Up to Date List of Retired Movies (MM1-7)

The following movies have been retired from the Movie Madness tournament after making to the Final Four of a major tournament (the number in parenthesis is the season it was retired):

• The Princess Bride (1/2)
• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1)
• Back to the Future (1/2)
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1)
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (2)
• Star Wars: A New Hope (2)
• Forrest Gump (3)
• Saving Private Ryan (3)
• The Shawshank Redemption (3)
• Jurassic Park (3)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (4)
• Die Hard (4)
• Gladiator (4)
• The Lion King (4)
• Toy Story (5)
• Ghostbusters (5)
• The Sandlot (5)
• Aladdin (5)
• The Dark Knight (6)
• Groundhog Day (6)
• Deadpool (6)
• The Wizard of Oz (6)
• The Matrix (7)
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (7)
• Office Space (7)
• Dead Poet's Society (7)

Note: There are only 26 retired movies because we didn't decide to do it until after the 2nd season and both Back to the Future and The Princess Bride were in the finals from seasons 1 and 2.

Top 10 Dinosaur Movies: Ranked

Whenever the "Movie Madness" team wants to flex its dinosaur chops, we call upon amateur paleontologist Corey Johns. Today, Corey weighs in on the cream of the cretaceous crop. 

--- 

I've recently finished binge-watching the entire first season of Camp Cretaceous, which just dropped on Netflix. It's fun. It follows a fresh group of characters simultaneously during the events of the movie Jurassic World. For a series based on bringing dinosaurs back to life through genetic modification, were some parts unrealistic stupid parts? Yes. But, it was still great to have something from the much beloved Jurassic Park franchise out there and it does really get me pumped for more dinosaur content. So, in the form of this list, I'm sharing some of my own.

While the JP franchise is so beloved, it does make you wonder why there have not been any other halfway decent attempts at a film franchise about dinosaurs. It would be pretty difficult of course. Jurassic Park set such a high bar. And because that bar has been set so high, there is an unwritten law in Hollywood that they own dinosaurs and nobody will support, back, or fund another realistic-looking big-budget dinosaur franchise. There have been attempts to make Turok into a movie for over a decade, but it simply hasn't and just doesn't seem like it will ever come to fruition because of that unwritten rule. 

That is why the dinosaur movies we do occasionally get are either very low-budget, fully animated, or are remakes, like Land of the Lost. But, there still are some good ones out there and here are my top 10 that I have seen.

10. Dinosaur Island

You likely haven't heard of this 2014 Australian movie. Despite my love of dinosaurs, I myself only even heard about it when listening to the podcast I Know Dino (which you can probably guess gets excessively deep in their references). I was only able to find this one on YouTube. It was better than I expected. There were some slow moments, but, this movie carried an interesting enough plot, and the dinosaurs looked absolutely fantastic, which really elevated the movie above its flaws. After all, dinosaur movies are about being wowed. These dinosaurs were brought to life on screen.

9. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

The Ice Age franchise is a load of fun and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was a tremendous chapter. It brought something new to the franchise, great new characters, and the addition of dinosaurs really took it to a new level. While some critics of the ice age period do complain about the addition of dinosaurs removing franchise from its commitment to its own era, this list is about dinosaurs. The dinosaurs brought new adventure, threat, and excitement to the franchise.

8. Disney's Dinosaurs

When this movie first came out, I remember being underwhelmed. It also seemed way shorter than it actually was. But I rewatched recently, and I am happy I did. It's really, really good. What I enjoy most about it was that it didn't focus solely on the most popular dinosaurs. It would have been easy to make the main carnivore a T-Rex. It would have been easy to make the main character a triceratops. But, the movie took some solid risks. Carnotaurus' are awesome looking and while it was very much computer animated and not CGI, it still looked really good. Having the main character be an Iguanodon, which was the first dinosaur ever discovered, was also a cool move. His friends also included the lesser known Styracosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus, and Struthiomimus. They were great additions to the cinematic world of dinosaurs in a movie that had a pretty solid plot with well-built tension.

