Dino King: Journey to Fire Mountain

Speckles the Tarbosaurus 2: The New Paradise (released in the United States as Dino King 3D: Journey to Fire Mountain) is a 2017 3D South Korean-Chinese computer-generated epic adventure drama film directed by Han Sang-Ho and is a sequel to Speckles: The Tarbosaurus, taking place after the aforementioned first film. The film was released on October 14, 2017 in South Korea and August 24, 2019 in Australia.

Plot
An action-packed family adventure that combines the realism of Walking With Dinosaurs with the heart of Finding Nemo. Speckles, a ferocious tarbosaurus and his young son junior, mourning the loss of their family in an epic battle, roam the lands in search of food, adventure and peace. Under the watchful eye of his dad, Junior is growing up healthy and strong, but with an overconfidence thanks to his young age. After one encounter results in Junior being kidnapped, Speckles embarks on an adventure to the ends of earth to find his son. Encountering friend and foe, ally and enemy, Speckles will stop at nothing and will take on all corners to save his offspring.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The film almost completely retcons the first movie, both in style and continuity:
 * 2) * For some unexplained reason, even in the English version, every Dinosaur can talk now.
 * 3) * To add to that, there is no narration (though at least it cleared up the first film's problem with the protagonist not deciding whether he's narrating or not).
 * 4) * Speckles' voice in the English dub is radically different: for some unexplained reason, C.D. Barnes was replaced by Liam Hemsworth, who sounds nothing like the former.
 * 5) * Barely anything from the first movie is acknowledged apart from Blue Eyes.
 * 6) The story goes all over the place with too much characters and too many story arcs.
 * 7) Speckles' while not completely unlikeable, was way too tough on his son in the beginning, openly saying to his face that he's a disgrace rather than a Tarbosaurus. Even if the loses he experienced over the years had hardened him, that took things way too far.
 * 8) Junior's "death" wasn't as sad compared to Blue-Eyes since Junior dies and gets revived in the same sequence.
 * 9) While the first film was noticeably similar to The Lion King, this movie tried to copy Finding Nemo, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Land Before Time:
 * 10) * The basic story is that the main character's son was taken away after a brief fallout and he has to find him and return him home while getting help from a new friend who tags along.
 * 11) * Adding to that is a subplot where the protagonist's son is a hatchling and in order to escape he forms a team with other dinosaur hatchlings.
 * 12) * The Deinonychus kidnapping other baby hatchlings in order to be food resources so they can feed a giant monster that lives near the volcano.
 * 13) * Given that this movie was released in 2017, this is most likely to cash in on Finding Dory.
 * 14) * The film is probably aware of this, given that the main synopsis openly states that it "combines the realism of Walking with Dinosaurs with the heart of Finding Nemo."
 * 15) The film did nothing to improve on the scientific errors of it's predecessor and instead created new ones:
 * 16) * Deinonychus was discovered in North America, not Asia.
 * 17) * Carnotaurus lived in South America.
 * 18) * For some reason, the film added creatures that were more fitting for a Fantasy movie than a Dinosaurs movie:
 * 19) ** In one scene, there are scorpions that are even bigger than Speckles. Not only did prehistoric scorpions not reach a size beyond that of a crocodile, but they went extinct 300 million years ago.
 * 20) ** The elephant in the room here is in the climax, where they have to face a gigantic Godzilla-esque lizard in a volcano. According to RickRaptor105 in his review, this is not jumping the shark, but more like jumping a Megalodon.
 * 21) The new cast makes the existing cast even worse:
 * 22) * Fang was just added to replace Blue Eyes since they're both fully grown & female Tarbosaurus mothers that are brown-colored and have blue eyes.
 * 23) * Cy is very annoying since he tends to talk a lot.
 * 24) * Blue is just meant to be a love interest for Junior. Not only that, but she's also similar to a certain raptor from Jurassic World in appearance and name.
 * 25) * Dusty barely does anything other than a reason why Junior should have hope on living.
 * 26) * The three Deinonychus share the same problems as the Dino-Birds from Ice Age: Collision Course: they're so idiotic and goofy they belong in a Land Before Time sequel.
 * 27) ** Ditto's gag of mimicking is also not funny at all.
 * 28) Inconsistent voice-acting. The biggest offender is Liam Hemsworth as the title character: Not only does his voice sound incredibly different, but the overall voice performance ranges from decent in the calm moments to laughable when he's trying to shout or scream.
 * 29) * The lip-synching makes this problem even worse when nothing the characters say lines up with the mouth movements, though this could be because it was initially animated for the Korean version.
 * 30) The pacing is way too slow, making the action sequences underwhelming and boring.
 * 31) While not bad, the music score ranges from being bland to being too out of place, especially during one fight scene that, combined with the slow-motion, tries to copy what 300 did with the electronic action music. The further add insult to injury, nothing from the beautiful score of it's predecessor is present.
 * 32) The story is stuffed from start to finish with even more clichés than it's predecessor:
 * 33) * The "father has a fallout with his son at the beginning" trope.
 * 34) * The death fake-out.
 * 35) * The main characters form a new family with their new friends.
 * 36) The most insane part of this sequel is that Odin's Eye Entertainment CEO Michael Favelle expressed interest in creating a franchise.
 * 37) * This includes live performances, toys, and a TV series. If not in America, this thing must be a huge success in South Korea.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The animation is a phenomenal update, with better CGI models that blend perfectly with the landscapes.
 * 2) * They even went as far was using miniature sets in some occasions.
 * 3) A lot of the problems from it's predecessor were thankfully fixed, even in the English version:
 * 4) * The film now knows how to construct a consistent narrative and decided to go with Speckles' just being in the story instead of narrating at the same time.
 * 5) * All the Dinosaurs now talk, which further adds consistency.
 * 6) * That weird part of the first movie where the Dinosaurs curl back their toes before they run is also dropped.
 * 7) * The educational aspects are also removed, which makes this movie less annoying.
 * 8) * It's also much more appropriate for kids than the first one, especially without any attempted rape scenes.
 * 9) At least Speckles apologized to his son at the end.
 * 10) Kids might enjoy it.
 * 11) The South Korean version has most likely better voice acting.
 * 12) That brief moment where Speckles remembers Blue Eyes was touching and might make fans of the first movie shed a few tears.
 * 13) Blade is an interesting character.

Reception
The film received a divided response from audiences: some consider it an improvement over it's predecessor while others find it even worse.

Trivia

 * 1) The film's producers aim to expand the Speckles brand into a global franchise with live performances, toys, and a TV/VoD series all based around the films and its characters.