the previous movie(s) and say to themselves, "Well, this seems dangerous. Better stop trying to make this happen entirely."
posted by dogwalker at 5:39 PM on February 5, 2015

For some reason I'm imagining an Archer Episode set at Jurassic World and I can ...just ...taste ...it
posted by The Whelk at 5:40 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

If Buffet's place gets crushed, the universe is just.
posted by davebush at 5:42 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Spoiler alert: the mysterious, overhyped new "dinosaur" turns out to be a caveman. In a misguided nod to science, the caveman wears a feather boa at all times. The next movie will be an Avengers-style crossover, Ice Age 5: Jurassic Planet of the Apes.

Crap. I was hoping this was a stealth Dinoriders film adaptation.

Ah well. Maybe they'll get to it on the next season of Community.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:47 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

On one hand , the Simpsons episode was a combination of westworld and Jurassic park on the other hand ITS A GRITTY REBOOT OF ITCHY AND SCRATCHY LAND YES
posted by The Whelk at 5:48 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

This website is perfect. But, just watched the actual trailer and.... does Chris Pratt jump on a motorcyle to team up with a pack of friendly raptors and hunt down the hubris-o-saurus??
posted by pugg at 5:56 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Clockzero: let me tell you a story about my roommate's reaction to an episode of THE TICK.

So there was an episode where The Tick and Arthur were trying to defeat this insane baker, and one scene saw them corner him in a supermarket somewhere. And the baker set off what he called a "bread bomb" - a big wad of dough which instantaneously rose to about 20 feet in height, sucking in all in its wake - including The Tick himself. During the tumult, the baker made his escape. The Tick struggled to the top of the dough pile, and saw Arthur, standing safely to one side. "Arthur!" the Tick called, getting his attention. Then The Tick reached down inside the dough ball and pulled out a puppy. "Arthur! Puppy!" he shouted, then tossed the puppy to Arthur, who caught it and ushered it to safety.

My roommate watched all of this up until the point where the puppy came in, and then called bullshit. "Wait. Where'd the puppy come from?"

I stared at him. "Let me get this straight - you're watching a show about a crazy guy who dresses as a superhero with Tick powers, and a former accountant who dresses up as a moth, and you're watching them fight an instantly-rising loaf of bread - and the thing that's tripping you up is THE PUPPY?" And while his reasons for not buying the puppy were all valid, he finally admitted he couldn't explain why he was able to cheerfully accept all of the other ridiculous stuff that had come prior to that. He and I finally then coined the phrase "puppy point" to mean "that one final element of a story at which your suspension of disbelief just happens to run out, but your attempting to explain why you don't buy it is serving only to make you look personally ridiculous because it's coming after so many other equally ridiculous things."

Clockzero, I would say that after watching something with a premise involving the sequencing DNA from fossils, cloning it and using frog DNA to patch over the holes like duct tape, getting hung up over "why would they try to rebuild the park after it failed a couple times" is starting to look like your own puppy point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:59 PM on February 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

I dunno about y'all, but being eaten by dinosaurs is on like my list of top three ways to die.
posted by dogheart at 5:59 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

1. hail of machine gun fire

2. eaten by dinosaurs

3. sucked in to black hole
posted by the bricabrac man at 6:06 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I can understand any crazy decision made cause if a genetic engineering safari resort existed you bet it would do literally anything to keep up attendance. Like I kinda like that too handwave how they're not "real" dinosaura, cause those don't sell.
posted by The Whelk at 6:06 PM on February 5, 2015

I dunno, I kind of envision a powerful intersection between anti-vaxxers and create-killer-dinosaurs types. Hey, it's all just relying on man's natural abilities to survive deadly organisms that we could eradicate again... but don't want to!
posted by TwoStride at 6:07 PM on February 5, 2015

The Whelk: Like I kinda like that too handwave how they're not "real" dinosaura, cause those don't sell.