7. The Land Before Time

Okay, you're probably yelling at your computer that I have this beloved movie ranked so low. It's nostalgic, and that certainly boosts it. It has a very notable heart-stinging moment and a fun adventure with characters that we all remember and love. My favorite was Ducky. But, of all these Dinosaur movies on this list, I'm in the mood to watch this one least often. It is quite kiddy, which is just fine, but now me as an adult, I tend to want a bit more out of my dinosaur movies.

6. We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story

I just said of all the movies on this list, that I'm least often in the mood to watch The Land Before Time and now I mention We're Back!. Yes, I'd probably more often choose to watch this goofy dino movie where a T-Rex uses a pickup truck as a skateboard on the Hudson Bridge before the adventures of Little Foot. They are different movies. This one sells out trying to be goofy and fun and it hooks me every time. Just like when I wrote the article about my favorite shark movies, dinosaur movies are also best when they are the supporting characters. The movie absolutely has talking dinosaurs as a big focal point, but the plot actually centralizes around Louie, Cecilia Nuthatch, and deranged circus Ringmaster Professor Screweyes. The dinosaurs in that movie consistently elevate every aspect of the plot. Plus, the John Goodman classic song “Roll Back the Rock (to the Dawn of Time)” is catchy.

5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

 
We've reached the top five and there are all five Jurassic Park movies left... how predictable, even for me. I love all of these movies, and even the ones that aren't perceived as all that great are still cream of the crop when it comes to dinosaur movies. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is my least favorite of the franchise, and had I made this list in 2018 when this first came out, then I honestly would have had it ranked much closer to No. 10. I didn't love this movie all that much to begin with. But, the more I watch it the more I see its brilliance. The franchise needed this movie. The dinosaurs needed to be brought off the island and spread throughout the human world. Having greedy corporate executives buying DNA to replicate everywhere is what is going to make dinosaurs go global; not Maisie opening a door. It's a dark film, and I'm not a huge fan of the GMO/hybrid dinosaurs like the Indoraptor because there are so many awesome real dinosaurs that have still not hit the big screen. But, the dinosaurs still look amazing, I care about the characters, and the drama and sense of danger in this movie is tremendous. It has problems that I could write another huge long article about, but I've really come to appreciate and enjoy this movie more and more over time.

4. Jurassic Park III

There are Jurassic fans who absolutely hate this movie. I don't get it. Sure, the plot was rushed. It has a talking velociraptor as well – often viewed as the official jump the shark moment for the original trilogy – and many refuse to accept that they made a decision to have the Spinosaurus take over as the new biggest, baddest dinosaur. Personally, I've come to absolutely love the Spinosaurus. It's a truly fascinating dinosaur. In reality, it never could defeat a T-Rex, but, in reality we aren't extracting 100 million year old DNA from mosquitoes and cloning dinosaurs (editors note from Brett: or ARE we?). Even when I first saw the movie as a T-Rex loving kid, I wasn't upset about the T-Rex getting bumped in this one. The Spinosaurus looked awesome and it was new and brought a new sense of danger to the movie. They also added Pterodactyls and I thought that was an awesome addition. Jurassic Park III is certainly a movie that pales in comparison to the original. But, it also had everything I really wanted. It had a group of people, including the return of Dr. Alan Grant, stuck on an island with dinosaurs, and they were in constant danger trying to find their way to safety. Enjoy it for what it is.

3. Jurassic World

This was an absolutely fantastic relaunch of the franchise I love to much. They opened the park! I got to see Jurassic Park and what it could be! The gyrospheres in the valley with a heard, the lagoon with a mosasaurus show, an aviary, a petting zoo, the monorail around the entire place so you can see everything! Chris Pratt elevated himself to megastar with this movie. Bryce Dallas Howard (we can talk about her magic shoes another time) had a tremendous character arch in this, going from basically being a robot who stopped caring about dinosaurs to realizing and respecting these are living creatures, whether they were created in a lab or not. The villains are great too. Vince D'Onofrio was brilliant as Vic Hoskins. Dr. Wu's character development and twist was great. Can we give some extra props to Jake Johnson as Lowery Cruthers crushing it in every scene he was in? This movie brought us the magic the original one brought. The late Irrfan Khan was amazing as Simon Masrani being both a fun-loving park owner who just wanted to make people happy and a businessman who makes tough business decisions. The evolution of the raptors was very fun and the new and updates score for this movie was beautiful.

