Radioactive Review — 'Jurassic Park III'

It should come as no surprise that I'm excited for Jurassic World.

Yes, the trailers are obnoxious in their video game-y effects, and I can't think of a single Bryce Dallas Howard flick I've enjoyed.  

But there's gonna be a mosasaurus and Chris Pratt and trained velociraptors and motorcycles (which HAS to mean Chris Pratt and trained velociraptors on motorcycles!!!), so I'm totally psyched.

THIS.  BETTER.  HAPPEN.

In preparation for this surefire blockbuster that can in no way, shape, or form shatter my fragile heart beneath crushing disappointment, I've spent the week re-watching the original JP trilogy so I won't miss any nuances.

Jurassic Park (1993) is awesome.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) is hot garbage.  Yet I've mellowed—and trust me, no one is more surprised than me—on the flick, as it no longer fills me with seething, blistering vitriol; hell, it's even demoted from my Top Five Most Reviled Films list.

But what about the much-maligned Jurassic Park III (2001)?  Not only is it better than I remembered, it's interesting enough to revisit with a rambling quasi-review fourteen (!) years after the fact, particularly in the context of this here blog.

—

The Setup:  Jurassic Park III begins with a pretty flimsy premise:  obscenely wealthy, extreme (in the Mountain Dew-ian sense of the term) vacationers Paul and Amanda Kirby want to do a fly-by of The Isle Of Dread Pellucidar The Savage Land Isla Sorna (evil dino-company InGen's secret breeding ground for bioengineered beastes, as revealed in TLW:JP) for a photo safari, and need the chronically under-funded and ever-chapeau'd Dr. Alan Grant to give them aerial commentary on any fauna they spot.

Remember This Prop

Grant wants nothing of it, however, because of his aversion to being devoured.

There's Historical Precedent

But money talks, and Grant believes the Kirbys when they insist they'll pay any sum, and swear they will never, ever, Ever, EVER land on the island,.

So he and his pretty-boy assistant agree to the trip...

Seriously—It's Important

...which proves problematic because Paul and Amanda are bald-faced liars.

Portraits Of Punchability

Nope, the Kirbys aren't wastrel billionaires; instead, they're hardware-store-owning schmucks who happen to be divorced (AWKWARD), and team up again (in spectacularly awful fashion) to find their kid, who just so happened to go missing months ago on dino-island via a parasailing accident with Mama's new beau.

In other words, they're the freaking Van Houtens.

Ravenous Dinosaurs Are Preferable To These Two

Oops.

Dr. Grant comes across pretty terribly in this sequence.  I mean, I realize that this is a movie from the World Wide Web wasteland of 2001 and "Google" didn't become a verb until 2006, but everybody knows you investigate your employer(s)...

...particularly if they look like doomed grifters straight from a Tarantino movie.  

At the very least, Doc, you wait for the check to clear.  Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

"I've Made A Huge Mistake."

—

The Action:  Of course, they land.  Cue thundery, lizardy hijinks.

And there's a ton of 'em, with chases through forests and ruins and more forests and more ruins.  With a run time of 92 minutes (a good 30 shorter than its predecessors), JPIII wastes little time and deftly moves from setpiece to setpiece to setpiece.

They eventually find the missing kid (because, Spielberg), and wonder of wonders, he doesn't suck.

He's crafty.  

"Wardrobe Provided By Botany 500"

He hides out in a wrecked ATV.

I Bet There's Shag Carpeting And A Waterbed In The Back

He scavenges the InGen ruins for eats, weapons (like gas grenades), and tools.

Proper Diet Is Always The First Thing To Go 

And, best of all, he isn't whiny.  Kid's made of pretty resourceful, stern stuff.  He even keeps jars of tyrannosaurus urine around to scare away the smaller predators.

"You're A Teenage Boy Who's Been Alone For Months
Without Kleenex Or Socks.  Disgusting, But Understandable."

All things considered, Kid Kirby is the only competent person on the whole damned island.

—

The Setpieces:  There's some doozies.  My favorite involves a crazy aviary.

I've been a sucker for pterano-related mayhem since I saw The People That Time Forgot in 1977 as a wee one, so this bit was a hoot AND a holler.