I kinda sorta like it as well, except it illustrates the need for another dinosaur-centric franchise that has more of an emphasis on accuracy. Something involving time travel, I suppose.
posted by brundlefly at 6:14 PM on February 5, 2015

In The Lost World (the book, not the movie) there is a dinosaur, I think the carnotaurus, that has the ability to go invisible all chameleon-like, for absolutely no good reason with no scientific basis except for awesomefactor, so unless the new hybrid hubrisaurus is really, like, the coolest imaginable dinosaur in the history of all that is imaginable and cool, then all I have to say is that no, the movie franchise is not putting enough effort into being insane and ridiculous, and frankly even Chris Pratt's phalanx of trained defense raptors just isn't enough for me.
posted by phunniemee at 6:27 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

(It's close, though.)
posted by phunniemee at 6:29 PM on February 5, 2015

I cannot stress enough how excited I am about bike-riding Star-Lord and his loyal pack of trained velociraptors. I want a spinoff about them already.
posted by nicebookrack at 6:35 PM on February 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

the park map...the hexes and the little icons...is this isn't a boardgame waiting to happen then i don't know what is
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:36 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Star Lord? No it's clearly BURT MACKLIN FBI DINOSAUR GUY
posted by The Whelk at 6:43 PM on February 5, 2015 [20 favorites]

Clockzero, I would say that after watching something with a premise involving the sequencing DNA from fossils, cloning it and using frog DNA to patch over the holes like duct tape, getting hung up over "why would they try to rebuild the park after it failed a couple times" is starting to look like your own puppy point.

I guess I have different expectations for dramas and comedies? I'm sensing that this comes across as a fussy or old-fashioned way of thinking, and maybe it is. Really, though, the premise of Jurassic World seems so much more like a comedy than a drama, and I suppose I don't see why such a wonderfully absurd set-up ("Well, yes, the dinosaurs escaped and ate everyone last time. But this time, we're making them more dangerous!") should be wasted on a drama, in which it just seems kind of inexplicably silly.
posted by clockzero at 6:56 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

The point at which Jurassic World falls on the continuum between comedy and drama is epic.

Extra-murdery dinosaurs? Epic.
posted by phunniemee at 7:00 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

That trailer looks like a huge steaming bucket of "meh". I wish they had gone with the John Sayles written re-boot that was kicking around in 2004:

Nick is introduced to Adrien Joyce, the major domo henchman of Baron von Drax, CEO of the Grendel Corporation. Joyce isn’t a moustache-twirling bad guy bent on torturing Nick into revealing where he hid the shaving cream can. Instead, he offers Nick a job, and in order to explain the job to him, he has to take him on a tour of the entire castle, which turns out to be a fairly sophisticated genetics lab where Grendel Corporation has been breeding some dinosaurs of their own design, cross-breeds that never existed in any era of nature with all sorts of custom modifications.

I want to tread lightly on what happens over the course of the rest of the film on the off chance that Mary Parent or someone at Universal is seriously going to make this thing. There’s the eight-year-old-boy side of me that thinks that a DIRTY DOZEN-style mercenary team of hyper-smart dinosaurs in body armor killing drug dealers and rescuing kidnapped children will be impossible to resist. And then there’s the side of me that says... WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! Nick is put in charge of training these five dinosaurs, X1 through X5, and the first thing he does is name them. “Any soldier worth his pay has a name to answer to, not a number,” he says. So we are introduced to Achilles, Hector, Perseus, Orestes, and Spartacus, each of them a specially created deinonychus, which is sort of like a miniature T-rex. They have super-sensitive smell and hearing, incredible strength and speed and pack-hunting instincts, and they have modified forelegs, lengthened and topped with more dextrous fingers, as well as dog DNA for increased obedience and human DNA so they can solve problems well. All of this is topped off with a drug-regulating implant that can dose them with adrenaline or serotonin as the situation demands.

Teenage Mutant Dino Soldiers???
Yeah, that's the stuff.

*

(Script here)
posted by hoodrich at 7:02 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's a Chrichton-verse. Those realities defining feature is People Make Bad Choices With 'Science'.

Yeah, you're right. That sort of "you brought it on yourself, foolish mortals!" sensibility reminds me a bit of zombie movies. Panicky idiots are always fucking up and getting munched on in them.

In a way, maybe they are both descendants of Roman tragedies by way of revenge plays; those are all about murder and people getting eaten.
posted by clockzero at 7:22 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

there's a Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville! Meetup?

I'm so there! Sounds like a great way to meet clever girls. :D
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:29 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sounds like a great way to meet clever girls.

And you are totally not one of the guys Jimmy Buffett was singing about in Fins.
posted by localroger at 7:37 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm so there! Sounds like a great way to meet clever girls. :D

Except she really is a maneater.
posted by MikeKD at 7:46 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Somebody went and filled the $150K Ion Proton sequencer with Kool-Aid, so I'm guessing the intrepid researchers at InGen don't exactly play by the rules in terms of Good Lab Practices.
posted by dephlogisticated at 7:51 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wait a minute... That's not Kool-Aid... It's MURDERJUICE. They're adding MURDERJUICE to the DNA!

