Jurassic World Rebirth: The Team Empire Take

22:38Chris Hewitt:should more people have died that's top body count so very few people actually die in this it felt I don't know it felt high to me really? purely impressionistic like just having seen the film in terms of major characters Scrine dies there's the the other lady who's on Duncan's team who gets eaten by a Spinosaurus on the beach in a very nicely staged moment. There is the other fella as well who gets chomped again in a nice moment because you think he's going to make it. He's climbing up the cliff and you think he's going to make it and then there's a reveal, no, he's already been eaten. You don't think he's going to make it.

23:18I think he's going to make it at that point. He's the one I was mentally calling Viond Mort. Viond Mort. He is like absolute dead meat from like minute one. If you're playing,

23:24Chris Hewitt:when you listen to the regular podcast, do a drinking game of, because we're all doing it. Ben, thankfully you're here. But yeah, I knew he was going to die at some point, but the reveal that he had already been chomped was a very, very nice one. Yeah, that was nice. That's three. And then four is... The helicopter people. Oh, the helicopter people. Krebs dies. But Krebs is always going to die. The helicopter pilots are brought in... So we're on six. And there's a couple of people at the beginning. Yeah. That's it. A couple of people, oh yeah. Yeah, in a very effective opening. Eight. Let's call it eight.

23:52Chris Hewitt:And if you look at Jurassic Park, how many people die in that, really? There's the guy at the beginning. Shoot! There's that guy. and there's Ray Arnold, there's Nedry. Is that it? Muldoon, the lawyer. That's four. Four people died in the first Jurassic Park. But should more people have died in this, I would have absolutely pushed the boyfriend into the gaping jaw of a T-Rex. I feel like it's not so much that should more people have died, but maybe like should a higher proportion of people have died or something. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not, it's not too many people survived rather than too many people died.

24:30Or more spread out because a lot get wiped out by the Spinosaurus early on. Obviously, they're not expecting that attack. Their defenses are down in that moment. But that's a bit of a bloodbath. And then a lot of the stuff of like, oh, no, we're all trapped on a dino island. Comes to nothing. People have miraculous sort of getaways quite a lot. And why was he going so far away to go for a pee when he got the boyfriend? We need to talk about the piss, because this is the second standout piss set piece of the year. This and Sinners both have men being menaced by creatures while off to have a humble piss.

25:10It's every man's worst nightmare. Maybe you should just use a toilet, guys. I mean, I realize Xavier's in a jungle, but in Sinners, there's got to have been some kind of outhouse or something. that they could have used rather than like pissing all over the landscape. I'm just saying.

25:26Chris Hewitt:I don't think there was. I don't think they had time to set up an outhouse. Wow. Or, you know, anyway. Anyway, that's not the point. You're vulnerable. You know, you're very vulnerable. You know, you're exposed. You're in mid-flow. That is one of my... You're not, you know, nobody's watching your sex unless you're lucky enough to be doing it with your dog. But why did he go so far away, Dan? Why so far away? Why did he go so far away? Yeah, because out of respect. That's his girlfriend's whole family. Out of respect for the people who don't want to smell your urine. But come on, you could go upwind, downwind of them, and that would be fine.

25:57You don't have to be like 100 yards away. Did he look like the kind of guy that would know what was upwind or what was downwind? No, but also they're in a jungle and there probably isn't that much wind. But the point is, you can be closer and still be shielded.

26:09Chris Hewitt:If I were surrounded, if I were in a jungle filled with things I know could eat me could swallow me whole, I don't think I would go that far away from the people I was... Chris, they usually leave that bit. when they swallow you whole. They usually leave that bit. Oh, no. Oh, dear. Swallow you whole. Okay. Oh, boy. Oh, dear. Sorry, that was really worth derailing the conversation for, wasn't it? That was very worth it. Sorry, everybody. I apologize. That's all right. But otherwise, that was one of my favorite moments in the movie. I really liked that. And in fact, there's an interesting tale about that that you'll hear in the Gareth Edwards interview.

26:46Chris Hewitt:But yeah, really, really good. and the only appearance of the raptors. That's something that I approve of, actually. I like that we get one great T-Rex sequence and we get that tiny little bit of raptors and that's it because I think we have become wildly over-dependent on those two species. Are you saying bored of dinosaurs, Helen? Absolutely not, but I think there are more dinosaurs to be explored and I like that this film does that to a great degree and I really enjoyed that we just got those little bits. And the other thing, as you know, I've talked about a lot, is I don't like villains becoming heroes.

27:23I didn't like the raptors being kind of declawed in a narrative sense in the way that they were in the three Jurassic World films. I don't need them to be the heroes. I just about allowed the sort of T-Rex kind of inadvertent heroism in the Spielberg movies because he's just being an animal and he happens to fancy eating raptors more than he fancies eating humans. She. She, indeed. Well, both, actually, in The Lost World. Oh, I guess. But, you know, that's fine to me, but, like, the idea that they kind of almost became the heroes of the piece, I did struggle with. And so I like that they were more animalistic, generally speaking, in this one, and it wasn't quite so, you know, oh, they love us, really.

28:07Oh, they're on our side, kind of a thing, because that was weak-ass sauce. But, you know, this way, that left room and we could have some titanosaurs and we could have some, you know, Quetzalcoatlus and all the other kind of Molesasauruses and all this kind of more interesting color to the piece.