2. The Lost World: Jurassic Park

While it does not take the top spot on this list, I absolutely love this movie. It doesn't get the love it deserves really, because it took a really different tone and many didn't like it. Plus, the third act was shoehorned into the movie and you can tell. And let's not talk about the gymnastics scene. But, when you really look at what this movie is, it is very easy to fall in love with it. TLW is a much darker movie than the original, because it is coming from the perspective of Ian Malcolm. The first movie, even in its darker moments, still had the sense of wonder that came with seeing dinosaurs on screen. It was told with Dr. Alan Grant as the main character. He loved dinosaurs. His face when he was laying on the Triceratops showed that even though he expressed concern in the movie about bringing dinosaurs back to live, he was filled with joy when he got to see and touch one. But Malcolm is a different character. He is a chaos theorist. He only saw the negatives in the park and from the beginning of TLW it was clear this movie was going to about the pure chaos of going back to the island. And again, the acting was great. Pete Postelhwaite as Roland Tembo was tremendous and worked perfect as the apex hunter against Malcolm, who experienced dinosaurs and new it was okay to be afraid. Vince Vaughn as Nick Van Owen was character I like watching on screen. The “bad guys” Peter Ludlow and Dieter Stark were over the top jerks, but, I still had an investment in seeing what happened to them. This movie brought the concept of bringing dinosaurs to the mainland, and did it. It brought up the concept of really monetizing the dinosaurs purely as assets. This movie really set up the Jurassic World trilogy two decades before it came out.

Honorable Mention: The Good Dinosaur

I liked this movie, but, lets be honest...is it really a dinosaur movie? Okay, we can say that we don't actually know where evolution would have taken dinosaurs had they had another 65 million years if the asteroid never hit earth causing their extinction. Maybe they would become agricultural and start plowing farms and be able to talk...unlikely, but, who knows. With that said, though, the Good Dinosaur has a pretty touching story and good character development, but, nothing about the movie required the main character be a dinosaur. You could simply have made Arlo a giraffe, or a zebra, and the movie would have played out the same exact way. Replace the T-Rex in Jurassic Park with a Lion, or Rex in We're Back! with a silverback gorilla and they are completely different movies. The Good Dinosaur is a movie about a dinosaur, and I did enjoy it probably more than some of these other movies on this list, but, it is tough to put it on as a dinosaur movie.

1. Jurassic Park

Scenes that make you go "nope nope nope nope"

No big surprise to anyone: my favorite dinosaur movie is Jurassic Park. When this movie came out, it took a huge, huge risk. It wasn't clear if people would want to see a movie with dinosaurs running around killing people. So, they focused on making an incredible story. Jurassic Park is actually a movie about corporate espionage and the fine lines between scientific advancement and scientific takeover. The movie had a remarkable cast. The actors were all notable, but none of them distracted from the plot. Try to imagine Jurassic Park being the Tom Cruise movie about dinosaurs. Or if Bruce Willis, coming off Die Hard, was running around a jungle trying to escape from a T-Rex. Jurassic Park took very thoughtful steps in becoming what it was and director Steven Spielberg was masterful in using what he knew worked decades before when Jaws became a legendary movie. (It also shouldn't surprise you that Jurassic Park and Jaws are two of my all-time favorite movies, and it's nearly impossible for me to pick between the two). As I wrote in the blog about my favorite shark movies, Jaws worked so well because the movie was character-driven, and it was the threat of the sharks that continually elevated the movie when it needed tension. The dinosaurs didn't even have all that much scene time in Jurassic Park... just like how the shark in Jaws was barely ever actually onscreen. But the scenes they were in, were simply incredible. Jurassic Park still has CGI that is world-class even by today's standards. The mix of CGI and auto-erotica animatronics truly brought dinosaurs to live on the screen in a movie that had a thrilling plot from start to finish.

