Jurassic Park Retrospective Pt. 5: Jurassic World

Our shareholders have been patient, but let's be honest: no one is impressed by a dinosaur anymore. Twenty years ago, de-extinction was right up there with magic. These days, kids look at a *Stegosaurus* like an elephant from the city zoo…Our DNA excavators discover new species every year. But consumers want them bigger, louder - “more teeth”- Claire Dearing

Jurassic World may be one of the most famous instances of a film being saved from development hell. The film’s production history dates back to May 2001, two months before Jurassic Park III was even released. The first draft of the script, written by William Monahan (who later won an Oscar for his work on Martin Scorsese’s The Departed), followed Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm going on an expedition to yet another dinosaur-filled island when dinosaurs are spotted on the Costa Rican mainland. Early concept art also included human-dinosaur hybrids being made for military use.

Monahan soon left to work on Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and was replaced by John Sayles, who wrote a script based on a trained group of Deinonychus being used to combat drug lords and terrorists. Sayles’ drafts also reportedly involved the shaving cream embryo storage container being rediscovered, a pterosaur attack on a Little League game, a battle involving dinosaurs wearing metal armor, and a fictional dinosaur named “Excavaraptor” which burrowed into the ground with its enormous claws.

Production stalled by 2005, however, as Spielberg wasn’t satisfied with any of the drafts, a situation that wasn’t helped by the deaths of Stan Winston and Michael Crichton in 2008. The project largely lay dormant (despite announcements that Joe Johnston was interested in directing another film) until 2011, when Jurassic World finally began to take its proper shape, first in a series of drafts written by Mark Protosevich and finally by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who incorporated Spielberg’s ideas of a fully-functioning park, a human training raptors, and a vicious genetically modified theropod that escapes containment (which also included color-changing abilities like the Carnotaurus in the Lost World novel).

Colin Trevorrow was hired as director in 2013 and rewrote the Jaffa/Silver draft into the version that made it to the final film, assisted by Derek Connolly. Filming lasted from April to June 2014, including on-location shoots in Hawaii and Louisiana. Interior scenes were shot at the abandoned Six Flags New Orleans park and NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

The premiered at Le Grand Rex in Paris, France, on May 29, 2015, and received a wide release on June 12, grossing over $1.6 billion against a $150-215 million budget. Much like the original 1993 film, Jurassic World broke several box office records, not only surpassing Jurassic Park as the highest-grossing film in the franchise but also becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 2015 (behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens), the third highest-grossing film of all time (although its since slipped down to eighth place), and the highest grossing film ever released by Universal Pictures.

It was also the best-reviewed film of the Jurassic Park sequels, garnering a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 59% rating on Metacritic. Many called it the best Jurassic Park sequel. However, the film (and the other Jurassic World films that followed it) has since proven somewhat divisive among fans of the franchise, with some accusing the movie of being style over substance with too much emphasis on CGI spectacle and others going as far as to accuse the story of having misogynistic overtones in its treatment of its female characters.

So, which side do I fall on? I remember absolutely loving this film when it first came out nine years ago (as of the time of this writing), but does it still hold up upon rewatching it all these years later? As with any film I review, neither I nor anyone else can answer this question objectively, but I can give my opinion as best as I can. So let us once again start with…

Technical Aspects & Music

Don't forget why we built this place, Claire. Jurassic World exists to remind us how very small we are. How new. You can't put a price on that- Simon Masrani

Many fans were quick to jump down the film’s throat for its overreliance on CGI instead of animatronics. Indeed, out of the thirteen prehistoric species featured in the movie, only one, Apatosaurus, had an animatronic built for the scene where Owen and Claire try to comfort the dying sauropod after the Indominus rex rampages through its paddock. All the other animals featured are depicted via CGI models, even in places where they just as easily could have been portrayed practically, like when Owen’s raptor squad are locked in their head restraints or the youngsters in the juvenile petting zoo (especially the Gallimimus chick that one handler is holding in the foreground).

