*****SPOILERS*****
False
Alarms: People
These
were very minor questions.
Some
people criticised Lockwood carrying a walking stick whilst in a wheelchair,
citing it as a contradiction. However, most wheelchair-users to have some
mobility. Due to a lack of speed, strength, stability or stamina, a wheelchair
is the safest way to get around. Also, if someone requires a wheelchair, they
most likely absolutely need a walking stick to get up from the wheelchair.
Iris
talks about lions in the forest. Maisie says there are no lions in the forest.
In Africa, this is true. But all Asian lions do live in forest. Are the writers
trying to flex their knowledge but failing? Or are they reflecting actual
opinions? If this were the latter, it would be good writing. If it were the
former, it definitely would not be.
Claire
says she felt awe the first time she saw a dinosaur. Considering the previous
film made such an effort to portray that Claire didn’t care, this would be a
severe lack of consistency. However, as I felt they didn’t portray this
properly in the previous film, to me this line in this film is in fact a
confirmation.
Instinctively,
I wanted to ask where Owen got the gun from. He wasn’t given a gun by the
mercenaries and he didn’t have a chance to wrestle one from a mercenary,
either. However, considering he’s ex-military and he’s American, him carrying a
gun with him isn’t unlikely, especially when he’s going somewhere dangerous.
False Alarms: Miles Blaming Claire and Owen
Miles
tells Claire that they both exploit living animals in cages for money.
Claire kept dinosaurs in a zoo. The
dinosaurs received plenty of space and healthcare. Miles, on the other hand, is
selling endangered animals to criminals. People that partake in this market are
notorious for not looking after their animals: cramped, dirty conditions with
no healthcare.
So,
Claire’s is for the animals’ benefit and is legal; Miles’ is for the benefit of
people and is illegal. Yes, they both use the dinosaurs for money, but how
something is done is important. (The naughty step and corporal punishment are
both ways to discipline a child. So it’s clear that how something is done is
more important than just the fact it is done.)
Miles
mocks Owen for not thinking of the applications of his raptor training, i.e. used
by the military or criminal groups for bad purposes. (Essentially, Miles is
convincing Owen that he’s naïve and at fault for everything.)
By
that logic, that research can be misused, no-one would ever do any research.
Anything can be misappropriated by the military or unsavoury people for
unsavoury purposes.
Besides,
training raptors made them less of a risk to the park’s visitors and employees.
This is done with most zoo animals: the more intelligent they are, the more
training they get. Hence training the raptors was a sensible precaution.
Claire
and Owen think this whole situation is their fault. That dinosaurs wouldn’t have
be trafficked into a bad life without their help.
But
the mercenaries didn’t need their help to find the majority of the dinosaurs.
So them not helping wouldn’t have made too much of a difference. Whether Claire
and co joined or not, these dinosaurs would end up trafficked. Blaming
themselves for the whole situation is dramatic.
The
only impact Claire and co had was helping the mercenaries helping save Owen’s
precious Blue. If it’s ‘your fault’ that someone’s still alive, surely that’s
not a bad fault to carry? Especially when you have a positive relationship with
it?
Yet,
whilst their thoughts don’t make sense, it does make sense why they have these
thoughts. Claire and Owen were duped into aiding criminal activity. They were
left to die and if they stayed in their cell, someone would finish the job.
Under
dire situations like these, of course they would be doubting themselves.
Especially as Miles made them feel guilty! They are doubting if the good things
they did were actually good and now they’re re-evaluating everything.
Thus
them having self-doubt in the first place makes sense, even if those
self-doubts lack logic.
False
Alarms: Indoraptor
When
the Indoraptor is eating the mercenary, the auctioneer runs to the lift.
He
pushes the woman hiding behind the control panel into the centre of the lift so
that he can hide behind the control panel instead. Now, if anyone is visible in
that lift (such as the exposed lady), the Indoraptor will come for them and
hence find everyone else hiding in the lift, too (such as the auctioneer).
Then
the woman screams. It’s only now that the Indoraptor sees her that the
auctioneer presses to close the lift doors. So, the woman alerts the dinosaur
to her location which isn’t a good survival strategy. Also, the auctioneer
should’ve shut the lift doors as soon as he got behind the control panel to
ensure their safety. (Heck, even the woman should have!)
Nothing
in this sequence is rational. However, when people panic, they aren’t rational
because they literally cannot think straight. Even when it’s over something
minor, panic makes logical thinking difficult. So being in a life-and-death
situation? Irrational behaviour definitely makes sense. In this situation,
irrational behaviour is a rational expectation.
As
the star-dinosaur, the Indoraptor also had false alarms, particularly when with
Maisie.
Maisie
runs away from the Indoraptor when it’s occupied with Claire and Owen. She
screams when she does this, something that seems dumb because it then chases
her. But perhaps this was Maisie’s intention because Claire was stuck and thus
she did this to save Claire. Later on, we hear Maisie scream in fear: it’s
nothing like her luring-away-the-dinosaur scream, giving credence to it being
intentional and not stupid.
The
auctioneer had told the buyers that the Indoraptor has advanced hearing, so it
definitely would have heard Maisie pulling the dumbwaiter up whilst it was
right by the dumbwaiter’s door. Then the Indoraptor went outside and up, likely
checking all the windows as it passed them. So, once it got to the roof without
seeing Maisie, of course it would come back down the other side. Perhaps it saw
Maisie’s hair. Perhaps its excellent hearing heard her panting. So the
Indoraptor finding Maisie post-dumbwaiter makes sense.
Conclusion
This
film is good enough to justify a few rewatches.
There
were many clever details that I appreciated. The visuals were also pretty
spectacular. The humour was good whilst it lasted: the fact there was no humour
once they got back from the island was a massive issue.
The
problems were very weighty. This film is sci-fi so any instances of real-life
science should be accurate. If these basics aren’t accurate, how are the
audience to accept any of the fictional science? With that basic necessity out
the window, the entire premise of the franchise is blown. Hence this film
disregarding this is problematic.
There
were eight false alarms. Whilst these aren’t problems, they do initially plant
doubt and confusion in the audience’s minds. As such, having so many false
alarms isn’t the best approach. Too many things were open ended or unexplained:
a bit of pruning wouldn’t have gone amiss.
An
enjoyable film, yes, but it was littered with difficulties that needed fixing.
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