JW rumblings - Sep 17

And so, our ‘Giantslayer’ adventure path is slowly moving towards the final confrontation with the evil giant tyrant/final boss. That is good, and as a sign of my relief – fighting all of these evil giants took proportionally much more time than we expected when we began this entire slog – I feel like ranting about something, again. The issue is – what subject?

Well, there is always Marvel’s current ‘secret empire’ ‘adventure path’, which has ran its’ own length, and is now transforming into ‘Marvel Legacy’ or something like that. Basically, the evil Steve Rogers/Captain America/Hydra Supreme/etc. might’ve escaped, leaving the good Steve Rogers/Captain America/etc. pick up the pieces – or not, in which case, in either case, there are some poor SWAT-type folk who are about to get smashed by a Steve Rogers, which just isn’t fun.

In another plot line, Frank ‘Punisher’ Castle is being ‘groomed’ by Fury in taking down Hydra. This sounds very grand, but again, in another comic series, Punisher just got beat down by Diamondback, making MCU a true multiverse (in a manner of speaking), while in the long run, Hydra is just a too good & conventional plot villain to be completely exterminated, so I’m not being impressed by FC being an asshole to outright villains for a change, let us see what ‘Marvel Legacy’ story arc will deliver. Plus, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow is dead now, apparently, and the Punisher is angsting because of that as well. Seriously, were these two ever a couple, (potentially or otherwise), or is a new thing?

Meanwhile, the preparations for the making (and subsequent release) of JW2 are proceeding. Am I excited about this? No. The original JP movie was good because it was based on the original novel, which was, yes, sci-fi, but with an emphasis on science and realism. Yes, there was suspension of disbelief, especially in the end, when the novel’s velociraptors organized themselves into a proper group and escaped/invaded to the mainland, (Costa Rica), where they vanished into the jungle. They were Lysol-dependant, (in the novel), so they learned to eat chicken (domestic fowl) and beans and similar food sources in the wild instead. What was that cartoon? The raptor was going to acquire a fake ID and live & work in NYC? Yeah, Crichton certainly set the stage for that!

But his movieverse heirs have certainly went beyond him. The first two JP movies were quite good, even if because they followed, (to various extents) the plot of the actual Crichton novels. JP3 film, however, was something else, including the entire T-Rex vs. Spinosaurus controversy. Seriously, it has been established/figured out/understood/etc. by now that both of these JP3 dinosaurs, especially Spinosaurus, are fictional, and are no more RL than MCU’s Iron Man and Captain America are. Does it really matter who would win? In RL, the two dinosaurs lived millions of years apart, on two different continents and never met each other during any point in their evolutionary histories. Talking as to which of the two would win and why, it is less of a ‘lion vs. tiger’ debate and more of a ‘Steve vs. Tony’ one.

Where were we? Well, on the topic of ‘Steve vs. Tony’, JP3’s Spinosaurus showed about as much realism as the crocodile from ‘Peter Pan’ did, (not counting OUAT, where his role was played by Mr. Gold, apparently), while the raptors of that movie did an admirable job of passing as the nastier versions of Neverland’s Lost Boys, so to speak – their intelligence in that movie certainly approached human levels, and when Dr. Grant communicated with them… no, just no. Forget realism. The dinosaurs of JP3 could as well be some aliens – original aliens – in a sci-fi movie and they would work just as well in that capacity…

In JW1, the intelligence of the dinosaurs was toned back down to realistic levels – only not. Enter the I-Rex, the hybrid that looks, and functions like a RL carnosaur for all practical purposes. Just think RL Giganotosaurus or Mapusaurus. Okay, and?