Even so, I still think the CGI does the job it’s supposed to, especially in making the Indominus Rex look like a terrifying and formidable enemy. The climactic three-way battle between Blue, Rexy, and the I. rex is a particular highlight, especially with how it’s shot in one take. There are a few CGI shots that feel more fake than others (like the shot of the raptors at the end of the van chase scene and the “fakeout bird” outside Zach and Gray’s house at the beginning), but other than that, the computer animation holds up pretty well. I can’t really say the same for many of the dinosaurs’ general appearances, but I’ll get into that later.

This time, Michael Giacchino handles the music, contributing several new compositions that are as packed with tension as the ones composed by John Williams and Don Davis. Highlights include the creepy “Does This Dinosaur Make Jurassic World Look Big?” (played when Claire first shows Masrani the I. rex), “Indominus Wrecks” (played during the I. rex breakout), “Costa Rican Standoff” and “Our Rex Is Bigger Than Yours” (from the climactic battle), “Nine to Survival Job” (from the end as Rexy roars over the abandoned park), and “The Park is Closed” (played over the end credits). Some fans complained about where Giacchino chose to implement Williams’ original themes. For instance, the “Theme from Jurassic Park” first swells to its climax over a shot of the park, which just feels wrong. That theme is for the dinosaurs, man, not their capitalist overlords!

The Story

Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We’re just used to being the cat- Dr. Henry Wu

This time, the story catches up with Isla Nublar 22 years after the events of the first film. InGen has become a subsidiary of Masrani Corp., owned by Simon Masrani (played by the late Irrfan Khan), who has finally fulfilled John Hammond’s dream of a fully functioning dinosaur theme park called Jurassic World. When the public’s interest in their cloned primeval beasts starts to slip, Masrani commissions a new genetically engineered hybrid theropod called Indominus rex.

And believe me, the movie shows just how bad of an idea it was in excruciating detail.

Despite the warnings of the park’s resident animal behavior expert, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), Masrani and park operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are excited to introduce the new animal to the public. When it breaks out of its paddock and goes on a murderous rampage, however, Owen and Claire scramble to rescue Claire’s nephews, Zach and Gray (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins), who have become lost in the park, and uncover a conspiracy behind the I. rex’s creation, spearheaded by lead geneticist Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong, reprising his role from the first film) and head of security Vic Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio).

Many people had problems with the film’s premise right off the bat. How they asked, was making a fully functional theme park featuring live cloned dinosaurs even possible after all the death and destruction they wrought in the previous movies? Furthermore, didn’t John Hammond state that “these creatures need our absence to survive, not our help” at the end of The Lost World? Why would he suddenly go back on his word and sell off the dinosaurs to Masrani so he can make his own theme park?

There are some plausible answers to the last two that don’t involve Hammond being an unscrupulous capitalist right up until he’s lying on his deathbed (maybe other companies were clamoring to start their own park, and Masrani was the only one he trusted enough to create a park where the animals wouldn’t be abused or neglected). As for the first question, possible answers could include the Costa Rican government seeing the potential in the new park, especially seeing as how (unlike in the books) dinosaurs haven’t gotten to the mainland yet, and there don’t seem to have been as many workers who have died due to dinosaur attacks. Ultimately, though, the film’s premise probably works best under a fictional version of the anthropic principle. As TV Tropes puts it, “For any given story, there exist basic elements that, no matter how improbable or impossible their occurrence, are required for the story itself to happen, or there would be no story.”

And come on, don’t lie. We’ve all wanted to see a working version of Jurassic Park ever since the first movie.

Others had problems with Wu and Hoskins’ plot involving the I. rex, which caused everything to go wrong in the first place. Hoskins believes that the dinosaurs in the park, especially the Velociraptors, have potential as military weapons but is constantly stonewalled by Owen and his fellow handler Barry (played by Omar Sy), who vehemently oppose the idea. So he and Wu create the I. rex and rig its paddock so that it will escape and give Hoskins an excuse to use the raptors to try to take it down. Once the I. rex has shown off its capabilities, he plans to sell a scaled-down version (aka Fallen Kingdom’s Indoraptor) to the military.

