Cold Open Movie Quotes

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Guy Fieri Waterloo Flavors. That sounds good. Apple pie a la mode, coconut lime cooler, and rope beer root root beer float. Rote beer float. Yes, sir. No, no, don't take it. No. I'm stuck on the alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

You're defying gravity.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Must go faster.

Welcome And The Dino DNA Cocktail

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Greetings andor salutations, and welcome to Imbibe Cinema. The Imbibe Cinema podcast is brought to you by the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival, otherwise known as WIF. I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, along with my co-host, Trisha Leggett, as well as our producer, Michael Noens. And we are also pleased to welcome a visual effects and animation specialist, our good friend Mike Schmeck. Pleasure to meet you guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:01

I say that as if I don't know you.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Michael and I went to Illinois State University together, played a lot of Foursquare, hung out a lot, did a lot of stuff. In this episode, we're going to be discussing the 1993 Adventure, Jurassic Park. The cocktail we are imbibing is called Dino DNA, which consists of a dark spiced rum, pineapple juice, lime juice, simple syrup, and compari. It is very, very akin to a zombie if it is not actively the zombie recipe. Look for the episode recap link in our show notes where you'll also find a written summary of our discussion, along with a picture of the ingredients needed to make your own dino DNA. I'm going to do that every time. Well, you kind of have to. Yeah. All right. I'm so glad that you you brought this film uh uh up for us to re-watch and discuss. What

Why The Effects Still Hold Up

SPEAKER_02 1:54

can you say about 1993 and the animatronics and visual effects that this movie is able to capture and just what an absolute stunning film that it is?

SPEAKER_04 2:05

Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing that you have to say is just if you watch it today, it holds up so much better than many more recent movies. Many movies with, you know, uh years and years of development on the visual effects pipeline. Yeah. You know, uh looking back, and when you guys asked me about joining this, I I realized that uh I originally moved to Los Angeles to try and write, but I found myself in animation visual effects, and I realized that this movie was probably one of those key points that kind of pushed me in that direction just because of how visually stunning it was. But you know, I think the first thing you have to call out in it is how sparingly they actually did it. Yeah. Uh if you actually go back and and and look at the movie overall, there's only 15 minutes of the dinosaurs within the movie.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

What? There's a lot of what I would think of as the Jaws effect, where you give the audience the idea, the imagination, the suspense of it. Like when they're they're feeding the raptors, and it's just a lot of it's a lot of leaves moving around and everybody looking, and you're like, okay, there's something in there, and the idea of it is scary enough. Or when they're unloading uh the raptor and things go awry in the very beginning.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

You you literally only see it a couple of seconds as it's flying in the window.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Yeah. Mostly you only see the eye at that point, right? Right. And that is again that that Spielberg brilliance that we've we'll we'll touch more on later. But uh you know it's something where you use it the right amount to make sure it has the most impact. Yeah. The VFX portion of that is only six minutes of the 15 minutes. Oh wow. The other nine minutes are all uh the animatronics. Stan Winston built, you know, these amazing animatronics, you know, the the giant, something like 13-ton, I forget how big it is exactly, T-Rex, that is actually crushing the car in some of those shots. Oh, nice. You know, that that that brings the realism to it. And it meant that the team that was uh starting to create the uh the the CG visual effects of it, of those dinosaurs, really got to only work in areas where they might be able to be successful and really focus on making those couple of shots actually work as best as they could.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Aaron Ross Powell And they're they're not doing 90% of the film and expected to do that in the next nine days, which was un hyper unrealistic in the first place and so on and so forth. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Of the special effects that were CGI, like to me, it was so well done that I can't see where the animatronic ends and the CGI begins. Is there anything that stands out that you were like, oh, this is what was at at cutting edge at the time?