28:24Chris Hewitt:Okay, so we'll dig into the dinosaurs that are new to this film in a second. Both dinosaurs that are real, that existed in history, that have walked the face of the earth and dinosaurs that aren't. Dinosaurs that are mutant. Dinosaurs that are created by the big brains of David Koepp and Gareth Edwards and the cool folks in the art department. But Helen brought up the T-Rex sequence. Is that the standard sequence of this movie for you? Is it a sequence people have been waiting for a long time to see put on the big screen? Did it work? I thought it was excellent. I think it's up there with, I really loved the water sequence that kicks it all off.

29:04The Spinosaurus and Mosasaur sequence, I thought was great. A really great extended sequence as well. It keeps on going. but the T-Rex scene oh so good and this for me was a prime example of like ah I'm really glad you got Gareth

29:19Chris Hewitt:to do this because he's great at those moments and those images is this a safe space to say that I like Gareth Edwards but I always feel like he gets like 70 % of the way there to a great film and never quite clinches it even in worlds that I love Godzilla doesn't completely hit the spot for me I'm a bit lukewarm on Rogue One creator I liked a lot of but not quite this overall I'm still in that place with Gareth apart from Monsters which I think is outstanding but the really good stuff that he does he always has great sequences he always has a few great images he has great moments in his films and that T-Rex sequence was absolutely spot on and so playful the moment I know it defies the laws of physics but the moment that the boat the little dinghy inflates and it covers where the T-Rex is and then it flops down and the T-Rex is gone.

30:14It's like, yes, here we go. Like, the hairs on my arms started to go and I was just locked in for the rest of that sequence. I thought it was a blast. It was so good.

30:23Chris Hewitt:What's so good about that sequence as well, it is so palm-sweating in a way. It makes you cringe and quiver with fear of the characters, even though all of them, because by that point you figured out the boyfriend isn't going to get killed, certainly not eaten by T-Rex, in front of his girlfriend, a little girl, and Ruben, played by Manuel Garcia Rufo. And yet you're still tense all the way through it, even though none of them are going to die, and that is palpable. Because the key to a really good palm-sweating dino sequence in Jurassic Park is that you have to have near misses. There are those moments in the final act of the original Jurassic Park where they're kind of crawling through the vents, and the velociraptors are jumping up and they're just like a centimeter away from somebody's foot.

31:12And you need to, it's not just having like, ah, there's a giant T-Rex and they're towering above you. You have to have those little near miss moments. And the T-Rex sequence here is full of those. I love the moment where the T-Rex is trying to bite through the dinghy and the teeth are kind of pressing in on the rubber. That's great. Those images that have a real like texture to them, like you can feel the teeth closing in. That's what you need to feel to get those little bursts of like, oh, oh my God, that was a close call. You need those little frisson moments and I thought Gareth really got those.

31:47It's a great sequence. It really is. Dan? Yeah, I totally agree. Especially like you picked up on one of my favourite moments of the whole film, which is the inflating dinghy and then it's gone and it's like, oh my God, where is it? But also what comes after that, where it sees them and it starts coming towards them and they're trying to get away and it's just wading purposely through the water and then going deeper and going deeper. And you start thinking, can they swim? How deep is the water? Is it going to step off a ledge and kind of splutter with its little arms trying to swim? And then they have to save the dinosaur and then it becomes their friends.

32:22Yeah, that's a whole lot of the movie.

32:23Chris Hewitt:Well, it reminded me a little bit of Dolores. I want to ask you guys about Dolores in a second as well. But yeah, it's a great sequence. It's a worth the price of admission alone sequence. And I love the fact that it's not Rex-y, the original T-Rex. I love that it's a whole new Rex. It's got a different look. They've made it chonky. It's a chonky boy. It's a big, chonky boy dinosaur, which again was Gareth deliberately pushed it closer to the design of those dinosaurs of old when they used to be sort of stop motion and not entirely accurate physically. but he kind of pushed it back to that area so it definitely had a kind of retro sort of appeal even though it was done with state of the art visual effects so yeah it was just and also of course have we mentioned this that it was a sequence that was originally supposed to be in Jurassic Park but they cut it very very early on realising they wouldn't have the budget they wouldn't have the time they wouldn't be able to pull it off because it's a scene from the novel so I do love the fact that you know sort of Kepp comes back and goes you know we couldn't do that before Steve should we do it for this one and like you know Spielberg's like yeah let's go for it and it's just great and I think Gareth did a fantastic job with bringing it and it looks great this is one of the things that again Gareth gets super right because his background is in visual effects so obviously then going back to monsters he shot that very lo-fi in a way that he could do the effects and make it look really naturalistic.

33:59I have a slight problem with some of the Jurassic World movies. When I'm talking about they're all a bit three stars and some of them get things better than others, I love all the practical stuff in Dominion. Whereas the original Jurassic World is very, very CGI. And for the most part, the CGI is very good, but you can feel that it's not as tangible as the Jurassic Park movies. This one also I think features barely any animatronics. It's very, very largely CGI. Well, they had to make his head smaller again after Obi-Wan Kenobi, which took loads of the VFX budget. Even though this is basically all CGI, it is spot on.

34:43The dinosaurs look amazing. They look real. They feel real in the environments, and that is definitely something that I expect from one of Gareth's films. I had a little bit of an issue with the environment. With the environment? Yeah. Okay, because they went to places IRL, didn't they? They did, but they went to, they didn't go to the places they'd been before, they went to Thailand, which obviously Gareth has worked in brilliantly before. And it looks different, it looks very different to, the best of my knowledge, to anywhere in the Caribbean or South America. Yes. And so I was honestly distracted by that, especially in those opening scenes in the facility at the base before it's decommissioned.

