User Reviews

Im not even a big fan of this short film but it shows what i wanted to see in Jurassic World dominion. Tge prolgue scene on YouTube is incredible and it isnt even in the movie. Because Jurassic world dominion is just so bad it hurts.

Colin T still fails to bring the excitement that JP1 brought. The acting of the family was weak. They were attacked by a dinosaur and hang around hugging after the incident. I'm not sure how JW3 will work, I dont see why governments would allow dinosaurs to roam freely around the world. They would be destroyed easily by armed forces in a matter of days. Hopefully his story will silence me.

It's a fun short. Certain bits of dialogue such as "we've been a family for 2 years now" - another case where Trevorrow needs to show, not tell. And the fact that (spoiler!) the little kid saves the day by shooting the Allo with the crossbow..? Come on now.

Little things like that detracted from my rating, but at the end of the day, it's decent.

Battle at Big Rock

Battle at Big Rock is a short movie that takes place after the events of Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom. Dinosaurs now roam free and considering it's widespread all over the news the plot seems ridiculous that a family would go camping in the woods. Any how that's the premise for this eight minute bite size morsel. Despite the silly storyline, Battle at Big Rock is rather suspenseful and very well made. The special effects are superb and this short is directed by Jurassic World helmer Colin Trevorrow. The tone of this mini movie is more in line with the original Jurassic Park. A family are out camping in the woods when a group of herbivores enter their camp. The family watch in awe before a carnivore shows up and then it becomes a fight for survival. Battle at Big Rock gives us a taste of what the next instalment of the franchise could be like. Whilst it is entertaining it's a little silly. As I mentioned earlier. Why on Earth would you go camping when you are aware that dinosaurs are roaming about? The film starts with audio of news reports of escalating Dino encounters! A Bear or Mountain lion entering camp is a dangerous risk that those who like the outdoors are willing to take but a dinosaur? "No sir! Book me a hotel!" Whilst attention has been given to SFX and cinematography, logic and reality is missing here. There's a particular scene with a young child shooting a crossbow at the nasty beast attacking her parents. The Kid fires off two bolts in quick succession. I'm no crossbow expert but don't those things take some time to reload? Putting the hugely obvious plot holes aside this short movie is welcome and sets up the forthcoming Jurassic World 3. The end credits are probably most entertaining. They're found footage of Dino encounters in the wild which are rather good and got me excited to go see the next movie when it's released. Judging by this short I probably will need to leave the brain at home.

This short shows two dinosaurs fighting. Who doesn't love that? However, the human characters are just abysmal. They make the dumbest of decisions. First of all, the family just stick around when two killer dinosaurs are close by. You see two elephant sized animals at your camp site that can rip through your RV like tissue paper. You don't stick around to watch. You get the heck out of there! They also have a baby. Of course, it starts crying at the exact moment the Allosaurus stops fighting the Triceratops. This is when they really start getting stupid. Instead of covering the infant's mouth, they sing it lullaby. At this point I was hoping the Allosaurus would just eat them for being so stupid. But since this is for kids, the whole family survives. I think I'll be skipping any subsequent Jurassic World films after seeing the debacle that was Fallen Kingdom and now this short.

What to say, how can I put this in plain simple words? What is going on with cinema these days man? What happened to story telling, really? This short movie is just really really bad, I don't yet understand if it is bad just because the writers are really weak or the audience requires a really munched down story.

What do I mean? When making movies we usually want information to be conveyed in a realistic way, or at least in a way that is likely to happen in the story universe. This is a little more important in movies than in books for example, because in movies you have more channels to express information than just text. Because of this if the media fails to use all channels to convey information, and focus only on some of them, such as characters lines, actions and such, the entire thing crumbles. It starts to seem forced, unrealistic or unbelievable.

In real life when we communicate, we don't need to express every time obvious things, like, if a couple with children from previous marriages gets together, they usually don't say at every meal "we've been a family for 2 years now". Why? Because they all know that. They've known that for 2 years. Even if they are just saying these things to give context and enrich their characters, to add background information (that is actually not used in the movie), it feels that the information is just thrown there to fill empty space. This information could've be conveyed in MANY other ways, such as using the walls with pictures or a calendar, or even making this camping trip the commemoration event and throwing some decorations around the table. Not a single word was needed.

I know it seems picky to use this phrase as an example, but it is what it is, just an example. Probably not even the best one. But this is a trend that seems to dominate the Jurassic park/world franchise since the third movie (jurassic park 3). Other modern movies are also doing this, they are giving information in a very obvious way, using really cheap and weak narrative techniques. Character actions seem to be all intentional so bad things can happen, characters seem to decide to do unintelligent things just to that an event takes place. This results in people having this felling of the characters having plot armors, since they are "saved" not by their actions but by sheer luck, since their actions are so not intuitive. Character lines are really obvious and used directly to explain things, give direct background, and also are so unfocused and unnatural that people watching have also this feeling that the writers are just trying to fill the space with something.

Just to give a few more examples (with spoilers) of how bad this really is:

Dinossaurs start fighting in front of your trailer filled with your family and children. What would you do? Would you stand still and watch the fight carelessly and ignore that you have children (even ignoring that you have a baby)? Would you say to your children "It's ok kids, this is just nature sometimes"? Or would you hide your family, close all doors and windows, quiet everything down as best as you can while searching for weapons?

Your baby starts crying. Would you cover its mouth while letting him breathe so that your entire family doesnt die? Or would you start singing musics and telling THE BABY to calm down and that it is ok? If you can't show that in the short, remove the baby from the plot. Write better narratives people!

"The rangers said to just stay calm and wait for it to go away". Really? I mean, really really? I don't know how to comment this. It is just really bad writing. The entire short seems suspended in a really weak background. Who would go camping KNOWING that there are killer dinosaurs lose? They EVEN ASKED THE RANGERS. They know it is a really bad idea, and still they took their entire family. This is just a really bad story so poor in logic that makes me sad.

Also, why the baby that was not even watching but was hearing all of it, just started crying at the exact moment when all dinosaur sounds stop? See? This is what creates a feeling that the events are placed just to the story happens, and not the other way around. The character actions and events that they generate, or even generic events that cause story changes should... cause the story and not be cause of it. The baby cry should feel like the cause of the attack, and not like the reason the writers choose for the attack to happen.

When the trailer turns, why is everyone knocked out? It turned rather slowly and people were able to hold on to it and not smash their heads. Is that just so the baby could stay crying? Also, why would that baby chair stay at the table? Was the chair screwed to the ground? Why? And why the baby was not knocked out? And why the father was waking the mother instead of getting the baby?

Why every car light has lens flares? Clean you camera lenses dudes (haha, this is a joke, they added that digitally just to make the short worse).

Finally, why would the allosaurus give up because of two arrows to the face? It was fighting a huge horned furious dinosaur, it probably got damaged from that fight.

Anyway, just food for thought.