First Time Watching: Jurassic Park

I have this memory from when I was really young – maybe four-years-old. It was nighttime and I was sitting at the kitchen table with construction paper, scissors, and a glue stick. Before I knew it, I had created a dinosaur. The body was green and the head was blue, if I remember correctly.

I credit that as my first piece of art, ever. It was also my best.

We kept it for a long time; it might still be around somewhere. I don’t know what inspired me to make a dinosaur. Come to think of it, maybe I was trying to make Dudley The Dragon. Nah, it was a dinosaur.

Anyway, what I am getting at is this: the first dinosaur shown in Jurassic Park was a brachiosaurus, which looked exactly like my first piece of art, but without the green body and blue head.

So, that was trippy.

If you look up a picture of a brachiosaurus and compare it to Dudley The Dragon, they are quite similar, except Dudley has better posture.

As a fan of the Toronto Raptors, I’ve heard their origin story a million times, and how the name of the team came about because of the popularity of Jurassic Park.

“It was all the rage”, as they said in the nineties. So, based on that, I knew at a young age that Jurassic Park was a cultural phenomenon.

Jurassic Park had been on my radar for this series, and then Becky randomly mentioned it to me, so I decided I’d watched it next. A few days ago, I did just that.

This is how it went.

Imagine you bring in a box of a dozen donuts to work and keep them on your desk, for people to pass by and take what they want. You know which donuts are there at the start and you know who takes what. You witness that box go from full to empty.

Some movies start like that.

Now imagine you receive a text from your co-worker that says, “Donuts at my desk.” You get up and walk over to grab one. When you get there, there are five and a half donuts left. Who leaves half a donut behind? You don’t know. You weren’t there. You have to put the pieces together yourself and maybe look around the office for clues.

That is how Jurassic Park started.

The movie dropped me into the lives of people I could only assume were main characters and forced me to figure out who they were, where they were from, what they did, and how my line of internal questioning turned into a Backstreet Boys song.

There was too much backstory, for my liking. I felt like I was in the dark a lot. Not to be disrespectful, but if they had cut out the first 20-30 minutes, I wouldn’t have missed it.

It could’ve been a movie that brought in the donuts – explains everything from the start – but no, they wanted us to figure out who left half a donut behind, before getting to the meat and potatoes.

So much food.

Okay, was Newman (from Seinfeld) obligated to be in everything in the nineties? Good for him. Wayne Knight plays the role of cunning nemesis very well.

Jeff Goldblum was also in the movie. I thought his character looked familiar, but I didn’t realize it was him until I read Wikipedia.

Apparently, Samuel L. Jackson was in the movie? T pointed this out to me. I had no clue the character with the cigarette in his mouth was him. I liked that guy. He said, “Hold onto your butts” a few times, which reminded me I once used that phrase on my blog.

Between that and my dinosaur craft, I basically created this movie without knowing it.

I had a hard time following along with character names. I felt like I was an hour into it and only knew three names: Dr. Grant, Dr. Malcolm, and Timmy. Don’t ask me what Dr. Grant’s first name is – I thought it was three different names at one point.

Wait, it’s Alan? Since when? Wasn’t it Jeff? Or Grant? No…that’s his last name.

See my problem?

Dr. Hammond reminded me of Dale and Herschel from The Walking Dead, so that’s who I saw whenever he was on the screen.

During the Dino DNA cartoon portion, when they explained how they were making dinosaurs, I Googled: “Are dinosaurs making a comeback?”

And wouldn’t you know, there was an article that said they want to REVERSE EVOLUTION and turn chickens into dinosaurs. The article was from 2018 and said this could happen in five years.

So, if a pandemic, robots, and global warming aren’t your cup of apocalyptic tea, don’t worry, the dinosaurs will be here in 2023. Please form an orderly queue at Home Depot, and start building your underground bunkers now.

HAVE WE GONE MAD?

People need to stop. Go home. Stay home. Be home. Home. HOME.

Quote me on that. It fits any and all contexts. 