35:22It looked like it was freaking Pandora or something. Like it didn't look real and grounded and recognizable as a, you know, quasi South American place. And I realized that the original was filmed in Hawaii. And if you know anything about Hawaii, it's pretty obvious that that's where it is. But at the same time, you know, that's the language that's been established for these films. And this is meant to be, I think, an island in roughly the same place because they keep talking about the coast of South America. They keep talking about it being not that far away. So to me, having it somewhere that is recognizably Thailand or somewhere pretty close to it was genuinely distracting.

36:03I think it's supposed to be like vaguely the same area. I will say one of the things that with my Jurassic head on, I was like, I want to know where this is set because it's not Isla Nublar, which is the setting of the original Jurassic Park and Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom. It's not Isla Sauna, which is Site B from the Lost World than Jurassic Park 3. It's, yeah, Il San Huber, a forbidden island in the Atlantic Ocean. So it's not part of, there's five islands. There's the Cinco Muertos, they call them in, I think, the Lost World. And you see there's Nublar and Sauna and then there's like three others and they're all like little formation of islands.

36:42This isn't one of those islands. So even if it's like the same bit of ocean, it's like slightly separate to where the other ones have taken place. I was too distracted by that to really take in that it wouldn't actually geographically look how it's supposed to.

36:59Chris Hewitt:I was just happy to see a movie that for once didn't shoot any part of it at the old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Well, I mean, it did, though. Did it? Yes. No. 100%. Where? Where do you think Henry Loomis' museum was shot? No. That's the painted hall in the old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. You're fucking kidding me. I thought you were joking. was it? did you not recognize it? no like the windows are instantly recognized like it's yeah it's it's the painted hole at the Old Royal Niver College of Greenwich this movie was shooting five minutes before I live yes and they said Dan on set go figure I know honestly I didn't go there I was in I was in Sky Studios Elstree oh were you now?

37:40what did you see? what sequence was it? tell us about that Dan well just before I tell you what sequence I saw because it's actually not in the film the T-Rex sequence. Do you know where they shot that? No. Lee Valley Water Park. I've been there. I did know that. So great. And when I watched that, so I watched that sequence before anyone else in the whole world in the edit suite, there were still bits of the Lee Valley Water Park in the background. So you had the T-Rex moving along and attacking. And then you could sort of see in the back there was some crew people walking around and it's just this kind of like slightly drizzly day in in, where is it, east of London, whatever.

38:21So, yeah, that's where they shot that. Part of the natural environment of Ile-San-Hubert. Yeah. So what did you see? So I was there for the final act. I was there for when everyone comes back together and they're at the facility, the InGen facility, where the D-Rex and the Mutadons are. and it was the set was the, you know, the garage shop where they kind of do the kitchen sequence from Jurassic Park, but in a garage shop. So I was in there. By the way, in that shop they sold Devil's Tower key rings. They were actually there on a stand. There were magazines which had anniversary features on Back to the Future on the magazine racks.

39:06So, yeah, you don't see any of this in the movie, but I was just walking around going, hey, bloody hell. so the art department having fun with sort of Spielberg history amazing so the scene was they all come back together and it was the scene where Martin Krebs gets confronted right about pushing her off the boat and he's like hey no I didn't and all that and he's got the case and he's got the gun except the version I saw Raptors approach and actually this was in the trailer as well there's a scene where you see Amy Lewis go yep those are Raptors to someone yep and the Raptors come up and these were actually and then he goes Blue stop he does that he does the crouch with the hands up thing

39:46Chris Hewitt:like he did and then he has no hand because the raptor just goes thanks for giving me my lunch clever girls but they come up and it's actually two actors and they're wearing hats which are raptor head hats amazing so they're kind of coming up doing the raptor walking movement and everything like performing them are they literally walking the dinosaur yes oh my god yes love it yes but they got like and they're wearing these caps, like cycle helmet things, but they're raptor head hats. So you've got the eyeline to the raptor heads. So they're performing it and everything. And it's this whole bit where they're approaching and Krebs basically points his gun at them and shouts at them.

40:24And then the raptors go, turn around and run off. And so it's kind of one of those funny things where he's like, hey, you better run, thinking it's all about him. And then what's coming up behind him? It's a mutadon. And that's what the raptors were like. Okay, yes. So that whole bit went and kind of got transplanted to the urination scene we were talking about earlier where I had the raptors creeping up on Xavier, which then got attacked by the mutadon. So yeah, it's funny how these things change. It's interesting hearing you say some of that third act stuff got changed because for me, even as much as I was enjoying this, there were moments towards the end, I am not the guy who sits in the cinema and goes, well, this doesn't make sense because that person was there and this person was here.

41:10I'm just in the moment having a fun time. It really stood out to me in this, that in the final act, all our characters get split up and they're kind of in, yeah, like a petrol station on an island and then they're in an underground facility and then suddenly they're all just back together and it turned out it was all like one big crazy place. And even as an audience member, I was going, where are they all supposed to be? I guess it means that it's a company store. Like, you know, on the island. I guess, you know, if you're all there on this otherwise deserted island, apart from all the fucking dinosaurs, you know, you need somewhere to get your movie magazines.