Even assuming that the US military is as grossly overfunded in-universe as it is in real life, a lot of fans had a hard time buying that the Department of Defence would ever trust a dinosaur to do a soldier’s job, especially given how uncontrollable I. rex turned out to be. And even if Hoskins somehow convinced the military to accept a hybrid dinosaur, he and Wu would still be on the hook for millions of dollars worth of lawsuits for deliberately keeping a dinosaur intended for military use in a tourist destination full of civilians (and I doubt Masrani Corp. would feel inclined to bail them out).

Even in the film itself, the plan quickly goes belly up when the I. rex, which is part raptor, communicates with Owen’s raptor squad and convinces them to turn against their former master. This turn of events even costs Hoskins his life, as Delta (one of the squad members) corners him in Wu’s genetics lab as he attempts to salvage Wu’s research.

Sure, it’s a stupid plan, but so was Ludlow’s plan of starting a park in San Diego and even Hammond’s original park, well-intentioned as it was. The mistakes in these movies always come from people underestimating what these animals are capable of. Of course, one may argue that since dinosaurs have existed in the modern day for at least a quarter century, the humans they coexist with should know better by now, but, hey, that’s capitalism for you.

One aspect of the story that I’m less willing to defend, however, is the stated reason park officials give for creating the I. rex in the first place: interest in dinosaurs is waning, so they need a new attraction to get the public hyped up again. This plot point probably wouldn’t annoy me so much if they showed me any evidence that the public doesn’t care about dinosaurs anymore, but it never does. The closest we get is Zach’s obvious disinterest, and even he ends up getting won over by the Mosasaurus exhibit. All we have is Claire’s word that “these days, kids look at a Stegosaurus like an elephant from the city zoo.”

Granted, I can easily imagine the cost of maintaining these animals potentially outpacing the revenue from tourism, but why is creating a dangerous genetic hybrid their first resort? Why not clone Cenozoic-era creatures like mammoths, terror birds, or saber-tooth cats? Or some dinosaur species the films haven’t got to yet (Deinocheirus? Oviraptor? Nigersaurus?)? Or Paleozoic critters like sea scorpions or some of the weird and wonderful specimens from the Burgess Shale?

Overall, the plot point suffers from a major violation of the “show, don’t tell” rule.

The Characters

Just relax. It's just like taking a stroll through the woods… 65 million years ago- Owen Grady

Several fans and critics have complained that the characters in Jurassic World aren’t as memorable or even likable as those in previous installments. They have also criticized the characters’ stupid decisions, especially those that led to the creation of I. Rex and her subsequent breakout. Let’s look at the significant characters one by one and see where their strengths and weaknesses lie:

-Owen Grady is the resident raptor handler hired due to his experience training dolphins for the US Navy. As such, he has formed a special bond with the park’s resident Velociraptor quartet, who look upon him as their “alpha.” He is thus highly protective of them, and when the raptors turn on him and Hoskins’ men when the I. rex intervenes in their pack dynamic, he does his best to resolve the situation nonlethally, finally getting the pack back on his side just as the I. rex corners him, Claire and the boys at the visitor center.

Sadly, though, the way Chris Pratt portrays the character leaves something to be desired. He’s less the lovable goofball he portrays in projects like Parks and Recreation or The LEGO Movie and more like the gruff Harrison Ford-type that Hollywood seems to be trying to mold him into ever since his portrayal of Peter “Star-Lord” Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy. I don’t think we needed a chiseled beefcake to be the resident zookeeper in a franchise where Roland Tembo gets to be an absolute badass while looking like a walking toothpick.

Also, much of his banter with Claire feels way too childish for someone his age. There are some gems in there (“You can pick up their scent, can’t you? Track their footprints?” “I was with the Navy, not the Navajo!”). But on the other side, you have their first meeting at Owen’s trailer, which quickly devolves into petty squabbling about how poorly their first date went (“What kind of a diet doesn’t allow tequila?” “ALL of them, actually. And what kind of man shows up to a date in board shorts?” “It’s Central America! It’s hot!”) and Owen mocking Claire’s pronunciation of Archaeornithomimus, despite her pronouncing it correctly.

