In Defense of Jurassic World
2015 was a remarkable year. In the U.S., gay marriage was legalized, net neutrality was a hot topic, and Trump announced his bid for the presidency, among dozens of other notable events. Jurassic World was released in May of that record-setting hot summer, and it made 1.6 billion dollars at the box office, becoming the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time. Whether that was due to the air-conditioned theaters, the heavy marketing (there is an actual running website for the park that’s impressively realistic, see masraniglobal.com), or the reignited love for the classic 1993 Spielberg original, I can’t say, but regardless, it was majorly successful.
You may ask, Kaia, why the hell do you care so much about Jurassic World? Who’s even thought about it since 2015? (We’ve all collectively agreed to pretend that Fallen Kingdom never happened, right?) Well, I have spent an ungodly amount of time viewing this movie. I saw it three times in several different theaters when I was 16, all varying from satisfyingly icy to lukewarm temperatures, which also matched my reactions to each viewing: the first time was with friends after a long day of rowdy teenage shenanigans, and the third time was with my mother, which was still mildly enjoyable but wholly an effort by her to escape our boiling apartment. I was also, unfortunately, enthusiastic enough to fall prey to the sequel in 2018, and spent the full 128 minutes cringing at Rafe Spall’s creepy American accent.
My Basic Thoughts on Both Movies
While yes, Jurassic World is unashamedly a reboot of the original, it works because it puts the premise into a realistic hyper-consumerist context — of course this insanely profitable park would be immediately co-opted by Starbucks and Samsung, and it makes sense that today’s guests would gawk at spectacular ocean monsters through their smartphone cameras while sitting in the splash zone. John Hammond was always a profit-driven capitalist, and though the reins of the park were given to Simon Masrani in the 2015 film, corporate sponsorships always seemed like the natural progression to the success of the business. Jurassic World has just enough of a modern twist to make it work for me, whereas Fallen Kingdom flopped because it has nothing new to offer and tries to take itself too seriously. Jurassic World is not asking to be taken seriously, it just asks to be enjoyed, and in a time when every iota of media is analyzed to death, that is a breath of fresh air.
The Youtube Critic Effect
Speaking of being analyzed to death… I was inspired to write this because of a Youtube video called “Jurassic World Fooled Us All” by The Critical Drinker. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDN5b9L2hrQ.)This cynical take on the movie declares that when Fallen Kingdom came out, many viewers came to the realization that not only was it bad, but its predecessor was also trash and we just didn’t know it at the time because it successfully hid its plot holes, flat characters, and illogical science with shiny CGI and a major budget. I disagree with this take because I don’t think the movie “fooled” anyone. Maybe the sequel was a dumpster fire, but that doesn’t disqualify the likable aspects of the first one. I also feel like the 50,000 likes on the video are perhaps the product of a specific phenomenon that I’ve been noticing a lot on Youtube, where the once-accredited title of critic has been reduced to any twenty or thirty-something white guy who has a microphone, a dislike for “wokeness”, and an arsenal of nitpicky comments meant to convince viewers that anything mainstream is bad and should never be watched by anyone.
Funnily enough, The Critical Drinker’s Youtube channel gives you a link to his novels on Amazon. Writing under the name Will Jordan, this man has published nine James Patterson-esque military stories about a protagonist named Ryan Drake. Although well-rated on Amazon, one review makes fun of his work for being a generic “airport thriller”, something his Youtube persona would seemingly tear other writers to shreds for:
Personally, I don’t find it impressive that a bunch of angry nerds on the internet are able to poke holes in the plotlines of popular action blockbusters. It isn’t an accomplishment to be able to point out that Bryce Dallas Howard wearing high heels while running away from a T.Rex is ludicrous — we all know this. We are choosing to ignore it for entertainment’s sake. The very notion that dinosaurs have become de-extinct and used in a theme park is ludicrous in itself.
The concept of suspension of belief, which is particularly common with fantasy, comedy, and science fiction is defined as: “The intentional avoidance of critical thinking or logic in examining something surreal, such as a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for the sake of enjoyment.” (“Suspension of Belief”, Wikipedia.) When we sit down to a show like Game of Thrones, we aren’t looking for realism because it’s fantastical and its world is bound by different rules. Similarly, the Jurassic Park franchise is built on the logic of a science fiction novel, and though the mentions of genetics and biology are a welcome addition for worldbuilding value, they aren’t absolutely vital for the viewer to understand what’s going on, and it certainly doesn’t affect their enjoyment of the main thrill, which is dinosaurs, in case anyone forgot. Even director Colin Trevarrow admitted to not having paleontology be a high priority: “It’s very inaccurate — it’s a science fiction movie.” (The Sunday Times, 2015.) In this way, I find it tiring and sad to see popular Youtubers setting a precedent for all movies to be scorned to hell for their lack of realism and tens of hundreds of hours to be devoted to discouraging the public from watching them (CinemaSins, I’m looking at you).
