Jurassic World
comes up short in so many ways, but wins us over with real dinosaurs. To a jaded 37 year old who first saw real
dinosaurs 22 years ago it is nearly impossible to recreate the experience of Jurassic Park, but the new movie is
represents a worthy effort. Let’s start with Jurassic World’s shortcomings, then I will focus on what it got
right.
I wrote the previous paragraph a few weeks ago, obviously I
was in a relatively upbeat mood. The
truth is this; Jurassic World is a
microcosm of the world in which we all live.
This film is a cynical commentary on the gratuitous idiocy that pervades
our country today. Is there anyone who
would really go to a place called Jurassic World after having seen the events
of Jurassic Park? Let me suggest that millions of people would
line-up to buy tickets, it would be bigger than Disneyland, the Olympics, and
an Ariana Grande concert put together.
The people in Jurassic World
sure are dumb enough to go there, whether for work or vacation, does it really
matter?
Here’s how the movie is a microcosm of the world today:
everyone is an idiot, and the ones who aren’t idiots have made idiotic choices
and are surrounded by idiots. The guy
who by all rights should be the smartest person in the movie crashes his
helicopter into an aviary filled with pterodactyls. The next smartest person in the movie creates a super-predator using an amalgamation of the deadliest animals ever, all based on
a memo (from the guy who kamikazed the pterodactyl enclosure). Would
I go too far by comparing our country’s leaders to those of Jurassic
World? Might you start to see the same
lemming qualities exist in the general population as were on display in the
movie?
Let’s overlook 50+ years of human rights violations because
their cigars are nice. Let’s just bomb
them to hell via remote control, because human life is cheap as long as it
doesn’t affect polling numbers. As I
think of more examples, Coptic Christians, unborn children, race relations… I
start to realize that the comparison starts to fall apart. Our leader isn’t some arrogant idiot who
wants to fly his own helicopter, rather he is unabashedly evil. What does that say about us? How accountable are we for the actions of the
“smarter” men?
We are the people of Jurassic
World; happy-go-lucky, excited about “coupon day”, checking our cell phones
while T-Rex chomps on the goat. Bad
stuff is going on all around us, some of it caused directly by our
action/inaction. But there’s enough good
stuff to keep us happy, the TSA is keeping the bad guys out, so why worry? Ever since they stopped my grandparents from carrying
nail clippers on commercial flights the world has been a wonderful place.
This review wasn’t meant to solve any of the world’s
problems and I realize that it hasn’t. Jurassic World isn’t a huge success because
it’s a scathing criticism of our country; it’s a huge success because it’s good
clean fun.