His relationship with the Raptor squad, especially the leader, Blue, is rather heartwarming to watch. I just wish his human relationships felt as meaningful.

-I’ve already discussed how Vic Hoskins’ plan feels not as thought through as it should, which does detract from his character a little bit. Otherwise, I thought he was a fairly enjoyable human villain who nicely contrasts Owen’s thoughtful stewardship of the Raptors with his shortsighted focus on profit and military glory, the results of which are the I. rex’s rampage and the destruction of Jurassic World. His death at the claws of the raptor Delta, who has an apparent grudge against Hoskins throughout the film, is also immensely satisfying to watch.

-Dr. Henry Wu’s villainous turn has always felt off to me, though. There are subtle hints at a more sinister side to the character in the original film (he is introduced erasing something on his clipboard, which hints at a lack of scientific ethics). However, it still feels like a major case of whiplash to see Wu go from that to being a full-on mad scientist with his creation of the I. rex. His dialogue with Masrani when the latter confronts him over how the I. rex turned out the way it did does provide some of the more interesting dialogue in the film, especially when Wu explains why the park dinos look nothing like their real-life counterparts (“Nothing in Jurassic World is natural! We have always filled gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. And, if their genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different. But you didn’t ask for reality. You asked for more teeth!”). I just wish the film didn’t feel the need to fall back on the tired “mad scientist” archetype in portraying the character.

-Zach and Gray Mitchell are a bit of a mixed bag. Gray is one of my favorite characters in the film, being a mostly quiet and reserved child who becomes bubbly and energetic whenever dinosaurs are brought up (he was originally written to be autistic, which really endears him to this particular writer). He also displays remarkable resourcefulness throughout the film, especially during the climactic chase when he has the presence of mind to throw Delta off the group’s trail by triggering a Dilophosaurus hologram in the visitor’s center.

Zach, on the other hand, is not quite also endearing. He often comes across as cold and uncaring toward his little brother, and he often ogles other teenage girls at the park despite having a girlfriend back home in Wisconsin. His attempts to cheer Gray up when he figures out their parents are getting divorced don’t improve matters, as not only does it put them in the crosshairs of the I. rex, but he even goes through a gate that’s clearly been broken down by a large animal to take them on an impromptu offroad adventure. He does get some redeeming moments after this (his quick thinking as the I. rex attacks the gyrosphere likely saves both their lives, and he even manages to get one of the Jeeps from the original park up and running despite it being left to decay in the jungle for 20+ years). Still, it doesn’t entirely make up for Zach’s stupider and more jerkass moments.

-Barry is tied with Gray for the spot of my favorite character. He manages to be a competent assistant to Owen without having any of the latter’s more problematic character traits. He gets several snarky lines at Hoskins’ expense (“She looks at what she wants. Usually what she wants to eat.”) and even spies on him and his InGen mercenaries to determine their true motives. His best moment, however, is after the “raptors got a new alpha” scene when Blue corners him inside a log, and he manages to dissuade her from attacking by calling out her name, giving Owen an opening to get her attention and lead her away.

While he doesn’t get as much focus as Owen, Barry Sembene proves to be an equally badass zookeeper in his own right.

-Simon Masrani is another character I feel conflicted about. While he certainly has the charisma and endearing childlike wonder that any owner of a theme park full of prehistoric animals should have (he’s far more preoccupied with how happy the guests are and how well the animals are being treated than he is with the park’s profit margins), it’s undermined by how staggeringly incompetent he is at his job. He didn’t follow up on his order for Dr. Wu to create a new genetically modified theropod until it was far too late. When the I. rex escapes, he sends his animal containment unit in with nonlethal melee weapons, which gets most of them killed. Finally, he insists on piloting the helicopter with a mounted machine gun to hunt down the I. rex despite being a novice, and his poor handling of the controls allows the Indominus to escape into the aviary and unleash the pterosaurs on the unsuspecting public, killing several, Masrani included.

Masrani may have been much more well-intentioned than Hoskins or Wu (and Irrfan Khan is really good at mimicking Richard Attenborough’s starry-eyed performance while not feeling like an exact copy), but he ultimately bears just as much responsibility for the failure of the park as those two.