41:46Very important to buy movie magazines regularly. We never saw that, I guess. But, you know, I kind of bought it as a company store kind of a thing, I guess. But even then, that connected to whatever facility it was. For me, I was just a bit like, I'm never this person, but I was a bit like,

42:04Chris Hewitt:what is this place? And then they're all just kind of magically back together and Krebs has driven in a big circle. I thought they could have made at least a gag of that, that he was driving away, ha ha ha ha, I will escape all the dinosaurs. Oh shit, I've just driven in a big circle and I'm going to get chomped. But they didn't play that as a gag. It was just like, he's driven off and then suddenly he's back with them all. And someone's just going, oh, this leads to the docks and they just go there. I felt like I would have liked to see a map, if I'm honest. Do you know what I mean? Like the original Jurassic Park had a few maps in it.

42:40And it sometimes helps you. I know maybe this is me speaking as a fantasy fan and expecting a map at the start of every book. But I think it would have helped in that situation. And it has the thing of like, there's a storm and all the signs have been blown over. So like, you just got to take your pick of where you're going. Yeah. I thought that was, yeah, it was a little messy there. But it also, I mean, again, like great images, like the bit where where Jonathan sorry Henry Henry is up on the walkway looking around and something passes through the mist behind him like that was cool you know that's the kind of stuff you want to see and again that's something that Gareth is great at he's very good at monstrous things in misty smoky environments yeah he is also very good at monstrous things sharing a bit of a look going in for a bit of a smooch and yeah nuzzling up together it's a bit of a bit of a recurring thing in a Gareth Edwards movie I like that he tries to find, you know, as you said, Chris, natural animal behaviors.

43:35But also, like, love and monsters seems to be a thing. Because I'm pretty sure the monsters canoodle in Monsters. There's the moment with the mutos in Godzilla where two of them get together. And they're clearly like muto parents. And they have a little rub their faces together. And then the big boys here, are they titanosaurs? I have a titanosaur umbrella in my bag right now. Does it have two titanosaurs smooching? No, it only has one titanosaur, but he looks like he's ready to smooch if I find someone with a similar umbrella. I loved that because it did bring back the best scene in the original Jurassic Park or indeed maybe any film ever made, which is Alan Grant getting his first look at a real-life dinosaur, which is just one of the most astonishing things.

44:19I just love it so much and it still makes me cry every time I watch it. And even just paying homage to that here was enough for me to love this film a bit more than I otherwise would have done. But, you know, that worked really well. And I think having titanosaurs in it worked really well because, hey, if you love a diplodocus, there's even more to love here because they're even bigger. My only note on this, and I said this in the main pod unless it got cut, but my only note. I will cut it now. Okay. But my only note on this is that there are way too many titanosaurs for the size of that island.

44:53And I know we don't know exactly how many square miles it is or whatever, but these things had massive habitats because they're massive fucking creatures and they had to eat a hell of a lot of vegetation every day to survive. And the size of the herd that we see is insane. I mean, I'm not a paleontologist. Maybe there's a paleontologist out there somewhere going. Actually, there were enormous amounts of them, but I went to an exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Me too. Right. And I'm pretty sure it said they had quite a large range in order to be able to get enough stuff to survive. This is too many titanosaurs in one place.

45:30I'm sorry.

45:31Chris Hewitt:They might have had paleontologists advising the movie. They might have had. They might have said that was okay. They did indeed. I'm sure they absolutely 100 % had paleontologists advising the movie. I'm also pretty sure that sometimes they just did stuff anyway. And I think this might have been one of the things that they just did anyway. That grass, by the way, that doesn't grow naturally in Thailand at all. They had to create that. They actually had to grow that for that scene. Just like Zack Snyder did with Rebel Moon. Very much. Anyway. And indeed the cornfields in Planet of the Apes. Indeed.

46:05Chris Hewitt:Right, moving on. So you mentioned the titanosaurs. One of the themes of this movie is that people are sick of dinosaurs, they're bored of dinosaurs. There's a brontosaurus, I'm guessing it's a brontosaurus, that is dying in New York at the beginning of the movie. And one of the themes of it is that people are just bored of dinosaurs. Do you sense that there's a theme that this film is pursuing as well in that it gives us, yes, some brand new dinosaurs we haven't seen before that lived, that walked on the face of the earth, but also this mutant dinosaur thread that runs through the movie? I think there's quite a lot to unpack there.

46:41I think it's trying to reverse the whole thing if people are bored with dinosaurs, because that was a Trevorrow thing. That was there in Jurassic World, where it's like, hey, the park's been open for like 10 years, and we need to make the Indominus Rex, because everyone's kind of been there, seen that, and people are bored of dinosaurs, which there is a thread through those three Jurassic World movies that is a bit cynical. and that's something I, again, I slightly rub up against in those films. They all have a slightly dour outlook on the world, as much as the satirical stuff and lots of anti-capitalist stuff in the original Jurassic Park.

47:20This one, to me, still had that anti-capitalist stuff. It's there in the Big Pharma sort of storyline and the thread of like, okay, we've got the samples. Do we just give it to the people or do we give it to the corporation? but the attitude towards the dinosaurs is back to being more like a state of awe and wonder whereas i do think the jurassic world the previous jurassic world films came at it all from a more cynical place with that in mind i was wary of the mutant dinosaur stuff here i was like again it doesn't feel that new because that was so much of those previous films that you had the Indominus Rex and the Indoraptor.

48:05So them being like, hey, we've got mutant dinosaurs this time. He's like, well, we've kind of had a version of that. I thought the D-Rex was great when it turned up. I don't think they quite knew what to do with it, plot-wise, but I thought it was actually really cool, and I was a bit worried about it when I first heard about it. I was like, oh, does that sound cool? I don't know. And then in practice, I really thought it was. I thought it was too alien. Capital A, alien, rather than small a alien. The big bulbous head? The big bulbous head made it. I mean, that is one of the inspirations. They've talked about this, but it was too clear to me.