One Might Say It Imprinted On Me...

...As Unto A Fanged, Clawed, Leathery Baby Bird

It's suspenseful as hell, and shows that even man-sized-ish, hollow-boned dinos are a legitimate threat.

Someone's Been Watching Too Much Batman.  Or Darkwing Duck.

"I Am The Terror That Flaps In The Night...."

The Kid even gets dropped into a nest chock full o' babies, and they do their damnedest to gobble him to death.  

And because I'm a terrible person, I laughed.

At Least I'm Embarrassed About It.

And though Kirby Junior survives his ordeal, Pretty Boy does not.  He gets hammered and bludgeoned and drowned and pecked to death.  It's a bad way to go.

But It Sure Makes A Bitchin' Obituary

Another neat sequence involves midnight dino-piracy in the rain.

Something, Something, "Bigger Boat", Something

When watching the Jurassic Park franchise back to back, it's obvious the production crews had a fondness for combining inclement weather, darkness, and monster attacks.  I can't decide if it's a budgetary thang to skimp on FX, or a way to mask clumsy animatronics, or just a case of "the audience liked it before, so ...."

Oh, What A Feeling

Hurm.  With the misty aviary and the midnight boat ride, there sure is a lot of "fog of war" in JPIII.

And, obviously, there's Mandatory Fun With Velociraptors.  They're essential to the series.

—

The Stars:  All that said, Jurassic Park III excels when it comes to the entire reason for watching in the first place:  the dinosaurs.

The first two installments focused on the creatures' grandeur and power and capacity to terrify, and chronicled how the humans reacted to them.  But in JPIII, there's a new-found intimacy with the beasts, and plenty of attention paid to how they respond to the humans.

And it's hysterical.

I mean, just look at that dripping disdain... that complete and utter contempt... that sublime whatchoo-talkin'-'bout-Willis-ness.

Glorious.  Absolutely, positively glorious.

And this little scene, where the protagonists do a collective slow turn to see what terror's behind them, ripped a surprise guffaw right from me because it's obvious what that spinosaurus is thinking:

"Y'all crackers done fucked up."

Sure, there's a lamentable over-reliance on CGI instead of practical effects and puppetry, but the dinosaurs generally work.  

Speaking of puppets, one raptor in particular brought a certain favorite felty fiend to mind.

You Can't Un-see It

—

The Issues:  Jurassic Park III's biggest flaw is that Téa Leoni doesn't die.

A Face Made For Being-Eaten-By-Dinosaurs

Women haven't been well served by the Jurassic Park franchise, and you'd think it impossible to find a character more inept than The Lost World's stone-stupid "wildlife expert", Sarah Harding (she of the "only there to document and record, but gotta first pet this here hatchling and almost get bludgeoned to death in the process" and "running around a carnivore-filled jungle bathed in the blood of a baby T-Rex" fame, a thankless role portrayed by Julianne Moore).

But you'd be wrong, as Leoni's Amanda Kirby is The Worst.

"THIS IS MY IMPRESSION OF A DINNER GONG.  PRETTY GOOD ONE, RIGHT?!!!"

"HUH?!!!  YOU WANT ME TO—WHAT'S THAT—BE QUIETER?!!!
SORRY!!!  I CAN BARELY UNDERSTAND YOU OVER THIS BLARING MEGAPHONE!!!"

She's shrill, obstinate, and—most egregious of all—oblivious, and the direct cause of 99% of the reptile-related havoc that befalls our protagonists.

Her First Victim

She's solely responsible for stranding the group on the island.

She gets half the cast devoured, and loses the only satellite phone in the process.

And she consequently creates and unleashes nothing less than JP's version of Tick-Tock, cinema's saurian stalker supreme.

The Resemblance Is Uncanny

And because Amanda's a parent in a Spielberg movie, you're supposed to root for her, and savor her triumphs.  Like finding her son, repairing her broken marriage, and, you know, not dying.

But not a single victory is earned...

I Despise Her Happiness

...and the one thing she does deserve doesn't happen.

"Just One Bite.  Please.  You'd Be Doing Me A Solid." — Dr. Grant

And the movie is the lesser for it.

PS:  She also looks almost exactly (sans glasses) like my first ex-girlfriend.  No good comes of that.

