Looking back on JURASSIC WORLD - What did we really see?

While it would never be able to match the now-classic, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World stands on it's own as a fun ride, while calling nostalgically to the past.

Jurassic Park is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time (some day I'll discuss the list). I remember seeing JP when I was but a wee-seven year-old and my mind was blown. It was intense, fascinating, exciting, and just so darn cool. Seeing those dinosaurs (that still look more real than what I saw in JW, but more on that later) was an incredible experience, and for my little boy's heart, all I wanted in life was for someone to make dinosaurs so I could be part of what I saw in this movie. It's a movie that I've watched probably dozens of times by now, and even upon my most recent viewing about a month ago, the film still holds up remarkably well. For my generation, it has become a classic.

Still gives me chills.

And this. Remember, this was 22 years ago. Such amazing practical effects.

It's understandable that there were many, many people who were very excited when Jurassic World was announced. 22 years later, we would return to the park we first visited as children, dinosaurs would be seen, and people would be eaten. A cause for celebration, right? For me, while the thought of returning to the place I had come to know and love so much since I was a kid intrigued me, I more so felt that we were again messing with something sacred, something special - just for the all holy Hollywood dollar. JP is a classic, why chance tarnishing what that movie established? Sure, I was comforted in that Steven Spielberg himself (one of my personal childhood idols) was overseeing the story and selection of a director, but I still felt that this was more of the studios roping him in to move something forward that his heart wasn't totally into.

CGIIIII

Then the trailers came out and I started to groan in fear that the worst had happened - that we would be served a mega-budget CGI fest (you tell me which movie has the better effects) that would once again place action beats over character and story. And that's pretty much what we got.

Now, before I go on, here is what I honestly think: Jurassic World, on it's own terms and considered as a 90% separate entity than Jurassic Park, is a fun ride. I often felt that I was on an attraction at Universal Studios, and I loved that feeling. I think there were some interesting twists, and some intriguing ideas. The characters were overall pretty weak (but mostly likeable), the story was thin, but I found myself really enjoying being a part of John Hammond's original vision for the Park. I'm an extremely nostalgic and sentimental person (often to a fault), and the feeling I had seeing the park again was incredibly magical for the seven year-old boy heart inside me. During the last 20 minutes I even felt the strong urge to yell out "AWW YEAHHH!" (I won't spoil it for you)...

I also loved that the stakes were not that high. In many movies made today, it seems our heroes must save the earth from TOTAL AND COMPLETE EXTINCTION AND EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE. Here, there are just some dinos running loose with the possibility of only a handful of people getting eaten. A low-stakes game was a refreshing (although I'm sure the future installments will raise the stakes so incomprehensibly high that Chris Pratt will turn into StarLord and Indiana Jones all at the same time and annihilate the dinos with the help from Caesar and his ape friends) break from the high stakes we've all become numb to. As much as I loved Avengers: Age of Ultron, did anyone really feel threatened by Ultron? Did anyone really think he would succeed? No, because these stakes don't phase us anymore as an audience. It's time to change up the game. The line comes to mind from Jurassic Park when Dr. Ian Malcolm says "Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should".

Which brings me to what I think is most interesting about Jurassic World: this movie (or at least the first half of it) is more of a glaring metaphor than ever that forces ourselves to ask "What are we doing? What do we want out these movies? How do we want to be entertained?" The basic premise of this movie is that in order for the functioning park, Jurassic World, to be profitable they have to create new, bigger, badder, meaner, faster dinosaurs. Isn't that exactly what we're demanding out of the the movie marketplace, figuratively?

 What is all this?

The character of Dr. Ian Malcolm played by Jeff Goldblum in the first movie is portrayed as a sort of "out-there" character with lots of "crazy" ideas and is treated as such by the other characters. But when we stand back though, he's really the voice of reason in the movie, which is interesting given how he is portrayed. Check out this exchange from the first movie (you could substitute entertainment/culture/etc in here in the place of gentics):

  This guy.

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Don't you see the danger, John, inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun. 

Donald Gennaro: It's hardly appropriate to start hurling generalizations... 

Dr. Ian Malcolm: If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now
[bangs on the table] 

Dr. Ian Malcolm: You're selling it, you wanna sell it. Well... 

John Hammond: I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before... 

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

That's what these movies are about! As entertaining and as wonderful as they are, Jurassic World is about exactly this: Just because we CAN do something doesn't necessarily mean that we SHOULD. When the kids step into the overgrown jungle that was once the original visitors center, did you not just feel the deepest sense of nostalgia? Of a longing to be there? But there's a reason they portrayed it as overgrown and decomposing: things aren't like that anymore. As hard as that is to face, that's the reality we are in. Another movie like the first Jurassic Park will never be made again, and Jurassic World takes us forward to the "World" as it is today, whether we want to go there or not.We sell, sell, sell and milk every last property for every last dollar that's it's worth until we start to resent it. What we once clamored for is now the norm. What once was sacred is now nothing special. Chris Pratt riding around with dinosaurs should impress me, but now it's just what we expect.

I feel that whoever is reading this probably thinks that I'm hating on Jurassic World. I'm not. I actually quite enjoyed it. It's exciting, cheesy, and feels like your first time to a theme park. I want to see it again, actually, but this time in IMAX 3D. However, I will say that it's a cautionary tale. It's not about the dinos, or the rides, etc, it's about US. The audience.

JW has already broken a number of massive box-office records in just one week. What does that tell you? Should that make us feel uneasy given the films subtext? (On a side note, the 22 year old Jurassic Park theme is number one on the billboard charts right now - now, that's awesome!)

In closing, I know full well I'm probably reading much more into this than I possibly should be. While it would never be able to match the now-classic, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World stands on it's own as a fun ride, while calling nostalgically to the past and I would recommend it. You'll have fun.

Grade: B-, **1/2 stars out of ****.