The only thing you need to reverse evolution on are Oreos. Take it apart and eat half at a time. BAM, science. Leave the chickens alone.

Long may they cluck.

More than a handful of times, I found myself opening new tabs and quickly looking at other websites, while the movie played on the left side of the screen. It didn’t hold my attention, or make me think I was missing anything.

I’m sure I missed a lot, but it didn’t feel that way.

I did enjoy the technological tropes of the power being out, and the phone being dead, and discussions of “unplugging it and plugging it back in”. That was fun.

And leave it to a kid, at a computer, to be the hero of the moment and get the security systems back online. I laughed when the camera zoomed in on her clicking the mouse. Oh, 1993, you were so funny.

Overall, though, I found the movie to be boring.

I walked away from it thinking, “People were so excited about that? That is what inspired the Toronto Raptors?”

As I sit here typing this, I don’t understand what was so great about it. I am sorry to say that. I’m sure this says more about me, than it does the movie.

I expected more destruction. I was lead to believe that dinosaurs took over a theme park and wrecked havoc. They did, sorta, but…meh.

Little Timmy should’ve died at least four times, probably five. Don’t tell me kids are resilient. He didn’t fail a math test. He was attacked by a dinosaur, and an electric fence!

And the whole, “If you don’t move, they can’t see you” thing felt like it was only convenient in sparing the lives of the main characters. That guy who was sitting on the toilet wasn’t moving, and he was chewed to bits.

Also, did only two people die in this movie? Really? That’s it? That was my unofficial body count. Someone, correct me if I’m wrong.

By the time we reached the final sequence, I was pretty convinced the main characters were going to get out unscathed. There was no suspense in it for me.

What I would’ve liked to see, was this: 

Start the movie inside Jurassic Park. Maybe have a cheerful ticket-taker at the front gate, telling people where they can find the gift shop. Build it up as this happy-go-lucky place that has been fully operational for six months and hasn’t had any issues.

Then, one day, a group of teenagers (or a kid) harasses and taunts a dinosaur by throwing things at it – sticks, bottles, food wrappers, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, etc.

There would be some symbolism (maybe imagery?) with the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. The keen viewer would be like, “Look! They want us to connect the dots of evolution from dinosaur to chicken vis-a-vis, those nuggets!”

It would be a talking point in the movie theatre lobby, for sure.

And then the dinosaur just snaps. The other dinosaurs join her because “Dinos Dine Together”. It’s their take on, “Ducks Fly Together”. Animals like mottos.

This happens on a sunny day because the juxtaposition of a dinosaur rampage with great weather, would be a great literary device for teachers to use in classrooms.

If there is a Tiny Tom Donuts stand in the theme park – it gets toppled. Maybe the dinosaur picks up a minivan (the passengers have gotten out) and hurls it into the side of a mountain. Stray bags of Lays chips are trampled.

“Bet you can’t eat just one, now!” is the message the dinosaurs will be sending.

This takeover goes on for 34 days, or however long they want the movie to be, and it becomes a stand-off between dinosaurs and humans. On Day 6, they eat a helicopter.

You get the point. I wanted carnage and psychological warfare.

I didn’t want a bunch of dinosaurs playing hide-n-seek in the dark, only attacking the characters we didn’t care about. Where was the fun in that?

I wanted to like Jurassic Park – the concept seemed cool, but I just couldn’t get into it.

I’m sorry.

The logo was really good. Did I mention the logo? I love the logo. In my version of the movie, that logo would be pressed on every hamburger bun, frisbee, button, hat, pencil, bumper sticker, Q-Tip – you name it.

If there is open real estate, the logo is going there.

I think what we’ve learned here today is that I should write my own movie, or open my own theme park. Maybe both.

Look at that, I got through this whole post without even mentioning the fact that I fell asleep halfway through the movie and had to continue the next day. It was the very rare, night-day doubleheader.

How do you feel about the things I just said? What are your thoughts on Jurassic Park? 

What should I watch next?