While the "rules" would argue that the final destruction of the antagonist (Indominus) should come from the direct action of the protagonist (and is that Claire or Owen?), I enjoyed that the final battle was a kaiju fight. In my opinion, even though Chris Pratt was the "star," Owen was supporting and Claire was the protagonist, and her indirect action of bringing out the T-Rex to set up the kaiju fight was satisfying.

One of the hardest concepts for me to understand as a amateur screenwriter is the execution of plot. I sure must of us, in the beginning, always force plot upon the story. When, if you really analyze it closely, the characters should dictate the plot and not the other way around. I am of the belief "independent" character driven genre stories should play that way, with a very minimum of interference. It is very hard and requires more work (research) from the writer. A "summer movie" like JW should not have a plot dictated by the characters. It runs the risk of possibly slowing the pace and JW had an excellent pace and great editing-2nd and 3rd act. For example, the PP where Gray and Zach found the jeep in the old JP compound. If they had not found it and were required to walk back to safety, with dialogue, it could have slowed the pace and action but by fixing the jeep, it allowed the story to continue with the kinetics of forward movement, which is what the whole second act required and delivered. My date also had a refrigerator moment, when Gray and Zach found the jeep (give me a break) but it did not bother me. I could clearly see why it was required. My first viewing of JW had me riveted. I would need a second viewing to study the plot more closely. I'm interested in the additional comments.

Matthew, good points. I suppose there are 'rule-meisters' out there critiquing JW precisely because of the point you made: "The Protagonist didn't directly take down Indominus! That's against the rules!" Actually I thought that very end point, where Indominus ends up in Mosasaurus' gullet, worked really nicely. And that dovetails to the point you make about Claire as the story's Protagonist. The fact she is the character responsible for setting free the T-Rex... combined with the centrality of her character to all aspects of the story... and most notably is the character who goes through the most significant personal metamorphosis... I think you can make a great argument that she is the story's Protagonist. We can get more into this in tomorrow's discussion. Thanks for those insights.

I think you're right, Marc. Finding the jeep like they did serviced a few narrative elements, some of them mentioned already: nostalgia for the original JP (I'll bet many of the Millennials remember playing with toy JP jeeps when they were kids), the cool factor of young guns slaloming around while being chased by a dinosaur, and the benefit of being able to get back to HQ quickly. Frankly I think it was a great idea. I mean I can imagine myself brainstorming story possibilities, hitting on that, and feeling pretty proud of myself. My issue is with the sudden revelation, "Hey, remember how we helped grandpa rebuild his car," or some such thing. That feels awfully convenient. Finding a battery that works. Convenient. Jeep starting right up. Same thing. But honestly, it's a case where emotional logic -- "I WANT TO SEE THE KIDS DRIVING THE JEEP WITH A DINO ON THEIR HEELS!!!" -- trumps rational logic, as it does with much in this movie resulting in $1.392B in worldwide box office revenues. So bottom line, we can critique the story however we want. The movie obviously delivers for a huge audience.