48:40I think it is an interesting thing to explore, potentially, that while you are trying to bring these species back to life, there are going to be some freaks. There are going to be some dead ends. And actually, the sort of Rupert Friend suggestion that, oh, you'd keep those anyway because they too would have a value. I'm kind of okay with that. So the idea of having mutant dinosaurs is not in itself something that I would trip up on or quibble over. But this one did feel like it was a little bit too marked in its influences. And again, I think the idea that everybody is bored of dinosaurs.

49:16Chris Hewitt:I don't get that. I don't think we would be. And again, this is something we talk about in the main pod tomorrow, but I don't think we would be that cynical as a species. I absolutely think that corporations would try to exploit them in some way. I absolutely think that they would be, you know, the kind of the natural wonder would die down in favor of a now what do we do kind of an approach. I get that. But the idea that everyday people in the world would be contemptuous of dinosaurs, I think is wrong. And I think that is a disservice to humanity, actually. So I think that the element of corporate satire can work and still does work.

50:04But that, I think, is the wrong approach to take. Now, I think what Trevorrow did in the first Jurassic World is okay, because I think the idea that going to a dinosaur theme park might have paled is possible. I don't think it's likely, but it's possible, right? If you have a year past your local zoo, maybe you do get a bit like, oh God, I've seen these monkeys already. But that's a very different thing from a brontosaurus walking down your fucking street. I don't think you get bored of that.

50:34Chris Hewitt:Even the theme parks. I mean, people want to see these animals and people would want to see dinosaurs. It's a strange thing for me to bump up against, but I do bump up against it, that something that runs through all of these movies. I don't think we would get bored of dinosaurs. It would be an incredible thing to see a dinosaur and that would never ever get old. But it is part of the theme of the movie. it is something that the movie hangs his hat on and we do get these mutant dinosaurs, we do get the mutatons, we do get the D-Rex Dan, what did you make of those? Yeah, well, the difference between these ones and the Indoraptor and the Indominus Rex is these are experiments gone wrong you know, these aren't the kind of, okay, they've worked on it and now they've made this badass thing.

51:13These are the ones where they're 17 years earlier you know, they were trying to get to where they got to with the Indominus Rex and along the way they've come up with these things and arguably they wouldn't have gone further or something like that. But they broke out and it all went wrong and now they're sort of roaming around free. So, and I kind of like it because one of the rules of the original Jurassic Park, I'm sure you guys know this, was that you couldn't call the dinosaurs monsters. They weren't monsters, they were animals. So Gareth was very insistent that the same apply to this. All the dinosaurs are treated as animals.

51:54And the animation of every single dinosaur was based on the way real animals move. Every single model of a dinosaur had a little kind of, you know, sort of little virtual post-it in the corner showing an animal doing the same kind of a movement. However, when you get to the D-Rex and you get to the Mutadon, you are bringing monsters into it because these are man-made hideous things that have gone horribly wrong. And I mean, I kind of like the D-Rex because it reminded me a little bit of the Rancor. being Rancor energy. Yeah, lots of Rancor going on there. And I've probably seen Return of the Jedi more times than you've seen Jurassic Park, Ben.

52:31And that was also an influence. That's a deliberate thing. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Gareth has said that. He said it's like the Rancor monster had sex with the alien queen.

52:40Chris Hewitt:He can't stop having monsters fuck. He loves fucking monsters. Even his fanfic. Gareth Edwards is going to therapy. Actually, no, keep making these movies and I'll keep going to see them. See, we're talking on the regular podcast about whether David Cronenberg has ever seen a Jurassic Park. I don't think he has. Or if he has, he would have disdain for them. But if he has seen a Jurassic Park, or even if he hasn't, you could lure him in by going, David, there's freaky deaky shit and monsters fuck. And he'd be like, yes. Sold. Yes, where do I sign? Thank you. Anyway. And the D, by the way, stands for Distortus.

53:16Not David. Not David. David Rex. It's the Distortus Rex. But no, it's cool. He's got the little T-Rex, the little arms, and he's got the big Rancor, sort of ape-like arms. And as I say, he's got kind of that bulbous head going on. And I just wish there'd been a little bit more of it. Do you know what I would have liked and what I thought was maybe going to happen? I thought they were maybe going to go... I thought they were going to encounter something and Loomis was actually going to pay for his, you know, for them bringing him along by going, hey, this dinosaur might be an even better source of whatever because of X, Y, and Z.

53:53I thought there was going to be some kind of surprise in terms of the samples that they collected.

53:59Chris Hewitt:Or maybe you could sing and it goes... Okay, I didn't expect that. I'll be honest, that didn't really occur to me. Maybe it should have done. But I thought that would have been a bit more interesting. And especially, I mean, talk about hand waves, but we've got to get the three biggest dinosaurs of each element was a bit like, do we know? Is that something amazing? Well, that makes perfect sense, Helen. Does it? Yeah. Does it, though? Because you need the... It's very important. They've got to be the biggest. The biggest. Because... The DNA is bigger? Yeah. The bigger the animal is bigger the DNA.

