After a 14-year hiatus, the Jurassic Park franchise finally returned with 2015’s Jurassic World. However, it didn’t just return; it exploded onto the scene, becoming the third highest-grossing film ever at the time, and rejuvenating the franchise in a way many likely thought wasn’t possible. Dinosaurs were back, baby, but what changed between the audience’s ambivalence towards Jurassic Park 3 and everyone’s attention being grabbed with Jurassic World? Was it just time making the heart grow fonder? Was it only generational nostalgia? Those factors likely played a role, but given how big the movie became, it stands to reason that there was more going on here.
Something clicked with worldwide audiences in this installment that hadn’t been there since the original movie back in 1993, and I’d contend that it was the movie’s ability to speak to a universal experience: The ever-present struggle between optimistic and cynical outlooks when dealing with the imperfect circumstances we all find ourselves in. How does the movie do that? Let’s take a look.
Join us for the fourth part in our retrospective of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films!
Right from the first poster reveal, Jurassic World presented itself as a direct inversion of the original film by starting from what is one of the more ingenious franchise revival premises of the last decade or so: “The park is open.”
John Hammond’s original dream of a fully functional dinosaur theme park, filled to the brim with exhibits, attractions and patrons, had been realized. While Jurassic Park showed us some of what Hammond was going for, the park had yet to open and was essentially a prototype. Jurassic World has been functional for years, and while the film still technically involves dinosaurs on a Costa Rican island like the last three, this shift in the status quo is both the initial hook and the setup for its thematic deviation from its predecessors.
Jurassic Park (the movie) presupposes that Jurassic Park (the park) is doomed to failure. Making a dinosaur zoo is a bad idea, and this disruption of the natural order will inevitably lead to the downfall of not just the park itself but all of the people associated with its inception. The key difference in this movie is that while Jurassic World as a park also winds up collapsing in on itself, the movie takes a different stance: While making the park in the first place may still not have been a good idea, its downfall was not preordained. In fact, as shown in the first act, the park isn’t just a functional operation; it’s an unmitigated success, fulfilling all of Hammond’s initial visions for his extinct wildlife preserve: a lucrative business, a scientific achievement, and an entertaining display that can inspire wonder and awe in its visitors.
We’ll get to where it all crumbles in a moment, but while multiple characters in the film claim that Jurassic World is starting to lose its luster with guests, paying attention to any of the scenes with crowds in the park will prove that they’re dead wrong. Look at the faces on the guests when the Mosasaurus splashes on them, the little kids riding the baby herbivores, or how they crowd around when the T-Rex feeds. The people who are actually visiting are clearly just as awed and entertained as they ever were, and it appears that dinosaurs are indeed “wow enough,” as Owen Grady says. So if the park is fulfilling all its functions, if the appropriate precautions have apparently been taken, and if the everyday people are enjoying their experience, then why does it end up in ruins?
Because of the cynicism of a handful of people at the top, which blows the whole enterprise off the rails.
Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing is Jurassic World’s main character, no debate or qualifications necessary. While she may get second billing under Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady in the credits, paying even a cursory level of attention to the film’s construction will show that she is the character the story is actually anchored around. She’s introduced first, is the person who is actually changed by her experience in the narrative, has a personal connection to all of the main characters (Owen as her love interest and Zach and Gray as her nephews), is the one who saves the day during the climax, and is crucial to understanding how the movie’s core thematic thrust operates. However, to accept this, we also have to accept that she’s the character with the most room to grow at the outset.
Claire is introduced as the park’s operations manager, and when we meet her she’s so absorbed in the park as a corporate entity that she’s completely lost sight of what it actually does. She says “no one’s impressed by a dinosaur anymore,” which is an absurd statement on its face (like mentioned earlier, look at the crowds), but is one she also blatantly contradicts multiple times when she says that revenue is actually climbing year by year and that guest satisfaction is consistently scoring in the 90s. Even by the standards of a tunnel-vision number cruncher, Claire is missing the forest for the trees, and has come to view these incredible animals as little more than data. We see this clearly in her operations room where she routinely stares at blips on a blue digital map that represent all the people and creatures she’s supposed to be responsible for. She is so distant from the reality of Jurassic World that she becomes complicit in its destruction.
Claire is so distant from the reality of Jurassic World that she becomes complicit in its destruction.
Even when the Indominus Rex starts its rampage, she still tries (and fails) to maintain control from a distance. It’s only when she learns her nephews are in danger that Claire has no choice but to go search for them. Yet her self-imposed bubble is properly broken when she and Owen encounter a dying Apatosaurus in the film’s most heartbreaking scene. Before this point, Claire has managed to put physical and metaphorical barriers between herself and all of the dinosaurs. It’s here where that becomes no longer tenable, where she is forced to confront the reality of what her worldview has wrought, and the scene and camerawork hinge on her reaction to the death of what was once a beautiful creature. This is her turning point, leading to her transition into a far warmer person, an action hero by the end of the film, and eventually an animal rights activist in its sequel.
