Worst Fourth Film In A Series

Lost World loses purely because of "gymnast somersaults and kicks over megaton dinosaur"

for some that might be evidence of the complete opposite though

Nadir of the film, I'd say, but would also have totally ruled in a different type of movie, like if the Spy Kids had been sent to the Island of Lost Dinosaurs.

my problem with Jurassic World is it didn't know what kind of movie it wanted to be. It had the references to its cinematic history which served no purpose other than being "meta". It had stilted self-referential humor which didn't work considered the movie did a poor job of recognizing several other areas where it was being ridiculous (ie, the extremely clumsy use of the "we want to steal this tech for the military" trope).

I enjoyed when people were eating it in the movie, but it didn't happen very often, and as stated above, nobody that wasn't wearing a JW uniform other than the poor nanny was ever in any real danger.

the Vincent D subplot about the military didn't even make sense. You're going to somehow transport these megaton beasts into battle and have them do your bidding? besides these animals' demonstration of insubordination, it seems like a lot of work for minimal payoff and possible unintended consequences (ie a civilian town being mistakenly eaten). I'm just sick of that trope though to begin with.

can't it just be a movie about posh, well-to-do folk who have grown so bored of mundane Earth that they force scientists to do irresponsible tinkering for their amusement? but that would have only worked if massive civilian casualties happened.

Oh mannnnnn I forgot about the Vincent D stuff! Yeah that really was awful, and senseless as you point out. There's a possible movie where everybody knows how goofy this idea of dinosaur soldiers is (I basically was picturing Dino Riders - raptors decked out with headsets and laser guns) but here they try to just do it as a ripoff of Paul Reiser from Aliens and every time he's on the screen you're just waiting for him to derail the main plot of the movie.

Similarly there might have been a strong movie out of the concept of, okay, Jurassic Park had Spielberg linking his own compulsion to entertain (as the aging lovable circus showman) to the foolhardiness of resurrecting dinosaurs via those narrow moments of real wonder and delight that convince you Hammond would want to do this thing. So Jurassic World will really be about the foolhardiness of a giant corporate enterprise trying to seamlessly recreate and repackage that long-gone dose of original wonder. Got it. There IS something to the idea of starting the film with the dinosaurs effectively neutered and tamed, the audience going through the motions and unmoved, the new special effects not working. But then they go ahead and make a normal contemporary blockbuster where the monsters remain tame, the audience bored, the new special effects not working. We never really have a sublime experience, the wonder or the real terror never come back, the movie just moves forward and ends. Missed opportunity.

hahahaha HARNESS THE POWER!!! DINO RIDERS!!!

i think that was spielberg's big idea that kept the movie in development hell for a decade. it was in the leaked john sayles script too.

I adore the original Jurassic Park and thought Jurassic World was one of the worst movies I've seen in theaters as an adult, and I'm sure I've posted my thoughts about it somewhere else on this board. The only part I found even a little bit enjoyable was when the CEO guy decides to fly the helicopter himself and immediately fucks everything up.

voting jurassic world for sure

really the only way to make the movie work is for like 15,000 people to die savagely in the park while back at home a buncha people anticipate their fat inheritances

or the Return of the LIving Dead ending

I actually think the stuff with the kids was far worse than the Vincent D'Onofrio stuff, the writing and performances there were cardboard-cutout dull and any "danger" never felt real. Totally the opposite of the original Jurassic Park; even though I know Spielberg wasn't going have these kids devoured by raptors, the kitchen scene is incredibly suspenseful and dread-inducing to me.

the kid parts were definitely bad but more in an eyerolling way to me. the whole "omg mommy and daddy are getting divorced" part is a total faux pas because we're given no reason to care (and then it is subsequently dropped).

idk why they even had to have kids in the fuckin' thing at all. they were part of the original novel (albeit with their character traits altered slightly for the movie) so Spielberg's made sense but get rid of them in this thing and you remove stilted plot point and we can get back to watching pensioners and born-on-thirds turning into Dino-Lunchables

(truth be told though that wasn't the allure of og Jurassic Park, it was much better at pacing and mood-setting, had better performances, as well as boasting solid effects for the time period).

yeah, the presence of kids in jurassic park is purposeful and spielberg obviously knows how to get good performances out of young people. For Jurassic World it felt like, "well, we got to have some kids in there, they were in the original and we teens to see our movie, just throw some bullshit in there"

Pratt as Raptor Whisperer got kind of annoying too

like ok you imprinted on the baby raptors from 'birth', these are still vicious predators. the carnivores in og JP had to be handled from a distance and behavior managed purely through environmental controls like electrified fences whereas now Pratt can fucking issue canine commands and these raptors are docile af.

almost as lame as Bill Paxton's "he thinks LIKE the tornado" in Twister

literally the only ones i've seen are scary movie 4 and star wars lol

phantom menace is actually good. saw it 7 times in the theaters

Batman and Robin I liked as a high school kid and now it makes my skin crawl.