54:30And it's got to be one from the air and one from the water and one from the land because those are the three elements of the heart. And then we've got to get... Yeah, and then we can go to the Fire Nation later and get one of the lava dinosaurs. But I just... I don't know. I would have liked it does sound cool lava dinosaurs that does sound cool I want to see a lava dinosaur that's not my point memo to Hollywood

54:53Chris Hewitt:lava dinosaurs hey open the door get on the floor everybody walked a lava dinosaur am I right? it's so right I guess what I'm saying is okay there's obviously something in the fossil record Kep has talked about this that you know he found out that these dinosaurs had remarkably long lives they had remarkably strong hearts he extrapolated wildly from there. That's fun. I mean, there's worse reasons to go to an island full of dinosaurs. I thought this was not a terrible one. But I kind of wanted there to be like a bit of a surprise, a bit of a development or something once they got there in terms of what they were looking for.

55:32You know, like someone does some actual science on the island and realizes, oh, hey, as well as getting these guys, if we look at the mutants that have successfully, you know, they have bred true despite being accidents in the first place, then we can do X, Y, or Z with that. That would have been more interesting to me just because it would have been a little bit more unexpected and a little bit less video gamey in its structure.

55:57Chris Hewitt:What does the D-Rex do, though? Because he kills Krebs. He gets a nasty case of Krebs. And then he nearly kills Duncan. and then Duncan got magically resurrected. He got better. I don't think Duncan should have got better. I thought it was really satisfying as a payoff for his character. Because as you say, Helen, that sequence with him and Zora, that scene that they share together that is like, let's just have a human moment in the middle of all this, is actually really effective. And I thought, set those characters up really well. I liked Zora as a character a lot. And so then to have that as the payoff really felt earned.

56:43It felt like, okay, there's stakes. And because they had had the moment as well where he really castigates Ruben for putting his daughters in danger by bringing them out on this sailing trip through literal shark-infested, or in this case, mosasaur-infested waters. And he's really angry about that because he has that experience of losing his own child, just a horror show of a thing to happen to anyone. And so then this is the payoff that he then saves people, including two children or two young people in order to, you know, sort of prevent anyone else from suffering like he did. I think that was a beautiful payoff for him.

57:19I think you're right. And I think then not only does it undermine that payoff when he's like, guys, I'm back. I'm okay. Again, I had like, I'm not this person, but I had that logical moment where, okay, he's gone off with the flare to distract the D-Rex. Very Jurassic thing to do. And to reference the first Jurassic Park. and then the D-Rex goes away and everyone's like phew thank you Duncan you've saved us all and then Duncan comes back still with the flare where did the D-Rex go? why isn't the D-Rex still following? they're still looking for him we saw him turn around and go in the other direction but he's still got the flare he doesn't care anymore he's looking that way I just think the fact that he comes back with the flare I'm like wait where did the D-Rex go now?

58:03there were yeah moments like that I think they shouldn't have fucked around with that because I think it maybe does a bit of a disservice to the end of the film. And to me, again, yeah, it still speaks to the fact that they didn't quite know what to do with the D-Rex at the end. I know there's the video game-y-ness of that structure of like, we've got to collect all three dino samples, ba-bing, ba-bing, ba-bing. But I actually really liked that as a structure. It helps you know where you are in the film and you feel a sense of achievement as they're ticking them all off the list. And I actually really liked the contraption that you see it go, and then you see it filled with blood, and then you see it go, whew, in the air, and then they catch it, and it's like, hey, this is fun and adventure-y and great.

58:45So I really liked those three set pieces. And then the introduction of the D-Rex at the end is supposed to be the, oh, no, there's something lurking on the island, and now you've got your samples, but getting out isn't going to be easy. And you've seen it at the beginning,

59:00Chris Hewitt:and you know what it's capable of. You know the terrible things wrought by a Snickers wrapper yes I was surprised they had a specific wrapper yeah I was like did Snickers sign off on this does Snickers pay for that does Snickers rival say can you have it be at Snickers I don't know either way we talk about that that's something people can listen to I just feel like the structure of the three DNA samples was great and then rather than the D-Rex being like the cherry on top it was like that was maybe the least satisfying of all the big dino chunks it was like it was a squirt of whippy cream but it had melted by the time you got it to the table.

59:39You should have used real cream. It's still got sprinkles on it. Sure. But it is a bit melted and a bit like not as crisp as the ice cream

59:48Chris Hewitt:was underneath it. There is a great bit with the helicopter though where it's in the mist and the helicopter's coming and you're like they're coming to save us they're coming to save us those day players in the helicopter are coming to save us hooray we're saved and I was like no the D-Rex has grabbed the helicopter and fucked it. I mean it was not fun for them in the helicopter but it was fun for us in the audience. Yes. It might have been fun. I don't think it would have been very fun. They'd be like, wee! Do you think it was a quick and merciful death or do you think they, do you think they burned alive and that took a while or do you think they were killed by the impact or?

1:00:20Chris Hewitt:I don't know. There should have been a scene that showed it. Oh God, you're all monsters. You're the real monsters. In extraordinary detail. Yeah. Yeah. Like a good sort of, kind of like the end of Midsommar. Do you think there should have been a bit when Krebs got eaten and he got bitten in two and he went inside the D-Rex's mouth that we should have followed him in there because he would have been alive for at least a few seconds. So he would have had enough time to go, I've been eaten by a D-Rex. Oh, this is a new and novel experience. I don't think I'm enjoying it, but oh my God, I'm in so much pain.

1:00:49Chris Hewitt:Or do you think it would have been like very, very quick, the shock would have taken him, he would have died immediately. But I think we should have gone in, the camera should have gone inside the D-Rex's mouth and followed him into the stomach and then maybe he could have had the last line of the movie. So like the beginning of Uncut Gems. Yes. But for the end of Jurassic World, he could have said, this is how I win. This is colonoscopy? Yeah. What? He could have, the last end of the movie would have been cutting to him in the stomach, you know, with a lighter going, ooh, well. Guys. You could have had him, like, turn the light and go, well, this is fine.

