The Flickering Myth writing team reacts to the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom trailer…
After successfully relaunching the Jurassic Park franchise in 2016 with Jurassic World, Universal Pictures is set to take us back to Isla Nublar next summer with the J.A. Bayona-directed Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and yesterday saw the release of the very first trailer for the dino-blockbuster. Read on to find out what our writing team made of this first-look…
Tom Beasley: I struggled a little with this trailer, despite my love for all of the actors involved and for J.A. Bayona as a director. It certainly delivers in terms of visual spectacle, but the plot seems a little lazy and I’m not sure there’s enough there to mark this movie out as different to what has come before. But, on the other hand, we’re getting new dinosaur fights and I’m not one to look a gift T-Rex in the mouth.
Harrison Abbott: Well I’m certainly glad that I got to see the resolution to every moment of peril in the film. For a minute I was worried that there might be stakes! Aside from a couple of other gripes with the construction of the trailer (please stop with the periodic cuts to black), I do think the film itself looks quite fun. However I am still a little disappointed, albeit not surprised, by the total dominance of CGI. It would have been nice to get some old-school animatronics in there again.
Rafael Motamayor: It’s weird, cause the featurette showed a lot of animatronics. But they look so fake.
Eric Bay-Andersen: Lazy rehashing of dialogue from a superior instalment in the series? – check. Showing a set piece in its entirety so it won’t be exciting when the film comes out? – check. Unintentional laugh from the sight of Chris Pratt running from an ash cloud? – check. Hated Jurassic World, and despite a decent director this time around this trailer gives me no reason to suspect this film will be any better.
Harrison Abbott: I did like Jurassic World but that checklist is perfect. I really don’t understand what motivates this ”show the entire fucking climax” thing.
Ben Robins: I actually really loved Jurassic World even though it had its hiccups, and I have full faith that Bayona will do a better job. But having said that, this isn’t a great trailer. There’s good stuff in it – the line between the practical and the CGI is a little more blurred now (actual real explosions!), liking the darker vibe, but being a teaser it just feels a bit too much like a plot dump then a bunch of pretty dinosaur shots. And the music really did nothing for me. Right now I’m putting it down to a badly constructed trailer more than anything else – the behind the scenes featurette from a few days ago had me much more pumped.
Rafael Motamayor: It was fine. I quite enjoyed Jurassic World and was really excited about Fallen Kingdom after the director said he wanted to bring some horror to the franchise. The trailer thankfully doesn’t spoil much, but looks exactly as action-oriented as the previous one and not scary or thrilling at all.
Robert Kojder: I expected a darker route considering that Bayona was directing, but this movie simply doesn’t look fun and is overstuffed with CGI. Still, I’m holding reservations as A Monster Calls made my top 5 films of 2016 and more often than not trailers often misrepresent movies. With that said, I’m not excited yet. Bayona is usually pretty skillful at balancing a dark tone and a sense of romanticism/joy, but I don’t see that here as of yet.
Martin Carr: Underwhelmed by a trailer which should have struck a balance between establishing plotlines and engaging the audience. Lots of dinosaurs, panic stricken central protagonists but not exciting. Lacklustre effort for a tentpole release in my opinion. Not even one genuine stand out moment. All that money and the trailer seems unsure about what element it wants to focus on. I hate to point out the ‘Infinity War’ trailer as an example of how these things should be done, but I would rather watch that over ten more times than this disappointment again. Real shame.
Eric Bay-Andersen: Exactly. The trailers for Infinity War and also The Last Jedi are great examples of striking the right balance between giving enough information to excite and intrigue whilst withholding enough information and context so that nothing is spoilt.
Villordsutch: What am I looking at here!? Is this really the story for the next Jurassic film? “We need to go back and rescue the dinosaurs from the island.” … Really? This silly CGI mess certainly didn’t sell this next slice of the series to me at all.
