I waited 22 years for this moment.
That's almost as long as I've been playing saxophone.
That's almost as long as I've been playing saxophone.
When I ask my students the year of
their birth, and I discern they were born after the year 1993, two
comments quickly come to mind.
First, you probably don't know that the
World Trade Center was bombed once before. Besides news archives and
other historical sources, a record of this event was kept on Biggie
Smalls' radio-friendly track “Juicy” up until recently, when
those in charge decided to make the song more radio-friendly by
censoring the line “Blow up like the World Trade.” You can hear
this bastardized version most days on any revivalist hip-hop/R&B
station in a town near you. It's probably owned by iHeartMedia another revision of history known formerly as Clear Channel.
Second, you probably have never seen
the original Jurassic Park, a hallmark of American cinema. I sometimes add Independence Day to this revelation. I then go
on to pronounce the merits of the film interspersing random quotes
(“Dino DNA,” “Hello John,” "Hold on to your butts," “Clever girl...,” etc.) into
my speech, which by this point has lost all viability of being a
teaching moment.
Well, that moment is here. The next
generation will finally get its chance to experience the ultimate
fantasy of children everywhere as Jurassic World serves up a
collage of familiar images, themes, and motifs. There is a zoom-out
shot of a black bird. Shots of the lab featuring DNA strands and dinosaur eggs. Tones from John Williams' original movie score
stoke our sci-fi sense of wonderment yet again as we embark in
helicopters and jeeps to explore the Costa Rican jungle island. Once
again, dinosaurs escape, and once again, we are woefully unprepared.
We should be clear: Jurassic World
is not a remake. There are nostalgia-grabbing references and shots
of the old park, which still lies in ruins, but director Colin
Trevorrow and executive producer Steven Spielberg made sure to
distinguish his film(s) from the old franchise. That's why there's a
scene in which Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) chastises a subordinate
park overseer (Jake Johnson) for wearing a shirt with the
red-and-black logo from the old movie. He is quick to tell us its
monetary worth on eBay—fitting for a character who seems to be
hoisted straight from Comic-Con.
There are brief visits to the chaos
theory and the unpredictability/inevitability of confining nature to
man-made pens. Lowery, the park overseer and a poor replacement for Samuel Jackson's character, even comments after all
hell breaks loose on the island, “You should put that in the
marketing for this place: 'Eventually one of these things will escape
and eat a bunch of people.'”
Indeed, that is the basic plot for many
an action movie, and several critics have remarked on the meta-level
that the film resembles the park featured in it as
a spectacular mega-attraction meant to be consumed. There are
also undertones of Sea World and Blackfish,
but really, who doesn't love to see a giant alligator dinosaur
(Mosasaurus) jumping out of the water to eat a shark? At least these
creatures are CGI. I'm sure the seal from the famous Planet Earth
Great White Chow-down enjoyed that scene from the grave.
The acting and dialogue, especially
from Howard, is a little spotty, but the cast and crew get the job
done. Chris Pratt plays a strong, moral hero (Owen) separate and
distinct from his prior roles, rarely devolving into the antics that
made him popular in Guardians of the Galaxy
and Parks and Recreation while
still serving up a lovable, stern character.
His
ethics, about not raising animals in social isolation and the
ramifications of GMO dinosaurs, as well as weaponizing them, play a
central role in the story and provide fodder for intellectual debates
for years to come. He sees the limits of his behaviorist training
of velociraptors, but also recognizes the power of social
construction as the raptors come to learn he is the alpha. This is developmental theory in the context of extinct reptiles.
Owen's
humanist sentiment applied anthropomorphically to dinosaurs clashes
with Claire and John Hammond's successor Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan),
in addition to the paramilitary antagonist Hoskins (Vincent
D'onofrio), who all believe dinosaurs to be money-making/military
assets, and call them just that. This little bit of anti-capitalist soul-searching was
refreshing, and I was wondering whether the movie would lean the
other way. We can also be happy the movie is not racist.
These thematic battles combined with wild yet tactful
action scenes adds up to a great representation of the franchise. The film gives you a lot to talk about. In
the end, man has no control over its world. Nature does.
All
you Hitchcockians should watch out for Pterosaurs.
