Jurassic World makes my brain hurt and it's not even out yet

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
04/22/2015 at 15:24 • Filed to: None

Jurassic World is bound to be one of this summer’s big tentpole action movies. After the disappointing Jurassic Park 3 from 14 years ago, this one seems like it has potential. Yet I can’t quite shake the feeling that its premise is entirely stupid.

Let’s acknowledge that the entire premise of all Jurassic Park books and movies is inherently ridiculous. Because of course the concept of finding fossilized dinosaur DNA then using that DNA to clone dinosaurs and keep them in a dinosaur version of Sea World (what could possibly go wrong?) for fun and profit, is nonsense.

I love movies about ridiculous concepts like this. Anything scifi or action-packed, I’ll probably enjoy it, no matter how ridiculous it might be. But to me, a movie with an inherently ridiculous concept at its core needs to follow one simple rule in order to be truly great:

Follow internal logic—establish a clear set of rules for how things work, and then follow those rules.

A movie’s internal logic can be based on the most ridiculous possible concepts as long as once those rules are established, the movie follows its own rules. For example, in Star Trek, the transporter doesn’t work through a ship’s shields. Any time a Star Trek episode or movie shows a person being transported through shields—like in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! —fans cry foul. THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE! THE SHIELDS WERE UP! (Ok, so I’m one of those people who cried foul.)

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So back to Jurassic World. The trailer shows what appears to be a fully-functioning amusement park on an island, stocked with all kinds of dinosaurs. I’m assuming from the title of the movie that this park is called Jurassic World, not Jurassic Park. The dinosaurs, of course, start getting out of their cages, fighting each other, terrorizing and eating the humans, and generally running amok.

Which, ok, dinosaurs running amok is cool! But I can’t help but have this nagging thought:

Why the hell after the past three movies which clearly showed that having an amusement park stocked with dinosaurs was a bad idea , what with all the dinosaurs inevitably escaping and eating the customers, would anyone then go build an amusement park stocked with dinosaurs?

It doesn’t make sense I tell you!

I’ll probably still see the thing anyway.

DISCUSSION (10)

For Sweden > Textured Soy Protein
04/22/2015 at 15:29

Wrangling carnivorous dinosaurs? Don’t uses an armored vehicle, use a dirt bike!

Textured Soy Protein > For Sweden
04/22/2015 at 15:34

I think in that scene the velociraptors are supposed to be his buddies. Maybe? Seems like he’s got some rapport with them. At least until they start acting like velociraptors and get a hankering to eat some humans.

PS9 > Textured Soy Protein
04/22/2015 at 15:40

Because you can’t tell this story any other way. Anything Jurassic Park related is going to be about dinos ruining a dino themed amusement park, with the sequels being about humans exploring an abandoned-but-still-dino-infested amusement park. They’d get shot/nuked to death in real life, but you can’t squeeze a four-flim multi-million dollar franchise out something so final and definite.

472CID > Textured Soy Protein
04/22/2015 at 15:42

Agreed. The first one’s premise was relatively solid. The second one was kinda dumb, and the third was really dumb. The new one looks pretty silly, but as long as it’s better than the third movie I’m ok.

Rico > Textured Soy Protein
04/22/2015 at 15:53

Supposedly trained them from birth.

As if reptiles can be actually trained.

TexMex > Textured Soy Protein
04/22/2015 at 15:56

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I had thought this new film was supposed to fall some time between the first and second in the franchise? Still doesn’t make total sense, but at least the body count would be a little lower

Textured Soy Protein > Rico
04/22/2015 at 15:59

I bet they’re more obedient than my cat.

Textured Soy Protein > TexMex
04/22/2015 at 16:02

I dunno, but this is the blurb on its IMDb page :

Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park (1993), Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor’s interest, which backfires horribly.

Textured Soy Protein > PS9
04/22/2015 at 16:05

I wonder if Jurassic World will bother to explain why they decided to build a new park after the original was such a disaster. I’m thinking at the most there will be some throwaway line like “buncha greedy corporate types wanted more money.”

TexMex > Textured Soy Protein
04/22/2015 at 16:18

Ah, well right you are Kenny. That kind of ruins it