THE DEFINITIVE RANKING OF "STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI" CHARACTERS: Part One of Two

(Editor's note: ...so look, Ed's words have rendered me actually speechless which is a thing that never happens to me, Brett Ashley McKenzie, first of her name, user of lots of words. I'm formulating a rebuttal piece but in the meantime, be aware that reading the following is akin to lifting the "CAUTION" tape at a very messy crime scene and may God have mercy on all of our souls). 

---

by Ed Poretz 

"It stinks!"

It’s me, Your favorite rosy, not opinionated movie madman. I’m back, and of course I’m in a good mood and not about to shit on somebody’s favorite “franchise.”

Lol, yeah right. It’s time for another list. Why? Well, the world is ending, and top ten or whatever lists on the internet are nothing but harbingers of humanity’s descent into doom (or so I’m told), so this one seems very appropriate.

Couple of things to get out of the way:

I’m not an incel, or an MRA jackass, or a member of the alt-right. So the “Luke was not portrayed as the heroic red-blooded ‘Murican male hero that he should be” argument will not be made, due to the aforementioned not being a jerk, and also because Luke isn’t ‘Murican, and also because I’ve seen the original Star Wars movies, and Luke was never much of a badass hero to begin with.

I’m not doing this out of loyalty or love for these characters. It’s just I’ve never seen such a “meh” movie that was as divisive as this “meh” movie was. I’ve written and said this before, but “did everyone watch a different movie than I did?”

The love for Luke, the love for General Princess Leia, the hatred of any attempt to try something new, the unabashed and quite poorly hidden racist attacks on easily the best Star Wars character in recent memory (possibly ever)…Jesus this franchise just needs to go away.

Or just be books, TV shows and video games. Those are all better. Rendar, Katarn, Jade, Thrawn, Karde, Tano, Ventress, Bridger…all the best characters come from the books, tv shows and video games.

Anyway, I’m not going to go over my exhaustive criteria for how I came up with this, because I know you don’t want to listen to my loser details. Instead, if any of this makes you really angry, take a deep breath, count to ten, and remember that Star Trek is infinity billion times better than Star Wars, anyway.

I am going to try to keep these entries shorter than the last time, but no promises. I’m a lawyer by trade and an arrogant bastard by nature, so I really like the sound of my own voice/sight of my own words.

Let me also point out that, as someone who doesn’t much care about Star Wars, I liked this movie much, much better than A New Hope 2 The Force Awakens. At least The Last Jedi had an identity, and the balls to try to try new things (yes, you read that right; they tried to try new things. They didn’t necessarily succeed at actually trying out new things).

Last, I will be referring to The Last Jedi as “TLJ” from here on out because I’m lazy. 

Now, the list.

LAST. DEAD LAST. I WON’T EVEN GIVE THIS MORON A NUMBER:

POE DAMERON:

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Benedict Arnold was a more competent soldier than this fucking idiot.

Poe Dameron isn’t last just because he’s a stupid chauvinist who disobeys orders on more than one occasion and gets the vast majority of the Rebels Resistance fleet destroyed and the vast majority of their people killed. Poe Dameron is last because he did that, and there were exactly zero consequences for doing so.

I wanted to like Poe. I’d never had a space middle eastern guy I could root for. I thought Poe was the only relatable person in A New Hope 2 The Force Awakens and was a really cool, cocky pilot-type guy.

Then TLJ happened. In TLJ, Poe Dameron is 1) a hero who is supposedly the best pilot since Luke (or Vader, who cares?) and 2) trapped in a slow-as-balls escape from the Imperial Fleet First Order Fleet that, if he and his pals don’t survive, then the galaxy is doomed. And not one, but TWO commanding officers give him very explicit orders to not do anything stupid or god forbid fuck off so spectacularly that he gets almost everyone killed.