-I don’t have much to say about Lowery Cruthers (played by Jake Johnson), who serves as the cynical comic relief echoing audience complaints questioning the need for a hybrid dinosaur in the first place. He mainly serves as the anti-Dennis Nedry, who, despite his complaints, is ultimately a loyal employee to Claire and Masrani, and even plays a big part in the climax by opening the T. rex paddock so that Claire can sick Rexy on the I. rex. He also gets several funny moments, including his hilariously botched attempt to get with fellow control room worker Vivian (Lauren Lapkus).

-Jimmy Fallon makes a cameo as the host of the humorous instruction video that Zach and Gray watch while they’re riding in the gyrosphere, which is bullshit, as it totally should have been Weird Al Yankovic.

I do not approve of this attraction ‘cause getting disemboweled always kind of makes me mad.

-Speaking of Claire Dearing, reception for her character has proven contentious. While Bryce Dallas Howard’s performance has been widely praised, elements of her character arc have been lambasted by some critics as sexist. I wish I could say these critics were overreacting, but…

The Sexism

Boy, what did the English girl do wrong? She got eaten by like three dinosaurs at once. Was she on the phone too much?- Sam Neil

One of the first to voice criticism of Jurassic World’s portrayal of its female characters was Joss Whedon, who took to his since-deleted Twitter account to criticize Claire’s portrayal in a teaser clip showing her and Owen’s first meeting that was posted in April, two months before the film’s release. “I’m too busy wishing this clip wasn’t 70’s era sexist,” he wrote. “She’s a stiff, he’s a life force – really? Still?” Colin Trevorrow somewhat agreed, arguing that Universal Pictures presented the clip out of context. His remarks also contained this questionable quip: “The real protagonist of the movie is Claire, and we embrace her femininity in the story’s progression. There’s no need for a female character that does things like a male character. That’s not what makes interesting female characters, in my view.”

Now, considering that Joss Whedon has had his own controversies, including his handling of Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron (released the same month as his Jurassic World Tweet), a lot of feminist-sympathizing fans were hoping that Joss may have been jumping the gun. Sadly, though, a lot of their worst fears were confirmed by the way that Claire seemed to be the only character to experience an arc… that involves her learning to see the dinosaurs in her care as living, breathing animals rather than business assets and to stop prioritizing her career over her family members. In other words, she learns to become more “motherly.” Yeah…

It doesn’t help that the film seems to go out of its way to belittle Claire at every turn, from the aforementioned argument with Owen at the beginning to the humiliating outcome of her decision to send the ACU after the I.rex with nonlethals to the incredibly condescending way that Zach and Gray’s mother (played by Judy Greer) tells her that its a matter of when, not if, she will want kids. There’s also the way that her nephews insist on going with Owen to the Velociraptor paddock even after she saves Owen from a rampaging Dimorphodon and after Owen himself makes it clear that he wants them to go somewhere safe with their aunt.

Of course, if we’re going to talk about sexist plot elements, we also have to mention Claire’s PA, Zara (played by Katie McGrath), who is portrayed as aloof and uncaring toward Zach and Gray, who Claire is paying to watch them as she’s too busy. She ultimately gets an incredibly drawn-out death scene during the pterosaur attack where she is lifted in the air by a Pteranodon, dropped in the Mosasaurus task, dunked under several times when the pterosaurs mistake her for a fish, and finally swallowed whole by the Mosasaurus when it eats another Pteranodon that’s trying to carry her away. Many viewers (including Sam Neil in his otherwise glowing assessment of the film) were quick to criticize the scene for what they saw as an undeservedly cruel death for someone who did nothing wrong.

Compare this to the equally drawn-out death of Dieter Stark at the claws of the Compsognathus horde in The Lost World, who did a lot more to earn such a horrible fate by zapping one of them with a cattle prod for no apparent reason. On the other hand, the worst Zara does is planning her wedding over her phone while watching the boys and subsequently losing them, which wasn’t even her fault since they deliberately conspired to ditch her. But by far the most damning part of her death was the reason Trevorrow gave for giving Zara “the most spectacular death we can possibly imagine…Let’s have someone die who just doesn’t deserve to die at all.”

