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Credit: Universal StudiosEven the most beloved movie franchises aren’t immune to criticism, and the Jurassic Park film series is no exception. But we’re not talking about any of the movies in their entirety – sometimes fans take great issue with particular scenes, and these epic blockbusters are no strangers to scenes that have become memorable for all the wrong reasons!
Here are six scenes from the Jurassic Park franchise that fans absolutely hate!
6. Killer Moves
After the success of Jurassic Park in 1993, director Steven Spielberg returned to helm a follow-up, which is also based on a novel by Michael Crichton. Like its predecessor, The Lost World: Jurassic Park was a box office smash, and to this day remains a fan-favorite within the franchise.
However, many fans have a pretty big issue with this film, which happens to be the scene in which Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) performs some impromptu gymnastics in an old maintenance building, where her father Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) has been cornered by a velociraptor.
Using overhead pipes, Kelly literally swings into action and drop-kicks the dinosaur through the wall, and it becomes impaled on a sharp object on the ground outside. It’s a scene that fans seem to hate, but to be perfectly honest, we don’t really see why!
Not only is Kelly saving her father, but her gymnastics are even foreshadowed earlier in the film. In fact, we think this places Kelly among the more useful children in the series, alongside the likes of computer hacker Lex (Ariana Richards) from the first movie!
5. Rex in the City
Before we’re done with the 1997 sequel, let’s address the elephant in the room – or t-rex in the city, for that matter. When hunter-for-hire Roland Tembo (the late Pete Postlethwaite) captures one of the apex predators, InGen wastes no time in taking it to Jurassic Park San Diego by ship.
However, fearing that the heavily-sedated rex will slip into a coma, InGen workers aboard the vessel dose the animal with too much adrenalin, so by the time the SS Venture reaches the San Diego docks, the animal is wide awake and ready to paint the town red (literally)!
The scene in which the unmanned ship approaches the busy docks at breakneck speed is nail-biting. And the rex emerging from the cargo hold and attacking everyone who’s investigating the already-bloodied deck makes for a terrifying sequence.
But when the rex hits the streets of San Diego, there’s a huge shift in tone. Gone is any sense of terror, and the chaos is played mostly for jokes. With that said, we think this scene is so widely hated because it’s a dinosaur on the mainland, a concept many fans aren’t shy about hating. Well, it’s a good job this won’t happen again in future Jurassic Park movies! Oh, wait a minute…
4. Dreams Can Come True
Dream sequences are often a bone of contention with cinemagoers – they’re cheap, lazy and usually a sign of bad writing. As for the Jurassic Park movies, we never imagined in our wildest dreams that one of them would include one, yet it’s one of many things that makes absolutely no sense in Jurassic Park III.
But it’s not really the fact that the third film has a dream sequence necessarily, it’s what the dream is actually about. While en route to Isla Sorna with Paul (William H Macy) and Amanda Kirby (Tea Leoni), Alan Grant (Sam Neill) decides to take a nap (which is usually how dream sequences always start – later there’s snoring and screaming).
But when Alan ‘wakes up’, there’s no one on board! What could possibly be happening? Well, it’s pretty obvious what’s happening, when Alan sees a velociraptor sitting in the seat next to him. If it had ended there, it would have been pointless but forgettable, but the raptor actually speaks to him, saying “Alan.” Yikes!
While this is one of the more memorable moments in the film (for all the wrong reasons), we wouldn’t be surprised if some fans walked out of the theater at this point, but looking back, it’s pretty hilarious. What’s even weirder about this scene, though, is that Alan’s dreams have shown him what Isla Sorna’s new breed of raptors looks like!
3. Fourth Wall
While the majority of fans won’t remember this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene from Jurassic Park III, we can’t quite get the image out of our heads. If you think talking raptors hitching rides back home on planes is weird, then how about dinosaurs that stare directly into the camera?!
When Alan, Paul, Amanda, and Eric are digging through one big pile of spinosaur poop to try and get to their satellite phone before that annoying jingle stops, they’re approached by a ceratosaur (it looks a bit like a t-rex but with a single horn on its snout). But by the time the predator reaches them, it has already changed its mind.
Related: 7 Major Bloopers Fans Never Noticed in ‘Jurassic Park’
One of the first issues fans take with this is the quality of CGI – it’s pretty poor – but what really gets eyes rolling is the way in which the dinosaur changes its mind about attacking the humans. After deciding it doesn’t like the smell of the spinosaur poop (because who would?), it looks directly into the camera!
This is something that’s still debated among fans, as it’s possible that the ceratosaur is looking at the characters. But seeing as it’s a lot taller than they are and would have to look down to meet their eye line, it’s likely this dinosaur is breaking the fourth wall!
2. Inappropriate Footwear
Fans had been waiting 14 long years for Jurassic World, which turned out to be a critical and financial success, and is now due its second sequel Jurassic World: Dominion. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the 2015 blockbuster, as many people had a huge bone to pick with the character of Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) – and still do.
It isn’t the character herself who’s the problem, though. After all, she’s easily the most (perhaps only) really interesting character in the film, as she goes from a seemingly-emotionless corporate stiff to a fearless maternal figure who kicks some dino butt. But what really seems to irk a lot of people are her shoes. Yes, her shoes!
During the film’s third act, Claire orders Lowery (Jake Johnson) to release the t-rex from its enclosure so that it can fight the Indominus Rex. When the gate is reluctantly opened, Claire watches as the dinosaur exits its home with the patience of a lion. So, to speed things up a bit, she lights a flare (and we all know how Rexy feels about those!).
Luckily, Claire outruns Rexy and leads her to the Indominus, but the fact that she’s running in high heels (Claire, not the t-rex) – which she’s been wearing throughout the entire movie – is the issue. Are high heels practical footwear in a jungle environment? No, but they’re the only shoes she has! Not only that, but she is clearly able to run in them, making it entirely possible!
1. Smile for the Camera
So we’ve arrived at the top spot of our list, and this entry was a no-brainer. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the second movie in the series to introduce a hybrid dinosaur – the Indoraptor, successor to Jurassic World’s Indominus Rex. While the latest villain does have a pretty awesome design, it’s criminally underused in the film.
In hindsight, perhaps that’s a good thing because there’s one scene that has been etched into the minds of fans forever. So, we’ve covered talking raptors and ceratosaurs looking at the audience, but now let’s talk about genetic hybrids that smile!
While trapped in its holding cage at Lockwood Manor, the Indoraptor is shot with tranquilizer darts by game hunter Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine). With the dinosaur seemingly unconscious, Wheatley does the most stupid thing a character in any Jurassic Park movie has ever done – he enters the cage to collect one of the dinosaur’s teeth as a trophy.
To no surprise, the Indoraptor isn’t really asleep – it’s pretending. And before announcing itself to an unsuspecting Wheatley, it actually smiles! While there might be a reason for this, as there’s a huge twist fans may have missed in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, it still warrants a pretty intense eye roll.
Which scenes from the Jurassic Park movies drive you crazy?