The Jawline Of Nightmares

—

But Wait, There's More:  There are some other major problems, like Dr. Grant communing with the dinosaurs.

Remember that pic at the top, where he's holding what looks like a horrifying marital aid? Turns out it's a model of a "skull resonance chamber" that allows the wielder to speak fluent Raptese.

That Skull Resonance Chamber Ain't Gonna Blow Itself, Doc

Yeah, Grant totally Zamfirs away a pack of pissed-off velociraptors.  They telegraphed it in the first ten minutes of the movie, and it's corny as hell.  I remember the audience's collective groan when I saw it in the theater way back when.

Another thing:  the movie doesn't so much end as come to an abrupt, nonsensical halt with a convenient military rescue.

Deus Ex Marine-a

It's like they ran out of money and just slapped on an ending with extras from an adjoining set.

Oh, and during said rescue?  Turns out Pretty Boy is alive, and somehow already safe and bandaged on a transport.  It's totally out of left field and completely insipid.

His miraculous survival ranks in the Top Three Lousiest Cinematic Death Cop-Outs, right behind Tom Cruise's immaculate, completely unscathed-by-interplanetary-invasion family in War Of The Worlds (2005)...

Not Seen:  LITERALLY EVERYTHING Outside The Frame Is Smoldering Rubble

 ...and Mario Van Peebles' "reverse-Bruce-ing" in the execrable Jaws: The Revenge (1987).

They Say Saltwater Aids The Resurrection Process

Pretty Boy straight-up needed to stay deceased.

Everybody Knows You Never Go Full Van Peebles

One last thing:  the music is utterly forgettable.  Jurassic Park gave us a sweeping, epic John Williams score that was as much a character as the actors themselves, but JPIII's composer Don Davis doesn't have the chops.  He does all right with the action bits, but overall, the soundtrack is sorely lacking... and big chunks are just reused from the prior movies.

Second Billing Behind Recycled Snippets?  Ouch.

—

RPG Relevance:  Jurassic Park III is the Platonic Ideal of a Tabletop Game Session Ported To The Silver Screen.

I mean, you just can't get more elegant in role-playing simplicity than "the party is trapped on a ruin-laden, monster-infested island with nothing but their wits and scavenged equipment to save them".

A True Classic Of The Medium

And JPIII's Isla Sorna is absolutely perfect for post-apocalyptic gaming in the Metamorphosis Alpha-ish / Mutant Future-y / Gamma World-ian vein.

Just look at the place!

Those ruins!

Those artifacts!

Those mutants!

That wreckage!
That rubble!

That overgrowth!  

As Dr. Grant says in the very beginning of the film, "what John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park is create genetically-engineered theme park monsters."

If you can't mine that quote for hours and hours of gamma-gaming goodness, you need to surrender your Mutant Lord credentials.  Hell, I've even done a ton of heavy lifting for you, when it comes to those aforementioned lab-grown critters.

And if you tire of pure beastliness in your antagonists, JPIII's velociraptors make amazing foes.  They're clearly smarter and more linguistic than their relatives in the prior installments, and it wouldn't take much to make them sentient and technological.  (Again, someone else—in this case, Goodman Games—has done the work for you.)

Courtesy Of The (Woefully Unappreciated) Broncosaurus Rex Line

Me?  I'd really irradiate those raptors, and make 'em full-on telepathic, with a full suite of Mental Mutations.

And probably laser-vision, because I loves me some overkill.

—

The Wrap-Up:  As a movie, Jurassic Park III is definitely flawed, but also innocuously fun.  And it goes by so quickly that it doesn't wear out any welcomes.

But as a source of role-playing ideas?  It's a veritable goldmine.  Definitely one of the most inspirational gaming flicks ever.

—

Final Review Score:  Three Carnosaur 3 VHS cassettes out of five.  (Though it's probably closer to 2.5, mosasaurus-induced giddiness makes me generous.)

A Mutastic Weekend Of Gaming Goodness

Man.  What a weekend.

Just wrapped up 2015's North Texas RPG Con, and as always, it was a hoot AND a holler.

I'm pretty wiped after playing games from Wednesday to Sunday (OH, PITY ME!!!), so this'll be a meandering, down-n-dirty recap.