As for what went wrong with Claire’s character arc, I’m inclined to believe that the writers were seeking to echo Dr. Grant’s character arc from the first film, which probably wouldn’t have introduced so many unfortunate implications if the writers hadn’t decided to throw all the subtlety of the original story arc out the window and also apply those criticisms to a woman in charge of running a theme park where giant meat-eating reptiles are the main selling point! I think she’s entitled to wait a few years before deciding whether she wants kids.

Also, is Owen seriously calling her out because she doesn’t remember her nephews’ ages? As someone who has trouble remembering his extended family’s names, that scene always rang a bit hollow to me.

The Dinosaurs

**Claire**: Corporate felt genetic modification would up the "wow" factor.
**Owen**: They're dinosaurs. "Wow" enough.

Finally, let’s examine the centerpiece of the film, the resurrected prehistoric animals, to see how well they stack up compared to the previous films.

The dinosaurs’ appearances were heavily criticized by many paleontologists upon the trailer’s release, with many being disappointed that Trevorrow and company chose to stick with the original designs rather than update them to account for new discoveries made in the 20+ years since. While I do see where Trevorrow and the filmmakers were coming from, especially in light of Dr. Wu’s speech where he points out that “if their genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different,” the fact is that the dinosaurs we see on screen are still stuck in the late 80s as far as their scientific accuracy is concerned. Let’s go through them one by one to see how well they stack up to the science and the previous films:

-Ankylosaurus, Triceratops, Gallimimus, Pachycephalosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Parasaurolophus remain relatively unchanged from the previous films, for better or worse (the Gallimimus still have pronated hands, the Stegosaurus’ tails are held far too low to the ground, the ankylosaurs have large spikes along their sides that the real animal lacked, etc.).

-I don’t care for the Apatosaurus designs. I don’t feel that the filmmakers put enough effort into distinguishing them from the stereotypical and generic battleship grey sauropods we often see in fiction.

-Ditto the Pteranodons, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s the baby swallow-shaped mouths that don’t seem to suit the animal. Not to mention that while the new designs correct Jurassic Park III’s mistake of giving them teeth, they keep the “carrying people away with their feet” aspect, which the real animal couldn’t do. I do have a soft spot for the Dimorphodon’s wicked-looking design, even though the real animal was a three-foot insectivore, whereas their Jurassic World counterparts are portrayed as albatross-sized flying piranhas.

-As badass as this film’s interpretation of Mosasaurus is, it hardly fits the real animal. She has several attributes the original animal lacked, like large crocodile-like scutes running down her back and lipless crocodilian jaws. Features of the real animal are also subtracted from the clone, including a forked tongue and a prominent whale-like tail fluke. Not to mention, she’s much larger than any real specimen of Mosasaurus yet discovered. While the real Mosasaurus only reached lengths of 43 feet (some larger estimates of 56’ have been disputed), Jurassic World’s Mosasaurus is large enough to engulf a great white shark in her jaws, meaning that her head alone is between 12-20 feet long (by contrast, no fossilized mosasaur has been found with jaws longer than six feet). But the filmmakers did give her an extra set of teeth on her palate that the real animal did possess, so they didn’t entirely skip the research.

-Rexy, the original T. rex that terrorized the original film’s cast 22 years ago, returns in the newest film’s climax to take down the I. Rex once and for all. She does show her age a bit during the first round of the fight, as I. Rex takes her down quite easily (although that could also be chalked up to Rexy underestimating how utterly insane and bloodthirsty the Indominus really was). When Blue joins the fight and distracts the I. Rex long enough for Rexy to get her second wind, however, the beatdown that ensues is easily one of the best scenes in the film, with the Mosasaurus’ killing blow being the cherry on top. Some have criticized how Rexy and Blue just share a knowing look at the end and don’t immediately try to kill one another, especially given that she still bears the scars from the raptor attack from the original film. I would counter that Rexy is clearly tuckered out after fighting such a ferocious rival and is likely intelligent enough to realize that the much smaller Blue is no threat to her (for now, at least). Besides, she’s too busy uttering the triumphant roar over the helipad that ends the film.