1:01:23And then sip a cup of tea. Okay. Great. Chris is obviously making an extremely stupid point, all due respect. But I do think, something Ian Freya mentioned in his review of this that I do agree with is that we don't get a really good kill. Because in Jurassic Park and in The Lost World, you get a moment where somebody's chomped by the T-Rex and they really, you know, it's not graphic, it's not gory, but it relishes in you seeing that person get ragged around and scream. And they've done something to deserve it, right? It's the lawyer in the first one who abandons the kids in the car. In the second one, it's the shitty nephew who's trying to take the T-Rex baby and then the two T-Rexes come in and they kind of...

1:02:06Feed him to the baby. Yeah, feed him to the baby and then there's someone else on the island who I think gets ripped in. Well, it's poor Richard Schiff. Poor Richard Schiff. He doesn't deserve that shit. He doesn't deserve it. You get all these moments where it's like, ooh, ouch. Like, ouch.

1:02:18Chris Hewitt:Someone got bitten in half. I would say Ed Skrine's death is pretty horrible. Yeah, I think that's Ed's death here. Yeah, because you're traumatizing the little girl as well. But even that, he's being pulled off screen through a doorway. I beg your pardon? She gets to literally off screen. The audience are watching Ed Scranton being pulled off, and that's going to traumatize anybody. They've pulled off the boat, and that's going to traumatize anybody. And there was the woman on the beach as well, where the Spinosaurus comes in. That's a good one. That was another one. This is the thing, I really enjoyed this film, but there are all these moments where I'm like, wait, what was that?

1:02:53She was desperate to get that big crate of something off the beach, and you've just survived this attack from Spinosauruses, dinosauruses, which you know are coming out of the water and onto the beach. She didn't know that yet. Did she not know that? She was on the boat. No, they've said that on the land, that they're amphibious and we should get off the beach as soon as possible. But they're over here and she's still trying to get that out of the water. I still think the fact that she was on her own trying to drag that big crate of something and seemed really concerned with that. I was like, don't bother with that.

1:03:23What's that crate even for? We never found out what it was. I didn't need a scene saying what the crate was. It's essential supplies. I don't know essential I bumped on that spared no expense

1:03:36Chris Hewitt:alright real quick I'm going to wrap this up two very very quick last things I wanted to talk about Dan you and I talked about this on text after we both saw this movie that you think and I think you're right about this but we have Jurassic experts here who can verify this that this is the first Jurassic movie in which a dinosaur is killed by a human is this correct? well that's what I was wondering I haven't since tried to verify my hunch or my memory because I didn't know it was going to come up again. Because one of the overarching principles of these movies is that these are animals and therefore they shouldn't be punished for doing what animals do.

1:04:12Chris Hewitt:It's something that Spielberg, I don't know if he came to regret it after Jaws, but Jaws is just a shark, do what a shark does, but it obviously gets blown up for the privilege. And so none of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are shot by the hunters, by Muldoon or anyone like that and Lost World, Jurassic Park, they're trying to capture to bring them back so no dinosaurs get killed. I don't remember any dinosaurs dying in that way. There's also no dinosaur and dinosaur action in this movie, so I'm a David Cronenberg, but you know what I mean. There's the Mutadon versus the Raptors moment, which is really, really fun.

1:04:48Chris Hewitt:But one of the things about these movies over the last couple, you know, Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, there's a deus ex machina of it all where a dinosaur crashes in at the end and goes, does anyone need any help? You seem to have your hands full with these raptors slash... What's the big one at the end of Jurassic... Indomitius Rex? Listen, can I just come out of the water and eat this thing? Because that will solve everything. And then I'll just slink back into the water. Is that okay? I mean, Chris Pratt and whichever... Or Blue, the raptor, basically like nodding at each other at the end of Jurassic World.

1:05:20They're like, thank you. Thank you very much. It's so stupid, but I love it.

1:05:26Chris Hewitt:Helen does not. But there's nothing like that in this, but you also do get the mutadons being shot. Yes, there's a scene where Zora comes in and she basically unloads a pistol into the mutadon. I suppose, technically speaking, a mutadon isn't a dinosaur because it's a monster created from dinosaur DNA. Oh, wow. Hello, DNA. It's a living creature with thoughts and dreams and hopes. Yes, but it did strike me that that felt like something different that we've ever seen before, which is actually someone who's fallen like a marine in Aliens or something, just like, you know, pumping bullets into a dinosaur.

1:06:00So, yeah, I think that's a franchise first.

1:06:05Chris Hewitt:Franchise first. All right, last thing. And we have to talk about this relatively quickly because I have to run to an interview, and I'm cutting it very fucking fine. Dolores. Mentioned her earlier on. Yes. What did you make of Dolores, the tiny dinosaur who forms a friendship in this movie? An Aquilops. A what? An Aquilops. An Aquilops. Yes. Okay, there you go. With little Isabella. With little Isabella. What did you make of Dolores? And how many toys of Dolores are you going to be buying? She was originally animatronic. They had an animatronic Dolores on set. I have stroked a Dolores. at the junket they had a Dolores they had a guy going around with a Dolores oh yes there was one at the premiere as well but in the end they decided not to use it so it's all pure CG Dolores all pure CG Aqualops yeah I mean I think the film could have very happily survived without Dolores I'm not sure what Dolores really brought to it she brought cuteness is what she brought you monster and I think also she reminded you that, you know, kids like dinosaurs and gave you something, gave the younger audience something to get their teeth, as it were, into, except not teeth because they wouldn't eat Dolores.