—

Wednesday involved dinner with Official Friend Of The Field Guide, The Abominable Dr. Causey, and his fetching (and not hunchbacked at all) assistant.  Sushi was consumed, and much catching up was done.  It's always great seeing The Doc, and it's a damned shame we live so far apart.  HE TOTALLY GETS ME!!!

(It is at this juncture that I must mention that Official Friend Of The Field Guide, Our Friendly Neighborhood Sniderman, was greatly missed!  Not the same without you, man!)

Afterwards, Mrs. Field Guide and I were supposed to go play in an AD&D tourney—you know, the kind that actually keeps track of points and such—but I kinda got sidetracked...

"Convention Acheivement Unlocked:  Sleeping On Hotel Lobby Couches"
(Totally The Wife's Joke!)

...by a verrrrrry comfortable leather sofa.  

In the hotel drinkery, no less.  

Yes, I am apparently That Guy that passes out in a bar...with a baby.  Freakin' shameful.

Mama played in the event, though, and her team ultimately came in 1st Place for the weekend.  I am an amazing hireling!

—

Thursday started off with some Grade-A, Old School Judges Guild insanity.

And by "insanity" I mean "how the in the hell did the designers expect eight 2nd-3rd level weaklings with hardly any spells, silver weapons, and / or magic items to survive this ridonkulously hard murder-module chock full o' ghouls, ghasts, lycanthropes, wights, gargoyles, and wraiths and ALSO Confusion traps that pit half the party against the other in bloodthirsty conflict?"

Yeah, yeah...I get that's how we rolled back in Ye Olden Dayes.  No whiners allowed.

But after seeing several PCs get level-drained to henchman status—and one of those then disintegrated into dust as they hit Level Negative One—I can say with battered-n-bloodied authority that some adventures are just garbage.  I mean, at one point, I was actually relieved that, while in the middle of an attack by ghouls and their hulked-out ghast boss that paralyzed over half the party, I fell into a concealed pit trap right in the middle of the conflict.

"Yay, this pit that almost killed me is the safest place in the mansion!"  

Utter nonsense, man.  Just nonsense.

(And to add to the worst-ness of it, the pre-gens had names like "Bernie Madoff" for the illusionist / thief and "Brother Mayhem" for the cleric...and there was both a Chaotic Evil assassin AND a Lawful Good paladin in the party.  UGH.)

Cool module cover, though (even if it's a tad shady).  I loves me some Oliver Reed werewolfery.

—

Thursday night was Ben Burns' annual Paranoia craziness.  That event always sells out instantly at registration, and the table's infectious laughter drowns out the entire hotel.

The parody is strong in that module.  So very, Very, VERY strong.

Depending on your druthers, that is either a bug or a feature.

I remain mum because I adore the GM in Real Life.

—

Friday morning was Dungeon Crawl Classics helmed by the ever-lovin' Doug Kovacs.

The adventure was called "The Drunken Wizard", but I have no recollection of actually meeting the title sorcerous lush, as...

a) my PC died halfway through, and 

b) things tend to go off the freakin' rails in Doug's games...AND IT'S ALWAYS \m/ METAL \m/ AND AMAZING!!!

See for yourself.  Here's a list of context-free quotes from the game:

) "Glenn Danzig has appeared in more 'DCC' games than anyone else alive."

) "I'm gonna pop a cap in the dog. I turn my crossbow sideways."

) "He comes up doing some intimidating moves."

"Wait--is this a dance-off?"

) "I shave his head and force him to join our gang.  He is now 'Skull Zero'."

) "You just Wilhelm Scream'd the dude off the building."

) *spits out a tooth* "You made me get blood on my pants."

) "Maybe there's *two* guys."

"Hmmm.  'Schrödinger's snitch'."

) "That dog obviously stabbed the guy."

) "I feel this job would go a whole lot better if we got some drugs."

) "I speak the secret language of dogs."

"You do?"

"Well, I *think* I do."

) "We need a montage."

) "I can cast a Stinking Cloud down the opium-hole."

"And then stop it up with their clothes!!!"

"Ah-ha!  Hotbox 'em out!"

) *kicking in a door* "LANKHMAR BUILDING INSPECTORS!!!!!!!!"