The comment sections of these videos feel like a self-congratulatory wasteland with little room for discussion, just other men commenting on actress’ boobs or repeating the original Youtuber’s jokes in quote marks with added laughing-crying emojis. Of course, there’s an argument to be made that I’m wasting my time analyzing commentary channels that are meant to be sarcastic and dismissive, but the effect that these creators have on the attitudes of movie-goers is disheartening: instead of simply enjoying action movies for the silly romp that they are and embracing our inner child’s sense of joy, we expect every movie to be ~*high cinema*~ with flawless writing and life-changing comments on society.
Valid Criticisms of Jurassic World
I absolutely agree that this movie is among the many soulless contemporary corporate reboots. This film was 100% made to squeeze money out of Gen-X-ers and millennials who harbor a deep fondness for 90s nostalgia, and it even acknowledges it in the movie when Jake Johnson’s character, a cynical hipster much like Youtube’s own, wears a vintage Jurassic Park t-shirt to work that he bought on eBay for $150. When Claire, the park’s operations manager, asks him if he thinks that’s in poor taste, he agrees but states that “that first park was legit.”
The irony of a billion-dollar movie presenting us, the public, with cautions of corporatism and profit over ethics is laughable. I do find myself wondering if the writers’ attempt to draw attention to the moral dangers of commercialism is worth anything, seeing as the movie was made by Universal Studios and was clearly as commercial as they come. It may actually be more sinister that Universal allowed the writers to challenge the system because it shows how toothless their societal critiques really were. I’m inclined to say no, this isn’t worth anything, since there’s nothing political or subversive about Jurassic World, though I did find the gags about corporations sponsoring genetically modified dinosaurs both amusing and unsettlingly believable (“Verizon Wireless presents the Indominous Rex”, Claire says unenthusiastically in the control room).
Some other common complaints I’ve heard: “Why is Claire so unlikeable?” “Why do she and Owen have less chemistry than two pieces of wet cardboard?” “Why are all of the side characters so boring?” “Why is the Indominous Rex so smart and the humans are so dumb?”
Most of these can be answered with “yeah, that’s just bad writing”, though I’m down with a spookily clever dinosaur because this is science fiction and I want to enjoy the movie, not spend the whole time thinking about the feasibility of genetic traits of an engineered CGI monster.
Another issue, albeit a smaller one, I have with the movie is the portrayal and treatment of women. Zara, Claire’s personal assistant, is tasked with watching over the two young boys while their aunt is working, and suffers an unprecedentedly violent death by being snatched up and tossed around in the air by winged dinosaurs, repeatedly drowned in the lagoon, and ultimately being swallowed by the giant Mosasaur alongside the smaller creature in a horrible turducken-style fashion. In any R-rated film, this would be fine, but since this franchise is family-friendly and contains only mild elements of horror, it felt a bit unnecessary and out of place to see a harmless side character get mauled so brutally.
Additionally, while Jurassic Park showed protagonists Allen Grant and Ellie Sattler as scientists and equals, Claire is the cliched career woman who is stiff as a board, has no time for children, and like I mentioned earlier, successfully runs away from a f*cking T.Rex in heels on wet asphalt. By the end of the film, she relaxes (well, as relaxed as one can be after surviving a dinosaur rampage) and warms up to the two kids and Chris Pratt’s sweaty muscled action-man bod. I can see comparisons between Claire and Allen’s character arcs, however, and I definitely wouldn’t be one to brand Jurassic World as being anti-feminist for these reasons.
Why I Don’t Feel Bad About Liking It
It works perfectly well for its desired purpose, which is to be a fun summer blockbuster. It has dinosaurs, Chris Pratt, spectacular action sequences, state-of-the-art CGI, and more dinosaurs. The final fight scene between the Indominous Rex, T.Rex, Velociraptors, and Mosasaur was absolutely bananas. It isn’t a movie that I loved or cherished or even really thought about much after I saw it, but it was entertaining and that’s what I wanted out of it.
