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Comment by jjmarr | Hacker News Reader

Jurassic Park fits into the TvTrope of "Seinfeld Is Unfunny".[1] CGI dinosaurs are awesome when you see them for the first time in 1993, when Reboot was cutting edge.[2] Now it's a basic requirement to have photorealistic CGI, so the first film that did it doesn't stick out to me. I'm 25 and grew up with Avatar. People younger than I am mock minor compositing issues because they're so used to perfection.

You probably feel the same way about the VFX in King Kong and our grandchildren will laugh at us for living in a world in which we cannot generate unlimited dinosaur movies on-demand with AI.

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

[2] https://youtu.be/fuEJWmxWkKw

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Dinosaurs are only on screen for 15 mins of a two hour plus movie. It isn’t good because of the CGI, it is good because it tells a compelling story. If you don’t care about the characters, then you don’t care when they are in danger. If the world doesn’t feel real, then the best CGI won’t make a dinosaur feel real. Tastes change and Jurassic Park will feel more dated over time, but that is because storytelling evolves. The Count of Monti Cristo is still an amazing read, but it is dated. Beowulf is so dated that it is hard to be compelling to a modern audience.

I've always felt that Seinfeld trope was overstated. I saw Seinfeld when it was current, and I didn't really find it funny then either. Some people just don't enjoy it and that's ok.

The Seinfeld trope is overstated.

There are plently of things to completely dislike about Seinfeld other than "other American comedies copied it".

I'm curious why your answer concentrates on the VFX so much. Of course those were critical to pull off Jurassic Park, but the movie is good because of everything else (story, writing, acting, kids notwithstanding, etc).

> kids notwithstanding

I thought the kids were some of the least annoying in film. As a means to drive the plot, kids doing the complete opposite of what you ask sounds relatable.

I wasn't talking about the writing of the children, but the acting. Kids are nearly always bad, the kids in JP were better than average, but of course they're working across from the likes of Goldblum and Laura Dern.

Because that's the reality that the "Avatar kids" grow up in. Think of it as a form of generational fashion: you're biased to like the things you grew up with.

To restate what you're saying to make sure I understand, you're saying that kids that grew up during the Avatar era (gen alpha/Z) are biased to prioritize VFX when watching a movie and my generation (millennial) is biased to enjoy things like plot, acting, etc?

"Perfect" CGI is ruining films. When there are no constraints and digital artists can just make the whole damn movie then where is the creativity?

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