However, while Claire is a part of what brings Jurassic World to ruin, she’s not the only one. The cynical rot goes way deeper than just our protagonist.
Claire may be the focus of the narrative, but blaming everything that happens on her is both inaccurate and unfair. After all, she isn’t even the person who directly ordered the creation of the Indominus Rex; that would be Simon Masrani, the eccentric owner of the park, who is specified to have asked Dr. Henry Wu to create bigger and “cooler” creatures through genetic manipulation. These three characters form a triumvirate where each one represents an aspect of Hammond’s original vision for the park and the way it’s been sullied and warped by their growing cynicism about the enterprise, with Claire being business, Wu being science, and Masrani being wonder.
We’ve discussed Claire already, but Wu, who is the person responsible for all of the creatures in the first place, makes it clear that he sees all of his creations as unnatural beings, not just the new hybrid dinosaur. Masrani may openly present himself as fun-loving, optimistic, and more concerned with the people’s “experience” of Jurassic World, but his cavalier attitude towards running the park and inability to see how the foundations are crumbling because of his ineptitude is a huge part of why it happens in the first place. It’s these three characters who are ultimately the ones who could have chosen to see the value in what they’d managed to achieve, but instead fell victim to self-absorption and short-sightedness.
The end result is the Indominus Rex, an unholy abomination allegedly created to thrill audiences and satisfy stockholders, but whose only possible application is the widespread devastation it eventually causes. The subsequent domino effect after the Indominus’s escape is about as succinct a literalization of Ian Malcolm’s explanation of chaos theory that has ever been shown in the series, even more so than the original film: cataclysm after cataclysm, with each one causing even further accidental destruction and aftereffects, until everything that Jurassic World ever was is undone within the span of one devastating day. This isn’t about a bad idea falling apart before it could take shape. Jurassic World was working, and could have kept working, if not for one brazen, cynical mistake.
Yes, we know from the first movie that making Jurassic Park is a bad idea. But if it was going to happen anyway, the least you could do was try to keep it on track. Most of us don’t always live in ideal situations, but as shown by this movie, not understanding the value of optimism can always make them so much worse.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.
Continue reading...
Something clicked with worldwide audiences in this installment that hadn’t been there since the original movie back in 1993, and I’d contend that it was the movie’s ability to speak to a universal experience: The ever-present struggle between optimistic and cynical outlooks when dealing with the imperfect circumstances we all find ourselves in. How does the movie do that? Let’s take a look.
Join us for the fourth part in our retrospective of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films!
The Park Is Open
Right from the first poster reveal, Jurassic World presented itself as a direct inversion of the original film by starting from what is one of the more ingenious franchise revival premises of the last decade or so: “The park is open.”
More on the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Series
- How Jurassic Park Scored the Monopoly on Dinosaur Movies
- The Lost World Is Steven Spielberg’s Most Profoundly Okay Movie
- Jurassic Park III Feels Like a Sequel From a Bygone Era
John Hammond’s original dream of a fully functional dinosaur theme park, filled to the brim with exhibits, attractions and patrons, had been realized. While Jurassic Park showed us some of what Hammond was going for, the park had yet to open and was essentially a prototype. Jurassic World has been functional for years, and while the film still technically involves dinosaurs on a Costa Rican island like the last three, this shift in the status quo is both the initial hook and the setup for its thematic deviation from its predecessors.
Jurassic Park (the movie) presupposes that Jurassic Park (the park) is doomed to failure. Making a dinosaur zoo is a bad idea, and this disruption of the natural order will inevitably lead to the downfall of not just the park itself but all of the people associated with its inception. The key difference in this movie is that while Jurassic World as a park also winds up collapsing in on itself, the movie takes a different stance: While making the park in the first place may still not have been a good idea, its downfall was not preordained. In fact, as shown in the first act, the park isn’t just a functional operation; it’s an unmitigated success, fulfilling all of Hammond’s initial visions for his extinct wildlife preserve: a lucrative business, a scientific achievement, and an entertaining display that can inspire wonder and awe in its visitors.
We’ll get to where it all crumbles in a moment, but while multiple characters in the film claim that Jurassic World is starting to lose its luster with guests, paying attention to any of the scenes with crowds in the park will prove that they’re dead wrong. Look at the faces on the guests when the Mosasaurus splashes on them, the little kids riding the baby herbivores, or how they crowd around when the T-Rex feeds. The people who are actually visiting are clearly just as awed and entertained as they ever were, and it appears that dinosaurs are indeed “wow enough,” as Owen Grady says. So if the park is fulfilling all its functions, if the appropriate precautions have apparently been taken, and if the everyday people are enjoying their experience, then why does it end up in ruins?