Sean Wilson: I was sadly underwhelmed by this, due in no small part to an odd release strategy that saw most of this content revealed before the trailer landed. Nevertheless J.A. Bayona is a fantastic director and I have hope he can impart plenty of personality and wonder onto the movie.
Andy Naylor: Not what I expected. Not what I hoped. Every facet of that trailer was a disappointment.
Matt Rodgers: I saw Jurassic Park 9 1/2 times at the cinema back in 1993, and will even find the positives in The Lost World and Joe Johnston’s III. My thoughts on the trailer for Fallen Kingdom are decidedly mixed. The excuse to go back to the island feels flimsy at best. I can kind of buy Pratt returning for Blue, but why would Dallas-Howard return? The trailer indicates she isn’t romantically linked with Pratt. It smacks of Dr. Alan Grant’s “there’s no way I’ll go back to a place where I was almost torn apart by a T-Rex……..INSERT PAUSE…..How much money? I’m in”
What we must all remember though is that this is only 2 mins, so our reactions must be tempered. There was a time when those of us old enough lost our shit about an incredible teaser for The Phantom Menace. My only other gripes were a complete lack of dilophosaurus. Seriously! One of the best dinosaurs from the original film hasn’t been asked back since. The over-reliance on the hamster balls for the action set-piece, and why they spoiled that recycled big-monster eaten by bigger monster plot beat that Spielberg used as the “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” banner fell. Oh, and Goldblum had better be in more than just a court scene.
I have faith that Bayona hasn’t just poured CGI into a well-worn mould. This is the guy that gave us El Orfanato and A Monster Calls, so the return of the Compy, Justice Smith’s comedy scream, and the dinosaur destruction gave me hope. Based on this, I’ll probably only watch it 4 times.
George Chrysostomou: I am slightly worried of the film becoming a rehash of the best bits of the first although I will remain quietly optimistic. I thought the music choices were good and who doesn’t love seeing Goldblum back in full force. I was surprised at how much the plot was immediately revealed, although I imagine linking with the court case, there is a larger military plot point continued on from what we saw in Jurassic World. Hoping for a more inspired trailer in the future though.
Helen Murdoch: Completely underwhelmed by the trailer. The shot of the T-rex felt like it had been included for nostalgia sake. I also think this snippet is all the Goldblum we’ll be getting. I enjoyed Jurassic World but this sequel feels forced and like they don’t have any new ideas.
Anghus Houvouras: This looks awful. Might be the worst blockbuster trailer I’ve seen in years. No tension. Not an ounce of originality. Even Pratt and Howard look bored. At least Jurassic World gave us something new, even if it was dumb. The genetically engineered killing machine and Pratt’s character as the alpha-male of a velociraptor pack: that was fun. This looks like a painful return to a franchise that feels prehistoric.
Ouch. Not much love for Fallen Kingdom from our writers so far then. What did you make of the trailer though? Let us know in the comments below…
It’s been four years since theme park and luxury resort Jurassic World was destroyed by dinosaurs out of containment. Isla Nublar now sits abandoned by humans while the surviving dinosaurs fend for themselves in the jungles.
When the island’s dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event. Owen is driven to find Blue, his lead raptor who’s still missing in the wild, and Claire has grown a respect for these creatures she now makes her mission. Arriving on the unstable island as lava begins raining down, their expedition uncovers a conspiracy that could return our entire planet to a perilous order not seen since prehistoric times.
With all of the wonder, adventure and thrills synonymous with one of the most popular and successful series in cinema history, this all-new motion-picture event sees the return of favoritecharacters and dinosaurs—along with new breeds more awe-inspiring and terrifying than ever before. Welcome to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is set for release on June 22nd, 2018 and sees J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls) directing a cast that includes franchise veterans Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, BD Wong and Jeff Goldblum alongside newcomers Toby Jones (Captain America: The First Avenger), Rafe Spall (Black Mirror), Justice Smith (The Get Down), Ted Levine (Silence of the Lambs), James Cromwell (The Young Pope), Daniella Pineda (The Detour) and Geraldine Chaplin (A Monster Calls).