Meatballs 4 has washed-up Corey Feldman, a jizz joke, and a lotta buttz.

Land of the Dead is p grebt

Live Free or Die Hard was fun even if it was completely ridiculous

Friday the 13th 4 = overrated, but has some good moments at the end

I may not have ever known that there even was a Meatballs 4 until this thread.

there's also the squeakuel which is called the squeakuel because of squeaks

Proud to say I understood this pun within a few seconds, ten at most

Bat nipples!

http://images.amcnetworks.com/ifc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/072412-batman-and-robin.jpg

Chris O'D in that particular trash heap is still my ideal.

man, i'm kinda feeling like i should have bent my mental rules just a bit and included The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in as, basically, the Phantom Menace of Hobbit movies.

I honestly can't think of which I'd subject myself to if I had to

jeez The Hobbit could have been so good, it just pushed too far into foreboding in one direction and zaniness in the other. and effectively retconning aspects of the narrative to fit in with LOTR was an exceptionally bad idea.

At least Phantom Menace isn't stretched out to 3 hours for no good reason.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://media.giphy.com/media/rTFtPupvHiKjK/giphy.gif

At least something beat Crystal Skull.

Can't really argue with these results, tbh.

Star Trek: Nemesis could also have been in this poll, if you consider the TNG films their own series. The least successful film in the franchise, and one that hit during a real low point in Star Trek's popularity.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to sit through. On the other hand, in a series that starts with Generations, where the last entry was Insurrection, expectations have to be pretty fucking low. The rare series where the second is basically the only good one?

jeez The Hobbit could have been so good, it just pushed too far into foreboding in one direction and zaniness in the other. and effectively retconning aspects of the narrative to fit in with LOTR was an exceptionally bad idea.

that reminds me that ages ago i downloaded a fan edit of the hobbit that condenses all three of those godforsaken movies into less than three hours but i've never mustered the fortitude to actually get around to watching it

I have a similar edit of the SW prequels that works quite well (as it is largely Jar Jar and, to the extent that such a thing is possible, Annie-free).

My opinion of Jackson's entire Middle Earth saga is similar to that of the filmography of Cameron Crowe: where some people see definite highs and lows, I pretty much see all of it as a divertingly MOR way to kill a few (dozen) hours.

yes otm. admittedly they were pretty pointless and bloated but i enjoyed them. no high fantasy is too much for me.

i still need to see the third Hobbit. i saw the first two in theater. seeing Smaug covered in gold in 3D was worth it.

Indiana Jones was lame but it did have some good parts, seeing Indy look at the mushroom cloud was pretty rad, and i liked the alien ending cos it was 1:1 the end to The Fate of Atlantis.

only other movie here i've seen in theater was Superman IV. that movie ruled so hard and as a Canon film should probably get a free pass for being insane.

i luv superman iv

I never bothered with Superman IV but you guys are making me rethink that.

it's fucking ridiculous

Superman ends the Cold War by putting all nuclear weapons on Earth in a giant net and throwing it into the sun. and that's like half an hour into the film.

Nuclear Man is as "off-brand supervillain" as you could get in the 80s

right down to the generic thug voice

DESTROY. SUPERMAN.

The presence of the core cast, after most were basically chucked for III, makes Supes IV an interesting halfway point between ''it's the classic lineup but everything's gone to shit'' (Indy, Star Wars, Hobbit) and what you would expect from ''Canon got the rights and cranked some insane shit out on the cheap.'' On some level, it still feels like a Superman movie, just... all wrong. Whereas the above, despite Spielberg/Lucas/Jackson, feel totally NOT of a piece with their three predecessors.

there's a clark/lois moment toward the end of supes iv (when clark is kinda dying from his first fight with nuclear man (sorry lol @ "nuclear man" forever)) that i think is maybe the best thing reeve and kidder ever did together

xxpost It's a nod to the serials, when instead of employing iconic villains people were familiar with, they chose instead to make Superman Vs. the Venusian Mechanoids (fake example).

there's also a clark kent/superman double date scene. hijinks ensue