Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom First Trailer and Featurette

Twas three weeks before Christmas

And we were biding our time.

Tonight was for dinos

(next week’s all Jedi)

The people all waited on YouTube with care

With hopes that a trailer soon would be there

There’s he in his t-shirt and I in my hoodie,

Waiting and hoping it would be a goody.

When from the table there came such a tither,

‘The trailer is live, it was posted on Twitter!’

Okay, that’s enough of that. I’ve had my fun with the obligatory Christmas reference, so let’s talk about the trailer. I’ve actually got a couple of other trailers and things to talk about as well but that will be a later post because I’ve honestly been a little under the weather. But let’s not let that stop us from at least talking about the first full trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, aka Jurassic World II, Jurassic Park V, or The Lost Park: Jurassic World.

So let’s back this up a little. A few days before the Infinity War trailer dropped, there was a leaked graphic on Facebook saying ‘Trailer This Thursday!”. That was a boo-boo on someone’s part, as Universal then came out and clarified that the announcement was premature but that the real date would be released that weekend. That Sunday, there were two teasers dropped, one online and one introduced during the Seahawks-Eagles game by Chris Pratt. Fast forward to Wednesday, we get a nice little behind-the-scenes featurette ahead of the trailer Thursday. Still with me? I know I had to ask my expert to explain it twice as I wrote this. Well, anyway, now we have our first look at Fallen Kingdom.

First off I just want to say the behind-the-scenes video is really, really good and you should definitely check it out. There’s some really exciting stuff there. Look at all the robots, guys! That was one issue I definitely had with the first Jurassic World film and I would just love it if they really brought those practical dinosaurs back into the series. Especially given the massive legacy of the combination of practical and computer generated that is so iconic of the first (three) films. I didn’t watch A Monster Calls with the other half when he watched it (I don’t do sad movies) but what I heard from him gives me hope that J.A Bayona can pull this off.

Anyway, on to the trailer itself. This is an interesting one. It’s a little weird tonally, to start with. The banter and the music of the bar scene don’t really line up with the stuff that comes after. Also, there is a bit of a clash from philosophical/ ethical debate and all-out action. I’m not saying the movie can’t do both, but it makes for a bit of a weird feel over all. But it’s not bad. Apparently everything we see in this two-and-a-half minutes is from the first 57 minutes movie, or so Colin Trevorrow says, and so we can’t feel like we already know how this is going to play out and that we’ve been spoiled. I’ve seen some fairly negative reaction to this, but I don’t really see anything that gives me cause for great alarm, yet. Then again, the featurette did help with that.

So what’s good? Well, it looks like we’re doing something different story-wise. We might actually get some expansion on the ethical debate as to the nature of the dinosaurs and what that entails as far as protections for them (animals vs assets). Jeff Goldblum is back, and though we shouldn’t expect him to have a huge role, it’s nice to see him back in the franchise again. There’s going to be a metric crap-ton of dinosaurs in this movie, including some new ones (Carnotaurus! Baryonyx!) and some returning ones, too (Compys! Stegosaurus!). What else? The CG looks really good so far, even this far out, and if they are using as much practical as they promise then hopefully it will be all the better. In that vein, it’s nice to see Rexy back again in all her glory, rocking all those scars like the matriarch of the island that she is.

#Queen

It’s a better first trailer than Jurassic World had. And baby Blue is super cute.

aaaaaaww!

There were a few things I was meh about, though. Owen and Claire obviously didn’t stay together, and I hope that doesn’t play too much into the story. I’m not upset about it character-wise like when JP III had Grant and Ellie no longer together, I just don’t want it to be a Thing that gets annoying. There was one other thing in the trailer too. Owen got caught in what looks like a pyroclastic flow from the volcano. In that case, he would be extra-crispy human and that would be the end of him. I rather doubt they’re planning on killing off Chris Pratt, especially that early in the movie, so we’ll have to see what happens there.

So, in the words of the esteemed Dr. Malcolm:

I think it has potential. I really want this to be the movie that this franchise deserves. I want for my other half to come out of it as excited as I came out of Force Awakens, Rogue One (and hopefully Last Jedi). I want it to be awesome, and I hope it is.