The Secret CGI That Changed Movies

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Well, I mean, literally the entire ability to create dinosaurs in that way was cutting edge. It was not the original plan.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

You know, the original plan was uh Phil Tippett doing what he called Go Motion, which was a type of stop motion, and he was well into working on it. His team had been paid, they had test footage, and meanwhile, uh a group of two artists at ILM at Industrial Light and Magic uh just started messing around. They thought that they could do it, and they weren't supposed to, but on this on the side, this guy, Steve Spaz, and then Mark DePay were slowly building out an orthographic skeleton of a T-Rex walking. And they weren't supposed to be doing this, but they did it because they thought they could do it better than Phil Tippett's stop motion. And then one day, Kathleen Kennedy came to ILM to view some other dailies, and they just had it sitting up on a screen when she came in. And she went, What's that? And and what Spaz always says afterwards is that she looked at it for a little while and just put her hand on his shoulder and said, You've got a successful career ahead for you. It's something along those lines. And at that point, the the actual uh VFX supervisor on the show just pretended like it was part of the plan as a test they were doing. I know the two of them got in a little bit of trouble, but they kept building. And eventually Spielberg saw it and was just like, we have to do this. Yeah. And it literally changed the movie. Phil Tippett went from building the uh the stop motion rigs to using that as reference and then working with the ILM crew to actually properly set the motion of the dinosaurs. That's why he's always credited as like the I think it's the dinosaur wrangler in the credits, and people always joke that he failed.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Well, I mean, they did not get wrangled very well. Yeah. Yeah. They started eating the guests.

SPEAKER_04 7:04

But they were literally building from computer code and software that wasn't ready to do it, how to build out this that became kind of the launching off point for ILM's bigger push into organic creatures as opposed to the more inorganic the liquid metal from T2 was like the step before this. But it was still inorganic. Yeah. And and you know, didn't have to look like a creature. And so that was the big push. And Phil Tippett still helped them understand how to, you know, set the weight right, how to uh, you know, make the motion feel real.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

I mean, just looking at this film from a 1993 perspective, at some point somebody has to put their foot in their mouth and and and take a little on the chin to move the the needle.

Jurassic Park As An AI Warning

SPEAKER_02 7:56

What I found fascinating was uh there's a point where Jeff Goldblum is talking about the idea that, like, look, you took technology that was there and and and you didn't ask if you should.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Oh my God, that whole scene hits differently. That's AI. They're talking about AI.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

I mean, they weren't talking about AI. No, but that conversation have been talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, you were standing on the science.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

You're you're sitting on like, you know, technology that that like w what are we feeding it? You know, there there's a whole situation right now where they're taking like every book they've ever found and ripping pages out of them and and you know, scaling them into the AI.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

You don't even know what you're doing. You are just taking what was done by people who were in the field, these great scientists. And so like you don't have any accountability because you didn't actually do the work. Yeah, boy, if that's like that just hits so different interviewing today. When you're talking about 1993, the special effects, it immediately made me think of what year did Forrest Gov come out? So then I had to go and quickly check. And it's like, oh, the following year.

SPEAKER_05 9:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Um leaps and bounds. Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna ask, especially uh in that year, um, and doing something that had never been done before. I'm thinking of like the computer processing time for like that landscape shot when you know. Yeah. Like I can only imagine days. Days to see, did this work right? You know?

SPEAKER_02 9:31

And then you see one dinosaur's leg come through its head and you're like, damn it, we gotta do it again.

SPEAKER_04 9:36

But then you add on because of all that and trying to put it together, you know, with all these CG shots, you know, Spielberg was actually reviewing stuff via satellite from what, Poland while he was filming Schindler's List. Oh my god. He was filming Schindler's List, and then at night he was looking at dailies from Jurassic Park.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

This movie, the content is so heavy. The idea that you are messing with things that you don't understand, and as humans, we tend to do that. And the catastrophic events that can can occur when you don't know what you're messing with. And yet the the humor, the the silliness is so good.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yes. We I tend to quote this this movie uh quite often uh uh with my children. I know stick's stupid, no wonder your species is extinct, is something I actually say fairly frequently.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