Got that? Soldier, on the ropes, can’t afford to fuck up, told explicitly not to fuck up by two superior officers. But the people who told him not to fuck up had different sexy parts than Poe Dameron did, so guess what route ol’Poe chose to take?

I'll take "Fuck off so spectaculary that he almost gets everyone killed for $300, Alex."

That’s exactly what happens. This dipshit disobeys Leia’s orders, a direct consequence of which is all of us had to watch Carrie Fisher fly through space like a goddamn comet, gets a ton of people killed, is insubordinate to Admiral Holdo, and then figures “Hey, I’ve fucked up pretty bad, but not bad enough, might as well add ‘mutiny’ to the list of crimes I’ve committed in the last few hours.”

And why? Apparently, because Poe never figured out that women are people and not just “them things with boobs ‘n’ vaginas in’em.”

The best Rebel Resistance soldier starts a goddamn mutiny because his surrogate mom couldn’t tell him to take his hand off his throttle and calm down. This guy actually mouths off to Carrie Fisher and Laura Goddamn Dern. SMH.

Now, let’s remember that this is a military outfit that Poe is part of. MIL-I-TAR-Y. I bet you’re thinking, “Ed,” you would think, “I’m sure in the sequel he gets court-martialed and summarily executed for all this.”

NOPE. He gets rewarded by being in charge of what are, essentially, Space Delta Force operators and trusted to find the Macguffin at the heart of The Rise of Skywalker. Because, of course, the dude who got everybody killed because he couldn’t obey a simple order, because it was a woman who gave said order, is exactly who you would put in charge of a highly risky and incredibly important black ops mission.

VERDICT: The only reason this imbecile is still alive/not in prison is because of the next two entries on this list. 

10. GENERAL PRINCESS LEIA

I…I just…I just can’t. I can’t call her General.

Because nothing about her is General-y (?).

I don’t blame Carrie Fisher or Leia for this. Some stupid writers wrote Leia and Holdo to gaze into each other’s eyes and share a laugh over that playful scamp who just got everybody killed, not Carrie Fisher.

Leia is second to last because she didn’t throw Poe in the fucking brig immediately upon waking up from her Force/Space coma. General, my ass.

Now, I understand that for a lot of people, seeing Leia being called “General,” and being in charge, was very gratifying, and empowering. I don’t want to take away fromjkongldfkjgkhj.

Sorry, I couldn’t write that last thing without laughing. OF COURSE, I’M GOING TO TAKE AWAY FROM THAT. That’s my thing. 

There are strong, empowered women in Star Wars. Several, in fact.Here are a few:

My name is Ashoka Tano. I am a badass.

If Poe had tried that shit on Tano, she would have thrown his ass in the brig and then made sure he spent time in a prison on an asteroid with one of those space worms living in it.

My name is Mara Jade and I'm also a total badass.

If Poe had tried that shit with Mara Jade, she would have convened an impromptu military tribunal and then executed him.

My name is Asaji Ventress and if I have to tell you how complete of a badass I am, odds are I've already decapitated you with a lightsaber.

If Poe had tried that shit with Ventress, she would have thrown his happy ass out of a fucking airlock and then asked if anyone ELSE wanted to fly off half-cocked and ruin everything.

VERDICT: Carrie Fisher, you deserved better. You were a princess, but I can’t call you a general.

9. ADMIRAL HOLDO

Why is Holdo above Leia?

Is it because Holdo is a great character, who is interesting and believable?

No.

It’s because Holdo is Laura Dern.

Being Laura Dern automatically makes you cooler than 84% of the rest of the human race.

Even Laura Dern roles that aren’t her best are better than everyone else’s. Just look at that movie she just won an Oscar for, A Marriage Story; I’m an attorney, and my firm does family law, and I can tell you that Laura Dern and everyone else involved with that movie clearly has no fucking clue what lawyers do or say on a regular basis. Her overacting in that role probably made Denzel Washington blush.