1:07:25They'd cuddle her. My niece would, like, die for Dolores. I can tell you that right now and she hasn't even seen her. Well, hopefully not. Hopefully not, no.

1:07:32Chris Hewitt:But, like, she would love her. I was wondering if they were going to go down the route of The Lost World with the compies. Oh, it's so cute. It's so cute. And, oh my God, there's dozens of them and they're reading me a lot. I know, but it was, clearly like a it was clearly a plant eater when you saw it right still we're pretty sure you know pythons are not venomous but they'll still give you a nasty nip no but like come on it was like wow I don't no I wasn't worried about that I thought instantly oh here's a pet for her but it means as far as I'm concerned it means you could have killed off like I don't know her dad and her sister and then it would have been okay because a little girl has a toy a pet blood on the walls O 'Hara here Jesus Christ I would like to point out though however Dolores goes with them at the end.

1:08:16They've established now that dinosaurs cannot survive outside of this area of the world. So they are taking Dolores to her death. Maybe they'll get a terrarium or something. Yeah. I've got to be honest. I feel like there's an expectation that I will have loved Dolores because I love adorable things. I think they tried a bit hard with Dolores. It did feel try hard. It was a bit try hard. And it bothered me that the little girl, Isabella, in the like petrol station sequence at the end is going after the tiny dinosaur when she's in like mortal peril. It's completely aware that she's in absolute mortal peril with the rest of her family and she's going back for the cute little dinosaur.

1:08:57I know it's so cute. I know it's cute. It might have been... But... You could have done something with it that would have made more sense there, I think. Yeah. Like if you'd had the tiny dinosaur like showing them, you know, not on purpose because again, animals, not, you know, sentient beings. But like doing something that would have helped them out, like figuring out, like not figuring out, but like behaving in a way that they could follow her and escape or something. That would have maybe been more sensible rather than having...

1:09:26Chris Hewitt:Befriending. Yeah. Rather than having the already traumatized child put herself in more danger of all the therapy. Isabella's going to have so much therapy. Every kid in a Jurassic movie needs vast amounts of therapy, especially the one from the previous ones who was a clone of her own mum. Oh, that was weird. But they... Oh, yeah, Lex and Tim. We forgot about that, didn't we? We just dropped that plot development. That's just gone by the wayside. Okay, yeah. Lex and Tim in the original, the reason the raptor sequence is so terrifying is because they know the level of danger that they're in. And you can see it all over their faces.

1:09:59And they should be wildly in-equipped to survive that situation, which is why it's so scary. And it bothered me how they handled that with Isabella. I agree. And it's kind of Dolores' fault, just saying.

1:10:12Chris Hewitt:Dolores is very cute, but overall she just strikes me as something that was introduced in the movie to sell toys cynically to kids in a franchise that perhaps doesn't usually generate that many toys. I mean, I guess dinosaurs, but, you know, that's something that's going to be flying off shelves, I would think. And I just kind of abhor any franchise that introduces things like that purely as a cynical measure with which to sell toys. Anyway, look out for a spoiler special soon on Superman and the Fantastic Four First Steps. Very, very excited about those. And particularly about Crypto and Herbie.

1:10:43Chris Hewitt:Oh, my good grief. When Crypto meets Herbie, as in whenever I do my little fanfic with those dolls, oh, it's going to be so cute. So off the chart. And Dolores will come in. Life finds a way, Chris. Life finds a way. That's a little Easter egg, by the way. Isabella is wearing a T-shirt. You don't quite make it out, but her T-shirt depicts a flying pelican, which is like a reference to the end of the first film. And it has written in Spanish on it. I can't say it in Spanish, but it translates as Life Finds a Way. Amazing. And she's wearing that the whole way through the film. That's very good. That is amazing.

1:11:16Chris Hewitt:What a nugget of information to end this podcast on because that is indeed the end of our Jurassic World Rebirth supported special. As I said earlier on, the Gareth Edwards interview will be up in about a week, maybe 10 days or so. So keep in appeal for that as well. But in the meantime, thank you to my three colleagues of such lethal cunning. Bye, Ben Travis. Goodbye. Goodbye, Dan Jolin. Farewell, Chris. Goodbye, Helen O 'Hara. Toodaloo. And it's goodbye from me. No time for a pithy outline. I have one hour to get home for an interview that is due in 58 minutes. This is going to be fun, folks.

1:11:49Chris Hewitt:Wish me luck. Bye!

1:11:57Chris Hewitt:Hey, everybody. It's Chris here. Just jumping in real quick at the very end of the podcast with a little Easter egg for you guys. Because I was in such a hurry to get out of the room during the recording to get back from my interview. you'll be relieved to know that I did. I made back with five minutes to spare in the end. I forgot to ask Ben for the third part of his Laura Dern triple bill. Ben has since told me what he would choose. So here is what Ben would choose. So obviously, Jurassic Park and Star Wars Episode VIII, The Last Jedi, those are non-negotiable. For this third part, he didn't go for Blue Velvet.

1:12:35Chris Hewitt:He didn't go for Wild at Heart. He didn't go for Marriage Story. He didn't even go for Jurassic Park 3 or Jurassic World Dominion. He went for Greta Gerwig's Little Women. So there you go. That is Ben Travis's Laura Dern triple bill. This has been a very hastily assembled Easter egg. Hope you enjoyed it. Bye-bye.