He likes to parent through movie quotes.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yes. That checks out.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

And then one day our children will be like, oh, that's right. That's where, you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Is like they'll do something and and they will realize that it was a bad decision because I will look at them and go, You chose, and they'll be like, poorly.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

But must go faster is something we say all the time.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Right. And fun fact, Jeff Gobblem, at least, at least two movies, he says it in the exact same way.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

He says it in Independence Day. In Independence Day, and in this, and I feel like it's the exact same cadence, everything. Oh, yeah. Must go faster.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Must go faster.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

This is his catchphrase. He uses it in all his movies.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Yeah, it was in Wicked for Good. You just didn't realize it.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah. They were building the Rick Road, and he was like, muscle faster. Muscle faster, muscle faster.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

But uh one thing I just wanted to mention, like in the rewatch, especially um uh in that landscape sequence when they first see, like, you know, all the dinosaurs, and there's that that still gets to me, like the the awe beauty of it. That low shot where they're walking up to the tree and the dinosaur gets up on its back legs to reach the tree and then comes back down. And just like I felt in in in my my living room, I felt like the ground shook. You know what I mean? Like I it just it it's a very intense moment.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

Part of that, I mean, they didn't have what we have now with like real-time render engines, with you know, physics simulations, with the ability to actually calculate light. They just had to paint it. Yep. So it was the combination still of amazing creative artists being well directed and focused on a well-thought out framing of an image. Yes. And using new equipment and tools to do it.

SPEAKER_05 12:42

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:43

And that's why it holds holds together, because they're not worried about it being real. I mean, how could it be real? It's modern dinosaurs. Yes. Right? But but it looks gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yes. Yes, and the acting really helps sell the awe and the fear. There's some incredible performances, especially uh the granddaughter. Her terror is so good. She is so scared through all of it, and it feeds the tension.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Ariana Richards.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Yes, thank you. And then Attenborough, uh, Richard Sir. Yes, sorry. Sir. But back in the day, um, he was Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street, which doesn't come out to the following year. But in my mind, that's like in my imprint of him. Correct. So he's always like the Santa Claus of dinosaurs to me when I think about it.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

I don't think I will be able to picture him in any other way.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yep. Right? Because he's got a cane and he's just so happy. He's very jolly about all of the joy he's gonna bring. And it's not just to the rich people, it's to all the people and all the children, especially, you know, the the the children. It's all for them. And he spares no expense. And then he sits around eating ice cream when he's sad. He was so Santa.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

That's actually a big change from the book.

unknown 14:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Much more of just a just a billionaire that, you know, what was was just greedy. And and one of the things that Spielberg changed and really understood was that in order to make it work in this medium and this length, changing him into that that like devolving back into just being the scared grandfather who's figuring that he you know sent his grandchildren off to their death is is much more, you know, visceral cinema and really helps balance the story. But but you know, that's something that Richard Attenborough could do. I don't know if you had someone else if they could do it so well.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I love like how you see all the greed.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Mostly just from the lawyer, thankfully. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Well, no, there's the the lawyer and Dennis. And Dennis.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Or as I like to say, as soon as he entered screen, Newman.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Sir Richard Attenborough says, even Disney World had all these issues where you know, it's like, yeah, but when Disney World opened up, the Pirates of the Caribbean didn't try to eat the the guests. Like, oh shit. Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Goldblum, like it it seems like his job is just to be lounging the whole time, either with a broken leg or in the vehicle. Everywhere he's just kind of sprawled, kind of just uh looks like a if he could put a chase under him at any point. Um and and then his shirt has to be open the whole time. It's a very good thing.

unknown 15:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Even in the back of a Jeep running away from the dinosaur saying must go faster, he's still lounging.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

And by the way, that's another VFX shot of running away from T-Rex. And even though you know you don't even think about, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

No. No, no. How well it is that that had to have been it, what was on the screen when uh uh Kathleen Kennedy saw it. Honestly, that that was It's terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

You're scared. You know they're gonna make it into your score.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

On the edge of your seat on that in that particular sequence. Um,

John Williams And The Emotional Ride

SPEAKER_02 16:19

and then I mean, what helps get you onto the edge of the seat, of course, is the music. John Williams, legend that he is, has such a beautiful score that has so much hope and anxiety mixed in thoughts on on scoring.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah, I feel like it it it it hits all the notes uh no punites. No, uh all the all the beats in the story that you're trying to hit. The the wonder along with the horror and and just and the sinister nature behind uh closed doors and all of that, just so awesome.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

I mean all you need is three notes played now. And I and I yeah, and yeah, I know exactly immediately where it is. I feel that the back of my neck, the the hair's standing again, and and just I'm I'm back in that theater at you know uh 11, just this is amazing. Uh because it was so thematic and and just uh at the same time, yeah, beautiful. Yeah. It's amazing how evocative it still is without seeing anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Just that. You can just listen to that score and immediately know what what sensations you you might not know the exact scene that is going on, but you can feel exactly the the what you are supposed to be feeling at that moment uh without fail. Right. Tells the story.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Oh yeah. Well, and and then like uh in the scene where Dennis is done in, the tension in that scene, and it's one of those things where um you don't even uh you don't see anything, right? It's all inside the vehicle, really, right? And and yet I know with the music and and and everything going on, I'm I'm already like my hands are in front of my face, and I'm like, I don't want to look. Even though I know that you're not gonna see anything. I'm like, I still don't want to look.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah, they honestly did an amazing job of keeping the gore out of this one.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Off the top of my head, I can't think of another movie where I'm like, this is a terrifying movie, it's very scary, and the score is just beautiful. You know, like that's they're like very like contradicting things. Like I think of the score and I think, oh, it's an amazing score. I think of Jurassic Park and I go, oh, that's a scary movie. You know? And uh, and I think it's part of like it's a theme park, and the the movie and the score is like a ride of emotions and genres and uh everything. It's like you feel like at the end of this movie, you're like, wow, I feel like I just got off of a ride.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

It also it also helps balance things. Yeah. It helps provide that same balance of the the tension, the whore, the humor, yeah, the the the emotional resonance of the the family dynamics that are explored within it. Like it only comes together because the music is what it is. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

That is John Williams in a nutshell.

unknown 19:28

Yeah.

Festival Spot And Quick Reset

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Tell you what, uh, we're gonna take a few moments to fill our glasses and get ready to imbibe more after this.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

The Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival exhibits short and feature-length motion pictures that utilize story elements in a new and exciting way. Our official selections are a carefully assembled blend of imaginative, sophisticated, and full-bodied stories. This is what our name represents. With audiences expect to experience character-driven independent cinema that is fueled by the filmmaker's passion for the art of visual storytelling. Filmmakers can expect an intimate festival experience where their personal story is valued as much as the one projected on the big screen.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

I am Jonathan C. Leggett, along uh with my uh co-host Trisha Leggett. Uh, and Michael Noens.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

And you're really gonna make this easy to edit, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Exactly. No. Uh and our special guest, Mike Schmack. And we're discussing Jurassic Park. Uh, enjoying this podcast, please uh subscribe or follow us on your favorite podcast providers to get new episodes as soon as we release them. Rate or leave us a review to help our show reach that larger audience. And you can also follow Imbibe Cinema on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Letterboxd. All right. I

Book Versus Movie What Changed

SPEAKER_02 21:14

I know uh I can't remember if it was junior high or high school. I attempted. I attempted to read uh Jurassic Park.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

That was a long pause, and we all thought you were just tempting to read.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

I attempted to read, period. End quote. That was the and I realized I could not do it. Uh no, I attempted to read this book, and it was so so in the weeds with the the technology and the biochemistry and the science that I I just I I could not finish. Uh, but you said that this was something you read when you were 10?

SPEAKER_04 21:50

Yeah, uh, I believe it was 10. Basically, my parents handed it to me. I knew the movie was coming out, I was feeling excited, and uh I was excited. A uh a voracious reader at the time. Okay. And so they handed me the book and just said this should be a little more of a challenge for you than some of the stuff you've been reading. Yeah. My mom had actually already read it.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:14

I think in part to make sure she felt okay enough giving it to me. Smart mom. And so a week before the movie came out, she handed me the book and I spent three days straight reading it.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Whoa. I literally paced around the back deck in Medina, Illinois, flipping through pages during that summer. Like it was all I did other than sleep a little. It was my first like full adult novel. Okay. And it was, as you said, very you know, he tried to dive into the science as part of it. Yes. And I was a big nerd, so it was great. Okay. Did I understand all of it? No. No, but you didn't have to.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So the suspense that holds up even with all of the science in the book.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

Oh, absolutely. Uh the the science is in separate little areas, then, yeah. It's it's it's not like and the door burst open and I watched as its claw came out in this direction that meant like it didn't get into the science of it in those moments.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

It was a lot of like, especially early chapters, and it was like the chapter beginning would talk about the science of something, and then it would get a little bit more. It's like info dumps.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

But if it's done well, then it doesn't feel like that. But also it can get heavy when you when you do that in a book.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Something wrong with the Earth's gravitational pull.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

It's funny that though those things were part of the reason why he got into the story itself, like Michael Crichton. He he was really just worried about the idea of uh genetic engineering and the ethical questions about it. And so it's not just science that you're dealing with in the book. There's a lot more ethic, you know, and philosophical pieces to it as well that Spielberg mined and and took just enough to fit it in with all these other pieces.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

One of the things that you had mentioned was a lot of character, specifically Sir Um Richard. Sir Richard character that that in the book is is vastly different than the the character on on our screen. Um were there other major I I I know uh Jeff Goldblum's character has a a very vastly different ending in the book, but other major takeaways?

SPEAKER_04 24:28

I mean the other things that stick out to me still is there was a whole lot more of a the whole idea that all of them are females, so no one could mate, and how they get to actually having life finds a way. Uh that was a lot more detailed, and there were a lot more clues and and like pieces of that.

SPEAKER_05 24:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

They they literally found eggs in the wild and and all these other pieces like that. But the biggest thing that that always stuck out to me, and I think it's partially probably my age at that point, how much gorier it was. Oh meaning seeing it in the theater when Dennis dies, Mr. Nedry. I turned to my mom in the theater and went, Mom, that's not how it happened. Like in the book, it bites, and then he describes feeling a warm sensation and reaching down and holding his intestines in his hands as they tumbled out of his body. Oh, gross. And there were like details like that that for uh someone that was in waiting to go into fifth grade were amazing and sucked me in and just had me so geeked. And and and so while I understand it was you know a different tone for the movie, you know, I did miss that a little bit. I I I've heard that the other person that was in talks to uh direct it at that time, but didn't get to it first, was uh James Cameron. And he wanted to do a full-on like aliens style. Oh, Jesus. So it would have been like constant whore and and rated R, and I don't think in the end I would have liked it as much overall. I don't think it would have been bit as big, but it would have had that gore. And 10-year-old me is still a little disappointed about that.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Yeah, yeah. In fact, I I feel like I mentioned that uh uh in in the in the act one. Um they do a great job of shielding it behind plans or right.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

It was very Hitchcockian. It was very like, we'll let you see enough that your imagination does the rest. So my question is, franchise-wise, does it get gory or because I didn't watch the subsequent movie because I was like, I'm good, this is enough for me, I don't need to see any more of it.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

It does get gorier, but it doesn't get it never gets crazy gory. Okay. Uh they're still trying to hit that PG 13 sweet spot.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, they really are.

SPEAKER_04 27:00

There's only so many times they can say hold on to your butts uh before they get in trouble.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

With so much smoking, that man just like chain smoked. Uh anyway.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Uh and in the end, it didn't kill him.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

No, it was not the thing that killed him. Um but uh all right. So

Why The Franchise Keeps Sliding

SPEAKER_02 27:16

so Michael, when it when it comes to the rest of the franchise, uh uh the the additional uh uh two Jurassic Parks, and we're now at three or four Jurassic Worlds. Four? Four, I'm pretty sure. Okay. What what has been your your hot take or or or uh uh thought on the the the rest of the franchise?

SPEAKER_04 27:37

Uh well I I don't think it's too much of a hot take that it continues to go downhill from from there. Uh I mean recently last year, Rebirth came out and and my fiance and I watched it here. And it was just so disappointing. We went back and watched Jurassic Park. Oh, sure. It was so much better in comparison immediately.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

So what is it? Is it the story that falls by the wayside in uh in favor of more visual effects? What what do you think the new ones are missing?

SPEAKER_04 28:10

Uh I mean, I think the first thing, and we've touched on it before, is using the dinosaurs sparingly, using them in the moments that they make the most impact. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Jaws.

SPEAKER_04 28:23

Yeah. Spielberg learned that lesson in Jaws. Yeah. Oh, I don't have to show it every moment. I have to show it in the right moments to continue to build the tension and suspense.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

And and there's too many moments in the more recent movies where they're just thinking about it as a cool dinosaur shot, and the emotional impact for the audience is lost.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Yeah, because they I mean, like, I I don't want to say we don't care about the characters, but I feel that that is one thing that this movie does such an amazing job. We have Dr. Grant, who is, you know, a paleontologist who's not good with kids, he's not good with computers, he's not a painful person. And yet at the same time, you watch him be so protective of these two kids. And like the lengths he will go to, including possibly one of my favorite lines, and I laughed when he went to go get Tim out of the car. I immediately started laughing, and Trisha's like, What are you laughing at? I'm like, one of my favorite lines is about to come up. And it's it's after they've gotten down to the bottom, and the the car falls back onto them, and he goes, and now we're back in the car. I was like, We're back in the car. Again, yeah. It's like it was just like one of the like they they do such a good job of of hitting those those moments in the right circumstance.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

It's not a cheesy thing, it's uh uh humor born out of being afraid.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Yeah, out of the trauma sessions that they're in enduring. And and they do such a good job of of sparingly using the dinosaurs to drive the moments of uh those high anxiety moments, um you know, where the jello is shaking because they see the shadow of the dinosaur.

SPEAKER_04 30:09

Yeah, I I think I wanted to be Sam Neil for a little while as a kid. Well, Dr. Grant. Uh Paleon. Right, yeah, right. Yeah. Because he wasn't Sam Neil, he was Dr. Grant. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Although even as Sam Neil, he was pretty fantastic.

unknown 30:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

But I, you know, touching on the character side of it, I feel like that's a little bit of the modern movie-making challenge of you know, too much studio influence, trying to reach too many markets, trying to like serve every audience. And then like, who is it really for in the end?

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Right. Well, it was it reminds me always when you have these franchises that go and you're like, why is this still a thing? It's not good anymore. It always reminds me of Last Action Hero, where it's like, can't die, not until the grosses go down.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Yeah. Now, to that end, and and something I feel that we're we're seeing more of, uh, A24 is a perfect example of this. They're starting to go off the beaten path and and and venture into the the realm of what we would lovingly call like independent films and like the risks that independent films can and do take. Do you see that uh out from the LA side of this?

SPEAKER_04 31:26

I think they're finding bigger audiences and making more money because they're taking interesting swings. Uh and and that might draw some attention. Uh at the same time, the studios have their rhythm, have their vested interests, KPIs, their key performance indicators that are how they are approaching the business of movie making as opposed to being a creative. It might shift them a little, but oftentimes they learn the wrong lesson.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yes. I love the shivers that both Jurassic Park had given me and then you saying KPIs out loud.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

I feel like across all industries, KPIs give people shivers.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

You've got to be careful with those KPIs. They they they hunt in packs. Yeah, they really do. They're a clever girl.

SPEAKER_05 32:22

Clever girl. Oh God.

Continuity Nitpicks And Great Details

SPEAKER_02 32:26

I I know that, Trish, you had wanted to discuss my comments uh continuously during during the film.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Like let's start with the goat.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Yeah, the goat.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Not the greatest of all time. Just the literal goat.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Well played. Uh so no, the the uh there were a number of continuity things that that have irked me uh I think since the first time I watched uh uh this particular.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

See, and I was gonna say, is it because you've seen it so many times? Because that's usually for me, where I go, oh hey, on the fifth time watching it, I'm like, they weren't even holding that thing in the other shop.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

Yeah. No, this one I think is-in raining. Yeah, this one I think even irked me when I was uh 11 or 12 years old. Okay this particular one, when they're uh uh, you know, at the Tyrannosaurus Rex enclosure. Sure. Okay, they bring a goat up. Okay, and then the goat is on what looks like, from every perspective that we can see, level ground.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Okay. And the expectation is is that these, you know, the the the they're don't worry, you know, there's 10,000 volts here, the dinosaurs aren't gonna break through this whole thing, but like they're trying to entice the tyrannosaurus rex to come towards the driving path so that everybody can see the tyrannosaurus rex. And it's right here at level ground.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Okay. Then the tyrannosaurus rex at level ground eats the goat, breaks through the fence because the electricity is off, fucks with these cars, and then throws them off a cliff into its enclosure.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

And you're like, where did that cliff go?

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Where the fuck did the 10,000 foot drop and this tree that is so tall? How did the T-Rex was the T-Rex on stilts?

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Why do you sound like Madeline Khan and why am I suddenly Madeline Khan? Like flame.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

No, but it's like one of those things that like I've just I like I understand you need this tree moment. All right, for the tree moment, they have to have fallen from the gate height.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

And the tr the the car couldn't have gone all the way. But again, how was the goat at level height? Yeah. I have never noticed this problem. You've never noticed that problem?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

No, no, and it's one of those things John will do and he'll ruin movies this way.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

This is how I ruin movies with continuity. So, Mike, you you've noticed this too?

SPEAKER_04 35:00

Yeah, I know what he's talking about. And I I I I can't give a clear definitive answer on if it makes sense or not. The goat is definitely not that's not the ground down there. I can I can bullshit an answer of part way through that fence is where the cliff starts, and it's just that side's the flat up top, and then that's not the same.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

T-Rex has thankfully never fallen to its own death by tripping while getting goat.

SPEAKER_04 35:27

Well, you you'd think that'd be a problem since they mistakenly said that T-Rexes only see based on motion. So how would it ever see that the ground was gone? Yeah. The ground didn't move. On the continuity front, I was impressed by how relatively consistent the ash on the cigarette of Samuel L. Jackson's character was. Yeah. It got so long. Oh, yeah. It just and I never went, oh, it jumped.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Right? And the fact that he has the cigarette hanging out of his mouth all this time, and then he's like, Dennis' station is such a disgusting mess. And you're like, wait, what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

Pot. It is also just a little weird to see people smoking at their desk. Yeah. Other things that that still kind of pop. Uh the animation is still great for the Dino DNA section. Like that whole little like three-minute info dump that I was totally into as a kid and didn't understand was an info dump. Like, they did a great job of that that was like just perfect and gave just enough.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Is it the the bill on Capitol Hill? That cartoon. Yes. The DNA cartoon made me. Schoolhouse rock. School faces. It was like schoolhouse, yeah. Schoolhouse rock meets like Mr. Clippy.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Clippy! Oh, Jesus. Oh. It's kind of where we went from massive, aggressive little paper clip.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

I'm also just blown away how much they used what they could that really happen, that you don't get as much anymore in in modern movies.

