I have a confession to make: I’m VERY worried about
this movie.
Hey, I didn’t say it would be a surprising confession.
It’s pretty likely that I’m going to be dragged
kicking and screaming to see this movie.
My brother is on record of saying (in the past and semi-recently) that Jurassic
Park is one of his favorite movies, and he has the dinosaur appreciation to
prove it. But even if he wasn’t a
die-hard fan, he’d still be a human being -- which means that he’d want to go
see the next entry in the famous franchise, revived anew with modern-day
technology and conceits. Also, there are
dinosaurs in it.
I’m not even going to try and pretend like I don’t
have any biases. I’ve already talked
extensively about how nostalgia
isn’t the be-all and end-all, and across plenty of posts I’ve implied (if
not said upfront) that the past isn’t sacrosanct. So I hope you don’t mind me mirroring a lot
of sentiments scattered across the net, or at least make my own sentiment
clear: I think this movie is a terrible
idea. Okay, sure, it can be good --
and I’m hoping that it is -- but even then, its mere existence makes me grind
my teeth. Like, why would anyone try to
bring the franchise back again when the general consensus is that the two
sequels that tried to bring it back were not
what anyone would consider conventionally good? Which is just a polite way of saying they
were awful?
I guess the moviemakers are willing to pretend
that those two sequels didn’t count (except they kinda do, via the story), but
from what I’ve heard, Jurassic World seems
to put its theoretical futility on full display. Oh, people don’t care about dinosaurs
anymore! The bigwigs are struggling to
keep interest going, and money flowing!
They dish out the spectacle to win back the crowd! It’s time to bank on the past, because as you
know, the things from the past are always better than things from the present!
And then there’s some noise about a
genetically-engineered T-rex -- or I-rex, apparently -- which, until proven
otherwise by a viewing of the movie, actually breaks the movie for me. So in
order to win back fans who have gotten bored with dinosaurs, the guys behind
the park decide to bring in…a slightly
different dinosaur? And this
dinosaur is bred specifically to be a killing machine so that it can…kill other
dinosaurs, which is apparently exciting for some reason? If these guys have full access to genetic
engineering, why are they even bothering with dinosaurs? Do they have the ability to mess with genes at their leisure? If so, why don’t they make whatever they want and win people over with entirely new creations?
This movie needed to justify its existence from
the get-go, and the fact that there are still people (myself included, if not
chief among them) that have their doubts isn’t a good sign. Or, alternatively, I’m concerned that what’s
been shown off in commercials and trailers -- people riding around in balls,
people running away from dinosaurs, Chris Pratt riding with raptors, a slow
piano rendition of one of the classic themes, dinosaurs doing other dinosaur
things -- is their idea of justifying
its existence.
And that’s not enough. Granted, I’m of the opinion that most
trailers are complete junk anyway (see: more video game trailers than there are
stars in the universe), but still. There’s
been no hook besides the name -- besides the now-typical carrot on a
stick. “Hey, that movie has a
recognizable name! It reminds me of a
movie I saw once! But this one has
modern technology behind it! Therefore,
I absolutely must see this movie for some reason!” That’s the same mentality that allowed
garbage like RoboCop ’14 to be made
-- and if at all possible, I’d prefer to avoid another miserable experience
like that. But I’m worried I’ll experience
it all over again if/when I see Jurassic
World.
And we all have Jurassic Park to blame for it -- because apparently a bunch of
channels decided to show that movie to hype people up for the new one. Great plan.
Greatest plan, even.
I recently heard that there were only 22 minutes’
worth of dinosaurs in the entirety of the first movie…only to find out via IMDB that
there were really only 15 minutes’ worth
of dinosaurs. For a movie built on the
terrible lizards stomping all over the island, that seems baffling. But the movie works because A) it made those
appearances count, and B) the characters were interesting enough to draw, if
not demand, focus. Is the movie
perfect? No. But it’s still a movie bursting with charm
and charisma, quality and quintessence -- the sort of thing that makes you overlook
those flaws because of its strengths. It
doesn’t matter if the T-rex’s pen turns into a steep drop between scenes; the
audience is still reeling from the T-rex’s appearance, and Dr. Grant’s rescue
of Tim.