And yet, even in that lousy role she was still better than all the other best performances of the year.

So even when Laura Dern is relegated to playing lame, unrealistic, Admiral Moonbeam Purple-Haired Holdo, she’s still Laura Goddamn Dern.

And if I’m being honest, the scene where she flies the ship into the Imperial Star Destroyer First Order Dreadnaught was the fucking tits in the theater, yo.

Although some Disney writer still needs to die for the fact that this conversation never happened:

VERDICT: It’s Laura Dern, and let’s leave it at that.

NEXT!

8. SUPREME LEADER SNOKE

Ah Supreme Leader, we hardly knew ye.

This guy is low on the list because he mainly serves as a red herring, one which I appreciated (yes, I’m aware that J.J. “No Fucking Artistic Courage” Abrams promptly revealed him to be Palpatine or a clone of Palpatine or a really dedicated Palpatine cosplayer because of course the babies that watch this crap can’t handle a new character), and because the mystery surrounding him wasn’t that interesting (which is why using him as a feint is smart).

He is higher than Leia and Holdo because he at least came off as a somewhat believable leader of a space Nazi cult/military outfit.

He is also higher on this list because Snoke served his purpose much more effectively than Leia or Holdo. His purpose, of course, was to misdirect us and lead Kylo Ren to his major moment of self-revelation. Leia was, I think, supposed to do this for Poe, but we all know how that turned out. Holdo I’m still unclear on why she was around, although if the answer is “because Laura Dern happened to be available,” I’d accept that.

VERDICT: Andy Serkis has to be a greenscreen character in every franchise these days, so Snoke is as good a choice as any for that, I guess. Otherwise, his purpose was to die, and he fulfilled said purpose admirably.

ADDENDUM: If Snoke had been revealed as Wicket the Ewok, I would have changed my opinion of this entire franchise, and he would be the number one character on this list.

7. GENERAL HUX

As an actor friend of mine once told me when I was complaining about some guy in some movie being too over the top and terrible: 

“If you can’t get good, get ham.”

General Hux brings the ham, and the cheese, and a side of bacon just to be safe. This dude is nothing but screaming, sniveling, conniving, blood shoot eyes-bulging, and spittle flying, all day, every day. And I love him for it.

Hux actually acts like a real person. A real dick of a person, but real nonetheless. His political scheming and jealousy come off as very believable, as does his cowardice in the face of both Snoke and Kylo Ren.

Yes I know this is from the first one. It's also the only good part of the first one, and easily the best character moment from all three movies. LOOK AT THAT FUCKING FACE. You can almost smell the halitosis. That's acting.

But more importantly, Hux represents that side of Star Wars we so rarely get to see: the little guys, the 9-5ers, the everyday Joe (I know he’s a General, and I’ve seen these movies…that’s a bad, thankless, and life-expectancy shortening job). The guys who toil away in Imperial First Order Administration or on some Military Council, taking orders from spoiled, entitled douchebags who were born into the right family and have daddy issues. The folks who have to worry about shit like, “did we requisition enough death missiles of doom so we can murder all of the people?” The guys who sit down and hash out details like, “how much red should we set against all the black at our next Space Nazi rally?” The folks who have to fill out countless forms and go through endless red tape just to replace all those desks and consoles that Kylo Ren destroys whenever he kills his father/can’t bring himself to kill his mother.

This whole series should have been about Hux. Hux, and maybe three other people, trying to find the right form to fill out to get more all-black Nazi uniforms before the next giant lineup of everyone. That’s a movie I know I would like; Star Wars: Bureaucracy One.

VERDICT: I could listen to this nutcase scream nonsense all fucking day, but he does very little in TLJ, so he takes the 7th spot.

Well heck you made it this far, might as well tune in soon for PART TWO as Ed shits on the Skywalker Saga's most divisive film!