Synopsis

Excluding Fuzzywhumple Resurrection, this movie is the biggest, most expensive, and most popular Tokugawa Picture to date. The premise is simple: Isla Nublar (a.k.a. Diuretic Park) was one of two islands where the dinosaurs lived. The other island, called Isla Sorna or Site B, was actually the place where the majority of the genetic engineering took place.

Like Isla Nublar, Site B rapidly lost all its human inhabitants, and no one was left alive to tell its story. That is, until six years later, when a dinosaur carcass washes up on the coast of Rojas, Costa Rica, and a paleontologist names Levine discovers the "lost world" from whence it came. Levine isn't the only one to go to the island, however. He is joined by chaotician Ian Malcolm, Ian's ex-girlfriend Sarah Harding, Doc Thorne, and Eddie Carr. Their mission: study the dinosaurs in their somewhat natural habitat and escape with their lives.

Seems easy enough, doesn't it? Not when Rossiter, animal-exploiting leader of Byosin Corporation, finds out about the island and sends a small but effective group of goons to retrieve some dinosaur eggs and take care of any opposition they might run into.

It only takes a quick glance at the previous DP movies to guess that nearly everyone dies. Everyone, that is, except Ian and Sarah, who are happily reunited in the sappy ending sequence (see bottom of this page).

Influences

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that this movie was influenced by the movie The Lost World: Jurassic Park and, to an even greater extent, the book by Michael Crichton. A large amount of the dialogue in DP3 has been lifted directly out of the book--even more of Crichton's writing can be seen here than in Spielberg's... um, shall we say interpretive... rendition. (If anyone has read the book, this one has the High Hide and the cylindrical cage and Lewis Dodgson!) Of course, like the previous DP movies, this one also borrows heavily from the great slapstick humor from Airplane and The Naked Gun: Files from the Police Squad!, but this one also borrows from Clear and Present Danger, Aliens, and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

Method

Nothing really exceptionally new here save everything about the movie was executed in a larger scale than previously. For instance, sets were first constructed in The Escape, but they were not as complex or expensive as the construction of the High Hide and the Cage (which was large enough to fit actor Clark Kirkman inside). Also, this movie has the largest cast and crew so far, making it more "accessible" to everyone. Thirdly, the locations in this movie were top-notch. Filming was done in four cities spread across two states, Oregon and California. The locations include Portland State University (which is supposed to be the "Santa Fe Institute," Disneyland (represented in a nightmare sequence), and the fecal coliform-filled Willamette River, in which Sarah and Dodgson have it out. All this variety combined with the comparatively large scale that this movie was produced on adds up to a colorful and enjoyable movie.

Firsts

• Kendall McConnel and David Benjamin both experimented with the cinematic aesthetics of water: Dodgson (Benjamin) throws Sarah (McConnel) into the ocean during a storm, Sarah meets a stegasaurus while half-submerged in water, Dodgson meets a T-Rex after getting out of aforementioned water, and Dodgson and Sarah fight in the muddy waste that gives the Willamette Valley its name. The scenes were enjoyable, in a masochistic sort of way, and looked fairly good.
• This is the first Tokugawa movie to implement the acting skills of high school teachers (there are three in this one, one of which is pictured on the right with a cigarette); I have sought the same acting talents since, in Fuzzywhumple Resurrection.
• The use of symbolism. This movie was not the first to make use of a "Christ figure" (The Escape was the first) but it was the first one to make use of religious imagery. The spatial positions of actors around the stream in a particular scene even symbolically represented their moral and ethical standings (thanks to Kendall McConnel for this last bit).
• Heavy advertising revolving mainly around one company: Burger King... The Whopper™: "At just $1.39, these tasty things can't be beat!"

Lessons learned

• Speak loudly. This wasn't as much of a problem in this movie as in some of the previous works, such as Love or Jealousy, but there were a few goon scenes that left a little to be desired in the area of sound quality. The situation wasn't helped by the omnipresence of a running stream throughout the ravine that served as Isla Sorna...
• No matter how intelligent and sophisticated the common folk think they are, everyone always loves a good dollop of immature humor. For instance, this movie had three instances of homosexual undertones (in the forest and in the dance scenes) in addition to jokes about dinosaur feces, dinosaurs having sex, a clogged toilet, and a totally unnecessary urination scene near the beginning.

What people think

"I really like this movie. And I am in no way biased."

--David Benjamin

Downloads

• Diuretic Park 3 trailer (5 MB MOV)