You know what, though? I watched parts of that movie recently thanks
to those re-airings, and I realized something.
Even if there are all these famous lines and infamous story beats, those
aren’t what drew me in. It wasn’t the
tense moments, the thoughtful discussions, or even the characters. It was the spirit of the movie -- a reminder
of what I’ve been missing from a lot of things recently. In the opening hour or so, we don’t just get
to see CG dinosaurs; we feel them. We sense them. We know them, and understand just why Grant
and Sattler would be bowled over.
That sense of discovery, of the power of science
and willpower combined, of experiencing so much bigger than oneself, is
overwhelming. It’s a moment that feeds
into the rest of the movie, even if it’s used to show the dark side of man’s
manipulation of the world, and the unknowable power of nature. It’s a scene that, even now in 2015, put a
huge-ass smile on my face -- left me breathless, and even made my eyes well
up.
So my question is this: what the hell does Jurassic World have so that it can even try to match it?
Thinking back, it seems like a misguided attempt
at best (and an insult at worst) to take a piano remix of that theme and
superimpose it atop scenes of impending dino-violence. It’s like the guys behind the movie -- or the
marketing, at least -- didn’t understand what the hell they were doing. Will that carry over into the movie? I don’t know.
Maybe. But I have my doubts. My biggest concern, if not fear, is that even
if Jurassic World is a good action
movie, it will only be a good action movie.
Nothing more. And people will
like it because it’s just “a popcorn flick”.
They’ll accept it because, hey, cool stuff is happening. That’s not what we need out of movies these
days; we can get it, sure, but we can get more.
In a world where the Marvel movies exist (among
plenty of others -- some good, some bad), pure spectacle isn’t enough. That’s especially the case if this movie is
going to devolve into “people run away from dinosaurs for an hour and a half”. So what’s this movie going to offer to
justify its existence? Can it even do
such a thing? Honestly, in spite of my
fears and complaints, I do think it’s possible.
The average Joe hasn’t seen a lot of the content the movie has to offer,
its climax well among them (just to start).
There could be plenty tucked away in its runtime that sates an audience’s
tastes*, be it good characters, good plots, good ideas, or even good
action. The potential is there, even if
the movie’s mere existence is a terrible idea.
If it doesn’t capitalize on that potential, then
the worst will come to pass: it’ll prove the first movie right.
I “joked” about this on Twitter, but it’s
absolutely horrifying just how easy it is to take some of those famous
dialogues about mankind overstepping its bounds via genetic tomfoolery and re-contextualize
them so that they become dialogues about the moviemakers overstepping their
bounds via the infernal Hollywood engine.
Or to put it a different way, Jurassic
Park argued 22 years in advance that Jurassic
World is the product of poor decision-making and short-sightedness. I’m not even joking. Just look at it. Listen. Like, really listen.
I think it’s a fool’s errand to assume that JW is going to match JP point-for-point. But then again, it doesn’t have to. If it can assert its own identity, justify
its existence (let alone its price/run time), or simply offer up a quality
cinematic experience, then it’ll be fine.
I want this movie to be good because it’s, you know, good.
Even if it’s part of the brand, it can be more than just part of the brand. It can prove all those jackass science nerds
wrong.
But if it can’t?
Jeez. That’s going to be
embarrassing on so many levels. The good
movie will have taught these lessons decades in advance, only to be promptly
ignored by its own successor just ‘cause. Or ‘cause money, I suppose. And again, I’m not asking JW to be JP, or to do everything that it did in terms of big ideas. But is it so much to ask -- if not hope --
that it offers up something? Am I crazy
for begging for more out of media, especially when it’s getting increasingly
common for tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to be pumped into them? And you can unravel the entire premise of
some of them with a couple of questions that should have been ironed out on day
one?
And that’s about where I stand. If I end up seeing JW, you’ll probably end up seeing a post on it. Here’s hoping it goes well. If it does, I’ll be happy, and this’ll be a
waste of a night. If it doesn’t, then I
imagine I’ll be in a very foul mood. For
now, though? Consider this as a
rumination -- and potentially, in a few weeks’ time, an oracle that foresaw the
coming of the storm.
Till next time, then. Take care.
And…please, don’t let this movie suck.
I kinda like dinosaurs, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment