Another great franchise with, if I may say, a relatively successful reboot. My good friend Paul Maddalena would probably hate me for saying this, but I like the Chris Pratt version. In fact, I definitely like it more than I like the third movie of the original series, and if it weren’t for Jeff Goldblum, I’d have a hard time picking between the reboot and the second movie. The first one, or course the original, will always be by far the best. And I say that with huge props to the child actors, who are definitely the best child actors featured in the franchise, which is a big deal for me. Anyway, I digress.
Okay so before I start, just want to make it clear that I’m going solely off the movies here, as I know that the books give different details about the vehicles, etc. So, movie vehicles is what I’m sticking to, just to keep things as uncomplicated as possible. So the first park-related vehicles we see are the tour vehicles. You know, the green and yellow guys painted kind of like dinosaurs, into which all the characters climb to go on the test run. Well, we all know how that ended. Granted, let’s acknowledge that these cars were on a track, and that they were therefore on a kind of road. But they were certainly moving through all kinds of different terrain. So I’m including them. Also, they’re super iconic, so it’s not like I was going to leave them out.
I’ve got to hand it to those vehicles, they survived their trials pretty well. That one in which Lex and Tim were riding went through quite a bit, and managed to make it through kinda in one piece. That is, it maintained enough of its structural integrity that it mostly survived being ripped off the track by a t-rex, and chewed on and stomped on by that same t-rex, and then tipped over a ridge by, you guessed it, Mr. Rex, T. oh, and it lands in a tree, then falls out of the tree. And the kid who was in it when it fell into the tree is alive! That’s a pretty hardy vehicle, I’ve gotta say.
Apparently, these tour vehicles were 1992 Ford Explorer XLTs. Fun fact. You may not have known that they were Fords because the product placement wasn’t nearly as blatant as it was in the reboot, Jurassic World. Speaking of Jurassic world, let’s take a minute to talk about those little rolly pod things. I liked them. I think they’re neat. Do I think that security measures could have been a little more strict concerning the pods? Yes. Do I think they should have had some sort of remote override for the pods in case something like what did happen in the movie were to happen? Yes. Okay, so they were far from perfect. But rolling around in a little ball and being (relatively) safe from herbivore dinos? Not too shabby. Jimmy Fallon certainly seemed to be having a good time.