Well…the extended edition came out today with 14 more minutes and that includes the original prehistoric prologue released on YouTube that everyone liked and then got cut from the theatrical. So…there’s that if…anyone…cares?
The extended cut is so much better than the theatrical cut that I’m stunned the studio chose to release the theatrical. Anybody who just refuses to get on board with the locust plot is still going to not be on board and there’s still plenty of execution issues, but the restored prologue & additional scenes make the Giga, the poacher, Dodgson & Ramsay so much more interesting. Alan’s introduction is much improved and the first scene with Alan & Ellie is given an extra like 40 seconds that makes it feel much more alive and human. The critical and fan reception to this movie would have been better if this was the version shown in theaters, and I bet the studio would have made a lot more money. (Would have definitely still been rotten by critics but probably over 50.)
I bought the digital version of this movie like three days before they announced the extended cut. Whoops. haha. Upon rewatch, I think Alan's dialog throughout the whole movie stuck out to me way more than it did than the first time I saw it, so I'll check this out. He doesn't say much of value throughout the whole movie and is more or less the exasperated and confused "veteran" character who just seems more and more tired of everyone with every question he asks. He's put there more to be shocked at everything that happens rather than be an expert on anything. A lot of his lines are one-off questions about something obvious that's going on in front of him... even being perplexed by "sliding into DMs" and the whole coffee scene. Just a strange choice to bring him back for that.
I’m pretty sure that any existing digital copies get a free copy of the extended cut credited to their account. Alan’s intro now has a bit about how he doesn’t really get along with kids & he’s got a nice scene with Maisie added back in. They’re a little redundant but at least he’s acting like Alan which is nice after him not really acting like Alan for a lot of the movie. I do honestly like the barista scene though even though I’m not supposed to.
I haven't watched the extended version yet, but reading about what was added, this seems like a toss-up: on one hand, things that were absolutely essential and should not have been cut - like the intended beginning of the film that heavily featured actual dinosaurs in the dinosaur movie - are added back in. But - and this is a huge but - this movie absolutely did not need to be any longer at all. It actually needed to be significantly shorter. It's mind-boggling that dinosaur stuff was cut from the movie and so much of what actually made it into the already bloated runtime made it in.
Thanks for the heads up! My PS4 doesn’t give the option for extra features for whatever reason, so I didn’t notice I had the extended cut until I opened it on iTunes. Haha.
i loved that Dodgson was the bad guy and I also liked that they didn't put some contrived scene in there to remind viewers *who* he was, because ultimately it doesn't matter, but at the end you get the little barbasol can easter egg. Also love that he got the same death as Nedry. loved Goldblum in this, it felt refreshing that the comedic relief was not solely on the shoulders of Pratt and his corny one-liners. can't wait for the next movie where the 'protected sanctuary' gets poached and something goes horribly wrong. i'll be there with my $15.
Honestly the additions are pretty minimal and don’t really add that much. It’s inoffensive and only one kinda feels redundant and totally pointless as there is a scene shortly after that covers the same point. but, I liked the movie. Totally admit to the problems people have with it being 100% valid. Yet still, I like it.
They absolutely needed to keep the dinosaur beginning and the T-Rex At The Drive-In scene, and they should have cut *A LOT* of other garbage out of the rest of the movie to make room. The final shots tie so well into what were supposed to be the opening shots - cutting one and not the other is very indicative of how this movie operates.
I disagree. I don’t like it, but the dinosaurs weren’t really that important for the story this movie wanted to tell. It’s an utterly stupid decision. Like, making locusts the focus in a dinosaur franchise is baffling and absurd. But since that’s the movie, the flashback dinosaurs aren’t really adding anything other than Dino time. It’s an easy cut based on the context of the movie. There can be argument for the T. rex scene, I guess. But again, not needed for this story. They don’t need to just cut stuff, they need an entirely new script based on dinosaurs being the focus of the film. Not locusts and Maisie’s DNA. I actually really enjoyed Maisie, but her dna is not interesting to me. The ending is just as effective without those scenes. We see dinosaurs struggling to adapt to the human world at the start. The end shows a merging of their worlds and what the future could look like. Again, there are many bad decisions made here and they are valid complaints. But what was cut didn’t add much to the story the movie wanted to tell, for better or worse.
Lost it at Chris Pratt grabbing that Dino by the neck and saying “go on git” like a gold rush prospector