) "I'm gonna stab that guy with the hollow eyes.  I don't know what that shit means, but I don't trust it."

) "Did any opium come out of 'im?  Like a piñata?"

) "It's Skull Zero's wife."

) "He has that look that he has murdered people before."

) "Well, I could've yelled out, 'I'm here to touch your junk!'"

) "She's even more pissed off after she killed you."

"I have that effect on women."

) "You do realize that all our adventures end in fire?"

"It *does* seem to be a running theme." 

) "It's Skull Zero's daughter."

) "That's awesome.  You open a door, and The Doom From Space is there."

) "I'm gonna try to snort his rings."

) "I think that calls for another Drug Abuse Roll."

) "You get 'Saturn-sauce' all over your face."

) "So you take this as a cue that you should take a vacation from Lankhmar."

Seriously.  Before you die, play under Kovacs.  Bucket list that wit' a quickness.

—

Friday night was Swords & Wizardry.

Jennell Jaquays ran "Wet Nightmares", a revamped version of her "Night Of The Walking Wet" adventure.

She's just the sweetest, kindest, most mellow GM ever...but we played for five hours, and the first combat involved a ghoul.

A lone, solitary ghoul.  

For eight 6th Level PCs loaded down with stuff.

And it kicked our asses for far too many rounds.  Our dice suuuuuucked.

Combine the lackadaisical pacing with an obnoxious player who spent the first hour checking the walls, the furnishings, the garbage, the floors, the ceiling, the garbage again, and the walls again WHILE THE REST OF US WANTED TO GO THROUGH THE SECRET DOOR WE FOUND IN THE FIRST TEN MINUTES, the evening was a total slog.

And I still don't know where the "wet nightmares" came in, as the only moisture we encountered in those same five hours was a very short bridge over some liquid that had tentacles that tried to knock us over (but which totally failed, because they were so easy to bypass).

So no soggy dead at all. 

Just a single sloggy one.

Heh.

—

Saturday morning was a game I was TOTALLY geeking out over:  Top Secret...

...run by creator Merle Rasmussen himself, no less!!!

Man, what a game.

It was as if  your favorite, twinkling-eyed Grampa played cops & robbers cowboys & Indians spies & spooks with your ten-year-old-self on a lazy summer afternoon.

Our mission involved air-dropping by night into the desert camp of a mad sheikh who was subsidizing terrorism with sales of roboti-camels and avian-shaped drones of his own design.

And I played an assassin code named The Dazzler.  I ad-libbed, "I'm the assassin you DO see coming."

GLORIOUS.

—

Saturday night was a super-secret playtest of an upcoming Goodman Games product, Mutant Crawl Classics!  (Goodman formally announced the game at a panel Saturday morning, so we're free to gab.)

The Revealed Cover Art, by Doug Kovacs!

About time we get to the theme of this here blog, eh?

Writer Jim Wampler ran the event, and it was a blast.  The game plays pretty much like DCC, and hits all the same mechanical beats.

Here's some Things Of Interest to those of you out there of a post-apocalyptic bent:

• The PC races are Pure Strain Humans, Humanoids, Manimals, and Plantients; as in DCC, all are determined at random in char-gen.
• Unlike early editions of Gamma World, there is no ambiguity when it comes to Mutant Animal PCs and the base abilities thereof:  you walk upright, have manipulating digits, and can talk.
• You don't get any mutations until after surviving The Funnel The Rite Of Passage; Level 1 is when you get funky random powers, and they're all uniquely flavored and flavor-ly unique like DCC wizard spells.
• The world isn't post-apocalyptic earth; no, it's a super-weird mystery planet loaded with megafauna and bizarre ruins and weird topography and alien botany and nothing "recognizable".
• That means no traditional 1980s tech at all as artifacts; instead of broken boomboxes, you'll find eggs that shoot sleep-inducing hologram-snakes and self-shrinking, sequined togas that turn you into phase-phantoms and whatnot.
• Artifacts are figgered out via a truncated James Ward-ian flowchart, and you can roll options like "Needs To Activate And Use X More Times To Attain Mastery" and "Competent Enough To Train Others In Artifact's Use" and such; seemed elegant in play, and not anywhere near as obnoxious as other rules systems...like Gamma World.