Like I said in my introduction, the premise of this theme park put into the context of the 2010s is, I think, very intriguing, and I thought it aptly displayed what John Hammond’s dream would actually look like during late-stage capitalism. The Critical Drinker thought it was ridiculous that audiences would demand a genetically modified dinosaur, but I think that the public, especially the affluent public (because let’s be honest, if Jurassic World was real, only the 1% would be able to afford it), would absolutely expect gradual improvements and greater spectacles each time, and to keep increasing profit, it checks out that Dr. Wu and his team would get progressively riskier with gene splicing.
The consumerist hellscape of the aerial shots of the park when we first see it through the eyes of the young boys is also startling and impactful — in the main promenade area, we see what is essentially an expensive outlet mall. This setting, mixed with the jaded energy from technology-exhausted Gen Z-ers such as these boys, makes for two apathetic side characters that find petting zoos a bore and (rightfully) cringe at Jimmy Fallon’s cameo in the glass vehicle’s safety video. Although neither is particularly interesting, I think their presence adds a layer of generational context that shows how wealthy kids their ages would actually react to being able to go to Jurassic World.
I also liked the lack of scientific knowledge that most of the park’s operators seem to have, which adds to the “humans shouldn’t play God” theme that is present in every iteration of the series. Claire and Simon Masrani, among others, are shocked to find out that Dr. Wu has been filling in the missing pieces of dinosaur DNA with other animals, and he unapologetically says that’s what they’ve always been doing. I enjoyed the horror that arose from this realization, as it brings up interesting ethical questions that are the genesis of Jurassic Park’s story, like “even if we can, should we?” The genie came out of the bottle the moment they started de-extincting dinosaurs, and as soon as the park operators became responsible for the lives and behavior of their animals, they had to grapple with the morality of what they’ve done and to what extent they can even control their creations. In Fallen Kingdom, this idea is explored further as Jeff Goldblum’s character Ian Malcolm pleads for the court to let the dinosaurs die on Isla Nublar instead of rescuing them, and of course Claire and Owen, now dinosaur activists (eye roll) rescue them anyway, and the film ends with the dinosaurs escaping their cages to roam free on the American continent. I believe the first movie did marginally better with addressing moral consequence, as the second allows a literal child to unleash deadly animals on the state of California, where they’ll no doubt spread out rapidly and terrorize the country. I am curious to see how they’ll try and mitigate this in the 2022 movie Dominion.
Long story short, I enjoyed Jurassic World at age sixteen even though it was a forgettable action flick, and I would recommend it to those who haven’t already seen it. If anyone expects a movie like this to present them with life lessons or fulfill a political agenda, they are sadly mistaken. I am all for multi-dimensional films that are better each time you watch them, with savvy dialogue and meaningful plot twists, and clearly this film has none of those appeals, but sometimes you just want something mindless and fun to fill a couple of hours, and in that way, Jurassic World scratches that itch.
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Random bit of trivia: According to the franchise’s fandom website, after Jurassic World’s events the Masrani Global Corporation paid $800 million in damages/lawsuits to the survivors of the island and on any given day in 2015, there were 20,000 visitors on the island. If I do my math correctly, that gives $40,000 to each victim. I really spent ten minutes of my life coming up with this number, so do with it what you will.
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Sources:
Jurassic World, 2015. Dir. Trevorrow, Colin. Distributed by Universal Pictures.
“List of Highest-Grossing Films”, Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films)
“Masrani Global Corporation — About” page.(http://www.masraniglobal.com/main.html)
“Can We Take A Second to Appreciate How Awesome Jurassic World’s Viral Marketing Was?”, Overmental. February 11, 2021.(https://overmental.com/content/can-we-take-a-second-to-appreciate-how-awesome-jurassic-worlds-viral-marketing-was-25912)
“Jurassic World Fooled Us All”, The Critical Drinker. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDN5b9L2hrQ)
Will Jordan author page on Amazon. (https://www.amazon.com/Will-Jordan/e/B00BCO7SA8/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1)
“Suspension of Belief”, Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief)
“Monster mistakes: Jurassic film ruffles dinosaur experts’ feathers”, The Sunday Times. May 10, 2015. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/monster-mistakes-jurassic-film-ruffles-dinosaur-experts-feathers-d2jhxmggn2p)
“Isla Nublar — Movie Canon”, Jurassic Park Wiki. (https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Isla_Nublar_(movie_canon)
“Masrani Global Corporation,” Jurassic Park Wiki. (https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Masrani_Global_Corporation)