And the I-Rex was able to survive slash endure a direct hit from an Ankylosaurus’ tail. In RL, Ankylosaurus was one of the plant-eating dinosaurs that had evolved to survive and live alongside Tyrannosaurus, a carnivore that evolved one of the most powerful bites on the planet, specifically designed to smash through bone. In response, Ankylosaurus had evolved its’ infamous tail that was also designed to smash through bones, (especially if Ankylosaurus was in proper health). I don’t know what I-Rex was a hybrid of exactly, but just as with Rexy’s bite, there’s no way it could’ve endured Ankylosaurus’ tail strikes to its’ legs or the rest of the body, not unless it had the healing power of Wolverine (the MCU mutant, not the RL animal) as well. (In addition, the way it telepathically communicates and dominates all the other reptiles in the movie? Apparently, there is some Professor X in it as well).

Flash forward, and—

And we got Indoraptors, which is the same old I-Rex, just with different sizes, proportions, and velociraptor, rather than Tyrannosaurus, DNA. Odds are that we are going to see a new depiction of the JP3 super-intelligent raptors are quite high. And?

And where is the JP-franchise going with all of this, in the long run? Yes, the first novel & movie depicted them somewhat like sci-fi monsters, but dinosaurs do not really make good monsters, (especially for grown-ups) – they aren’t particularly monstrous or evil, certainly not kaiju/Godzilla/King Kong/Monarch universe evil. ‘The Land before Time’ franchise had a different take on them – there the dinosaurs were slightly anthropomorphic, and some were ‘good’, and some were ‘evil’, in the same manner that the ‘modern animals’ of Brian Jacques’ novels were – it’s all a fairy tale for children, but the JP-franchise isn’t going for that.

Where is it going? Possibly, to try to become a fully-fledged monster-verse, which is a bad idea, because dinosaurs aren’t really monsters, not even fictional, sci-fi ones. They are just too real and too abstract for us, (unlike giant monsters – the fictional Megalodon has only distant connections to the RL one), to be properly monstrous. Yes, Tyrannosaurus is bizarre – all head and no arms – but is it monstrous by being itself at the end of the day? No. It is scary because it would eat people if it existed in modern times, making it no different from a shark or a lion. Yes, ‘Jaws’ is a movie classic, but not just because it stars a man-eating shark, but some human star actors as well. The same goes for ‘The Ghost and the Darkness’, which is built on a similar premise, except that instead of a single Great White Shark there are two African lions. A good movie about some man-eating animal monsters can be honestly good…just not precisely, because it stars man-eating animal monsters – and the same goes for the dinosaurs.

And yes, we got the news that there’s going to be at least one other dino-hybrid – a stegoceratops, a Stegosaurus & Triceratops hybrid. I have no idea what was the logic behind this one. As BBC’s WWD mini-series (1999) have shown, the RL plant-eating dinosaurs, (i.e. Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops & Torosaurus, etc.), could be quite formidable themselves, without being augmented by human script writers…

Oh, and another thing. Yes, both Stegosaurus and Triceratops belonged to the bird-hipped branch of the dinosaur family, (let us leave the latest RL revision of the dinosaur family tree out of the equation this time), but they weren’t particularly close relatives; in RL modern terms the JW2 heroes could get confronted by a deer/antelope hybrid – it works the same way… Where is common sense?

In the bizarre appearance of the second hybrid.  Aye, RL herbivorous dinosaurs could be quite bizarre by themselves – just think Nothronychus and kin, the plant-eating cousins of raptors and tyrannosaurs – a typical theropod body, extra-long neck, extra-small head, (as in the sauropods), plus – extra powerful and clawed front legs…you couldn’t get more away from the traditional depiction of a theropod if you’d purposefully tried… but no, we get a bizarre-looking unrealistic hybrid, designed to shock and awe. Yay team (new) JP franchise.

And now, it is time to wind down the rambling. Basically, unbelievingly, but the first two JP movies were actually somewhat educational for purely fictional movies. (I am speaking very loosely here). They were also fairly realistic, (by sci-fi movie standards). Sadly, from JP3 onwards these qualities vanished, which is a pity, because they were what made JP-franchise’s movies’ unique. What will JW2 look like, I do not know yet. However, neither am I enthusiastic about it.

Well, this is it for this time. See you in the future!