My God.
posted by dephlogisticated at 7:57 PM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

I keep checking, but I don't think that gyrosphere line has moved at all.
posted by ckape at 7:58 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I mean, without denying anything about the gratuitous catastrophe that was the 2nd Iraq war, the US government didn't try to build a fucking theme park in Iraq while waging the war.

I'm pretty sure they did. They didn't come right out and call it Galt's Gulch but it was an Ayn Rand theme park.
posted by srboisvert at 8:02 PM on February 5, 2015

The puppy point is when a film violates its own rules, and loses believability. It's no more complex than that.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:05 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Someone still really needs to make a Prey movie, easily my most favourite of the Crichton oeuvre.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:06 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

So the steak house menu is inexplicably a PDF that downloads which is brilliant attention to detail.

This is honestly such an amazing detail that I want to go find the web designer and hug them.
posted by winna at 8:17 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

So the story here is that after the (in-world, historical) debacles and numerous devourings of people involved in creating huge prehistoric predators and then building an amusement park around them, the idiots in this fictional world decided that the only real problem was that they hadn't played God in sufficiently daring ways, specifically in the sense of genetically engineering absurdly dangerous and novel animals and then building an even bigger amusement park around them? Am I getting that right?

All major theme parks have delays. So, hold onto your butts and pray, because God help us, we're in the hands of engineers marketing people.
posted by nubs at 9:07 PM on February 5, 2015

My own hope is that the Murdersaurus will do a Michigan J. Frog song and dance number.

I mean, without denying anything about the gratuitous catastrophe that was the 2nd Iraq war, the US government didn't try to build a fucking theme park in Iraq while waging the war.

In a SPECTRE bunker deep under North Korea, Dick Cheney just looked up from the basket of puppies he was strangling and said "FUCK! A theme park! That's what we needed!"
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:46 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

They should make a movie where people go extinct and then they get resurrected by some wimpy little organism which the humans then comically-inadvertently terrorize while trying to figure out what the hell is going on
posted by clockzero at 10:05 PM on February 5, 2015 [12 favorites]

winna: " This is honestly such an amazing detail that I want to go find the web designer and hug them."

I would like to know why the Metadata on the PDF lists the internal document title as "WINSTONSmenu SEAbass". ... seabass?
posted by barnacles at 11:09 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

The unrealistic part is building a theme park in the Western Hemisphere. It's pretty much established that the US is at or near peak amusement parks. And the whole controversy over Blackfish would probably be a damper too.

China is getting its 2nd Disney Theme Park and Macao has overtaken the Las Vegas as the world's gambling destination. A Jurassic World on some backwater island in the Caribbean doesn't make as much economic sense. Might as well just build Euro-Jurassic World while you're at it.

(Of course, a Jurassic Park movie exploring the U.S. unease with China's rise and China's own hubris would be too prescient and topical of a movie and would this be banned in China and be not as profitable as it could be.)
posted by FJT at 11:34 PM on February 5, 2015

I think the whole problem with this whole franchise is that fundamentally it wouldn't actually be that difficult to sensibly contain the dinosaurs, and everything would be fine. Which is why we get to the point of magic genetic hybrid dinosaurs with super powers.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:13 AM on February 6, 2015

The puppy point is when a film violates its own rules, and loses believability.

No, it's more like "it's the point at which it loses it's believability for YOU to the point that you don't stop grumbling about it."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:58 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

Sadly, I get redirected to the International site, which does not have cams yet.

I AM HEARTBROKEN.
posted by Katemonkey at 2:08 AM on February 6, 2015

I would like to know why the Metadata on the PDF lists the internal document title as "WINSTONSmenu SEAbass". ... seabass?