-Then there’s the Indominus rex.

**Claire:** You think it'll scare the kids?
**Masrani:** The kids? This will give the *parents* nightmares.

She acts as the herald for the much darker tone the Jurassic World trilogy will take from this point onward, being a psychopathic, homicidal maniac created from a cocktail of different animal DNA by creators explicitly shown to have ulterior motives for doing so. Consequently, as the GIF above may show, the violence in this film really feels like it’s pushing the limits of its PG-13 rating, especially the one ACU worker whose blood rains down between the leaves as the I. rex chews on him and Hoskins’ surprisingly bloody demise at the claws of the raptor Delta.

Of course, some criticized the I. rex subplot for feeling like a mad scientist plotline that has no business being in a prestige sci-fi franchise like Jurassic Park. Others argued that the unique abilities that her unusual creation granted her (cuttlefish-like camouflage, thermal regulation, heightened intelligence) were underutilized. Still others criticized her appearance, arguing that it was too generic.

Personally, though, I liked the questions that the existence of this dinosaur raises about the potential ethical problems of cloning these animals in the first place. I also liked the cautionary tale it provides about what happens when you don’t treat wild animals with the respect and care that they deserve. Granted, the storyline is not without problems (I’ve already discussed how out of left field Dr. Wu’s turn to the dark side felt to me), but I’m still glad it exists.

-On the flip side of the coin is Owen’s Velociraptor squad, which Owen has trained since birth to follow his orders. The filmmakers clearly did their research for this part of the film, as Owen does everything right in training these predatory animals (being present for their births so they imprint on him, interacting with them constantly, and treating them with respect), but also acknowledges that they are still dangerous animals that can turn deadly if surprised or stressed out (as demonstrated by Owen’s rescue of the paddock worker who falls in trying to retrieve the bait pig).

However, as paleontologist Shaena Montanari notes in her assessment of the film, Owen’s methods of training the raptors (including clickers) are based on modern-day canines. Indeed, considering that the raptors are the ancestors of modern-day birds, Montanari suggests that falconry is a more suitable model for how training dromeosaurs might actually look. And even under the flawed “raptors as wolves” metaphor, the raptors accepting the Indominus as their new alpha makes no sense from an animal behavior standpoint, as that would be the equivalent of wolves accepting a Rottweiler as their new pack leader, something that doesn’t happen in real life.

Another problem I have with the Raptors is their designs. No, it’s not the lack of feathers (while I would have preferred them to have feathers, I can imagine the animators not wanting to bother with the extra work). My problem is something more subtle: the amount of teeth they have. In real life, dromeosaurs (and indeed, all theropod dinosaurs) never had their teeth extend beyond their eyes, which is something the original trilogy got right.

Something that the *Jurassic Park III* raptors demonstrate beautifully here.

In Jurassic World, however, the Velociraptors’ teeth look like this:

I mean, I know the film’s catchphrase is “More teeth,” but this is just ridiculous!

I know, it’s subtle enough that the average non-paleontology nerd won’t notice, but once it’s pointed out to you, you can’t ignore it.

Overall, I liked Owen’s relationship with the Raptors and felt it was one of the best parts of this film. But the poor design choices and application of doglike traits to bird-like reptiles kind of undermine it a little bit.

Conclusion

Upon final tally, I give this film a 6/10. I still enjoy it for its thrilling action scenes, top-notch special effects, effective music score, and engaging story. However, as time has gone on, I’ve been forced to reckon with the film’s less savory aspects, like the underdevelopment of its main characters and story elements, paleontological inaccuracies, and its distressingly sexist undertones. Perhaps I’m being too forgiving of the latter flaw in particular, as I am writing this from a man’s perspective, but I still had fun with it even nine years after watching it for the first time in theaters. It’s fine if the flaws in this film are too much for you to bear, but as for me, I’m at least glad this movie exists.

Next up is Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which finally brings the dinosaurs to the mainland in the second-most expensive movie ever made. But was all that money worth it? Tune in next time to find out!