The game, called "Museum At The End Of Time", was a blast.  My three morts—Trebek the PSH, Sajack the Eagle, and Wink the Yak—made daggers out of the teeth of a fossilized dinosaur skull and we all made it to the end of the adventure.  As everyone was exhausted, though, nobody went through the leveling process to get mutations.

Sadness!

—

Sunday was more mutant mayhem, with the highlight of any NTRPGCon, Steve Winter's Gamma World game!

He always runs 1st Edition, and you roll up your characters randomly at the table.  No pre-gens here!  Winter ensures we end up with a mad mix of mutant goofery.

This year's adventure...

...involved an underwater hex-crawly foray into the radioactive depths to determine the source of mysterious "Hubbard Rays" that were bathing the landscape.

We met just the nicest and most polite carnivorous electric eels that needed slaughterin' before exploring the sunken ruins, but the adventure took a wholly unexpected turn upon encountering some land-crawling whitefish that were rivals with some wholly-aquatic striped bass.

One teenage whitefish boy in particular happened to be smitten with a bass-lass, but their respective parents didn't approve of their relationship!  So we radiation-hardened mercenaries had to arrange a secret romantic rendezvous for the youngsters AND appease their parents AND teach the boy that his race could breathe under water the entire time, but they had just been too scared and too bigoted to ever try in the first place!

So, in a nutshell, our adventure was essentially this:

MAJESTY!!!

—

That's all I can recall at the moment.  It was a whirlwind of games and friends and good times.

Oh!  This also happened

Those are the signatures of Michael Curtis and The Aforementioned Kovacs, dudes instrumental in getting Metamorphosis Alpha back out in the wild for new generations of gamers.  (Sadly, author Ward had to cancel his con appearance.  Get well soon, Jim!)

I have two copies, and they generously added some pizzazz to the tomes.

Man.  I really need to review the newest incarnation of the classic Metamorphosis Alpha.  I'm lonnnnnnnng overdue.

—

I'm wiped.  Thanks for reading.

"L" is for "Laseraptor"

Laseraptor

No. Enc.:  2d6 (See Below)
Alignment:  Neutral
Movement:  180' (60')
Armor Class:  5
Hit Dice:  4
Attacks:  3 (2 claws, 1 bite)
Damage:  1d6 / 1d6 / 1d8
Save:  L2
Morale:  10
Hoard Class:  None
XP:  245

Laseraptors are brownish-green, man-sized reptiles that fire crimson bolts from their eyes. Though rendered extinct "thousands of years ago", they appear in the Mutant Future via time-portals and / or escapes from dino-centric theme parks.

Laseraptors hunt in packs, but always send a lone member to scout ahead.  Many an adventurer has slain the solo creature and gone about her business, not realizing that an angry pack of light-blasting lizards is closing in!

Mutations:  Energy Ray (Laser / Light)

—

Laseraptors appear courtesy of the new hotness, Kung Fury.  Watch it!

"C" is for "Crotaloid"

Crotaloid  ("Rattleman")

No. Enc.:  1d3 (1d6)
Alignment:  Any
Movement:  120' (40')
Armor Class:  5
Hit Dice:  8
Attacks:  2 or 1 (2 bites, or 2 claws, or 1 weapon)
Damage:  1d8 + poison / 1d8 + poison, or 1d6 / 1d6, or by weapon
Save:  L8
Morale:  9
Hoard Class:  XIX
XP:  6,020

Crotaloids are gregarious serpent-men that always have an angle, and they're so slick they could sell a broken lightbulb to a luminoid.

Crotaloid eyes crackle with cobalt radioactivity [Class determined at random], and each head can target separate foes (essentially doubling the standard use of the Energy Ray mutation).  And their bites are venomous [Class also random].

Before teleporting, crotaloids rattle their tails at freakish speeds.  It is hypothesized that mimicking this frequency via technology could unlock newfound ways of traversing the cosmos!

Mutations:  Dual Cerebellum, Dual-Headed, Energy Ray (Radiation) (x2), Intellectual Affinity (Bartering), Plane Shift, Teleport, Toxic Weapon (Venom) (x2)