The Lost World- Not Quite as Perfect of a Movie, Part 2
13 Sep
What the fuck are you doing, Steve?
So the main problem with this film is that though some of the characters are interesting, none are relatable enough for the audience to latch onto. There’s no emotional center like there was in the first film, so it’s just a lot of pretty dinosaur shots with no substance. Malcolm is this confused non-entity who doesn’t really want to be there and isn’t really involved with what’s going on. Harding and Vince Vaughn’s character are environmentalists, which is cool, but they also do lots of really stupid things that makes the viewer angry with them, first and foremost being bringing the t-rex baby into the trailer. This is colossally stupid and costs poor Eddie his life via dismemberment. Even the fucking thirteen year old girl thinks it’s stupid!! There’s also Sarah touching the stegosaurus baby and almost being impaled by its mother, and of course Vince Vaughn releasing the herbivores that subsequently trash the inGen camp and their satellite.
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THIS MOVIE, VINCE VAUGHN????
Okay, I now what you’re thinking: that was the right thing to do. It’s wrong of inGen to capture these poor, defenseless dinosaurs and ship them off to some hideous amphitheater to be gawked at by the masses. But what Vice Vaughn does basically sets in motion the events that cause dozens of deaths. I mean, what really was the point? To sabotage Ludlow’s operation? But didn’t Hammond say in the beginning that he just wants to get a photo record of the dinosaurs to gain public opinion… which… what? What does that even mean? Whatever, I guess he means that if the public sees the dinosaurs in this isolated environment then they’ll see the importance of leaving them alone and not exploiting them for profit. Fine. But you can do that without fucking up Ludlow’s shit, in fact, it makes a lot more sense to let Ludlow go through with his plan and then return to the mainland with the photo record. That way if Ludlow tries to pretend like his dinosaurs were just made in some lab in San Diego, Hammond can be like, “nah, son I got proof that they live on a happy dino island and you’re being a dick.” The public would be more likely to side with him if they see the dinosaurs in bondage and in their natural environment than in just the latter.
Also, who’s to say Ludlow will even be allowed to go through with his project? As soon as the US government discovers there’s fucking cloned dinosaurs in a zoo in one of their cities, they’re going to send in all kinds of officials, agents and committees to enquire. It’s not like he’ll just have the grand opening of the amphitheater and everything will be peachy. It’s completely plausible that the government would just shut the whole thing down until there’s a congressional review. They could even do what they do in the book and just kill all the dinosaurs.
Now Ludlow’s original plan was pretty solid- he was only bringing the herbivores back, plus some compsognathuses. Now yeah, a triceratops could still fuck some shit up, but it doesn’t hunger for human flesh. But Vince Vaughn literally ruins everything. First he releases all the herbivores, which destroys the majority of inGen’s equipment and their satellite. There’s even a line Malcolm has implying he’d like to use said satellite because Eddie’s sat phone is so fucking terrible. Now he can’t, because Vince Vaughn is some asshole hippie tree-hugger. THE GUY JUST WANTS TO GET HIS BLACK DAUGHTER OFF THE DINO INFESTED ISLAND FOR CHRISSAKES!!!!
Then Vince Vaughn takes it upon himself to rescue the wounded t-rex baby that Roland was using for bait, even though it’s obviously going to attract the parents and get people killed. So Eddie gets torn apart and their trailer, all their equipment and both their cars are destroyed. On a sidenote- WHY DID YOU PARK NEXT TO A CLIFF????? Never mind, moving on.
This is literally the stupidest thing anyone has ever done. I hate you, Vince Vaughn.
So now they have no way to communicate with the mainland and Eddie’s dead. Ludlow mentions a contrivance- there’s some defunct communication center run on geothermal power they can use, which is conveniently smack-dab in the center of raptor territory. Whatever. Hey- what if the island wasn’t run on geothermal power? What then? Or what if the communication hub had been destroyed in the previously mentioned hurricane? Or what if inGen had stripped it for parts when they abandoned the island? What then? Well, then I guess they’d be fucked and everyone would lynch Vince Vaughn for being such a dumb asshole.
But his idiocy doesn’t stop there. Convinced he’s the champion of mother nature, Vince Vaughn then sabotages Roland’s elephant gun, preventing him from killing the male tyrannosaur. Now, I’ll be honest- killing a t-rex for sport is a pretty dick move (though it would make a sweet trophy), and I side with Vince Vaughn on that. But, by removing the bullets from Roland’s gun, he forces the hunter to tranquilize the rex instead, which is what causes all the horrific events in San Diego. Thus, Vince Vaughn is somewhat responsible for the deaths of the crew of the S.S. Venture, that poor dog, and that hapless bastard the rex eats on the street.
Now what would have happened if Vince Vaughn hadn’t released the herbivores or taken the rex baby? Well, the baby would have died but whatever, baby animals die in the wild all the time. The rex parents can just have another one. Also, these are animals that reproduce via eggs, you’d think they’d have more than one baby especially as they are supposedly the apex predators on the island and nothing would eat their eggs. What, they lay one egg? ONE EGG? Whatever, Joe Johnston punked you all. Turns out a dinosaur called Spinosaurus known for eating fish killed the t-rex. Sorry.
Anyways, had Vince Vaughn not been a dick no one would have died and Hammond’s plan probably would have come to fruition. They’d already spent the whole day taking photos and video of the dinosaurs, and even caught inGen red-handed in their cruel dino-capturing scheme. They could probably just call back that Costa Rican boat guy and head back home that night, put the images on the TV before Ludlow got back and ruin his plan before it’s even set in motion. But because we need a film where people run away screaming from dinosaurs, the characters have to do dumb shit.
How dumb, you ask? Dumb enough that I wrote a third post. That’s right. You heard me. I wrote over 3000 words about The Lost World. Got a problem with that? No? Good. Then come back tomorrow for part 3.