FWIW, Chilean Sea Bass is what the guests are served in the first film, right after they view the raptor paddock.
posted by brundlefly at 2:37 AM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

I don't think it's too much of a stretch. Here in the real world, Action Park in New Jersey re-opened last year. From Wikipedia:

The park's popularity went hand-in-hand with a reputation for poorly designed, unsafe rides; under-aged, undertrained, and often under-the-influence staff;intoxicated, unprepared visitors; and a consequently poor safety record. At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the original park. It was given nicknames such as "Traction Park","Accident Park", and "Class Action Park" by doctors at nearby hospitals due to the number of severely injured park-goers they treated.
posted by billyfleetwood at 4:33 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yes, thank you. Action Park is the perfect reference to make.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:34 AM on February 6, 2015

For some reason I'm imagining an Archer Episode set at Jurassic World and I can ...just ...taste ...it

Close enough.
posted by ymgve at 5:29 AM on February 6, 2015

I'm really just enjoying "murdery" as an adjective.
posted by maryr at 7:53 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

I kinda sorta like it as well, except it illustrates the need for another dinosaur-centric franchise that has more of an emphasis on accuracy. Something involving time travel, I suppose.

DINOSAUR TRAIN: THE MOVIE
posted by maryr at 8:27 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

So is this an ARG? Because I mean you can apply for the jobs at Masrani with your email address and everything. Has anyone tried it? Does that get you the invite to the ARG, or does it just sign you up for a lot of stupid marketing emails from the studio? (Okay maybe those two things are sort of the same thing. SHHHH.)
posted by BlueJae at 9:07 AM on February 6, 2015

Ok, new movie idea: a New Hollywood-style legal thriller.

Miranda Graves, Esq. doesn't know if these velociraptors killed all those people or not. Frankly, she doesn't want to know. She's never lost a case yet and she's determined to give the vigorous defense to which everyone is entitled, because this is America. But what she doesn't know could kill her. And also everyone.

Will she put the system on trial, or will the jury be turned off by the idea of putting the system on trial for what looks very much like a case of being eaten by dinosaurs?

Possible quotes:

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, these velociraptors are no more murdery than you or I. We've made amazing strides, as human beings, but with that progress comes a noble responsibility, a sacred burden. To hunt is dinosaurian: to forgive, human."
posted by clockzero at 9:33 AM on February 6, 2015

Fast and Furious 8: Furiousaurus
posted by blue_beetle at 10:17 AM on February 6, 2015

If you have not read "Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs" you should probably go do that immediately.

A time called... America.
posted by maryr at 11:49 AM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

So product placement is such a part of movies now that Hilton has no problem being the hotel in the doomed dinosaur resort. I have so many conflicting thoughts about this. But I think my take away is "Go Hilton."
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:53 AM on February 6, 2015

If you have not read "Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs" you should probably go do that immediately.

A time called... America.

Flagged as fantastic
posted by clockzero at 1:02 PM on February 6, 2015

So the steak house menu is inexplicably a PDF that downloads which is brilliant attention to detail.

This is honestly such an amazing detail that I want to go find the web designer and hug them.


Seriously. If everyone who works on this movie is doing their best, they are severely letting this person down and feel shame.

(It's a day later and I can't stop smiling about it.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:29 PM on February 6, 2015

Dumb question: why is the menu PDF such a good touch?
posted by Omnomnom at 2:13 AM on February 7, 2015

Because (I think) it's the sort of minor detail of clunky website design that actual Real World restaurants do all the time. (In Safari on my Mac it opened in a new browser tab, rather than a straight download, but I've certainly had PDF's from restaurants & other websites just download right onto my drive.)

It's like,"I didn't want a Permanent Copy of your menu to save through the ages, dammit, I was just mildly curious about what was in your "Award-Winning Fiesta Burger"; your menu should just be another web page, not some useless locked document cluttering up my drive."

(I'm assuming there're some technical "DIY Website" reasons that cause a lot of restaurants & other small businesses to use this method of adding info to their sites, but I don't know what they are.)
posted by soundguy99 at 9:11 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think it's mainly because making a menu look good on a web page requires quite a lot of specialized skill, which means it is hard to keep it up to date unless you want to pay afresh every time. While with a pdf, you can just ask for an electronic copy from whoever is doing your new menu and upload it. If you recall this thread, there are a segment of people who will be Extremely Upset if the menu on the website isn't exactly the same one as currently used in the restaurant.
posted by tavella at 10:29 AM on February 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

That's exactly it, tavella. When you're updating your menu you just write it internally, send it off for a couple hours of a designer's time, and you get back a print-ready PDF that you can just throw in the appropriate spot on the website.

Also I'm not sure it's a good sign that I'm far more entranced by the genius of this site than I am in watching JP4: Just Let It Go Already.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:56 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]