Practical Storms And The Water Cup

SPEAKER_04 37:20

Beyond beyond the the animatronics and the physicality of those things that that makes it easier for an actor to actually perform. Yeah. There's stuff as simple as the a lot of the storm footage that they shot because an actual major typhoon came through Hawaii while they were filming and and knocked out a bunch of uh roads and and and like caused damage to set and all this. And there's actually, from what I understand, a story where a bunch of the crew actually was stranded after it. And the guy that played the plane captain at the very beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark actually helped a bunch of the crew escape Hawaii. Yeah. Like one of those random details. But but knowing all that, watching it again, I'm I'm just going, well, that explains why the storm looks so good. It's a real fucking storm. And it is really pounding that like the whole crew had to like take shelter in their hotels, and and like they they still shot a bunch of footage of it. Wow. You're taking advantage of what life actually brings. Yeah. Yeah. The magic of filmmaking.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

If if if you know that the script is calling for it and you've got the camera on hand because you were stranded with the damn thing, might as well get some footage.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

Exactly. Wow. Yeah, we haven't hit it, and I don't know how you don't. The the the water cup. Yes. Yeah. The water cup and just the little ripple shot.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Impact tremor.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

It was a brilliant idea, and from what I've heard, trying to actually accomplish it was really difficult for the practical effects team. They finally figured out to run a string from the bottom of the cup through the car and then have someone vibrate the string at a at a frequency would make it happen.

SPEAKER_05 39:16

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

If they were just trying to like shake the car, they were trying to like, you know, blast it with bass, and it just wasn't working. It wasn't looking right. It just slosh around. Right. It had to be very controlled. Yes. I mean, that's one of those other moments that you just you think of the movie and you just picture that single like ripple repeating. It's something I feel like doesn't get done very often these days in movies. No. And it makes me miss finding those little things that explain and and are symbolic of a larger threat of a bigger character. Like there was more symbolism in that movie than I think I realized as a kid. You hit on it with AI. I think at that point part of that language actually came from uh Phil Tippett calling himself extinct after seeing the CGI dinosaur and saying that his stop motion was extinct.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

There are films that need to be conveyed through Stop.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Marcel the Shell, isn't that?

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah, Marcel the Shell was the perfect example.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

It's a very unique uh type of storytelling.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Yeah.

Guest Work And Exceptional Minds

SPEAKER_02 40:27

All right. Michael Schmeck, what can our listeners look forward to?

SPEAKER_04 40:32

Besides talking with you lovely people and occasionally helping out with blue whiskey. Uh I uh am the director of a visual effects and animation studio called Exceptional Minds. We're a nonprofit uh academy and studio that trains artists on the autism spectrum to develop their careers in animation and visual effects. Nice. Uh so I'm in charge of the studio. We do real work on real projects, so you can see some of those projects. I'd say that on the VFX side, you can always see my name and my team's name in the end credits for every Marvel project. We do the end cards, end crawls, all of that for everything Marvel does. You can see my team's work on things past to future, including Twisters, including Gladiator 2. We just finished up uh Outer Banks season five. We did the last season at Bridgerton. I hope we'll get to work on the next one. And then on the animation side, there's a really cool project that I can't call uh really talk about, but we did 10 seconds of animation for a major motion picture that will come out next spring. It'll be really awesome to see it out there once I can actually talk about it. But beyond that, we have our own IP work that you can see on our YouTube channel, Exceptional Minds. We're just about to release one called Bigfoot Burger, uh, which was a really fun project that one of our uh graduate artists pitched. Proud of the work they do. None of this visit is in any way sponsored or representative of Exceptional Minds. Uh I cannot say that enough, but they but I uh love the work I get to do.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Well, that's wonderful and absolutely fantastic.

Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Uh we greatly appreciate all of our listeners for choosing this podcast, supporting Independent Films, the Blue Is King Independent Film Festival. I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, and thanks for in piping with us. Cheers.