Because of the cynicism of a handful of people at the top, which blows the whole enterprise off the rails.
The Woman in the White Skirt Suit
Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing is Jurassic World’s main character, no debate or qualifications necessary. While she may get second billing under Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady in the credits, paying even a cursory level of attention to the film’s construction will show that she is the character the story is actually anchored around. She’s introduced first, is the person who is actually changed by her experience in the narrative, has a personal connection to all of the main characters (Owen as her love interest and Zach and Gray as her nephews), is the one who saves the day during the climax, and is crucial to understanding how the movie’s core thematic thrust operates. However, to accept this, we also have to accept that she’s the character with the most room to grow at the outset.
Claire is introduced as the park’s operations manager, and when we meet her she’s so absorbed in the park as a corporate entity that she’s completely lost sight of what it actually does. She says “no one’s impressed by a dinosaur anymore,” which is an absurd statement on its face (like mentioned earlier, look at the crowds), but is one she also blatantly contradicts multiple times when she says that revenue is actually climbing year by year and that guest satisfaction is consistently scoring in the 90s. Even by the standards of a tunnel-vision number cruncher, Claire is missing the forest for the trees, and has come to view these incredible animals as little more than data. We see this clearly in her operations room where she routinely stares at blips on a blue digital map that represent all the people and creatures she’s supposed to be responsible for. She is so distant from the reality of Jurassic World that she becomes complicit in its destruction.
Claire is so distant from the reality of Jurassic World that she becomes complicit in its destruction.
Even when the Indominus Rex starts its rampage, she still tries (and fails) to maintain control from a distance. It’s only when she learns her nephews are in danger that Claire has no choice but to go search for them. Yet her self-imposed bubble is properly broken when she and Owen encounter a dying Apatosaurus in the film’s most heartbreaking scene. Before this point, Claire has managed to put physical and metaphorical barriers between herself and all of the dinosaurs. It’s here where that becomes no longer tenable, where she is forced to confront the reality of what her worldview has wrought, and the scene and camerawork hinge on her reaction to the death of what was once a beautiful creature. This is her turning point, leading to her transition into a far warmer person, an action hero by the end of the film, and eventually an animal rights activist in its sequel.
However, while Claire is a part of what brings Jurassic World to ruin, she’s not the only one. The cynical rot goes way deeper than just our protagonist.
Something Is Rotten in the State of Isla Nublar
Claire may be the focus of the narrative, but blaming everything that happens on her is both inaccurate and unfair. After all, she isn’t even the person who directly ordered the creation of the Indominus Rex; that would be Simon Masrani, the eccentric owner of the park, who is specified to have asked Dr. Henry Wu to create bigger and “cooler” creatures through genetic manipulation. These three characters form a triumvirate where each one represents an aspect of Hammond’s original vision for the park and the way it’s been sullied and warped by their growing cynicism about the enterprise, with Claire being business, Wu being science, and Masrani being wonder.
We’ve discussed Claire already, but Wu, who is the person responsible for all of the creatures in the first place, makes it clear that he sees all of his creations as unnatural beings, not just the new hybrid dinosaur. Masrani may openly present himself as fun-loving, optimistic, and more concerned with the people’s “experience” of Jurassic World, but his cavalier attitude towards running the park and inability to see how the foundations are crumbling because of his ineptitude is a huge part of why it happens in the first place. It’s these three characters who are ultimately the ones who could have chosen to see the value in what they’d managed to achieve, but instead fell victim to self-absorption and short-sightedness.
The end result is the Indominus Rex, an unholy abomination allegedly created to thrill audiences and satisfy stockholders, but whose only possible application is the widespread devastation it eventually causes. The subsequent domino effect after the Indominus’s escape is about as succinct a literalization of Ian Malcolm’s explanation of chaos theory that has ever been shown in the series, even more so than the original film: cataclysm after cataclysm, with each one causing even further accidental destruction and aftereffects, until everything that Jurassic World ever was is undone within the span of one devastating day. This isn’t about a bad idea falling apart before it could take shape. Jurassic World was working, and could have kept working, if not for one brazen, cynical mistake.
Yes, we know from the first movie that making Jurassic Park is a bad idea. But if it was going to happen anyway, the least you could do was try to keep it on track. Most of us don’t always live in ideal situations, but as shown by this movie, not understanding the value of optimism can always make them so much worse.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.
Continue reading...